metaruss

Made it!  The car is home.  There really weren’t any problems making it back (that shake it has at low speed is still scary), though having to stop for gas 3 times was annoying.  The fuel tank leaks if it’s above 3/4 full and the fuel pump is at risk of dying if the tank is less than 1/4 full.  That leaves about 7 gallons of fuel to work with.  Add to that the crumby mileage you get when you combine a 3-speed automatic transmission with a short drive ratio and a set of small 205/50R15 tires, and you find yourself stopping for gas quite often.  The Dawes Devices A/F ratio meter also started working and I noticed the engine would stay rich for long periods of time while I was cruising (not in boost).  That probably didn’t help either.

As I got closer to home, I started playing with the car a little more.  I’ve owned a 2.2L Turbo I with an automatic before, but this one makes surprising power.  Granted, the boost is bled to about 10psi, but that’s only 3psi over stock.  I have some crazy plans to start playing with this early T1 setup, so we’ll see how much power I can make before I blow up the trans. 🙂

After I decided to retire my faithful old Dodge Shadow ES, I started looking for a replacement daily driver.  A little tired of P-bodies, I considered getting a Daytona.  Lot’s of people drive Daytonas, so I wanted something a little different.  I’m sort of partial to the hard lines of the earlier body styles, so I thought a pre-1987 Daytona would be an interesting choice.  However, I kept my options open, as a solid body with good paint was my highest priority.  While browsing the archives of various mailing lists, I came across this car for sale in Ohio for $800.  The car had fairly recent paint and supposedly had a reasonably solid underbody (just needed a little floorpan work in the usual areas, I was told).

After talking to the seller for a while, I decided this would be a good buy.  It had quite a few little problems, but it had good paint and it was a 1986 C/S, which is relatively rare.  So I rented a car, drove down to Cincinnati and drove it back home.  The car made it without incident, though it was a little scary at times.

Background Information

I guess I like owning cars with interesting histories.  This one was found in a police impound by the previous owner.  His intent was to use it as a parts car for his early T-top Daytona.  As it turned out, the body on this Daytona was in much better shape than his other one (new paint, etc), so he decided to keep this one and sell the other.

While driving on a very bad road in Michigan, the previous owner hit a deep pothole that (as it turned out) bent the right-side control arm, the K-frame, and part of the underbody frame.  The car started throwing left axles and developed a strange front-end shake at speeds below 35 MPH.  His mechanic then discovered that the control arm was bent, so he had the entire K-frame replaced with a 1992 unit from a Shadow.  The 1991 and up K-frames are superior to previous versions, as they have improved geometry and cast iron control arms for better stability.  While this did stop the axle throwing problem, it did nothing for the front end shake.  His mechanic then tried replacing the left motor/trans mount, as the original was apparently bent up.  Unfortunately, it didn’t help and so he ended up selling it to me.

Prior to that, the car has had one other accident (according to CarFax).  It apparently hit a curb back in January of 1991, which explains the strange welds all over the lower front cross member.  There is also a piece of angle iron that is sort of sloppily welded to part of it.  The CarFax report also showed that titles were issued for the car a total of six times in Ohio, all between 1997 and 1999.  The mileage changed very little in that time.  This may have had something to do with the car being impounded, as it may have changed hands as it was shipped around.

With my Shadow now donating the rest of the parts I need, I have finally made some progress on the repairs.  Using my dad’s handy hydraulic kit, I was able to push the underbody most of the way back…still needs a few tweaks though.  I test fitted the Shadow’s bumper, just to make sure the frame wasn’t tweaked at all.  It fit perfectly.  Looks like the restoration will have a happy ending.

R.I.P.  I have decided to retire the old beast.  The right rear brake line rusted through last week (not too uncommon).  I spent several hours trying to patch it, but more and more of the lines crumbled away and all the fittings twisted off as I tried to remove them.  If the body on this car wasn’t in such horrible shape (five shades of peeling red paint on a crooked body), I would certainly just fix it.  This was simply the final straw for me…and excuse to get something worth fixing.  I will be pulling the powertrain and stripping the body for spare CSX parts.  After that I will part what’s left out and have it hauled away.  It’s sad, as I have been driving this car for the past 7 years, but there comes a time when you just have to give it up.  I learned a great deal about cars through the old-timer, and its memory will live on here.

After almost exactly 2 months of neglect (one of those spent waiting for parts), I finally got the trans rebuilt and installed.  The rebuilt went well, once I broke down a bought the right tools.  If you are going to work on one of these, buy yourself a pair of snap-ring pliers with flat, knurled ends and a decent, small gear puller.  You’ll be glad you did.  I bought both from Sears and they worked great.  The puller made quick work of the front (bell housing side) intermediate shaft bearing as well as the outer race in the extension housing and the pliers made quick work of those annoying snap rings.  The rest of the outer races came out with a hammer and punch.

The inner races are a bit more work, but aren’t bad as long as you are careful.  Since there is nothing to grab with a puller, I opted to grind through the inner races most of the way with a Dremel, then hit it with a cold chisel and small sledge to crack it.  The race will slide right off…just be careful of flying bits of metal and be sure to use those fiberglass-reinforced cutoff wheels.  Also, if you opt to get the chome-moly bearing retainer plate, you MUST measure and adjust the input shaft preloading because it does not have the relief for the outer race of the rear input shaft bearing.  The instructions in the service manual are fairly straight-forward.  I opted for zero end play, since most of the input shafts on the transmissions I’ve worked on get sloppy shortly after a rebuild.

The new trans works great and it’s nice having my old beater back.  Two months of paint peel has left the car looking as bad as ever, but it still goes like hell….

Thanks to our club’s prez, Jason Trotter, I now have a tail light and that flimsy trim piece.  Now I just need a bumper support and struts.  I’m thinking of getting brand new struts from Mopar, since all the ones I’ve seen in the yard (and on my cars) are rusted pretty bad.

BAM!  Some kid in his daddy’s SUV rear-ended me today.  A few seconds after stopping for a red light, he hit me thinking I had gone through (it had just changed).  Just what I needed…another project.  The damage isn’t too bad: collapsed bumper struts, bent bumper support, broken taillight, and the metal trim between the taillights and bumper is twisted up.  There is no other frame or body damage except for the underbody behind the right tail light.  That’s going to need a bit of pushing.

Kudos to Dave Tekampe for helping me install the new suspension components.  The work wasn’t too bad except for the control arm bushings.  Whatever stories you’ve heard about removing those suckers is true.  It’s a chore getting the rubber out of the metal sleeve.  All the metal pieces need to be saved because the kit from energy suspension does not contain anything useful except for the rubber itself.  The rest of the bushings are fairly straight forward.  After some trial and error, we found that pushing out the center sleeve with a large bolt, followed the rubber works best.  There’s no need to push the outer sleeve out of the control arm.  Of course, he had access to an arbor press….

Anyway, the CSX now has new Koni struts and shocks (including KYB strut mounts, etc), new Energy Suspension polyurethane control arm and sway bar bushings, and new lower ball joints.  The car handles wonderfully now, compared to before, even with the eye-balled alignment and shot tires.  Those are next on the list.

Another few months since the last update (better than almost 2 years).  Not much has changed with the car except that it has been my daily driver since the trans blew on the Shadow in early June.  On a positive note, I now have all the parts needed to restore the suspension.  On an even more positive note, we now own a home and I have a garage!  The mighty resurrection will surely follow soon….

Back in early June, the trans started making a horribly loud whining noise all of the time.  Prior to that I was hearing more noise than usual, but what I was hearing then definitely signaled the end of the bearings.  I’m guessing that my rather heavy foot combined with copious amounts of boost caused a bit too much wheel spin, which tore up the spiders on the diff.  Since we were without a garage and about to purchase a home, I limped the car the 40 miles or so to my parent’s driveway to wait out the upcoming craziness in our lives.  Now that we are getting settled in our new home, it is time to deal with this thing.

I have the original A520 that came with the CSX.  It seems to have survived the two garage floods that occurred while it was in storage at my friends’ place.  I took it apart and cleaned/reoiled it both times, so it should be in good shape.  It does, however need a new #2 syncro and could also use new bearings.  The spiders on the diff look excellent.  I have placed an order for new bearings, snap rings, spacers, shifter fork pads, #2 stop ring, and the chrome-moly bearing retainer plate.  I want to get the plate because I know the other A520 was flexing pretty bad when the Shadow hit its torque peak (let out quite a howl in 3rd gear).  I am ordering the parts through Gary Donovan at Relentless Performance.