Thread: A new car!
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Unread 10-30-2011, 09:51 PM   #14
GlenL
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On Wednesday morning we made our way to Chehalis, WA. Ken was waiting for us.

The car was in the garage and was very dusty. He said it had been indoors for a while and clearly it had been. Looked in over for a bit and got to work.

Ken had gotten a new battery for the car and that went in. It was great of Ken to handle the thing before we arrived.I had recently looked for batteries and every place spec'd a battery that was the right height and width but was too short. This was the same item. I considered trading it for the correct battery but it'd get us going.

My son took on some interior issues. The right door panel and inside release were off. He got the release on but couldn't get the lock mechanism to fit. The panel was off to access the latch as it doesn't open from the outside. The window is also in-operative. Looks like some work there. The door panel had been on-off and laying around for a while and wouldn't cooperate. The handle mounting was also broken. We did what we could and it fairly hung there.

I had brought new hood shocks and those were needed. (Came in handy later on, too.) With the hood nicely open, I pulled the T-belt cover to take a look. The belt looked clean and fresh and tracked right in the middle. It was tensioned to the top of the slot on a Kempf too. I decided to not change the belt. Had brought the tools and spares for that operation but it'd take a half day or more with the chance for further problems.

We were talking about if the differential was LSD or plain so jacked the car. The showed a problem that would stay through the trip: the right-rear caliper was dragging. Time to dig in. I got the caliper off and the caliper seemed OK. The sliders were free and the piston moved back. Not sure what the issue is but it's getting a new caliper. I had suspected a dragging parking brake but it turned easily with the caliper off.

With the car in the air we could try to get the right-rear shock fixed. Ken included two rear shocks with the car but I chose to not attack that at the time. It was mentioned in the eBay ad but it was only clear to me when seeing it: the right-rear shock had broken off at the top. I was surprised that there was nothing in the cap" in the hatch area. There were some threads left on the rod so we worked that up through the mount and worked on a nut. That held for the trip back but the two rear shocks were completely shot. It'd bounce for a good while after hitting a bump.

With the door panel hung, the shock attached and the caliper "freed" (not!) it was time to start it up. Turning the key turned the engine over but it wouldn't start. Applying some starting fluid got it to fire so we looked at fuel supply. There was no sound from the pump so I spun all the fuses and re-plugged the relay. Then we got a hum from the rear and after a few cranks it fired.

The car ran fairly smoothly. It was really loud in a pleasant way. Trying out the controls it became apparent there were a lot of electrical issues. The tach, alternator, oil pressure and temperature gauges worked. After that the whole electrical system was out. No speedo. No gas gauge. No blower motor (although later on it'd come on with Defrost setting.) No radio. No interior lights. No cruise control. No dash lights. No turn signals. I'm suspicious of the aftermarket alarm. That's going to be completely removed.

With the car running and moveable, we packed up the tools and parts and headed out on the traveling part of our adventure. The first problem was about five miles down the road.
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Last edited by GlenL; 11-01-2011 at 09:36 AM.
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