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It seems like a better use of time to just keep everything going on with getting our new '73 LE back on the road. I'll update this as things get discovered or fixed.
Photos at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2109881&l=53c06&id=2413466
Short story: Car came into shop of a mechanic I know from out of state from AZ in 2001 with transmission troubles, they didn't want to front the bill and found a way home, left the car there. It supposedly fine when it came in. It had been sitting in his yard outside since then. The paint is extremely faded and the seats are pretty shot, but it's just about 99% rust free, a couple little surface spots, good glass, is basically complete, and was converted (a little shadily) to K-Jet. It's yellow with the green interior and a mis-matched pair of red front seats. Yay.
My brother and I picked it up for $150, the mechanic had no use for it, and it was just taking up space, second car I've gotten from him on basically those terms.
So far things wrong:
Trans:
Original trans was shot, makes horrible noises when you rotate inner drivers, or when cranking engine over trying to start this summer. Got the engine out yesterday and separated gearbox this evening, popped reverse cover and found the bottom of the case filled with what used to be one of the syncro rings, that explains that. The gear teeth look excellent though, very little wear, and the primary gears also look good, so we'll pack it away and maybe rebuild someday. Got a 4-speed out of a '78 Turbo at the junkyard (car had spun a rod bearing), goes into gear fine, turns fine in all gears, no weird noises, assuming it's good for now, so putting that in. The '73 tripods fit the '78 driver cups, front motor mount fits, pass side motor mount does not, but have an extra later style one somewhere. The '73 came with A/C, and the compressor support bracket bolts onto bosses on the trans that the '78 box doesn't have, so have to use a different one.
Water pump:
Had water leaking out the weep hole a pretty steady drip, so pulled 8-cog pump tonight, filled to the brim with rusty sludge. Gross. I ended up making a slide hammer to fit under the bold head from a piece of 3/4" angle iron and some scrap exhause pieces, I will put up pictures when I can, some of you guys will probably be amused. Whole thing from start to pump out took about 90 minutes having never done it before. Turns out the top water seal is pretty destroyed, but bearing and lower oil seal are OK, so need new top seal, let me know if you know anywhere I can get one, have a lead on one, going to call around tomorrow local places too.
Wheel bearing:
Pass front wheel bearing makes aweful racket, ordered one from Napa, going to be here tomorrow and will report what that looks like. Hopefully will be able to at least get the old hub assembly apart tomorrow and take to mechanics to get new bearings pressed in. This one had worried me, because I was under the impression the front wheel bearings were no longer available, but they can be found. Another member pointed out the obvious of course, that if you were motivated you could pull the bearings and measure the I.D., O.D., and thickness and probaly order something with a similar load capacity without too much work if necessary, some of the bearing houses like FAG and Timken will sometimes even sell things directly to you if you know what you need. Both companies plus SKF have excellent catalogues, and McMaster Carr is excellent about publishing technical specs in the online catalogue for most of the products they carry.
Brakes:
As arrived no pedal pressure, parking brake worked ok though. Found loose brake bleeder valve yesterday and tightened that up, but haven't put in new fluid to bleed yet. The master cyl reservoir is really loose on it's mounts, rubber seals probably really degraded, so those need attention. Plenty of material left on pads and rotors all around though, so just going to clean up the surfaces of the rotors with wire brush on an angle grinder for now and not worry about brake parts being hard to find for a while, I'll have time to stockpile used ones as the car progresses.
Fuel pump:
Early style external pump leaking out the housing, I'm hoping it's just the o-rings that seal the pump insert to the housing, so I should be able to get new universal seals for that, but could be something else. Doing that tomorrow morning too, will report back.
Electricals:
Mish-mash wiring job on the K-jet conversion, lots of wires all over the place, coil charge wire hung off interior light fuse, had aux stereo and air horns and relay blocks clogging up pass side of the engine compartment, going to address how to remove most of that or at least tidy up, might try to keep the air horns to make up for our small stature out on the roads though.... Whoever worked on the wiring pried off all the Bosch connectors rather that figuring out how to depress the spring clip, so the spring clups are broken off all the 2 pin connectors on the harness, going to have to find a way to retain those. Zip ties will likely be called into action.
Needs a good rub down with some rubbing compound and some touch up paint, some of the engine compartment needs paint where the battery leaked out and ate some of it, but all in all in great shape.
I picked up a set of cheap incas and going to get an old set of summer tires mounted and use for dry weather, car came with 165 wide M+S tires on steelies to use for winter in Chicago, if I make it that far....
Thanks again to anyone who has put up info for me already, I'm sure I will have lots more questions in the coming days. Hoping to have it running middle of next week.
Best,
Drew
posted by 98.149.230...
, Sat, 27 Dec 2008 08:03:00, Sat, 27 Dec 2008 13:05:16, Sat, 27 Dec 2008 13:33:20, Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:12:17
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