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What Have You Done to your Soobie lately? (Please post in here and keep it going)


Ricearu
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Took the Brat into for the safety and emissions today.  Passed safety, but failed big time on the emissions. HC was 3500, max was 220.  Guess the junkyard carb wasnt as sweet as I thought.  Will take it in next week for carb adjustment to see if they can get it to pass, otherwise guess I will be selling it out of county.  Too bad, was starting to grow on me, just not willing to shell out big bucks for a car that won't be driven all that much.

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Changed the old plugs wires, cap and rotor, and changed the sludge that was in the crankcrase with fresh oil.  Ran much better but still has some vacuum leaks in the rats nest of vacuum lines. Also changed about ten feet of vacuum lines that were petrified and leaking.  Still has a miss at idle.  Will work on that next week after I deliver a sink and other items to our our cabin in Wyoming.  This car is really starting to take up way too much time of mine.  But I guess testing my patience on this old car is good for me.

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Took the Brat into for a free restest on the emissions to see where she stands, she passed the 2500 rpm HC but still blew 1500 on HC, limit is 220.  I paid for title and registration, got a 15 day temp tag.  When I spend over $200 for emission related expenses, I will get a waiver.  So I dug deeper and discovered major play in the distributor shaft, also supports the rpms jumping and the timing moving from 8-10 degrees when shooting the timing light. The cap shows black misfires, so I think I am on the right track.   I bought a distributor at the local parts store, should have in sometime tomorrow.  I think this should get the old beast running good enough to pass emissions now.  Glad to finally make some progress since this last month has been pretty frustrating.  Also have it insured now, so maybe it will be the daily runner that I wanted it to be when I bought it.  I am now into it about 1400, but at least I saved it from being crushed.  Hopefully the distributor replacement will go better than most of the other issues that I have worked on.

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Absolutely nothing feel ashamed (apart from usual oil/filter spark plugs/breaker points air filter etc)

in the 8 years l've had 87 Brat , engine getting tired (only done 130K miles but must have been short running)

uses a quart of oil every 650miles but still runs ok   (a project in waiting) otherwise vehicle in good original conditiion.

Edited by subnz
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Fixed my "always on with key in acc" cooling fan. All this time I thought it was possibly my a/c trinary switch muffed up, as it and it's wires looked suspect..... Turns out the fan relay was bad, which I could swear checked out good when I t/s'd it last year?!?  :huh:

 

Luckily I had some spare a/c relays from back when I was attempting to suss out my a/c woes. Even though the two are supposedly different relays by color and number coding (fan: brown, -1B. a/c: black, -1M) it worked. Fan not on with key, kicks on a little above half on the gauge, cuts back off when it goes below half. ;)

 

Now, to replace that factory temp switch out for one with a lower cut in temperature....and aftermarket dual fans. And find a quarter window.... And a 4wd light switch... And on and on and (little rump roast things) on....

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Picked up the "new" distrubutor from the local parts store this afternoon, was going to install it but decided to take a day off and watch some football.  Will be installing it tomorrow, then off to get it restested after I play with the timing and fuel mixture as I am sure it will run so much better.  The old distributor has some serious shaft play(1/8") and I am convinced that is why I have been failing the emissions at idle.  Then moving on to replace a torn cv axle, crank seal, both valve covers, oil pan gasket and rear wheel bearings.  Good times, but soon will be a daily driver, so I hope.

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Continuing on with post-sitting-for-a-year maintenance, drained/refilled the power steering reservoir, removed coolant overflow tank for a soaking with Simple Green (twas nasty inside; full coolant flush shortly). And though my air filter itself was rather sparkly clean despite a year of use in dusty Colorado and then the dusty trip to Florida, found this when I pulled it out of the air box:

 

 

 

 

 

..damn squirrels.

 

 

post-17715-0-97988200-1382982792_thumb.jpg

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Fixed the glove compartment in Wedge. During a drive, on Saturday, I asked my little brother to get something out of the glove compartment. Well, the only thing that opened, was the knob falling out and the box still closed. :huh:  So, later that afternoon, I started poking at it and got it opened, pulled the tumbler shell out to fix it. Turns out, there's this little spring pin (kinda like the axle lock pins on the tranny side of our CV axles) that worked it's way out. After some finagling, I put it back together and it works again! :D

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Finally got to installing the new distributor, well kind of.  Took the old one out, slid the new one in and went to start the car.  I already set #1 to TDC on compression(love compression gauges).  Car wouldn't start, no tach movement, so I knew something was wrong. Put the old distributor back in and it fired right up.  Called up all the junk yards around here, no one had one.  Then drove the old distributor to a shop here that specializes in this.  He will have it back to me tomorrow or Wednesday for $105 or half of a new one.  Took the POS new(reman) back and got my money back....The fun continues....

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Sanded and cleaned the bed of the Brat, then sprayed primer on the bare metal areas, taped up the rear window, removed the chrome pieces, used three can of the spray can bedliner, turned out pretty good. Will upload picture tomorrow. Also worked on one wheel getting off the black tractor paint that was brushed on.  Found some good paint stripper at Home Depot that also came with a spray bottle.  It took two applications, but now down to bare metal. Will prime and paint tomorrow, should look a whole lot better. 

 

Also got back my newly rebuilt distributor($105) all new parts and bushings.  After three attempts of lining of the distrubutor, sweet victory, the old car fired right up.  Runs much much much better, no more backfiring, the timing marks are steady, and no longer smells like raw gas.  Still some fine tuning with the idle and mix adjustments, but will take it back into the emissions later on this week to finally get real plates.  The guy who rebuilt the distributor was amazed the car would run at all with how bad it was.  Oh BTW, the name of the shop is SNAP here in Salt Lake City, they rebuild hundreds a month, and they have quick turnaround, he had mine back in two days.  Super good work! 

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"why not use a home surround sound system subwoofer in my car."

 

That's what I did! So long as you have an amp and a low pass filter on it, it works great. I have a polkaudio home theater 8" subwoofer and a car audio 12". They are both 4 ohms. Just make sure you disconnect all the old wiring from the woofer first and then run your own wires direct from sub to amp. My home audio subwoofer works out because I screwed my amp right on to it too. :)

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Sanded and cleaned the bed of the Brat, then sprayed primer on the bare metal areas, taped up the rear window, removed the chrome pieces, used three can of the spray can bedliner, turned out pretty good. Will upload picture tomorrow. Also worked on one wheel getting off the black tractor paint that was brushed on.  Found some good paint stripper at Home Depot that also came with a spray bottle.  It took two applications, but now down to bare metal. Will prime and paint tomorrow, should look a whole lot better. 

 

Also got back my newly rebuilt distributor($105) all new parts and bushings.  After three attempts of lining of the distrubutor, sweet victory, the old car fired right up.  Runs much much much better, no more backfiring, the timing marks are steady, and no longer smells like raw gas.  Still some fine tuning with the idle and mix adjustments, but will take it back into the emissions later on this week to finally get real plates.  The guy who rebuilt the distributor was amazed the car would run at all with how bad it was.  Oh BTW, the name of the shop is SNAP here in Salt Lake City, they rebuild hundreds a month, and they have quick turnaround, he had mine back in two days.  Super good work! 

cool. looking to line the bed of my brat this weekend. I know it's cold in Utah how'd it go with applying the liner?

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I dropped the gas tank and sub frame thinking i cracked the brake line while changing struts. Well, the brake line was intact, but rusted. So i replaced them anyway, and swapped in a different tank that had a working fuel gauge. This goes along with cutting out rust and welding in better quarter panels. I hate this car.

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