metaruss

Fixed a few odds and ends on the days I had off from work.  The big thing was the driver’s side door.  It has a new latch, new pins and bushings, and I repaired the door jam wiring.  The window still gets cocked funny on the way up, which causes it to hang up.  The rubber is in really bad shape, so I’m sure that is not helping.  It’s nice to have a fully-working door, though.  Removing the lower door pin is a real PITA.  After trying several approaches, I had to Dremel part of the bottom tip off so that I could get a C-clamp in there and press it out.  There is no way to punch it out with those damn Turbo Z ground effects in the way.  I supported the door with rope strung over the garage ceiling rafters, looped through two holes in the door frame.

Got the fuel tank to stop leaking, finally.  The lock ring was definitely not tightened all the way, but I decided to drop the tank anyway and fix it right.  The gasket was still in good condition, but I flared the sealing surface out a bit to make it squeeze the gasket harder, just in case.  Also fixed the alignment tabs so the sender was oriented properly.  I still need to do something about the connectors, as the gauge never shows full and I never get more than 10 gallons in when empty.  There is also a grounding problem back there, I think, which may have something to do with it.

Fixing various odds and ends: fuel gauge sender, rear view mirror, hatch struts, more wiring, etc.  Still leaking gas from the sender gasket, but it’s probably because the lock ring isn’t fully tightened.  Once the tank is near empty again, I’ll drop it and try to snug it up.  I also decided to do a compression test after I noticed that it sounded like it was missing consistently at idle.  Results were 127-130-127-135.  That’s a little higher than I would expect, particularly for a high mileage motor that consumes oil, but I feel better about the bottom end in this thing.  I have a feeling that this turbo may be on the way out…the oil is going somewhere besides on the ground.  The plugs also looked good, though they were quite eroded.  I replaced them with a set of Autolite 64s I had, which should hopefully quell the occasional pinging I hear at part throttle/high boost.  The vacuum lines were a mess, so I addressed those.  We’ll see how it is, but the MAP sensor line was very loose, possibly causing lean-out (who knows).  I put the WCV (Grainger valve) from my Shadow in it, so we’ll see how that effects lag.  This motor idles funny and seems to hesitate when accelerating from a full stop, so I’m not sure what is going on.  Once I get all the fittings I need for my adjustable FPR, I’ll be able to put the 804 injectors in and monkey with the fuel to get the mixture right.  There is definitely something screwy with the mixture on this thing, but it may be due to electronics.  It runs rich when it doesn’t need to and lean in boost on certain occasions.  I’d like to convert it to ’87 electronics in order to unify it with my CSX.  Need to find an ’87 T1 LM for that….

I managed to fix the driver’s side door and the passenger side window (regulator tape cut too short).  The door wouldn’t open because the striker bolt hammered out the steel on the latch housing, causing it to mushroom and bind up the latch itself.  I soaked the whole thing in gasoline to clean the grime, used a Dremel to remove the mushroomed metal, and oiled the latch with motor oil.  The door opens fine now, but still doesn’t exactly “pop” open the way it should.  The worn hinges may have something to do with that.  The doors need weather stripping as well.  The driver’s side window tends to bind sometimes on the way up.  Looks like it’s not being guided properly.

I cleaned the armrest when I put the door back together and it no longer matched the rest of the dirty interior.  So, I took some time to clean the dashboard, center console, steering wheel, etc.  Looks much better now.  I also fixed the power mirror wiring and properly attached the center console to the dashboard.  There are a lot of broken pieces in there, so hopefully I’ll get them from Bill’s Lazer.

Drove it to work today.  I stopped for gas on the way and was greeted with more gas leaking from the tank.  Now it appears to be coming from the fuel sender unit (which isn’t working), so I get to drop the tank again.  I’ll let it run/leak down before I mess with it though.  I fixed the radio-related wiring, so I at least have some tunage now.  I also put the stock intake setup back on so I don’t have to listen to the throttle body noises.  I tried adjusting the door handles (they are hard to open), but they seem to be adjusted as far as they will go.  Guess I’ll have to take the door apart.  I’m trying to find replacement striker bolts, with no luck yet.

I got the fuel pump installed tonight.  I was expecting a battle to get the fuel tank strap nuts loose (I even bought an 8mm x 1.25 die to clean up the threads), but they came off with ease.  The pump has been replaced before; in fact it was even a Walbro unit (stock), which made the conversion to the high capacity unit a bit easier.  The inside of the tank is rather rusty (but is solid), and I found an extra pump intake sock floating around in there.  Also, the inner tray that is used to siphon fuel out of a nearly empty tank had popped off of its mount (probably at the hands of the previous installer).  It took a lot of fiddling, but I was able to pop it back on.  I have a feeling there was nothing really wrong with the old pump, but the tank is in good shape now.  Also, the fuel filler neck grommet was leaking partially because it was ripped up by whoever took it out last.

This car is weird.  Besides the front end issues and all that, the under body is strangely free of rust except for the places it rusted completely through.  Two of these places are the front-outside corners of the floorpan.  This is typical because the front wheels sling rocks and stuff at them.  The other rusted out area is the spare tire well in the trunk, but there is obvious evidence that someone backed the car into something: there are scratch marks elsewhere back there and the rear trailing arm was bent up real bad (I swapped it with the Shadow).  It really does seem like it came from down south.  Unfortunately, the CarFax report only goes back to 1991, so I don’t know where the car was originally bought.  The underbody was coated at some point with that rubberized stuff, but it doesn’t look factory.  Either the rear shocks are original or they were put on after the underbody coating was applied, because they are covered in the stuff!  In any case, it may have helped protect the underbody.

Well after some additional stripping of my Shadow ES, I’ve begun to take a close look at the issues with this car.  The front end is really screwed up.  I can see the buckled metal in the frame around the area of the front-right K-frame mount and the mount itself seems to be displaced.  It’s pushing the front-right corner of the K-frame down by about an inch, giving it a weird twist.  I can also see that the right wheel is offset to the rear by about 1/2 inch, compared to the left wheel.  Assuming the K-frame wasn’t bent when it was installed in this crooked setup, I should be able to fix it by cutting the displaced mount off the car frame, fixturing the K-frame in the correct position and orientation, and welding it back on.  I may also have to weld a plate over the area of the frame that is buckled to give it some additional strength.  I will then recenter the engine, which should hopefully cure the front end shake problem.

I already have a lot of new parts for the car ready to go.  I plan to replace the fuel pump and the fuel filler neck grommet (source of my leak) this evening, which should make the car more-or-less drivable.  The pump is the Walbro/Holley 190 L/hr unit from FWD Performance, which flows 47% more fuel over the stock unit.  The grommet was provided to me by the previous owner…he just never had a chance to install it.  Still need to transfer the title, as my useless local DMV “doesn’t do that”.  Next I’ll try to tackle the front-end issues, if I can get a hold of a MIG welder.

Well, the car is back together.  It’s not perfect, but it’s close.  I didn’t notice it before, but the right rear quarter is pushed in about 1/4″.  Also, somehow the subchassis is tweaked such that the taillight is mounting a bit high and the bumper a bit low on the right side.  It sort of spread things out.  It looks fine until you get up close.  Once these cars get bent, it’s really hard to get them back where they should be again.  Everything else lined up well, though the liftgate is not popping open as it should.  I suspect the latch is not operating as smoothly as it used to.  Still need to paint that trim below the taillights, but it will just have to stay red until the spring.

Putting the bumper back together was a bit of a pain.  All those stupid plastic studs broke off the bumper fascia when I got hit, so I ended up making bolts with very flat heads to mount them.  The heads are covered by the CSX fascia, so that’s no biggie.  I also threaded the CSX fascia studs so I could mount it to the bumper fascia with regular nuts.  A lot of the original push nuts were gone anyway, so this setup worked well and allowed me to adjust the tension for minimal warpage.