ferox

Everything you guys just mentioned was covered in the original thread for this vehicle. You should probably continue the old thread or link it to this one at a minimum. I also think the brake booster is a vacuum issue and the timing is the most fundamental setting for any engine, so you should probably get those sorted before asking what else it could be and having everyone post up a redundant thread.

Considering the rpms of even regular driving, any slop or looseness in other components of the drivetrain will prematurely wear out CV half shafts. I have noticed big differences from worn out transmission mounts. When my trans. mounts get worn, I noticed that my car will sometimes develop a kind of vibrational harmonic, especially when cruising down the freeway at high speed. It will take out my CVs prematurely, but when the trans. mounts are solid that doesn't happen. Sloppy stub shafts would have a similar effect I imagine, but I haven't experienced that firsthand.

Do you know if he pulled the engine to check the rear main seal? If so, he may not have got the clutch and flywheel back in correctly or something may have loosened up.

That's the one. He's not on here. His buddy restored it, then he bought it from him. It's very nice as I am sure you noticed and pretty close to stock other than the Weber and paint job.

If you are looking for fuel mileage or trying to keep the Brat as stock as possible, then an SPFI ea71 would be great, but if you are going to go through and do a bunch of work and don't care that it's modified, then an EJ swap would really be the way to go.

Since you're not getting much response I'll chime in. I am not 100% sure, but the '81 Brat was the last year of the Gen 1 body style, but it got the same running gear as the '81 wagon and hatch, so the hubs are the same as the Gen II ea81 series. '80-'84 wagon '81-'87 Brat '80-'89 Hatch Someone will correct me if I am wrong.

Lameness. Obviously it wasn't a pro or you would be out a stereo and this would be a different thread, but it's an extra annoying pita having to repair your car because of some dumb*ss with a screwdriver.

I might know the owner of that one. I will have to check if his lacks Brat decals on the side. Did you happen to notice if it had a racing stripe on the hood?

Wish I could make it. Half of my extended family is in the Carlisle area. That would make for a cool combo trip.

You bought a great car with a very simple yet exceptionally well built engine. If you are prone to doing homework, then you are in the right place and you can easily learn the in's and out's of your engine. Since you are in Cali, your biggest challenge is going to be the carburetor with all the various 1980's emission controls. Since you just bought the car and it's in good working order, I would recommend learning about the Single-Point Fuel Injection (SPFI) upgrade for your car while it's running well, so when the carb-emissions system eventually starts to get out of tune you are ready for the swap. Member GeneralDisorder put together the guide on the swap and it is legal in California under the condition that your car would then have to pass emissions standards for the SPFI donor car. And if you do the swap, you should get amazing gas mileage with a 2WD 5MT Hatch. BTW I drive an '81 4WD Hatch with over 295,000 miles on it and I still get great mileage. I would really like to see some pics of the engine area if you feel like snapping a few?

You're certainly welcome. Cougar and GD helped me years ago, so I'm just passing it along. When you get a little extra scratch I recommend a proper battery charger, so you don't have to use your alternator...they don't like charging dead batteries.

I would really like to hear what you find out and other observations you might have for the sake of curiosity. There are a couple scenarios that I think could work if done correctly. 1) Provide a fully kitted and tooled shop for a tenant or team of tenants on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. This is not a new concept, but it means you deal with an individual or small group of known individuals that rent the space and equipment continuously during their tenancy and you could develop a strong contract to protect your interests. 2) Specialize. Offer a DIY shop resource for a sub-set of auto-mechanical needs. It would have to be something that normally either costs a lot of money or requires expensive specialized equipment. Tube bending comes to mind for roll cages and off-road bumpers. You could even sell DOM tubing by the stick. Of course there's more than a tubing bender involved but you probably get the idea. Another idea would be head work. There's probably more overhead than the tubing-bender idea, but you could also provide tooling for DIY port and polish. Big beefy air compressors are expensive, loud, and massive...they are also awesome when you need to run air tools. Some people might like to try to give their heads a custom finish, etc,...or you could kind of combine ideas and do DIY intake and exhaust. Basically, if you keep it simple and can identify a few situations like that where you could invest in equipment that is out of many people's financial reach, but isn't so expensive that returns take forever to pay it back, then I think you could make it work and could turn $6,000 coupled with some intelligence and hard work into $60,000 more or less. If it fails then you have some tooling and equipment you can either use or sell. I would also try to design a shop where I could make items for sale during slow business hours.

I have a '92 Lego, and I don't know a lot about them yet, but any car that uses an O2 sensor for engine regulation will experience less than optimal fuel economy if the sensor is worn out or wearing out. For myself, I think an Air/Fuel gauge or something that gave me a direct or indirect instantaneous reading of fuel economy would help a lot because it would indicate what conditions produce the highest efficiency and I could modify my driving to match. You just need an O2 bung appropriately placed, which any muffler shop could do for you if you don't have the set-up at home to install one.

+1, I unbolted the mustache bar ends last time and that gave me enough movement to slide the DOJs off easily. You don't need to drop the trailing arms. You will have a roll pin/spring pin/tension pin at either end of the half-shaft; one in the outer CV joint and one in the inner double-offset joint (DOJ). You just need to remove those pins with a 3/16" punch, slide the CV and DOJ off the splined stubs and reverse the dis-assembly procedure for installation. This does not take into account the possibility that the axle may be stuck on the splines from age...that's a topic that has been covered so searching again will help there. There is only one way that the CV and DOJ will slip onto the stub shafts that will allow the spring pin to be reinstalled correctly; however, if they are installed 180 degrees off, it can look like the spring pin will go back in. Once you have the CV or DOJ slid back on the stub shaft, slide your 3/16" punch through the pin hole to make sure it goes all the way through easily, that will align the hole and prevent you from pounding the spring pin into a bad situation. I also recommend realigning the hole from the backside with the punch while reinstalling the spring pin until the pin is partially in the center stub shaft.

Yeah that warranty policy has convinced me to purchase from Autozone several times. The one thing is that you have to be prepared for the possibility that the reman part may be bad out of the box. The "bad out of the box" situation has only happened to me a couple times out of hundreds with Autozone and it does seem like their quality has improved, but if you troubleshoot a system by replacing parts (not recommended) then you can't necessarily trust that the "new" part is functioning properly and move on to another component of the system. Of course this is true of any basic parts provider's reman parts, so Autozone is not exceptional in this regard. If the part is testable like an alternator, then I have them check it before I leave the store. Obviously calipers don't fit into that category. As a testimonial to improved quality, I purchased an alternator from them years and years ago. Last time I swapped it out (at no cost to me) was several years ago and it's still running perfectly. Before that, they seemed to last about a year and a half before I would swap them out. Also, I watch my gauges like a hawk, so at the first sign of abnormal behavior I would replace the alt immediately. Every time they tested it in the store they tested fine, but I just tell them that I checked it with my multi-meter and it is not functioning properly along with a visualization of my mood if I end up stranded on the side of the road because the old alt failed. They have replaced it every time without problems, but it took a little convincing at times. They are a great deal for certain components.

I concur with GD as usual, but I thought I would elaborate. I knew a guy that was really into this same idea for a long time, so we put some thought into it. I just couldn't see how all the investment in equipment, depreciation, payroll (still there), and insurance could be over-balanced with income. Not to mention theft and breakage from people who don't care about abusing the tools. People would expect the rates to be lower than a regular shop, but you would have almost the same overhead or more with additional insurance cost as well as tooling and safety set-ups to meet the varied skill levels of your customers. It would cost money to be readily adaptable to everyone's skill and knowledge levels, and as GD mentioned, these people often have little money to begin with and there's the increased risk of a law suit to consider. I think scheduling the bays could be a logistical nightmare as well. Professional mechanics know how long a particular job will take, but homey probably doesn't, so you would need a policy for when someone disables their car in a work space and goes over their scheduled time. Tons of babysitting. I don't mean to be a naysayer, but basic economics are not stacked in favor of the solvency of this idea. In principle it's a great idea and the hackerspace platform looks interesting, but if you want it to be a for-profit money earner that would pay salaries I don't think you would see adequate returns...unless you could bankroll it at a scale in which volume would overcome the thin profit margin. Even then you would probably have to break it into beginner, intermediate, and advanced bay areas with tooling and assistance to match, etc, etc,...It would be a tremendous amount of investment and work to do it right and not doing it right would be a fool's errand. Sorry I don't have answers for the OP's direct questions because I probably would not use this service if it were available simply because I am set-up at home. I wish you well if you get it going, it's a nice idea but it would be hard for it to not turn into a charity or worse.

What if you cut a piece of pipe that is a diameter that will slide over the spindle, but rest on the collar of the CV joint with some of the threads for the castle nut protruding from the end of the pipe when it's installed. Then with a couple washers you can tighten down the castle nut with a little heat on the CV joint. Without a vice you might need to stabilize the half-shaft with a pipe-wrench or something. If it resists, then you can tighten the castle nut down on the pipe and if the end of the spindle is not protruding from the castle nut, you can whack the castle nut with a hand sledge, tighten & smack, tighten and smack, until it breaks free.

The S terminal is the Sensor wire and does not go to the starter. The I or L terminal is for the dash Indicator Light. You should have 3-4 connections: 1) Main Batt supply 2) Field Sensor Wire 3) Dash Indicator Light 4) Extra Ground Wire (optional) The main Batt supply goes to the fusible links. The field sensor wire connects to the main Batt supply wire right before the fusible links on the alt side of the connection. The dash indicator light can be connected to the existing dash indicator wire. Don't be afraid to add in-line fuses. If you are running a new Batt supply wire make sure you disconnect the original one. It will be crimped to the main harness. On my '81 the crimp was behind the battery. On my '84, the crimp was closer to the alternator.

Yes, but they are definitely not common. My '88 has been a garage queen for several years now. Can't wait to get it rolling again, but I need a new welder to finish where I left off. The engine has been rebuilt on the stand for a few years. This winter was supposed to be when I got it put back together, but the Jeep and the house over-ruled that idea.

It looks to me like you have a 3-wire alt. Hooking the field sensor wire to the choke wire is not going to give the alt correct information about the battery voltage levels. The way you have it set up, the alt "thinks" the battery voltage is whatever the choke wire voltage is, which is less than what your battery voltage should be so your alt will constantly overcharge with it connected that way. You need to run a proper field sensor wire. I would delete the external VR as well and hook-up the dash light also, but that's just me. GD walked me through this years ago so those threads are around and there's lots of info on the webs so it's pretty simple to do it right. It's also easy to do it wrong, and with the higher amperage alt you can melt wires really easily if you have it connected wrong and your car can and will burn. No bueno. Also, it's important to make sure you utilize the fusible link set-up or equivalent. When I converted my '81, I got a fusible link box from an '84; it mounts where the external VR is bolted on.

Sweet '81 and kudos on your dedication. The oil pressure may not be as big of an issue as you think. The stock sender is notoriously inaccurate and low psi numbers on the gauge when the engine is hot are almost the rule rather than the exception. Being an old used car however, I would recommend doing a Seafoam wash in the oil to clean the interior of the engine a bit and a new oil pump. An aftermarket oil pressure gauge would also be a plus since you are obviously very mindful of that. Did I miss where you listed the odo reading? I would also recommend an alternator upgrade if it hasn't been done already. The '81s were externally regulated. You can delete the external regulator and switch over to an uber-modern internally regulated unit along with an output upgrade. It's all been covered here, so you should be able to find the info with searches. Those 14" steel rims are actually quite desirable because they are the rare 4 x 140 lug pattern and give you more tire choices than the 13s. It sounds like you are aiming for something of a stock restoration, but you can get tires for the 14's that will be very similar to the 13" tire size but you'll have greater selection. That sucks about the window, especially since these cars are so easy to break into. That's one of my concerns about doing so much work on my '81. They're getting old enough now that any kind of body or window damage means a hunt for increasingly rare parts or expensive glass. I already have storage issues for all my spare parts, but I would still like a complete set of extra glass for my hatch. You can always make another trip back to the left coast for a parts run.

All aftermarket remans are crappy. This topic has been exhaustively covered, so now that you have a few posts under your belt you can find more info than you probably want to know by doing searches. The loose consensus is to either buy new aftermarket EMPI axles, buy MWE reman OEM axles, or get a used OEM axle and clean, re-grease, and reboot. And make sure you follow Northwet's advice...that applies to any and every axle you may choose. That axle nut requires a lot of torque or you'll have problems. I don't know the spec for a '94 ea82, but the earlier models require 145 ft-lbs of torque on the castle nut, plus up to 30 degrees more rotation to align the cotter pin hole with the castle nut slots. Your Loyale should be the same or very similar.

Even if you can't smell coolant in the white smoke, quit fooling around with your intake manifold gaskets and get some Subaru ones. White smoke in the exhaust and symptoms of a massive vacuum leak would seem to imply that the cardboard/Ultragrey isn't cutting it.

Prove it with pics.

You can also use silicon spray lubricant. Just make sure you spray the key and work it back and forth in the switch rather than spraying directly into the switch or door locks.