Txakura

thank you both for the rapid replies the answer -slow down- made me laugh out loud 4 lo would be nice <2% of my time, I'll be happy with what I have, 50/50 distribution can't be beat (although 60/40 would be cool for messing around on flat gravel corners)

If someone did spring for the 'show' rotors, it'd be cool if they did poor man's stopping tests before and after. I really like the above technical posts, fantastic research and info. This board amazes me. Group hug?

I had never even heardof an RX until I found this board, much less the coveted lsd, the locking center differential or the dual range cars... wow. I have a push button 'single range', and it's been fine for me, until this winter. but... I'm a little unclear on some ideas. The lsd I understand, although I was surprised that isn't the default AWD or 4x4 rear end. Q 1,2 ; How would I spot one of these coveted items in a junk yard? What do they come out of? Q 3 ; If I had a center differential, I could run a different gear ratio on the rear axle than the front? Q 4,5 ; Is that something I could add onto my one range 5 spd or is it part of a wholly different gearbox? What gear box is that? Q 6; what is the 'locking' in locking center differential? Q 7; anyone know what the power bias on the one button wonders is? Q 8; Why is this Loyale so prone to crazy understeer? Can anything be done to reduce that? Q 9; What is the weight of my 1990 Loyale RS compared to an XT of the same vintage? Q 10; is it just me or did they only make the RS to use up RX parts? TIA for your patience and time

My this thread wandered around a lot... He needs new rotors anyway, right? one point that came up was the effectiveness of his rear brakes. If it was my car I'd make sure the rears were doing their job, whatever they are. This is a good time to do a 4 way brake job to make sure there is no extra stress on the front. If money is an issue, I'd work on the rear and put up with the front for a bit more. Buy a nice semi-metallic shoe for the rear, replace the rear wheel cylinders, have the drums turned if they need it, have a surface pass done if nothing else... bleed your brakes until the fluid comes out clean, get all that old crap out of the line, when your reservoir is low, carefully clean all the crud out of the bottom. I can't speak for Brembo's. I'd buy a nice slotted rotor with a warranty against warping, there were a lot of valid points made in the thread about that being overkill, or not even useful... perhaps your wicked hill really is extreme enough to need something extra. If you can afford it, do it. If nothing else they will shed water better. Watch your lug nut tension, use a torque wrench to make sure they are all properly uniform. I spend 4-5 hours a day going from 30-0, 45-0, and 60-0 using my Loyale for a delivery route. I haven't warped my rotors yet, but I could do it pretty easily, our area is nothing but crazy hills. I just re-did my rear (drum) brakes and the overall effect on the car was amazing - it is much happier and more balanced, instead of feeling everything rush to the front it feels more like it is hunkering down and squatting on all fours. I've been looking at this myself: all their stuff is warranteed http://brakeperformance.com/site/brake_rotors.php?ad=google&gclid=CI_86dO2jZcCFQ0xawodCWcmow one final crazy thought, I just played with re-wiring my (1990 ea82) turn signals and corner markers. I don't necessarily need the hole in the front bumper for the oem signals, I'm using them as parking lights now. That bumper cut out, and the nut plates for the light housing would make a perfect duct location to bring air into the wheel well. It would be easy to make a collector*, duct and outlet in the inner (plastic) wheel well liner that blew air from the bumper toward the rotor from the inside of the well... do I "need" that? no. do I "need" half the mods on this bbs? no. but it is fun to make these things as an excercise in creativity and to enjoy our cars isn't it? *afterthought, hell use the light housings themselves as the collector, mmmm I sense another photo essay coming on

I am having serious jealousy issues...

slotted might be nice for shedding water, IMHO

that sounds awesome, and very simple, I guess now I must test my thermoswitch to see if it is working correctly - Gloyale set me straight on how to check that - 30 amp relay okay? thanks so much for clearing that up for me, I can do that with stuff I have on hand

Someone mentioned in one of the recent overheating threads that they had used a wire from the ecu to trip a relay for their own electric cooling fan. I just happen to have a reversible aftermarket fan from another car and would like to use it as my primary fan - to replace the mechanical. Ea82, A/C so I have the secondary fan too. Now, I would rather avoid a manual switch and don't go seriously off road (I'm not worried about immersing a running fan, if that happens I have much bigger issues) but the price of the universal thermostatic fan controllers is ridiculous. It sounded like, if I connected to some signal from the ecu, it could activate a relay and be a fan controller. Looking at the pinout from my ecu I'm not able to tell which lead that would be, I have the terminal numbers and the voltage listing, but not necessarily the function...

no no, he's right, I have an ea82, I have turned on the ac when the engine is at a normal op temp, but it never seems to turn on the secondary fan - perhaps the winter isn't the best time to look at that but I can use a multimeter to read whether it is operating or not, but I digress... I don't want to hijack the thread - if I find something concrete I'll post my own dealy, this thread just got me to wondering about it more... carry on

How does one test the secondary electric fan to make sure it is working properly? I can never catch mine in the act of running.

wow, I just got caught up on all this soob porn like a lot of other people said already, I really appreciate the pictures, I also like the shots of the suspension - I'm hoping to pick up an sjr kit soon I'm dying to hear how this turned out

Just a small repair, hardly earth shattering but useful... If you look closely, you can see the plastic on my corner marker pigtail socket has gotten brittle with age, vibration has broken off the locking tabs. It wouldn't stay in the lens housing any more. Using a very small sheet metal screw and piloting the hole with a #40 (3/32") gives just enough to hold it in place, it doesn't have to be tight - just snug. It doesn't have to come all the way out to change the bulb either, it supports it just enough to trap the socket in the hole. easy deal.

I put together some additional photos and a write up, I am pleased it was accepted into the USRM quite quickly. Today I might straighten a fender and do 'skip's cool turn signal mod', those will be other threads - of course.

what's an ss? :-\

there you go, looks good oh yeah, watch for snow drifts (just kidding)

Found it after I pulled the door, when I replaced the two wires previously - the passenger side stopped altogether, the driver still worked because it was grounding out through the system! I put more pics in the repair section, maybe it'll help someone else, good call on the bundle fatigue Gloyale I cut the factory tape off and here is the whole problem, the wires broke from rubbing on the edge of the door cutout after 19 years

Time for war... get the window down if you can, and tap the door snubber pin loose. If you can't move the window, I have used a 1 amp motorcycle trickle charger to carefully power the window motor directly the window master panel wiring connects behind the driver kick panel, the column wiring is exposed for some other work - don't pay attention to it loosen the fender, the two famous bolts behind the bumper can stay in place don't panic, my fender was wrinkled last November sliding into a ditch - not doing this now you can actually get to the door hinge bolts I'm not too worried about my paint, it was ok to just set it down gently awesome overview of mess pull the grommet off the door frame and feed the wire bundle through set it down to work on it I cut the factory tape off and here is the whole problem, the wires broke from rubbing on the edge of the door cutout after 19 years I wasn't expecting the main ground to be broken, the driver window still worked (after I had replaced the main power wire on top of the existing bundle)- by grounding out through some other part of the bundle, but the passenger side didn't work at all. When I added the new power wire on top of the existing bundle, apparently the main ground finally gave up and broke, disconnecting the passenger side - just like flicking the window lock your passenger circuit has to be complete at this panel otherwise it won't work from either door repaired bundle with fresh wire and splices you don't need to cut this grommet, I had already cut it to run the previous repair , I added a little atv so that it would seal after I taped it all back up and put it in re-taped a little too far, had to take some off later - no big re-connected to make sure it worked before I buttoned it up same as above I hung it off the striker and used the outline from the hinge sealant to get it back in place, it was off about 2-3 mm at the striker with the bolts snug. I just jockeyed it around until it lined up and closed correctly - then tightened the bolts fully In hindsight, it was much easier to pull the fender loose and drop the door than it was to try and fix the wiring in place - and it didn't take very long either; definitely one of those easier to bite the bullet than try to get around it affairs hope this helps some other soul save time and frustration

Here is the cover I accidentally left out, yes, my camera is from the future before I had put everything back together, I kind of liked it and just went with it, at a fast idle with nothing indicated it is just a glossy black here is the normal stuff except the parking brake light, I think this is much less cluttered looking and easier on the eyes - even if it was a minor mistake that showed it to me I kept the lens cover of course, I can always add it back. what do you guys think? do you think it looks better and more modern too?

the weird thing is that, back when dirt was new and I took driver's ed, they taught us to NOT lock our doors when we were in the car - in an accident it could hamper someone from being able to open the door and help you but, yes, there are holes in that idea - I know I wonder if being locked or unlocked really makes a dif in crash safety - as long as the door is engaged at the striker, does it really matter?

me too, gotten in a few power struggles with them myself...

found it. it was the cruise panel button itself now, let me defend myself a bit, I followed all the other crap because I could get to it easily to get the switch panel out I had to take off the various trim panels, drop the steering column, and remove the visor around the instrument panel - just so I could unhook the cruise control panel and unravel the wiring from the snakes nest under the steering wheel and ecu Finally, with nothing to lose, I cut the wires where I could easily splice them and put the damn cruise panel on a multimeter having no schematic or any reference material at all, I figured out by process of elimination what did what... until I realized the fault I have a small 12v switch from a computer front panel, I soldered it in and -viola- I can set it and forget it again on the long hauls I have to come up with something that doesn't look like crap to call it really done, I have some wires hanging out right now -btw- in an earlier post i said something about it being able to work, what I meant was that at least all the vacuum crappola was intact as I was able to rev the engine from under the hood with the vacuum line from the right front strut tower to the dash mess - so this week I have my cruise, all heater fan speeds and power driver window working again... sadly the passenger side mysteriously gave up after one day, but I have the panel at my feet and I'll get it sorted out I killed 'tinkerbell' and that damn 'door lock' indicator too

good lord, you mean you're thinking of running both gearboxes so that you'll have 5 car x 6 bike for 30 possible gear combinations? that would be interesting to manipulate, but I can see where it would be useful for rock crawling if that is your gig I hope you do find a way to do that and post your insanity on the bbs

lol, yes tinkerbell was a goner as soonas i realized it was right where she lived, re: trunk lock light, yes that is also stupid and should be terminated I'm not sure what the 'digidash' is, but it sounds good, maybe something more modern? this is on a '90 loyale rs (non turbo) in between the tach and speedo is a vertical cartoon of the car, the high beam indicator, doors etc are illuminated there, plus the 4x4 etc tell you what, if i can borrow a camera i'll post some pics, I really think it looks much better without the outline of the car, it's just a gloss black panel by day but when you open a door or something it suddenly has a clean symbol for it very uncluttered looking, it's definitely growing on me

say, i was in a hurry last night to put it all back in so i could drive this morning and left the car outline window out... (the little image of the car that rides over the center panel caution lights) you know what? i kind of like it without the car outline, it's very clean, just a black panel with those backlit indicators for the door open etc... I may not put it back, it really is easy on the eyes, very very clean oh, i suppose it didn't seal as tightly as it could and some dust might get in there without the plexiglass window... oh, i got rid of the door/key chime too... annoying when you want to open the door and listen to the radio to have it pinging away

Wouldn't it be "easier" to keep the GW gearbox and use the shaft drive output? hell... put it in backwards and make a mid engine mount Soob..