Ok, added a gallon of gas, full charge on battery, reconnected the cut AFM wire. Cranked it over and it ran better for a hair longer, long enough to hear the awful clanking noises from then engine. Sounds like the bottom end of this engine is toast. My thought are bearing(s) have gone. The top end is working enough to get compression and to run, but the bearings are toast and causing grindage on the crank where it doesn’t want to turn. I’m not sure why it dies when I try to give it throttle though. I suppose to confirm I should pop the spark plugs and try turning the crank by hand to feel it.
Archive for the 'car' Category
Page 5 of 39
After ignoring the Celica All-Trac in the garage for months, I finally spent the day messing with it. My earlier cursory looks at it determined that the engine would spin and show compression, albeit reluctantly with a weak battery. I did not see the engine check light come on though so I was suspecting an electrical problem with the ECU. So today I took the dash apart. There was a bit of a mess from the stereo install, alarm install, engine fan switch, and turbo timer. Wait, what’s these dangling connectors? It wasn’t plugged in. I removed the turbo timer thingy and plugged the connector into its OEM connector. I then started taking measurements at the ECU. It was receiving power, odd. The check light was not working though. No continuity from the ECU to the fuse. I pulled the instrument cluster. WTF, there’s no bulb?! Continue reading ‘It Lives?’
Un-lucked out being behind a first-gen Highlander whose CV joint boot exploded. Got smeary residue on the windscreen that won’t easily rinse off.
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Photo credit to Dan "kombi"
Last week Saturday as a end to a great four year run of rallycross, we had a party at The Groove, a kart track that recently opened up in Kakaako. Unlike the other track out in Kapolei, these are gas karts. You could argue that like krab, karts are not like real race cars, but I think you would be wrong. These things are great fun and when you get up to speed, it does feel pretty real! And since all the karts are so similar, you get to see how much a difference a good driver and technique makes. I tended to be tail happy and slide a lot of the turns and it showed in my times. My times were decent, but at least a full second slower than the top drivers, over a 20 second lap. Small mistakes in your line show up in your time.
Oh, and driving these things will give your arms and shoulders a workout. Non power, very quick steering means some muscle needed to hold these things in line. And if you’re skinny like me, get those butt gasket seat pad things. I didn’t know about them until my last run, without them I was swimming around in the seats no matter how tight you made the belts. Got bruises on the inside of my knees to show for that!
I saw a woman on the freeway in a 4Runner driving straight with her right hand in the 9-o-clock position on the steering wheel. No left turns for her: Only hard, yanking rights that will put the vehicle on it’s driver’s side.
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Got my roof vent and scoop kit last week so I set out to install. It’s not anything terribly complex, just cut a hole in roof, drill a bunch of holes, bolt it in. It did take a fair amount of the weekend as I took my time and also needed to run to the hardware store a couple times. It went together nicely.
So now the FX looks all extreme rally ready. Just needs light bar and gravel guard that I’ve been debating how to make. Oh yeah, it looks cool, but how does it work? Took it for a test ride just now and happy to report it works quite nicely. Good test as it started raining. At highway speed and the vent open in the forward direction it cranks in a lot of air. Only thing is with it centered most of that airflow is going right in the center, between the seats, where no one sits. With the rain, flipping the vent to rear opening allows ventilation but keeps out the rain, except when the car adjacent to you hits a big puddle and throws a big splash all over. This should be a nice addition since the FX has no A/C.
The bike rack for the FR-S is finally done. What I did was buy some 1 1/4″ stainless steel rod from a local metal supply shop and then drew up some plans and handed it over to Fabio. From there it went to the mystery machinist. After making a large pile of shiny sharp metal curlicues I got two beautifully machined clubs. The tips were made to match the OEM tow loop and I threaded them in. Shoulders machined at the other end match the clamping areas of the Yakima rack. Put it together and here it is. Used it a few times already and it sure is convenient!
Don’t want to complete that line for fear of it happening. While waiting on the drive side drive shaft that was sent back, I decided to take care of some small issues on the other side. It still had the OEM short wheel studs so I took the hub off and apart. Oh my, the steering arm joint was missing a cotter pin and was barely finger tight. The joint itself came apart with no tools. Yikes! Definitely a good thing I got in there! I pulled the CV shaft because the transaxle was leaking at that seal. Looks like this shaft is fine, but I discovered something else had rattled loose! The rear engine mount that I welded solid had rattled it’s mount off the transaxle, the bolts were no where to be found! Fortunately it seems the threads are still good so I pulled a set of bolts from one of the spares and cleaned and coated with thread locking compound. Hopefully this holds, I’m sure this was stressing the CV shafts too. Fortunately no more surprises, I changed the transaxle seal and got the whole passenger side drivetrain back together.
Received and installed this camber kit from K-Mac last week.
K-Mac specializes in camber kits and has a slew of them to fit a wide variety of applications. The more bling ones they have are the top mount plate types commonly seen on the front of aftermarket coilover kits. Theirs however is not just the slotted plate type but rather a sandwich plate which allows camber and caster adjustment. This would have been ideal for the FX rear given the custom modified nature of my struts, but it looks like there isn’t a kit for that. Instead I had to settle for the eccentric lower mount kit. What sets their kit apart from the other typical system you see is that it does not use an undersized bolt with eccentric cam lobe as seen here to the right. Their marketing proudly proclaims no undersized crank bolts! It isn’t entirely true, if you need 15 or 17mm bolt size you get a 14 or 16mm bolt with a sleeve, but we’ll let that slide.
Neglected to blog about changing a torn CV boot on the rally FX a couple weeks ago. At the time it seemed a minor thing. Turns out it wasn’t. It looks like it was torn because the joint was extending past where it should, and today in my seventh balls out run, the joint popped. After the event we pushed it to the pit area and I was hoping maybe to just pop it back together. No such luck, all the big balls in the joint were gone. Sigh, looks like another call to the tow truck! At least its an easy repair, if I can find the part! And again while it was working, the FX was posting awesome times. To add insult to injury, or rather injury to the insult, I jammed my right index finger into the steering wheel again. The knuckle is now inflamed and sore.