Sambo Posted September 23, 2021 Author Share Posted September 23, 2021 Right, digging this thread up from wherever it got to. I got under the car a while back and unclipped all the fuel lines, then realised that I was unlikely to be able to get the replacement return line in without dropping a fair bit of the driveline, and I really couldn't be arsed with it. Then I got really busy with painting the outside of my house, and that's where it's been for the last X number of months with the same puddle of mud underneath through winter. To be fair, I probably should drop the gearbox and fit the fancy flywheel and clutch that I've had for about 5 years, but for the meantime I think I'm going to run another return line and just get the car moving. I wriggled back under the car and connected the fuel lines back up, then suffered a few self inflicted setbacks (the stereo is now dead, can anyone guess what I did?), and got the car started a couple of evenings ago. There are no pictures of any of this because being under the car in the mud is fucking miserable. I also recently realised that it's been sitting with plain tap water in the cooling system for a loong time. So now that it's running I'm replacing the cambelt, waterpump, and thermostat, then I'm giving the cooling system a big flush. After that I can get the car out of it's hole and clean it inside and out as it's full of spiders etc, and seeing it clean is always good for motivation. I stripped the front of the engine yesterday, then found that someone had put a 12pt bolt on the cambelt tensioner for some reason, so I had to stop. I found a random 10mm 12pt socket in the back of my hand tools drawer this morning, so I'll continue today (if it isn't raining) and hopefully get it all buttoned up. In semi related news, I bought a full set of what I thought were standard RWD 4age pulleys as the alternator pulley doesn't match the others and it's chewing the belt out. What turned up is actually lightweight aluminium numbers. They also have very different diameters to the standard pulleys, which I'm not 100% sure about. The offsets also seem to be slightly different, so I'm not sure how they'll go with the standard powersteering pump pulley later on. I haven't worked it all out, but I think the net effect is to slightly overspeed the waterpump and the alternator. I have no idea if this is desirable on a street car or not? Other things to do in no particular order: - Fit stereo and retro box speakers - Fit new, lower rate, rear springs (and buy some spring bushes) - collect 3d printed parcel tray clips from @Berjjj - Buy some big clips for the silicone joiner holding the airfilter on - Organise some kind of radiator overflow - Sort out what I'm doing for tyres. The 14x7's currently have 185/55R15s on them, but on the LVVTA chart this isn't acceptable for cert. - Figure out the popup headlight circuit (they're doing the thing where they constantly go up and down) - Fit powersteering 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sambo Posted September 24, 2021 Author Share Posted September 24, 2021 Inside of the cooling system looking good! aaaand that's a no on the pulleys. Must be a fwd set. Edit: I've had a senior moment and installed a RWD waterpump on a FWD engine. Awesome. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Sambo Posted October 2, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 2, 2021 What an enjoyable day, felt like being a teenager again with nothing to do all day except fuck around with cars. So nice. Starting at the start, I bought a RWD waterpump pulley and got the engine all buttoned up. Ended up using the aftermarket alternator pulley, which will need replacing as the larger diameter will mean it isn't spinning as fast as it should. I put it it all together without the thermostat so that I can flush the cooling system easier, but the rear housing of the water pump is leaking like a sieve, so it'll need to come apart and be goo'd up. So today I filled the cooling system half a dozen times while getting the car out of the carport, cleaning 3 or 4 years of crap off it, pulling the dash apart, putting it back together, and putting the car back in the carport. All while moving it multiple times so my neighbours could get in and out of the driveway. I wanted to do interior work out of the carport because it's dark down there, and I can barely open the doors. I also spent quite a long time bathing all the interior in armourall. The dash probably drank up 250mls of it and still looks dry as a buzzards crotch, anyone got any recommendations for rejuvenating products? To be fair, the dash is already cracked, and it isn't going to improve much, but I'd like to stop it cracking anywhere else. Barn find spec dirt: I sorted a bit of accumulated crap out of the inside so I could sit on both sides of the car, then stripped the lower dash, with some assistance. The goal was to fit all the missing bits of the fan system/ducting, including an AC delete tube. I didn't bother when I put the dash in, because racecar, and I also put gauges in the place of drivers vents. I took those out and refitted the vents. I also fitted an AE86 dash cluster that I've had sitting around for yonks. The oil temp gauge goes straight to hot though, which is a little annoying, but not the end of the world. I did notice that one wire into the dash cluster was broken out of the pin, maybe that's the culprit. Once I got the dash back together it was time for a beer, so I tucked the car away. Next is sorting the cooling system leaks so that I can flush it and fit the new thermostat with some actual coolant. I did also notice that a the surface rust in some parts of the car has really accelerated, which isn't all the surprising given that it lives above wet concrete for most of the year. It's going to need body work sooner than later, which sucks. I'd like to have more time to save up and do it really well , but it'll probably end up being a bit half assed. Oh well. 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Sambo Posted May 29, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 29, 2023 Small update. There's been lots of life stuff between the last post and now, but not much car stuff. Got married two months after that post, then broke up 3 months after that. Now I'm 2 weeks out from moving to the UK nd have been slaving away on finishing and clearing out my house. Last weekend I got the box back in the car after taking it out at the start of 2022 to unblock the fuel return line. This weekend, I started it (running like a bag of dicks on 3 or 4 year old fuel) and drove it onto a trailer. Drove it up to Whangarei with a mate, took his RX7 out of his mum's garage and slotted my car in. Then we brought his car back down to Auckland. Oh, I also locked the doors while it was on the trailer and left the keys in Auckland, Dad drove them up to me in Wellsford. Whoops. The rust is now at the point that I'd never consider buying it in this state. Should be fun when I get back. Potato spec video courtesy of Dad. See ya circa 2025. 14 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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