Knucklehead Saloon Posted September 18, 2017 Share Posted September 18, 2017 G'day I'm Richo and I come from a small country town called Singleton in Australia. Great board you guys have here ! Today I fixed my craptachi vac secondary that had rigamortis in the closed position. I've only just bought the Brumby (Brat) from an old bloke (just retired) way out west and typically of grandpa cars the throttle cable was as slack as a 2 dollar hooker. Soooo... adjust the cable methinks and all will be well. Wrong. That didn't make a scrap of difference. Damn ! Next I whipped off the air cleaner for a look at the carb. The sight that greeted me made my jaw drop. In decades of messing with cars and bikes I have never EVER seen such a nightmare of hoses and pollution control garbage hanging off a poor old carb. In all honesty It would probably have been a half decent carby before it was covered in super glue and dropped in a snake pit. Yikes !! The 26 year old hoses were all as dry as a bone, cracked and leaking like a sieve. 30 minutes later I cracked a beer, cracked out the spanners and got cracking with 3 yards of new 3/8" vacuum hose. It took me the best part of an hour to cut new hoses and install them all. I also treated the carb body to a good blast of carb cleaner for good measure... so now all will be well right ? Wrong. Didn't make a scrap of difference... GAH ! Finally found the dirty vac leak after another 30 mins of chasing it down. The vacuum advance diaphragm on my distributor was dead and leaking air big time. I pulled the line from the advance unit and plugged it with a bolt (for now). Success !! The vac secondary works like a champ now its actually got vacuum for the first time in a decade haha. I was happy for about 10 minutes and then it dawned on me I had best take a look at the distrubutor as well. I still had a slight surging under acceleration and it didn't want to rev out to redline either. Long story short ... 3mm side play in the dizzy shaft and the rotor button and rotor cap are internally machining themselves to dust. I jury rigged it for now by filing down the metal rotor cap posts and dropping in a new rotor button. To say my ignition timing is erratic is a bit of an understatement. I've got a reman Cardmon one winging its way across the pacific as we speak (no-one sells rebuilt or aftermarket distributors here in Australia). Here's my Brumby Immediate plans: Replacing the muffler tomorrow, new 14" mags and muddies also turn up tomorrow. Arriving soon: 3-1/2" tach, iridium plugs, sports steering wheel + boss, new front CV's, 4 x 5-1/4" speakers for the doors, rocker cover gaskets, 80 channel UHF. Future plans: HD clutch, Weber carb, powdercoat bullbar and rollbar black, LED light bars for the bullbar and rollbar, massively upgrade the stereo. Cheers, Richo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 Very tidy Richo. Does it smell like grandpa's hair slick stuff still? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robm Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 Iridium plugs aren't required. Plain old NGK's work as well or better than anything else. I hope you get the vacuum advance as part of the new distributor. Otherwise, you will be very disappointed with your fuel consumption. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knucklehead Saloon Posted September 19, 2017 Author Share Posted September 19, 2017 Jono... I think he was a naughty grandpa.. smelled like cheap hookers and weed.. jk ! Robm... For the price it had better come with a new vac advance or I'll hit the roof haha. Iridiums: 2 things... I use them in everything I own because they last and last as well as giving a good spark. The shop wanted 100 for 4 of them but good old ebay had them for 61. Cheap engine insurance. Its the same reason I use synthetic oils, oiled foam filters, 95 octane and ryco filters as well. My cars and bikes are much happier for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djellum Posted September 20, 2017 Share Posted September 20, 2017 ive tried nice plugs before and to be honest my motor didn't like them much. plain NGK R's (no idea what your equivalent model number would be) have been the best for me. if you get it together and have some minor ghost issues try a set of cheap NGK plugs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sapper 157 Posted September 22, 2017 Share Posted September 22, 2017 (edited) Jono... I think he was a naughty grandpa.. smelled like cheap hookers and weed.. jk ! Robm... For the price it had better come with a new vac advance or I'll hit the roof haha. Iridiums: 2 things... I use them in everything I own because they last and last as well as giving a good spark. The shop wanted 100 for 4 of them but good old ebay had them for 61. Cheap engine insurance. Its the same reason I use synthetic oils, oiled foam filters, 95 octane and ryco filters as well. My cars and bikes are much happier for it. ive tried nice plugs before and to be honest my motor didn't like them much. plain NGK R's (no idea what your equivalent model number would be) have been the best for me. if you get it together and have some minor ghost issues try a set of cheap NGK plugsWelcome to the board! Very nice ride! I second djellums and robm comments about irridum plugs. Old Subaru engines really seem to despise anything but copper NGK. Plus, what I have heard (someone correct me if I’m wrong) is that copper actually gives a better spark than irridum or platinum... the advantage of irridum and platinum to my understanding is longer service life and that’s pretty much it. Anyways, I would recommend giving the coppers a try. Good call chucking that Hitachi peice of junk and getting a Weber. Drivability, power, less of a chance for vac leaks, super customizable Tuning, and parts availability are all benefits in switching to the Weber. One last thing... personally, I would not recommend running 95 octane in your old scubie. (Unless the Australia Subaru’s are different) our rigs were recommended to run on 87 octane fuel, and you can risk hurting your engine if you run a higher octane. Edited September 22, 2017 by Sapper 157 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knucklehead Saloon Posted September 23, 2017 Author Share Posted September 23, 2017 Sapper: The octane measurement systems are different AU to US. Cheers for the great advice everyone. This place sure is a brains trust sn all things Subaru. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knucklehead Saloon Posted September 23, 2017 Author Share Posted September 23, 2017 And for today's effort.. 2x 5-1/4 kenwood divers in each door to replace the horrible 4" Oem jobs. And ☆drumroll☆ 14" sunnys and angry looking 4wd tyres. Advice needed on best way to cut back or roll the front guards on lower front. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sapper 157 Posted September 23, 2017 Share Posted September 23, 2017 Sapper: The octane measurement systems are different AU to US. Good to know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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