sidekickin

Hey everyone, I am pretty certain I will be needing to rebuild the carb on my 87 Hatchback. Symptoms: after choke kicks off, car stalls frequently when the clutch is pushed in. After the car warms up it doesn't do it as often, but as time goes by it is doing it more frequently after the car warms up too. It runs rough when it I hold the gas pedal when it is doing this stalling thing and when I let off the gas it will die. BUT, if I tap the gas pedal quickly a few times, it will go back to running perfectly and will idle great. But it will eventually go back to the stalling mode after a few times of hitting the gas. Checked EGR valve and no problems there. Sounds to me as if i have a vacuum leak in the carb, and it sounds like it might be the dreaded throttle shaft bushing problem that is so common on these Hitachi carburetors. My question is this: Do the rebuild kits contain new throttle shaft bushings or is the curburetor junk at this point?

Thanks everyone. I'll look into the muffler shop suggestion. It'd be a huge headache if I tried to bend that pipe myself. I'll have them take a look at it and give me a price. If it is reasonable I'll have them do it. But I am not paying big bucks for it since it is a $300 car. Hard to believe that nobody carries that pipe anymore. I know there are not many of these cars left in the rustbelt, but down south there are still a decent number of them.

Well that is fine. Where do I get the extension pipe? I can't even find one of those that will go from the y-pipe back to the muffler...

Well, I guess everyone either drives around with no exhaust on their cars or they make their own exhaust. LOL.

Hey everyone, I absolutely cannot find a resonator pipe for my hatchback anywhere! Every place I have checked says it is not available and has been discontinued. You guys have any suggestions on where I can locate one? The Walker part # is 46680, Bosal part # is 282-565. I can get a muffler for the car, but I can't seem to find the resonator pipe. Any help is appreciated.

Hey everyone, Thanks for all the feedback. I appreciate it. The car is an '87 EA-81 hatchback, as shown in my avatar. I purchased the u-joint at Autozone and replaced the bad one last night. When I got the old u-joint off and inspected it, there wasn't much left of it. Under 2 of the caps the bearings were completely disintegrated into a fine rusty dust. And under the other 2 caps there was no grease and the needle bearings were all rusty. Good thing I replaced it when I did. And wow, what a difference it made. The car is completely smooth now with no vibrations. Thanks everyone for your help!

Hey everyone. I need to replace the rear u-joint on my '87 hatchback. Autozone doesn't list a u-joint for this car, but they show one for an '87 Brat. Will the u-joint for an '87 Brat work on my hatchback? Thanks...

Thanks everyone for the advice. I was able to push the piston out of the caliper by pumping the brake pedal. Once it came out, I cleaned all the rust off it and then replaced the piston seal in the cylinder. Then I screwed the piston back into place and put a new piston boot on...the caliper works like new now! It was a pretty easy job to do.

I won't be touching that parking brake mechanism. I'm just going to pop the piston out and replace the 2 seals and push it back in. Is that a pain in the butt to do?

Thanks guys. I'm also rebuilding a brake caliper. The rubber seal around the piston has a tear in it and now the brakes on that side are dragging. I bought a rebuilding kit from AutoZone for $2.99, so hopefully the job is not that hard. Has anyone done this before?

Hey everyone, Need to replace the front brake pads on my 87 hatchback. AutoZone no longer carries the brake pads for the car (D291) and they can't even order them. They can order a $35 set of Beck-Arnley pads but I am not going to spend that much for pads for this car. Most other auto part stores listings are wrong for the car, so I am hesitant to special order them and pay shipping for them to be wrong and have to send them back. I have an new set of D189 pads laying around from my 80 Subaru that will somewhat fit, but they are kind of loose. Has anyone tried using using these and have them work? Can you put some type of shim in there to keep them from wobbling around? Thanks...

I tried tightening the bolts when I first discovered the leak, but it didn't fix the problem...

Hey all, Got an oil leak at the valve cover gasket on my EA-81 hatch. It isn't real bad yet, but I would like to take care of the problem before it gets worse. Has anyone used high-temp Permatex on the valve cover gasket to fix the leak? Wasn't sure how well this would work on a gasket that is likely saturated with oil. Thanks for your help...

Thanks man. I'll try that. Are the Auto Zone wheel bearings OK to use or are they crap?

I plan on tearing into it this weekend to see what I can find. When I jack it up, there is no play at all in the wheel. It spins somewhat freely, although the other side spins MUCH more freely. It doesn't feel rough or anything when I spin the wheel. The rotor is in great shape (both sides). If I find that the hub is worn out, where am I going to find something like that for such an old car? Junkyards around here have crunched these cars a long time ago. Not to mention, as hard as it was to get that axle through that hub, I have no idea how I am going to get it back out without destroying the axle nut threads on the axle. Even with the use of a heavy-duty impact wrench, I barely got it pulled through. Any ideas?

When I replaced the axle on that side about 9 months ago, it was next to impossible to get the axle through the hub. I had to use an impact wrench on the axle nut to get the axle pulled through the hub. Even then it was tough. The other side went through the hub with no problem. I am thinking that maybe the bearings got damaged from forcing that axle through the hub like that and it is just now starting to show up. Is that a possibility? Secondly, why would it be so difficult to get the axle through the hub on that side? Could the axle not have been machined properly? Thanks.

Hey all, Got a minor problem (I hope) with my '87 hatch. When making turns at low speeds ( < 10 mph), I get an intermittent rough metallic rubbing sound coming from the driver's side wheel area. It did this a few months back, and I tightened the axle nut a bit which corrected the problem. Now the sound is back and gradually becoming worse. I tried to tighten the axle nut again, but it is as tight as it will go. It seems to be a problem with the hub, but I can't tighten the axle nut any further so I don't know what to do. Is the hub shot or is there something I can do to fix this so it doesn't destroy the hub? Thanks for your help. BTW, the axles were replaced on the car about 9 months ago and are still in excellent shape, so that shouldn't be the problem.

OK, I fixed my problem. I got two 3/8"-16 bolts 2" in length. They threaded right in with no problem. Didn't have to tap or drill the hole or anything. They tightened really good too. Not sure if it is going to be a permanent fix or not...only time will tell. But it works great right now....no exhaust leak at all.

Sorry about that....they are in fact threaded studs with nuts. I should have chosen my words more wisely. I will try to remove the studs tomorrow to see what is going on. I'm hoping this will be an inexpensive, easy fix.

Noticed about a week ago that I was developing an exhaust leak around the engine area. Didn't think much of it until today when it got extremely loud. Souded like the pipe was disconnected from the engine or something. I peek under the car and there was a noticeable gap where the Y-pipe bolts to the head on the passenger side. I figured the bolts just came loose, so I went to tighten them. They would not even start to tighten. I could just turn the wrench freely and neither bolt would tighten. I'm guessing the threads in the head are stripped. Has this happened to anyone? I am just wondering how this even happened. Out of all the years of owning this car I have never touched those bolts; so it wasn't like I overtightened them at some point to cause this. The exhaust leak developed rapidly over the past week and have never had a problem before this. How could the threads in the head strip out by themselves? I am baffled. Is this common? And how do I go about fixing this? Is it expensive? Thanks.

Have you guys ever heard of an exhaust leak coming from the head gasket itself? I have a pesky exhaust leak that is only noticeable on acceleration coming from the underside of the engine. But, it is not coming from the manifold gasket or pipes. It seems to be coming from the head gasket itself. There's also a lot of oily looking residue all along the gasket itself. If someone revs the engine while I am underneath the car, I can feel the leak coming from the head gasket. The car runs great though. Just wondering if you guys have heard of this before.

I tightened my axle nut 6 months ago with an impact wrench and it was at least 150 ft-lbs torque. Now I go to check the axle nut for tightness and it seems to have worked loose. So, how does an axle nut work loose when there is a cotter pin holding it in place? It seems impossible. What is going on here?

I have only replaced the front axles on the car once in the 6 years I have owned it. So I am not eating through axles or CV boots very often...

Yes, it is 4WD but it is in 2WD when it is making the noise

Hi, Just wondering what this might be. As soon as I let the clutch out from a stop, I get a clunk/snap noise coming from the transmission area as soon as the car starts to move. Like there is some play somewhere and I get that clunk/snap when the play is taken up. I'll also get a clunking noise when I am driving down the road and the transmission is freewheeling (not under any load/stress from accelerating, decelerating, or having to keep the car at a steady speed). It sounds like it may be coming from the front differential. Is this possible? I already checked the axles, wheel bearings and the axle nut and they are fine and tight (no play), even though the noise doesn't even appear to be coming from there. If I raise the vehicle up and roll the tires back and forth, you can hear the noise as I am changing directions. It still sounds like it is coming from the transmission somewhere. What do you guys think? Anyone had this problem? Thanks...