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Archive for January, 2003

The Daytona: January 28, 2003

by on Jan.28, 2003, under Daytona

I found the damn electrical load that was draining the battery.  The battery wouldn’t last sitting for more than about 2 days.  I measured about a 300mA drain, which is a lot!  I isolated it to the power seat/power door lock circuit, which made so sense since I have no power seats and the power door lock motors draw many amps when they are on.  A quick glance at the wiring diagrams revealed the horn circuit also being fed from this circuit.  The horn doesn’t work and I never looked as to why.  It appears that the steering column wiring for the horn switch is shorted and it was disabled at the horn itself.  Unfortunately, this left the horn relay on at all times and, apparently, and relay coil draws about 280mA.  Anyway, I yanked the relay and now everything is fine.  I still see about 22mA of drain, 4 of those are for the Dawes Devices A/F guage, which was tied right to the battery.  The rest must be the radio and clock, I guess.

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The Daytona: January 21, 2003

by on Jan.21, 2003, under Daytona

I re-replaced the left-front wheel bearing.  It went rather easily, considering what a pain it can be.  The assembly came out with a sledge and went in easily with a pair of C-clamps.  The only major problem I ran into was that the new rotors had rusted to the new (failed) hub assembly.  Ended up having to use a hydraulic puller and a sledge to get it off.  I think it rusted around the center of the hub, so I dabbed a little anti-seize on there.

For an encore, I went to tighten a hose clamp on the heater bypass valve when it went “click”.  Damn, and I was doing so well.  It was a Mopar unit and it was as if the plastic has broken-down.  Instead of being brittle, it had the consistency of hardened rubber hose.  It just crumbled in my fingers.  I had the spare from the Shadow, but since it had the new-style intake (bypass valve under the battery tray), the valve inlet points the wrong way.  I managed to find a nylon elbow that I could use for now.  I bought a new one at Auto-Stoned for $12.  It was the all-plastic one, like the one from my Shadow.  It lasted for over 7 years, so I won’t complain.

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The Daytona: January 20, 2003

by on Jan.20, 2003, under Daytona

Had a little scare with the Daytona’s engine…thought I blew it.  When I pulled the fuel pressure regulator, the vacuum line appeared to be disconnected.  That may explain why it was running rich, but it shouldn’t run at all at 10psi of boost.  Anyway, that coupled with some apparent oil coming out of the dipstick and the fact that is was missing at idle, I thought I cracked a ringland.  Well, I snugged up the dipstick and after installing the new adjustable FPR, it seemed to run fine.  I did a compression check and it was the same as before: about 130psi on all four.  The plugged looked perfect.  I guess I’m OK, but it still starts missing on one cylinder if it is left idling for a while.  That Dawes Devices A/F gauge has rather dim green LEDs, so it’s hard to see them in the day and I don’t know if I am rich or so lean that I’m off the scale.  I might just install my old Cyberdyne so I can see what is going on.

Since it is an early-style T1 intake, I had to use a universal adjustable fuel pressure regulator from FWD Performance.  I managed to install it in the same location as the stock unit by grinding-out part of the bracket to clear the return line fittings.  I also had to bend the short pipe for the return line on the fuel rail slightly to clear the unit.  The regulator has 3 fittings: two -4 AN fittings on the bottom (outlet in the center and inlet to the side) and a 1/8″ NPT pipe fitting on the side for a pressure gauge.  I was lazy and just used two brass 1/4″ flare fittings for the inlet and outlet.  I placed an o-ring at the base of the flare fitting threads, which sealed the fitting to the regulator housing.  I also used Teflon tape on the threads so the threads were not so loose.  I then wedged a piece of aluminum between the two fittings so they would not turn when I installed the rest of the brass pipe fittings.  I enlarged the hole in the stock bracket slightly and used the 1/4″ NPT street elbow to mount the regulator to the bracket (between the elbow and flare fitting).  A 1/4″ NPT to 3/8″ hose adapter was mounted to the elbow (inlet) and a 1/4″ NPT to 1/4″ hose adapter to the center flare fitting (outlet).  In order to the fuel gauge fitting to face upwards, the elbow is rotated such that it is pointing somewhat towards the valve cover, similar to the stock regulator.  It’s a little tight between the two hose fittings, but it works and looks decent.

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The CSX: January 20, 2003

by on Jan.20, 2003, under CSX

I haven’t driven this car at all lately.  I don’t like to drive it in the winter anyway, but real reason is that the starter solenoid was dying.  I knew it would go, since I got the car with no heat shield and the solenoid was all melted.  Well, this weekend I swapped the starter from my old Shadow in and found that my retrofit heat shield was now gone as well.  That would explain that burning plastic smell I was noticing this summer.  Luckily I had bought 2 new heat shields this fall (dealer parts), so I put one of those in along with the starter.

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The Daytona: January 16, 2003

by on Jan.16, 2003, under Daytona

Haven’t done much due to time constraints.  The gas mileage is really poor, maybe due to the stock FPR being unable to dump off the extra fuel from the Walbro 192 fuel pump.  Time to put the adjustable unit in, I guess.  I also bought new GM “WeatherPack” connectors for the coolant and air charge temp sensors.  They both have broken tabs and the coolant sensor code keeps getting set.  I will also be stripping the interior from a fellow club member’s ’86 Laser with the same interior color.  The Daytona’s interior has many broken parts, so hopefully I’ll be able to get one good interior from the two.

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The Shadow: January 5, 2003

by on Jan.05, 2003, under Shadow

Goodbye.  Jason came and picked up the old girl today.  I stripped everything off that I thought I could use for the CSX or maybe sell at some point.  The power train came out fairly easily through the bottom.  I will probably put it in the CSX before that motor seizes, while I build up a good one for it.  Well anyway, it’s all over now….

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