Tomble's 1983 Starion GSR-X fumbling / hand-holding / discussion

[gibbon]

Am I the only one not seeing some (but not all) of the pics posted by Tomble? In both this thread and the build thread itself?

[tomble]

17 minutes ago, gibbon said:

Am I the only one not seeing some (but not all) of the pics posted by Tomble? In both this thread and the build thread itself?

Thanks for pointing this out.  It shows for me until I open it in an incognito tab / new browser.  I'll just host everything on imgur from now on.  Try now!

[tomble]

Anyone need some varnish

[Sunbeam]

I drained 30 litres of that crap out of my Landy. The old girl still ran on it! I’ve been mixing it with fresh gas and running it in the ride-on. The stench is everywhere now.

[gibbon]

On 10/12/2020 at 07:39, tomble said:

Thanks for pointing this out.  It shows for me until I open it in an incognito tab / new browser.  I'll just host everything on imgur from now on.  Try now!

Working now mate. I use Brave browser so the government cant beam thoughts into my head or something, I'd say that's what was causing the pics to not load 

[tomble]

5 hours ago, gibbon said:

Working now mate. I use Brave browser so the government cant beam thoughts into my head or something, I'd say that's what was causing the pics to not load 

Nah if I open it in a diff browser or incognito it doesn't show for me either, no idea!

[gibbon]

Looks like the previous owners left you a fine trove of treasures under the seats 

I would recommend getting internal access to the upper firewall box section and have a real good look for rust around the base of the windscreen and the back side of the bonnet hinges... hope your machine had been garaged!

All that gadgetry in your centre console I believe is the VELNAS computer which is pretty retro chic 

[tomble]

3 hours ago, gibbon said:

I would recommend getting internal access to the upper firewall box section and have a real good look for rust around the base of the windscreen and the back side of the bonnet hinges... hope your machine had been garaged!

I haven't got complete access yet (waiting for running engine test and a better trim tool before I remove the dash) but I've removed some of the exterior trim around there and so far so good!

[tomble]

Just my luck that the rusty bits aren't available on amayama.

(actually my luck's been pretty good overall and I shouldn't complain)

[ProZac]

Yeah, fuel tanks and parts for these are getting a bit unobtanium these days, they're prone to rusting out from sitting for so long. Get a flashlight and shine it down the openings in your tank and see what it's like. If it looks really rusty in there it might be worth a few calls to radiator repair shops to see if they can clean it out and re-coat the inside? It used to be radiator repair shops that did that anyway. There are some products you can buy to do it yourself as well, I've not given it a go, but it doesn't look super complicated.

If you've got access to compressed air, I'd disconnect the fuel line going into the fuel filter in the engine bay, as well as the fuel return hose from the injection mixer and give them a little squirt to blow out any crap that could be in there.

I've been working on an aftermarket solution for fuel level senders, as I keep seeing people needing them. I need to do a bit more work on it and some testing, but if you get desperate I've got an MB183926 sender (same as what you have) sitting here I'd sell.

Although things look pretty rough from it sitting so long, it doesn't look like it's been played with too much in the past. Most of the original brackets, hoses, canisters and what not are still there, so that's a plus! Finding that stuff to put it back, or diagnosing problems when its missing is a complete ballache.

You've been inspiring me to get some work done on my one, have been having heaps of fun, so cheers! :-).

[tomble]

18 hours ago, ProZac said:

Yeah, fuel tanks and parts for these are getting a bit unobtanium these days, they're prone to rusting out from sitting for so long. Get a flashlight and shine it down the openings in your tank and see what it's like. If it looks really rusty in there it might be worth a few calls to radiator repair shops to see if they can clean it out and re-coat the inside? It used to be radiator repair shops that did that anyway. There are some products you can buy to do it yourself as well, I've not given it a go, but it doesn't look super complicated.

If you've got access to compressed air, I'd disconnect the fuel line going into the fuel filter in the engine bay, as well as the fuel return hose from the injection mixer and give them a little squirt to blow out any crap that could be in there.

I've been working on an aftermarket solution for fuel level senders, as I keep seeing people needing them. I need to do a bit more work on it and some testing, but if you get desperate I've got an MB183926 sender (same as what you have) sitting here I'd sell.

We're going to pick up an air compressor these holidays and that'll be one of its first jobs

It's not the happiest looking tank. Bear in mind that my water blasting still left a lot of crap inside so a lot of the gunk on the bottom is just loose rust and stuff.  I'm going to get some quotes from a couple radiator places in the hutt because frankly I think I just cbf'd dealing with the headache trying to get the inside of this sorted myself.

 

I haven't had the chance to fully look at my sender gauge but I was of the same mind as you, it seems like the kind of thing that might be within my crappy ability to crappily fabricate something for.  Keep me posted on how your experiments go because I'm keenly interested - and hang on to that part

Quote

Finding that stuff to put it back, or diagnosing problems when its missing is a complete ballache.

Very recent history allows me to agree... yes... yes it is!!! 

[ProZac]

Lots of crud in there, but that doesn't look too bad! Score.

I've seen videos of people putting lengths of chain inside them and ratting them around for ages to knock off all the loose gun and rust, then cleaning, then coating... If it isn't super expensive, getting someone else to do it is certainly the way I'd say.

[tortron]

attach to cement mixer and a few shovel fulls of nuts and bolts works too

[igor]

But then you have to get them all out again. A chain might make that easier.

[tortron]

depends on what the baffles are like. Baffles also make it impossible to electro coat the insides very well

[Dell'orto]

Petone Radiators do chemical cleaning on fuel tanks, weren't super spendy from memory. Drop it off, pick it up, zero fucking around with trying to get chain/nuts out again. 

[yoeddynz]

Another great starion thread to read. I'm enjoying your writing style too. Fun. 

What are the chances that two starion owners on oldschool have identical cats. Your cat does indeed look like Oscar - @ProZac cat! 

[ProZac]

On 25/12/2020 at 08:49, yoeddynz said:

What are the chances that two starion owners on oldschool have identical cats?

Because, as our taste in cars also bears out, we both have excellent, refined taste! :-).

[ProZac]

So good to get a bit of seasons holidays progress eh! Your video confused the hell out of me until I noticed the 'TURBO' on the cam cover was mirrored, lol.

I'd give your main grounds a really good check and clean up. The stock starion battery ground cable goes from the battery negative down to a point on the body below the battery tray, and then onto a bolthole on the side of the block. Take all these off and scuff them up so you're getting really good metal to metal contact on them. Bit of resistence in there goes a long way to slowing a starter down, as well as getting really hot an making zee smoke.

My experience with starters is pretty binary, they either work and crank like they should, or they dont work at all. When they crank slow I usually find the problem is somewhere else.

[tomble]

2 minutes ago, ProZac said:

So good to get a bit of seasons holidays progress eh! Your video confused the hell out of me until I noticed the 'TURBO' on the cam cover was mirrored, lol.

I'd give your main grounds a really good check and clean up. The stock starion battery ground cable goes from the battery negative down to a point on the body below the battery tray, and then onto a bolthole on the side of the block. Take all these off and scuff them up so you're getting really good metal to metal contact on them. Bit of resistence in there goes a long way to slowing a starter down, as well as getting really hot an making zee smoke.

I have no idea why YT mirrored my video :\

Good tips, thanks. Good thing I left it attached.  I've also got some new battery bits and bobs on the way so I'll be able to wire a battery up properly instead of indiscriminate clamping.