Thread: A new car!
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Unread 12-03-2011, 06:52 PM   #43
GlenL
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Default The First Project

I've finished the first round with the car. The goal was to address three obvious problems with the rear of the car: spent shocks, throttle-induced direction changes and a dragging brake.

The WYAIT list for this is good. What I did was:
- Install new shocks and heavier springs
- Swap in re-build calipers
- Replace brake hoses
- Rebuild parking brakes
- Re-pack and re-boot CV joints
- Loosen and exercise lower arm adjustments
- Freshen upper arm
- Replace rotors

Getting to the car I found the source of the handling problem right away. Someone had tried to replace the shocks, given up, and failed to put back a large washer on the pivot bolt. This allowed the cone washers to get free and the wheel could turn, maybe 5 degrees. Gas on? Go left. Brakes on? Go right. Scary.

They gave up because the pivot bolts (both sides) had corroded to the shocks. I tried to get them free but ended up using the Sawzall on them both. The new shocks, which came with the car, are good and I put those in with heavier springs. I'm not sure exactly what they are but they fit and have clearly bigger wire. I got them off eBay used years ago and think they may be first-generation Eibach replacements. There are matching fronts.

When I got the car one of the shocks wasn't attached at the top. You can see the angles ground onto the rod by driving it with the shock bouncing around inside the spring. At Ken's place we worked the rod back through the hat and got a nut on it. Somehow that held. The shocks themselves had no resistance left. The ride was really bouncy after a bump. The scary part was when the bumps got in sync with the bouncing. Whoa.

I was surprised to find the spring had eaten into the bolt for the inner-end of the upper arm. Curiously that was in backwards. The bolt should stick through the tranny cradle with a nut on the upper arm end. Nope. The nut on that side was on the back of the cradle. Wored for me, in the end, as I replaced the bolt. All I can guess is that the bolt was cut off at some point and a new one put on the easy way. You can't replace that bolt without dropping the cradle.

I had notice a torn boot in Washington and decided to replace them all. Ish. The CV job is really a mess. So much nasty grease. No real problems with that outside of getting the apart and back together. Had to hammer the inner race off the shaft using some cinder blocks and a 1/2" steel plate. Took me an hour to work through how to get them together. (Didn't seem that hard before.)

The small-looking boots that Lobro sells worked out just fine. Gotta use two hands to push the boot over the flange from the _inside_ of the flange. Typical project progress: first one a half hour, last one 2 minutes.

The parking brakes were a mess. The mechanism inside the car had the button frozen in. The adjusters were frozen, too. I got the button free and rebuilt the mechanisms. It all looked pretty rough and I'll probably regret not replacing the springs someday. Now it works, though. Really helpful in doing the half-shafts, too.

Frozen seems to be the word for the car. Neglected and abused and then sat. Careful work got the compression fittings for the brakes loose. Careful work plus some heat. Having twisted-off some of those I try very patiently to get them free.

I rebuilt some calipers I had on-hand. No problem there. Just hard to be sure the piston got past the seal without damaging it. I did front calipers at the same time and one of those seals was too small and I tore it. A new kit worked fine.

The pads on the dragging side were almost to the plates. I had hoped it would loosen up on the trip but it just kept clamping down as the pads wore down. Not sure what that means as far as a failure.

The nice part of the job was the number of parts I could find in the garage. I've been stocking up things for the 10 years I've had my first car. All the parts I needed were in the garage except for the brake seal kits and the CV joint kits. You might notice my garage looks a bit cluttered. That's not junk, it's "spares." Heck, that 931 right fender might come in handy some day!

Got it on the road today and it drove straight and true. Really pulls hard, too. Seems like a bit of air got into the front brakes and I'll get to that soon enough.
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