Go home early to work some more on car. I take apart the donor FX dash, and take apart the ventilation system to find where the heck the remote for the stereo dissapeared to. Finally find it after taking everything apart! Sheesh. By the time I’m done, I decide not to try and swap the dash into the new FX as I prob won’t finish in a sane amount of time. I intead decide to swap in the short shifter since that’s simple and already out of the donor. Continue reading ‘Shifty’
Archive for the 'car' Category
Page 33 of 39
Sunday, finally decided to do something about my funky parking brake, esp since I signed up for the SCCA Test and Tune event this Saturday. I looked in the manual and took apart a spare caliper. To get to the parking brake mechanism, I needed some tools I didn’t have. So I decided to try and find a reman caliper. Looked online at Checkers, didn’t have it in stock. Called Napa, no deal. I swear finding parts for the FX is harder than finding parts for Scat’s ’51 Chevy. Finally tried Redline and they had it at the Kalihi store, so I booked it over and picked it up. Continue reading ‘That’s the Brakes’
So after the auction and getting home, I decide I should look at the Corollas after having pretty much ignoring them for a while. I realized the AE86 has had radiator flush in it all this time. I need to drain that, and take apart the idle valve anyway. It was doing the bouncy idle, and when I flexed the hoses going to the idle valve they were quite crunchy. I’m sure the valve is full of crud. 
The throttle body comes off without much drama. 
It is pretty crusty with gunk. Inside the intake manifold is pretty grimy too. Dang egr. Extra Gunky Recirculation is what that is! So I set about cleaning the throttle. I can’t do much with the intake. Debating to take it off and take it somewhere to have them hot tank it. That would be ideal.
And just as I suspected, the idle valve is crusted with rust. Taking the valve apart reveals that it seems the blockage is just at the hose end. The valve body itself look pretty clean. So just cleaning out the plugged end and changing out the hoses will hopefully solve the idle issue. Hopefully the rest of the cooling system is ok….
So woke up at 7AM on a Saturday to get to Ckucky’s by 8:30. Dang, it was like going to work! Anyway, Ckucky and I joined Scat in his rowdy sled to go down to the Hawaii Convention Center and check out the classic car auction that was being held. It was an interesting experience. Not exactly sure if worth the ten bucks, but then again you can barely see a movie at a theater for ten bucks anymore, and we spent over two hours there. 
Ckucky was interested to see how much this Camaro would fetch, he saw it listed earlier in Craigslist. Don’t worry, yours is going to be nicer, because it’s yours!
This Swedish Volvo command car thing was pretty trippy, much larger when you see it in person! Had some cobbed in parts and what looked like some Chevy V8 conversion. Too bad.
And then there was the “Yamazaki” T-Bird. Gotta love it! There was also some pedestrian vehicles that made you wonder what they were doing here, but someone wanted them. Like the Dodge Ram disco van. All it needed was a disco ball.
Scat was agonizing over this Oldsmobile 88. He had seen someone just buy it. Looks like they turned right around & sold it. It seems to have been sold the first day so we never found out for how much.
Ckucky was practically springing one for this Studebaker pickup. It was very nicely done. Very clean, quality. Nothing outrageous.
We only stuck around for the early part of bidding so didn’t really see how much a lot of these vehicles went for. Still it was intersting to see. And look at a couple of the wierd oddball vehicles that were there too.
So did they let all the wacky/crazy/stoopid people out from wherever it is they are suppoese to be locked away and give them all cars to drive for the day?
This morning, I had this “unlicensed Polynesian contractor” make a left turn into the oncoming traffic in the contra-flow lane on Nimitz from the right traffic lane right in front of me in the left lane! He did a good job testing the ABS on the new work van, and made everything in back that was on a pallet become not on a pallet anymore.
Thank you!
After returning to the warehouse to use the forklift to put everything back onto pallets, I left Kakaako and experienced something poetic. The syllable count is all wrong, and there is no reference to the season, but here is my haiku:
Four white vans at a four-way-stop
Three do not know what to do
Welcome to Cooke Street
You’d think after all these years working as a technician I’d heed the moto of never assume anything and always check the obvious first. I feel like such an idiot. So tonight I head home early and started taking apart the dash around the steering column. I curse at one stuck nut that is spinning around in the plastic connector so I can’t pull it out. I manage to work the test leads in anyway. The switches seem to check out ok. WTF? The relay checks ok, the fuses check ok, the switch checks ok. Leaves only the wiring between the switch & lights. The highs come on so I know that part of the wiring should be ok. Before I go crazy digging through all the wiring some more, I decide just to be sure I better check the bulbs. Damnit! The heck! Both bulbs (which BTW are tinted) are burnt out. Sheesh, I feel like such an idiot. I thought it was unlikely that both bulbs would burn out at the exact same time and assumed they were ok. You know what they say about assumptions…. On the bright side it’s a simple fix, now I have to go back out there and put everything back together.
So we had the somewhat annual ignore the Super Bowl gathering at Greg’s place. Well, Greg actually follows football so he kinda gives a hoot. Us, I didn’t know this particular game was happening until the email went out Friday. An excuse to get together, eat badly, and drink. Polish sausage, a 6 lb ham, chicken wings, some potato rolls, Doritos, oh look, throw some corn and some bell pepper & onions on the grill, those are veggies! And we only had one beer, split between the four of us even! 
So it was a slightly big can….
Anyway, the game was actually fairly entertaining. I found the halftime entertainment to be fairly weak. Some commercials were pretty good. I think Amp won pretty well for a memorable commercial that also came at the end of the game. Come on, jumper cable clamps on nipples. That’s pretty good. Continue reading ‘Stupour Bowl’
WTF!
I hit the brakes and the parking lights come on… Ofuk! All that rain the other day shorted something in the FJ80 and now I have some weird, undecipherable electrical problem! I get home and start messing with stuff. Pull the parking light fuse – still does it – OK, the circuit is getting power from somewhere in back. I open the rear access panels and check for moisture on the rear lamp cluster connectors, but those are OK. I disconnect the left cluster – problem persists. I disconnect the right cluster – problem goes away.
So I check out the AE86 where I thought the power steering hose coupling was leaking. It’s torqued to spec, so I over torque it a bit. I start the car and let it run. If it were leaking from the pressure hose, I’d expect to be able to see stuff leaking already, but I don’t see anything. Puzzled I crawl around and lie on the ground looking up. I then notice the bottom of the distributor has got oil and driping. Sheesh, shoulda known. The 4AGE is famous for leaky distributors. For the time being I swap over a spare FX dizzy. It’s not quite the same configuration, but it’ll work. I hope this takes care of most of the big leaks. I know the transmission leaks too.
I move over to the FX. I swap over the rear seat belts. I guess the rice thing to do is take those out too. Both this and the one previous FX did not have the rear belts. Guess have to compensate for the weight of that big fiberglass sub tub and rear deck? Rest of night is spent on some creature comfort time. I swap over the amp, speakers, sub and rewire it into the new FX. Nice coffee stain trail on carpet from center to under the passenger seat. I spray some cleaner on it. Oh well, can’t be seen. So now I’ve got some decent tunes cranking in the FX!
Ah yeah, took the FX to Lex Brodies and got it aligned. I intended this morning to only fix the ignition wiring enough to go, but I ended up removing the offending EGR bits. Excess hard lines are still there, but it’s so much cleaner without the maze of hoses. Man, it feels real good to finally have a good rolling car. The interior is still a mess with panels all over the place and the alarm dangling by its mass of wires, but it runs good. There is only one thing that is really really offending me now. The exhaust. Aside from it being loud as hell, it was not routed with enough clearance. So on bumps the suspension clanks on the exhaust bits. It’s not a matter of that the space is tight, it just wasn’t done right. Will have to have this taken care of pronto, I don’t think I can live with it for long. Other than that (oh wait, there’s the parking brake issue…) it’s all good!