Such a cool car! And gas tanks suck but looks like the CLR worked well!
Such a cool car! And gas tanks suck but looks like the CLR worked well!
Alright. Tank is all cleaned out and is nearly rust free.
We went full Fonzie and the exterior is wearing a new coat of semi-gloss black.
The tank is all installed and plumbed up, the vent tube being the only exception there.
The car is also proudly wearing a pair of these groovy "Staff Only" stickers.
Hopefully I can get the rest buttoned up and have the thing truly roadworthy this coming week, but I'm a bit busy with life right now. I'll be working through this weekend and am out of town next weekend, so don't expect any big updates for a while.
Tank looks great! Sticker works well too.
Alright, we are all back together. I had no idea how bad the fuel starvation issue was. The car is a completely different animal now. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the fuel level sender is fixed, or maybe I just have it hooked up incorrectly.
The driver's side camber plate is all buttoned up and installed just like the other side. No issue or drama there. I need to raise the front end up a fair amount now because we've got some wicked rake as it sits.
I also took the time to fix the shift linkage while I had it up the air. It was an easy, zero dollar fix so no complaints here.
No pictures tonight, I'll try to remember to grab some shots of the car tomorrow. I'm driving it to work again, so I'll probably have a short update anyways.
Pretty please update after your drive. I feel a little ashamed to admit just how much I look forward to updates on this build...
So now that you've got it running and driving well, what is the game plan? Paint soon or drive it for a bit? What is the interior like?
In reply to Mezzanine:
Haha, ok. I'll be sure to update tomorrow. But you have to get back to work on that exxie!
I'm not really sure what the next step is. I will drive it and peck away at the rust repair and body work for a while. I'm still waiting for the right fuel injected x19 to come up for sale so I can do the efi, 1.5l, and 5 speed thing, so watch for that.
The interior is pretty ok. The front seats are split at the seams and the dash is cracked. However, the rear seat is nice, the carpet is fair, and the door panels are mint. I'm on the lookout for a set of black vinyl buckets with a little more bolster that wouldn't look out of place up front. Kinda leaning towards e30 comfort seats at the moment as they are cheap and plentiful.
I really need to do some work to my Scirocco, too. Well, I need to do work to the Scirocco, the e46, and the beater subaru. Hopefully this thing will carry me to work for the next few weeks so I can get caught up on other stuff.
Made it in to work! Had to stop briefly for a fresh fuel filter, but I knew that was going to be the case. I forgot to replace it when I finished the tank.
Finally found some Castrol GTX 20/50 locally, so the trans will get fresh oil very soon. The second gear synchro isn't very happy at the moment.
http://portland.craigslist.org/clc/pts/5193936925.html
http://portland.craigslist.org/clk/pts/5160924869.html
Man, turboswede is such a pusher!
Thanks again for the motivation Burrito. I'm not too great at updating my own threads, but I see no reason why I can't demand daily updates from my favorites. 
Unrelated: I want to touch and feel your coilovers sometime soon. I can fabricate them, but I'd love to see them in action first. Besides, I'm not above inviting myself over so I can ogle.
Mezzanine wrote: Unrelated: I want to touch and feel your coilovers sometime soon. I can fabricate them, but I'd love to see them in action first. Besides, I'm not above inviting myself over so I can ogle.
Careful, oggling another man's coil-over could get you shot in some areas of the world.....
and yes I enjoy helping others so that I can live vicariously through their projects.
In reply to Mezzanine:
I'm always up for a visit from like-minded individuals. Maybe all of us Northwest GRMers can get together for an afternoon one weekend this fall.
You should wait until I get some softer springs on the front, though. I put 325-350# springs on it as place holders and they're a little on the stiff side. Actually, I should probably do the wagon rear spring before that. They might not be too far off with the heavier spring out back, but it's a bit odd at the moment with ALL the springrate up front and none of it out back.
On a similar note, a 128 made it's way into the Vancouver PnP yesterday. I'm going to swing by on my way home and see what it has to offer. Labor Day weekend is half-price, and I think I might just need a personal day on Friday...
Burrito wrote: I'm always up for a visit from like-minded individuals. Maybe all of us Northwest GRMers can get together for an afternoon one weekend this fall.
In.
Wow, what serendipitous timing! '79 is probably too early for fuel injection...
I'm definitely down for a NWGRM meet. Turboswede and HungaryBill are my only GRM IRL acquaintances, and they turned out to be pretty great!
Mezzanine wrote: Wow, what serendipitous timing! '79 is probably too early for fuel injection... I'm definitely down for a NWGRM meet. Turboswede and HungaryBill are my only GRM IRL acquaintances, and they turned out to be pretty great!
D'aw you're jus sayin that.... Seriously though, I'm in for a meetup (once I get some wheels under me again, sigh).
Well, the "128" in the junkyard was a bit of a disappointment.
So, there's not really much I can use off of it. It's a 79, so it's carbed. If had been an injected car I would have been there all day gathering as much as I could. Instead, I pulled the electronic ignition module, wiring, and distributor. $32 for the lot.
It's all installed in accordance with this diagram.
At this point it's running on the old plug wires with the x19 cap and rotor, but with fresh NGK BP6-something-something plugs for good measure.
Drivability is much improved. The butt dyno says it's making more power, too.
That's exactly the kind of cheap, brilliant modification that I would never think of. I would just be thinking that my choices would be that I'm stuck with what the car came with, or Pertronix.
Whats with the resistor? I'm about 95% sure my Yugo doesn't have one, with the later Bosch setup a ton of 80s euro cars used. Feeds the coil a full 12 volts. You could probably use a Yugo coil (or an external style GM HEI coil) without the resistor for an even hotter spark if the old module doesn't mind.
In reply to Kenny_McCormic:
Yeah... I'm not using the ballast resistor or the filter cap. I did a little Internet sleuthing and there's a few threads on Xweb about it. It sounds like the ignition module will fail every 50-75k regardless. It was disconnected on the car I pulled it from. I couldn't remember if the $13 China-brand coil I threw in it was an internally resistive unit. If I blow up the module, I will scab in a GM unit.
It appears that I may have understated the difference that the electronic ignition made. The bog that happened just off idle? Gone. The hard starting when hot? Gone. The little cough and sneeze it would make at part throttle cruising? Absolutely irradiated. Not to mention the smoother idle and cleaner runout through the entire rev range.
It's like a completely different animal. I'm even starting to trust it a little bit. We drove it around town a fair bit this morning and it hasn't missed a beat.
We had a little photo shoot this morning when out and about, so there's some real pictures of the car coming in the next day or two.
Most of those changes are due to it having a vacuum canister. You now have timing changes based on load instead of just rpm.
It's a wonderful thing isn't it.
Yeah these motors reallllllllly like a lot of vac advance off idle, as I learned by running manifold vacuum instead of port for a while. Goes from barely driveable to accidental burnouts.
This thread gives me bad ideas......
http://kalamazoo.craigslist.org/cto/5183365317.html
Looking good. This thing is going to look fantastic with a coat of paint.
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