Shoots! Woke up this morning and while still lying in bed, I realized I could have unplugged the small section of harness that connects to the front marker lights and just swapped them instead if cutting the connector and resoldering. It would have then been pristine stock wiring. Bleah! I’m surprised I didn’t dream about working on the car.
Author Archive for taro
Page 83 of 88
What, the FX have cooties and it needs de-ricing? I suppose you could say that. As I left for work this morning, took a quick look and noticed the rear side markers are gone. They’ve been shaved and bondoed over. Cr*p, I hope they don’t notice when I safety. The tail lights have some side wraparound, but its not reflective. I come home early in hopes of getting enough done tonight that I can safety it tomorrow. So I start on the front turn signals.
So after last night’s frustration with the AE86 horn, I go to pick up the FX from Matson. Had to scramble around to get insurance since I didn’t know until late yesterday that the FX was already here. That goes very smoothly, kudos to my insurance agent, and I find awesome street parking downtown right behind the building! Having been through this before, found way to Matson, counter person processed my pickup, and after a bit of wait was taken out for the inspection. As expected, the guy told me they had to jump start it and it’s idling. Have to chuckle as it’s doing the exact same up/down bouncing idle the AE86 is doing. I know what that is so not concerned. Continue reading ‘Car-ma, You Give Up to Easy, Grasshopper’
WTF! Had to put off working on the car till it was late enough that I wouldn’t get bugged by things wanting candy. I figured all I had to do was replace the liscence lights and I’d be good for safety, so I got that done. The one thing I didn’t check was the horn. Aw F! It don’t work! I’m going to take the morning off tomorrow to go pick up the FX (yes, it came a week earlier than I expected!) and I figured it would be a good time to get the AE86 registered and safetied also. Curses, this one last thing is going to hold things up! Busted out the wiring diagrams and the multimeter again. Trace things to the horn switch. There doesn’t seem to be a ground connection. 
Damn it, I end up taking apart the steering wheel and bits. The hell? The steering shaft is isolated from ground? How the hell is this supposed to work? Ugh, it’s late, I’m tired, and you get no picture because this f’n computer card reader isn’t working either! At least the card reader works now….
Geeze I feel like such a doofus. Went home early to work on car since I got the title on Friday and want to get it safetied and registered ASAP. Fortunately the factory wiring diagrams have been scanned and available on net. So I printed up relevant pages and pored over it. I started testing voltages and eventually figured out the fuel cutoff relay & ECU wasn’t getting power, which both fed off same place. So next I started tracing continuity of wires. Started eliminating within the interior. Tested that power was getting to the ECU relay, so the problems was somewhere between the ECU relay in the engine bay & the cabin. I pored some more over the diagrams & looked for the designations for connectors as test points. Found one I didn’t recognize, and after hunting around in the engine bay, I finally found it hidden, and unplugged. I’d forgotten to plug it back together! Damn! But I was glad it was something simple. So I plugged it in, connected battery, and went to start it. Cranks, oh, I hear it catching! Uhh, it died. WTF? Try a couple more times, each time the same where it’ll sound like it’ll go for a couple revs, then stop. I look at the diagrams again. Hell, what can it be?! I go to test the voltages at the ECU again, and double doh! I forgot to plug the ECU back in from when I tested earlier! What a doofus! Plugged it in and everythings all good now. So just need to clean things up a bit and replace the liscence plate bulbs and should be good for safety check. Still needs a bunch of issues taken care, one of which is leaky brake master, but it’ll go now! What a relief!
So after taking off bits, I’ve finally put back new bits. Most of it goes pretty smoothly. The generic hydraulic hose I got for p/s return hose is too small, but the old one looks ok so I reuse it. About ready to run again! But before it get’s too late in the evening, I decide to bust out the random orbit polisher.
Well, NAPA actually found the correct hose! It’s not quite exact, but looks close enough at the important parts. 
Started the process of changing the hose. To do that, needed to remove radiator so I drained it. Dude, if you wondered what brand of shoyu was using in the brakes, you’ll wonder what brand latte was running in the radiator! Ok, there’s a tinge of green at the begining, but by the time it was almost all drained…. Continue reading ‘Car-ma Comes to the Persistent’
Uh oh, scarecity of parts for the over twenty year old Corolla is rearing its ugly head. Looking at where the spooge is, I’m pretty sure the power steering lines need replacing. Unfortunately the main pressure lines are discontinued at Toyota parts. Started calling around, Napa found listed, but when I picked up & took home the part, it’s not even close to what I needed. So I have two options, I might be able to take the old lines to a hydraulic shop and see if they can fabricate lines, or I can attempt to convert to manual steering.
At least the throttle cable I needed was in stock at Toyota.
You know, I don’t especially consider this car “old school” but at 20+ years this is inevitable. And it not being a big “classic” car, there isn’t a big inventory of reproduction parts.
Oh, and I took some 3M rubbing compound to the headlight and hood and it’s quite amazing!
Monday, weather was crystal clear, this night freeride was just Ckucky, Scat and me. Now by the time we got loaded up and headed up the hill, the light was getting low. Scat was connecting with his inner and outer child riding in the back seat watching a DVD on the screen in Ckucky’s van. By the time we got to the top and started unloading, the sun had set. Geared up, we set out for the park. Scat and I were rocking the newest light from NiteRider, the TriNewt three blazing LED element LiIon light. We’d been told that these are the brightest NiteRider lights and we were curious to see about that since Ckucky has the HID. Continue reading ‘Alien Abduction’
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So Saturday decided to take care of some little stuff & look at the hachi roku. First off to finish bleeding the brakes. Some more kroil & pounding with deadblow mallet got the crusted on wheel loose. Here’s what the before and after looks like on one brake.
