No noticeable leaks around the pan yet this morning 
No noticeable leaks around the pan yet this morning
Niiiice
eastsideTim said:No noticeable leaks around the pan yet this morning
So when do we get out on 275 to do the nitrous test?
wae said:eastsideTim said:No noticeable leaks around the pan yet this morning
So when do we get out on 275 to do the nitrous test?
Probably the day before we leave for the challenge at this rate...
Started the day by getting things reassembled and refilling fluids. Also tried to align the fender better, but have not been successful yet. It almost seems like it is caught on something or there is still a bolt that is too snug.
Since the hardware had arrived, I decided to fix the rear brakes. First, I tried to re-form the spring clip for the brake drum, but being spring steel, I could not get it into a position that would keep the brake shoes from rattling. Decide to go ahead and replace it. I was able to fit a slim 8mm wrench back in the space to undo the screw holding the spring clip. About a turn or two in, this happened:
And here's the rest of it:
That is tucked behind the axle, so to get an extractor on it would require pulling the axle. There is a slim chance I could just unbolt the backing plate, and pull it forward, and there might be room, but I am not 100% certain how to hold it steady while running the drill at that point. If I pull the axle, I suspect I'll need a new axle seal, new diff seal, and quite possibly a new diff cover as mine looks so rusty I'm afraid it'll break if I touch it.
The other option at this point would be to just run without a parking brake on the passenger side, but I have really been trying not to "bubba" it all up.
Here's the old and new spring clip, too, not the best picture to demonstrate this, but the new one would definitely hold the brake shoe in place more securely:
Going to go back outside and look at it again to see if I can figure out any other options, but probably won't actually do anything more today, as I'm mad enough I know my judgement is not going to be good.
Two thoughts after a few minutes of staring at it:
Any other potential ideas?
eastsideTim said:Two thoughts after a few minutes of staring at it:
- The wheel studs line up fairly closely. If I could drive one out, I could potentially get and extractor bit run through. Measure the stud length and it was 1 7/8" and the total space behind the axle was 1 11/16". So, that probably won't work.
- The hole the screw is in goes all the way through the backing plate. Maybe I could get a hold of a cheap HF low clearance drill, and just drill out the hole, and run a nut and bolt to hold the spring clip in place. Also, wishing I'd realized the situation before, since I could have hit it with Kroil from both the front and the back, rather than having done neither.
Any other potential ideas?
Weld a nut onto it. Turn it out.
In reply to wvumtnbkr :
Might work, but the screw is a bit into the hole at this point, may not be able to weld without welding to the backing plate. It's only a 3/16" screw. I've also considered welding the spring clip to the backing plate, but thinking that's a bit permanent.
Zap a 3-16 machine screw turned stud onto it with the welder and use a nut?
I think I just do not have the skills to weld anything at all to the remnants of the stuck screw. It's small, partway in the hole, and in a tight space. Also, the backing plate is steel, so the likely result is me welding something to the backing plate.
I tried a couple of things this morning:
I've got a fairly intense week of work ahead, so I'm probably not going to get much time to try anything until next weekend. If I don't have any new ideas by then, I'll either put everything back together with no parking brake on the passenger side, or I will tack weld the spring clip in place, which I really don't want to do. In another "berkeley you" to me, I realized the car is close enough to the garage wall that even if I do remove the rear axle, I'll need to put everything back together, so I can reposition that car in order to actually be able to remove the axle.
Parking brakes are overrated with automatics. Up here they're all rusted worthless by 5 years old anyway. When I pulled apart the similar design parking brake on our rendezvous when it was 6 years old the pieces fell out with the rotor. Gutted them and moved on with life
Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:Parking brakes are overrated with automatics. Up here they're all rusted worthless by 5 years old anyway. When I pulled apart the similar design parking brake on our rendezvous when it was 6 years old the pieces fell out with the rotor. Gutted them and moved on with life
They are somewhat more useful down here in the "hilly" part of Ohio. Mostly to keep from wearing out the parking pawl. I probably will run without it, and just hope the driver's side is sufficient.
I'll just put in my two cents: Welding a spring clip in is is more hack than running without a parking brake for a budget-oriented event with the intention of fixing it correctly later.
On another note...is there somewhere opportune you could put a hole in the backing plate to let the stud come out?
ClemSparks said:I'll just put in my two cents: Welding a spring clip in is is more hack than running without a parking brake for a budget-oriented event under the auspices of fixing it correctly later.
On another note...is there somewhere opportune you could put a hole in the backing plate to let the stud come out?
Good point.
No other good places to drill into the backing plate without removing from the car, at which point I might as well just extract the stuck screw.
Maybe sometime this week, I'll get the car together enough to pull it out of the garage. The spiders have taken over, so it needs to be bug bumbed anyway.
Rear brakes are back together, sans passenger parking brake. New rotors installed on both sides.
I also hooked up the battery and the window switches. The window motor in the replacement door is dead, so I'll need to swap in the one from the original door. Was going to pull the motor/regulator and the auto door lock mechanism anyway before scrapping the old door, but now the motor will need to go directly into the new door. May be driving around without a door card for a little while.
Hope to get more done this weekend to the point where it can be pulled out of the garage.
Saturday, I tried to realign the front fender, but nothing I did worked. Seemed like it was just a bit off. At that point, I decided I need the car back out of the garage (the spider infestation is getting out of hand), and worked on reassembling everything that had been torn apart to replace the fender and door. Got a bit done.
Today, I continued reassembly, and ran into another issue. When reinstalling the headlight, the fender bolt hole did not line up, and no adjustment I made would make it fit. Looked at the other side of the car, and saw the problem. It appears, even though the body style is basically the same from 91-96., there are slight variations on the fender design. This kind of became my "berkeley this E36 M3" moment. I took two zip ties that had been holding the stereo amp power wire in place in the engine compartment, and used them to secure part of the headlight, and bolted in the other side of it that did line up. From here on out, I am much more worried about getting it running right instead of looking right. As long as it doesn't attract too much attention for being a rolling junkheap, I'll be fine with its appearance. The fender liner wasn't matching up very well either, but that may be due to my rough hammering it back in shape from its damage. After all this, I'm left with a bit of surplus hardware from the teardown:
Some are duplicates, some will still likely get used, but some is just stuff that won't line up, and I'm not going to work too hard to do so. I will still need to hammer the inner fender a bit more, to keep it from cutting the front tire on the autocross course.
After that, I installed new batteries in the remotes, and reprogrammed them. I have keyless entry now, but was annoyed the driver's door wasn't working. Then I realized I had not plugged it in yet. Which lead me to realize a few days ago, when experimenting with the window switches, I had hooked the switches up, but not power to the motor. Tried that, and had a good news/bad news situation:
Motor works. Regulator works. However, the guides for the regulator are broken. They're still in the channel, and I tried to pop everything back together, but they would not hold. I've ordered replacements. At least I won't have to pull the whole door apart and replace the regulator.
Back to the door lock. Once I figured the window situation, I plugged it in, and hooray, it works! I still should probably swap out the lock cylinder, but it is tempting to button everything back up once the window situation is resolved, and get some miles on this thing.
Tomorrow, the plan is to back it out of the garage, and bug bomb the hell out of the place. I want to drive it a little bit, to see if I have dealt with the leaks. Need to get a new tag for it soon, as the temp is expired. Cops around here seem to still be pretty lenient about that, but I do not want to push my luck.
I thought statewide theres a no pull over for expired tags this year thing? The charger expired in June, i sent the renewal in april and they still haven't processed it.
Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:I thought statewide theres a no pull over for expired tags this year thing? The charger expired in June, i sent the renewal in april and they still haven't processed it.
Just checked- looks like Dec 1st or 90 days after the state of emergency is cancelled, whichever happens first. Cool. Might wait until I renew tags for all the other cars in September.
Tried to bleed the power steering tonight, but after 7-8 cycles of 20 turns lock to lock, I still have some bubbles. Not sure if there is another leak in the system somewhere, but with the rust this car has, I really don't want to attempt to disconnect the lines at the gearbox. Still planning on moving it tomorrow.
Car is out and bug bombing in progress.
One of the accessories, presumably the power steering pump, is still making noise. I find myself wondering how long a GM PS pump will go while being noisy. It does still seem to work fine. Would rather not replace it, as it requires draining the cooling system, and removing some hoses that are not that far from the optispark. Not too mention the likelihood of breaking something else the more I work on the car.
In reply to eastsideTim :
The one in my truck has been noisy for 15k and counting
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :
That’s good to know. I may record a short clip so others can take a quick listen to see how bad it sounds to them, or if it sounds like something else.
What kind of noise? I've had groaning noises that went away with bleeding.
(uh. You know what I mean)
wae said:What kind of noise? I've had groaning noises that went away with bleeding.
(uh. You know what I mean)
Think it is more of a chirping noise, and probably not from the bird at your workshop. Will have to get a recording and put it on the tube of yous.
Was going to take the Impala for a spin tonight, get all the fluids up to temp, and see if there were any more leaks. The Beetle decided it was unhappy that I hadn't driven it in ages, and had a dead battery, which is problematic, as it is blocking the Impala in. It's on the float charger now, so the test drive is delayed for now.
However, here's a video with the noise I was mentioning, in glorious portrait format.
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