Be Cautious of the Car-ma Passed to You

Darn, I had hoped to have the cars legal this weekend and even join in a bike ride. It’s not like I don’t enjoy working on cars, but working on these two cars for the past days kind of wore me down so I didn’t do anything with them tonight.

Anyway, going back to the weekend, after the Saturday fun, I went out to take a closer look at the power steering of the AE86. Cleaned off spooge and ran the car for a bit. Strange, the new hose connections look fine. Don’t see any leakage at all, I figure if the high pressure line is leaking should be seeing some good spray. So crawl around some more and wipe stuff up.  This steering rack is pretty messed up and I see fluid coming from other spots on the rack. And the thing you see in the upper left of the pic is the exhaust downpipe. Yes, right next to the p/s fluid lines. Yes, it was spoogy and oily right there. So the rack looks like it’s the culprit. I’ll see about getting a replacement, easier than attempting a rebuild on something that its condition is suspect anyway. It’s quite a mess.

Since the pressure was off for the AE86, started working on swapping the front springs and struts on the FX. It’s actually a very simple job. It’s six bolts per side and they slide out. The only problem is the brake line holder fitting doesn’t quite fit the puka on the strut housing, so I have to do a little custom filing on the fitting. Here we go, Soda A and Soda B. The TRD springs in red on left, the mystery new FX mega drop on right. They aren’t as wussy as the Intrax on previous FX, those were seriously wimpy. 

That’s as far as I went on Sunday.

Following a crystal clear night, monday opened to a beautiful sunny day. Dave called and told me there was a ride on, and I was jonesing to go. I figured I’ll call around to see if anyone had the rack, but seeing as I didn’t think it would be I’d prob go on the ride. As luck would turn out, NAPA actually had one in stock and they could bring it in from the warehouse this afternoon, just when the ride was on. Nuts. I’ll get the part. I send a bat signal out to Derek and he comes over later in the afternoon. I get to work on swapping the rear strut & spring assemblies. One set of bolts gives me a hrad time, but Derek arrives in time to help me wrestle with it. I’ve also made a discovery while taking off the rear wheels on the EmoFX, the right wheel spins freely. Even though the parking brake lever is on. Pressing regular brake pedal, it stops. Great, something else to fix. I pull the caliper and find the piston boot torn, and somethings not right with the adjuster.  For the time being, put things back together, get the struts swapped. And then we look at the spare tire well. Or rather the fiberglass tub. A subwoofer box was created where the spare tire normally would be. Thankfully Derek figures out that it can be pulled out. So we pull the enclosure out. Its pretty darn heavy, we guess 40 pounds. You know, they pull out the power steering pump, but leaving the p/s rack, which makes the thing a b!tch to steer, but add in all this weight. The well also looks beat on. Not quite sure what the heck happened here. My theory is that someone tried to jack up the car from underneath the well, then hammered it back out. Who knows. Anyway, we finish swapping the struts, here’s the Soda A Soda B for the rear struts. Not such an obvious difference in spring height here, but doing the super scientific put your weight on it and boingy testing them, my old TRDs are stiffer.

Oh, and another thing, bolts that you see me here torqueing to the specified 105 ft/lbs shouldn’t have loosened with ease when I undid the EmoFX struts. Sheesh, poor FX’s. No wonder it was crying out for help by bashing itself into a Coke machine.   So now hopefully it can pass safety looking more normal like this:

Done with the FX for now, the rest of the evening was spent preparing to drop the AE86 crossmember and steering rack. Got almost to the point of dropping it, but quit for the night to enjoy a beer and remark on the hard rain that had rolled in. Winter in Hawaii, hopefully it translates to snow in Whistler in time for Thanksgiving trip!