'84 AMC Eagle - Bringing new meaning to "All Makes Combined"

In reply to KonaBoss :

The only real pricey thing with the suspension/steering is lower ball joints. It'll be around 300 ish for a set. I check and lube mine pretty frequently to hopefully keep them alive as long as I can 

In reply to Shawnt :

Thanks for all the info! Is yours lifted at all? I'd like to rallyx mine as well

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :

Will do. They all look like they are in relatively good shape, no torn boots etc. I'll give them the ol' plier test next week once I get the pitman arm installed.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Let me know if you wind up finding anything. Definitely open to all strange AMC parts that might be of use.

In reply to KonaBoss :

Yes, mine has the javelin springs in the front and 2inch blocks in the rear. 

Wow!  I'm definitely showing this thread to the AMC owner at the rallycross this weekend if the weather holds.  He has brothers in AMCness!

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

Awesome! Let me know what he thinks/if he wants to get in touch.

In reply to Shawnt :

Gotcha, very similar to the setup on this one

Ladies and gents, we are back. 

Finally won my fight with the pitman arm replacement. Wound up having to undo one end of the steering damper, and loosen the bolts to the steering box. That was definitely the cause of most of the sketchy steering, other than needing an alignment the steering has definitely improved drastically! No pics of the replacement, was too busy fighting it...

Next up I took some pics of how the V8 conversion was done while still maintaining 4wd. Best I can tell it looks like some custom engine mounts were used, and the differential was moved down. Looks like the subframe still bolts up in the factory locations, and I didnt see any spacers between the subframe and the unibody.

Engine mounts:

Front axle mounting:

Also, looks like I'm in for another CV shaft replacement... Might try and find a boot kit for that one.

Also discovered that the transmission kickdown linkage is not hooked up to the carb... That Lokar cable should be hooked up to something!

Today I picked up a Holley 20-40 trans kickdown stud kit at the local O'reillys and should have the kickdown cable hooked up here shortly. I also ordered in some front swaybar bushings as well. Next up on the list:

1. Fix boot on passengers side front CV shaft

2. Figure out how to make the HVAC do something other than blow hot air out of the floor vents

3. Get the coolant temp gauge working

4. Check timing and carburetor tuning

Some updates from this weekend:

Friday night I spent some more time staring at how the differential was mounted. The way that came about was quite the story... I drove the car into work Friday for the first time, it was kind of the maiden voyage for it. I noticed that ever since I bought the car that I got a nasty drive line clunk when I went from park to drive or drive to reverse or vice versa. Felt like a super sloppy u joint on the driveshaft, but worse. On my way home from work Friday I started getting some constant driveline vibration, and it was getting worse. I stopped by a buddies house to show him the car, and he heard the clunk as well. While I sat in the car and went from park to reverse, he watched the underside of the car, and lo and behold the entire front differential was rocking like 2 inches up and down! I nursed the car home after that, and dug into it. What I found was pretty sketchy. 3 of the 4 front differential mount bolts were loose. I tightened those down and took it for a spin, things improved dramatically. While I was under there I also found a few other things:
1. Installed some Moog 7/8" sway bar bushings. Definitely too small, but they fit halfway decent. We will see how long they last.
2. Right front wheel bearing is bad. Looks like these are a real pain to do, have to pull the whole spindle off, press off the old bearings, and press the new ones in. Not the end of the world, but I sure do wish they still made pre-assembled spindles with new bearings already installed..
3. Found the exhaust leak, it's on the passengers side header collector where it connects to the downpipe. Going to probably have to have an exhaust shop help out with that one. 
4. Unfortunately found some rust. The front upper control arm mount on the drivers side (mount farthest to the rear on that UCA) on the shock tower is pretty bad. Not much metal left. Looks like I'm going to be breaking out the welder and trying my hand at some sheet metal repair/bracing.

So, that was Friday. Today (Sunday) I threw the car on a uhaul trailer and headed over to a friends place to give the car a bit of a tune up. This is my first vehicle with a carburetor, so I had much to learn. We wound up fixing the following:

1. Timing was ~15 degrees retarded at idle.. It was literally off the scale. We dialed it in to 8 degrees retarded, the car really liked that

2. Good news is the car makes excellent vacuum, so no real vacuum leaks to track down

3. One of the PO's installed a new distributor, thankfully it is HEI. Looks to be a GM style distributor. We opened up the cap, the rotor and points all look very good. We also checked firing order, that looked correct as well. It has both mechanical and vacuum advance. We checked the vacuum advance with a vaccum pump and it works great.

4. The carburetor is a 4 barrel Holley street avenger 600. It has an electric choke and a linkage for a Ford kick down cable. The choke was stuck partially on, we were able to rotate the cap around to block out the choke for the time being, since its not hooked up. The car also really liked this change. I also went back and adjusted the kick down cable properly. Shifts are much more natural now, feels like it should. 

5. Once we were finished, the car went from an idle of like 1100 RPM (Before) to 650 RPM (After). Much more reasonable. The car is also much smoother at idle, and starts better. Overall a very successful day, and I learned a ton. 

The next things at the top of my list to fix (in order of greatest annoyance lol):

A. Fix the driveline clunk that still exists. This may lead to a deep rabbit hole that involves re-designing the differential mounts.. 

B. Rust repair on the drivers side front upper control arm mount, with additional bracing that comes up from the frame. Replace the upper control arm bushings while I'm in there on both sides.

C. New passengers front wheel bearing and CV shaft

D. Make the dang climate stop blowing hot air all the time, even when it doesn't have any power hooked up to it.. 

There is more on the to-do list, but those are the big important items. Sounds like most of the front end is coming apart here shortly... 

AMC guy was not at last rallycross.  Next one is in a week.  I will show him this thread if he is there.

Alright, update is overdue. 

I have been busy tearing the entire front end of the car apart lol. I removed the brakes, spindles, and CV shafts the other day going after the wheel bearing on the passengers side. Wheel bearing was definitely in a bad way. I ordered up all the parts to build up a new one, since they don't make them pre-assembled anymore.. Yay...

Here are some pics of the tear down. Tonight I finished the removal of the upper control arm, spring, and shock on the drivers side to discover the full extent of the rust.

Captain, there is holes in my ship!

So, a relatively unfortunate find. But, I will fix it. It is a common spot that these cars rust, due to being right below the brake fluid reservoir/master cylinder. My theory is that the brake fluid corrodes the paint and primer over time in that area, and the above happens. Thankfully the passengers side does not suffer the same fate, it is really clean. So, I'm going to go and pick up some sheet metal and box out that section to reconnect the supporting areas. There is a lot of good metal around the area, so I don't think it will be too big of a task. Timeconsuming, but not rocket science. 

Other notes from the tear down, I found a couple of items. The drivers side shock mounts were really loose (seems to be the theme on this car...), the upper control arm bushings are completely shot (kind of knew that one already), and the front shocks are also pretty sad. So, by the time I'm done I'm hoping this thing will be de-sketchified, at least in the front end lol. I have a big personal trip coming up (taking the camper out to glacier and then Yellowstone), and then another 2 week work trip that departs as soon as we get back home. So, updates will likely be slim over the next month or so.

Alright, minor update time.

I was home for all of 2 days between my personal trip and the work trip I'm currently on. I was able to get the front wheel bearing parts dropped off at a local shop for a rebuild in that time, so those will be awaiting me upon my return. In those 2 days I was also able to buy another V8 wagon of a different variety lol (I amaze myself sometimes..). So with that in mind, unfortunately my stable only has room for 1 V8 wagon. Once I get home I'll be fixing the front strut tower rust and putting the new wheel bearing in, then reassembling the front suspension. Once that is complete I'll be listing the AMC for sale. So, if anyone is interested, please feel free to let me know. I'm going to wait until it is re-assembled before listing it in the classifieds section.

Front wheel bearings have been re-assembled and picked up. Last night I worked on patching that rust spot in the strut tower, and it came out pretty good. The welds were a little messy since my little 120 flux core welder isnt the greatest, but there is definitely more structure there now than there was before. Once that was completed, I moved on to re-assembling the front suspension. Got about 80% through the drivers side re-assembly. Plan is to finish re-assembly and paint the front and rear tube bumpers, then it will be going up for sale! Keep you eyes out for the ad.

AMC is back on the road! Here are some pics of the new wheel bearing assembly:

Cleaned up the old hub:

In goes the new wheel bearing:

And finally the assembled product:

No more in/out slop, which is really nice. Next project was to paint the raw steel tube bumpers. The guy that owned it 2 owners back built these, and they are really nicely done! They needed to be preserved.

As they came off the car, definitely in need of some protection!:

Prepped and ready for paint:

Rust-oleum rusty metal primer (I really like this stuff):

And finally 2 coats of rust-oleum satin black enamel (pic was after the first coat, they evened out a bunch with the 2nd coat):

Tomorrow they go back on the car, and I'll go get some good pictures of it. Then it goes up for sale, keep your eyes peeled over the next couple of days. $3500 gets you this fine piece of automotive machinery!

Not shiny!  I like it.  Had another rallycross last weekend; no AMC again :(.

Good car stuff KonaBoss with the Eagle wgn project. I have one but I would not go V8, especially with the front diff rigidly bolted to the I6 block. I'm not always a gluton for punishment.

I've owned an '85 for many moons as a slow-motion project. It is a nice example because it is a Colorado car. It was purchased from a Longmont dealership new at the time when I lived in Boulder for a few years.  I probably saw it drive down the road in Longmont when I was out there at the farm/barn working on antique airplanes. 

So?  Eagles had axle ratios that were anemic except for the 4 cyl cars. Oh, and the 6 cyl cars that were sold in mountain states. Once the emissions controls of the era clamped down and while trying to get the best mpg's as all vehicles were; they had to lower the gearing to use that car in the mountains.

I have all of my parts set out aside what is presently a completely stock unmolested and unabused  car. I will put it together as a sensible sleeper but it is not going rally-crossing. Skiing, yes. Off-roading, no.   Jeep 4.0L block +0.020, 258 c.i. crankshaft from stock Eagle motor, 4.0L HO head, KB stoker-use pistons, tuned exhaust, have matched rv cam & dual port na carb, and have crank-fire Jeep efi set up with paired camshaft for efi. Spare parts to go either way. Upgraded Torqueflite to '98 Jeep Grand Cherokee a/t with lock-up tc (iirc) and an upgraded  tf case vs original.  

I am not out to break something. If I do it is me who has to fix it.

I have wondered about taking a tape measure to a few things though, like if the Eagle inline six with the diff/block arrangement and the upper control arm springs could transplant into a 60-70's era Ford car with upper control arm-springed configurations (there were a lot of them. compacts, mid-size, etc). my '73 maverick might be too cramped to line up but there were gran torinos, cougar, monteros, etc.  Some other brands of cars too. Were early gen Nova's like that maybe until '67? I'm pretty sure because I've owned a couple. One in MI with a iron duke and flintstone floor and one in CO with an I6. I had a 327/350 hp engine from one that I swapped into my '55 chevy. The early V8 Chevy II's had front sump oil pans due to the suspension config.

What's the point? TBD.

Oh yes, I was wondering if the prev owner who fabricated the front/rear bumpers and side guards is known to you or if they made a few copies. I'd like some in aluminum.

forgot to mention that I live at sea level now but adds to the fun factor of the gearing on the little bumps out here int the pnw they call mountains.