GoldDiggerRoo

If you have a good photo copier you could start your drive now.........

Up for some exhaust welding this weekend? I'm getting pretty sick of it being loud, not to mention the fumes

I'm just wondering if a plug goes there, there is only one other first gen in town and I'm afraid to go snooping around under someone elses car. I just want to compare before I come yanking this thing out.

Ok I've really been wanting to do this for about 5 years, EA81 Wagon (my 84 would work) slammed with custom independant f/r suspension, tube frame, big honkin bremboson all four wheels, the biggest wheels it would hold (within reason), atleast 10 wide tires all around. Oh yeah, it would be a mid-engined V8 car, built mopar 340 or magnum 380 sitting behind the front seats. Flared fenders, air dam, full custom interior with a full array or autometer gauges in the dash, all the creature comforts...a/c, p/s, p/w and a pioneer touch screen head unit, cd changer... all the good stuff. Or I could just stick the comfort crap in the Brat and go for all out go w/ the wagon. Ofcourse I could do a mid engined STI wagon, but I miss that v8 sound I've been planning this since I had my first wagon...

I'm hoping on getting the orginal fuel tank back in the Brat this week and just had a question about some modifications made to it by the last owner, it seems when he got it there was junk in the tank and it was clogging up fuel filters and the lines, so he installed another tank in the bed to run off of, at some point before he did this on the drivers underside of the tank he added a 90 deg. brass fitting with some goo holding it on. I'm guessing he had a fuel line hooked up to it, not sure what that would've solved but he did it anyway. I'm just curious if this was the orginal location for a drain plug and if so would there be like a threaded nut on the inside of the tank for the plug to go into, I really don't like the idea of this fitting smacking something while driving.

Yeah I spotted that one too, 405 BBQ would be a good user ID, or a lame band name

Well I finally got the Brat fixed! Turned out to be a 6 inch long strip of melted wires in the rear harnesss going towards the left rear light. It was exactly the problem I thought it was and exactly were I thought it would be, I couldn't get to it to begin with because some of the bed panel screws wouldn't come out, I finally drilled one out enough so I could drill it back and look.... sure enough there it was..... looked like someone had fire bombed the harness... also pulled out a rats nest... which is likely why it burnt there instead of the dash.... you are the weakest link! anyway, back together and driving.

I've gotten rid of many a good sube because of these carb issues, my moms hatch is having them now, seems like it's flooding at low speed and starving for gas at high speed, cutting out most of the time and sometimes it's fine. I told her to buy a carb and be done with it. BTW, just browsing by this post it looked like +1 Bryan Adams...... talk about off topic!

haha, yeah I've been there before. Honestly I do more urban offroading than anything, I drive over sidewalks, park up on curbs (those little concrete stopper things and much fun to drive over and park with the front wheels on top of). Getting hi centered or crushing the trans pan (auto also) are my fears... that and tickets. It;s worth it for the looks that my parking jobs get

Or you could upgrade it and make a new custom fiberglass dash around it, in true mini-truck style!

Nice Brat, didn't think I'd like one in white, yours looks good.

No,I musta missed you, I did have a guy in an EA82 Wagon with pugs wave at me in traffic though. I did have some guy in a Miata talk some junk at me couple days ago, that wasn't you was it? I may or may not have shouted some explictives out the window afterwards... if it was you, sorry. Thanks for the offer on the exhaust, I may take you up on it soon.... it sounds good but it's way too loud, I get far too many idiots wanting to race me. I had an STI muffler I was going to put on it but I sold it recently, oh well... it's nice to be catless

Thanks, it's a shame that the valence is trashed..... on the drivers side the bracket cut a big gash in it, funny thing is that it's the second one that's been on the truck, it's dark blue under all that tan, not gold like the rest of the truck.

Well the wheel is off and the column is dropped, so I don't think it's gonna be that hard. The wheel came off realy easily.... kinda weird.

So before I tore into my wiring this weekend I had to do a little cosmetic work on the Brat, primarily the bumper had to go..... it had two loose bolts in it and was pointed towards the ground. I wanted to pull off the valence, but once the bumper came off I realized that there was one bolt 3 pop rivets and a ton of bondo holding it on! Has to be on the top of the list for the worst mod ever. Anyway, after a little work with a claw hammer, some steel box tubing, and a body hammer I managed to get the valence straight enough to fit the grille in without having it pop out at the bottom every two minutes. I also straightened the stainless trim on the bottom of the grille while I was at it. I still need a new valence....grille....and hood, but it looks a ton better than it did. Before: After:

Ok, so I started digging into the Brat yesterday, pulled nearly everything out of the dash (how do you remove the whole thing BTW?) gauges, switches and checked them all. Noticed that the bottom plug on the fusebox had melted a bit, so I whacked it off and ran individual wires to the box; fixed nothing but I'm going to a blade type fusebox. Even bypassing the headlight switch I've still got the same thing left turn signal stuck on when the headlights are on....... I also swapped each turn signal from side to side and still had the same issue on the same side, so that rules out those two.... it has to be in the harness. Oh, on a related note...... my left brake light was blown whenever the short happened... smoking gun maybe? SO..... to get the dash out I need to do what? and the panels in the bed need to come off to get to the rear part of the harness. I gotta get this thing fixed..... it's driving me crazy. Pics! Melted plug.... dash (column is dropped now, wheel is off) Gauges.... why blue?

Ok, so I drove the truck today and the problem persisted all day except for about 10 minutes on the way home after dinner, but then it came back. I'm thinking this is a good sign, meaning the the offending wires (if that's the cause) are some place where they can either touch or get far enough away from each other to not short (ie somewhere other than being bound together in the harness). Also I noticed when you use the left turn signal, all of the parking lights blink (all side markers, turn signals and tag light). What a confusing mess..... maybe I'll get it sorted out tomorrow.

I just squirted a dab of black RTV on mine, no leaks from there... but I do have others....

So the previous owners of my Brat thought it was ultra cool to just splice any old accessory into the fuse box by stripping the ends and jabbing them in beside the fuses, I haven't had the time to properly fix them yet and today it came back to haunt me. I haven't drove the Brat in weeks because I've got a busted taillight lens and am waiting for the new one to arrive, not being for of tickets and all I figured I'd let it sit.Today I spent some time getting my grille and valence issues sorted out, after I had everything situated I drove the thing around town a little bit, as I headed down the road all of a sudden my lights go out and I see sparks, as luck would have it one random spliced in wire came out and hit another fuse. Whatever it hit was not a good thing because now drivers side turn signal works but really fast and dim and, oh yeah..... it also makes the side markers and tag light blink too! Then when you cut on the headlights, the turn signals on the drivers side are stuck on but wont blink and my drivers side tail light is out. It's managed to blow the very bottom fuse once thus far also, I'm thinking that when the short happened it melted two wires together, maybe in the left rear harness. Anyone have any other ideas of things to check? I'd really like to get it all working correctly again or before something else gets melted.

Yellow is like the only thing I can think of to go with the blue.... You want blingy, how 'bout polishing out the engine and diff...... shiny aluminium is as blingy as you can get; looks cool too, last hitachi I rebuilt got completely polished out, fair amout of work, but awesome outcome.

Wow awesome Brat, I now see what my weekend project will be, slam the Brat! I already had no intention on ever taking it off road, this just seals it's fate. Can't wait to see yours together.

Yeah, my Brat did this... the guy who sold it to me thought putting it in gear in 2WD and watching the end of the axel spin was the coolest trick evar! A $23 hub later, the problem is fixed.... and the axel was fine btw.

So I put front brakes on my wagon today, and when I did, I noticed that the drivers side didn't have a shim at all and the pass side was too rusted to even put back on. Now the car is back together and driving I have some squeal on the drivers side, it could be caused by the crap rotor that is on there (both were pitted by rust since the car sat for almost 2 years, but the drivers side had some metal to metal contact with the old pads, or lack thereof) or it could be the lack of shims. Do I really need to replace the shims, apparently I drove for almost 2 years without the one on the drivers side and no problems. Also, when I pulled the drivers side caliper straight up to screw in the piston, a bunch of fluid ran out, anyone have an idea on the cause of this?

I'm gonna do all of this on my Brat soon (hopefully) is there anything that needs to be pressed in, or can I do it all at home and then get it lined up?

Yeah, that tool is the s*!t, I went thru this today and broke down and bought one, works great, beats the heck out of pliers.