mbrickell

Being from PA originally, I know that when someone says " some rust " on a 15-20 year old Japanese car in that state, you have to watch out. I don't see cars with nearly the rust issues out here in Kansas City that I did in PA. Of course, that was a while ago too. I'd be slightly cautious of an old PA Soob with some rust. But, for $500, you really don't have much to lose. Depends on how long you want to keep in on the road. Inspectable today could mean non in a year or two if it is bad enough now. I'd want to get up under the car and look at the critical stuff like suspension mounts and stuff like that. I've seen some scary structural rust on Subarus in my PA days...

Sounds cool. Pics needed. I remember when I had my Justy with a Yakima rack and bikes on it, the engine was so small that if I had a bunch of stuff on the roof it would significantly lessen my performance. At the time, I lived in central Kansas, and it was pretty windy a lot of the time. Fortunately for the 3-cyl, it was relatively flat. I do remember being on the highway driving into the wind with stuff on the roof and barely making headway! Cool workup sounds like you have.

If I was selling this kind of car on eBay, I'd probably start with no reserve and a ridiculous buy it now too, like this guy, as a joke. You never know, some idiot might do it. Can't hurt to ask. You won't get the money if you don't ask. That being said, for $6k, there better be dancing girls, a time travel device, the cure for cancer, and a box with the key to world peace in it that comes along with the car...

Eh, don't remember now, but was not cheap. Probably cost me $50-60 or so, again don't remember though, it was a year ago or so that I did it. In this case, it was a pretty decent car, it was my wife's, and I didn't want her to have any issues, so I did it right and spent more $$ than I would have on a POS that I was driving. I got Trans-X at the typical chain auto parts place I got the M1 ATF. It is in a metal can, blue and silver if I recall. Check the link I added to my above post for more good ATF info from the Volvo site I used to frequent. Good luck. Keep in mind that really, on an old car with lots of miles, the benefit from going to synth ATF will be small. The advantage of synth is that it does not break down with heat as quickly as regular ATF, it does not degrade as fast. When fresh, it will not produce some miracle on your car that suddenly it will shift smoother, run better, etc. I went synthetic because the Volvos were notorious for trans issues, and I was paranoid. In your case, you may just as well be served by doing a good flush with standard ATF and some trans-x. Synthetic might be a waste of $$ unless you have a good trans now and want to keep it that way for 75k more miles. Don't know how good your current slushbox is, or how many years you want to be driving the car down the road...

Don't know about the Lucas. In my experience, there is really no need for any additive other than good synth ATF. The only thing I have heard will actually work and buy you some time if your autobox is dying is Trans-X. I completely flushed my wife's Volvo's tranny out with like 15 quarts of mobil 1 synth, got ALL the old crap out, fluid was completely fresh, put a little trans-z in there with mostly M1 ATF, car drove like new and never a trans issue ( 850 turbos from mid 90's known for crappy autobox, no factory fluid change interval ). If I were you, some Trans-x, rest of it M1, you are rockin. I had a VW 412 ( no one on this board knows or cares, very obscure old VW, anyway... ) with a weak auto tranny, ran a bottle of transx in there, and it made a noticeable improvement. I had a Peugeot 504 diesel wagon, tranny was bad, nothing would help it, fluid came out like red-brown milk. Had to do a swap on that one. But, trans-x worth a try. The key is to get all the old crap out. There is risk involved with an old worn trans. If your fluid is full of debris now, that may be the only thing providing enough friction to drive the car. Putting in new more "slippery" fluid could actually make things go downhill if your trans is on the last leg and the debris in the fluid ( worn clutch particles ) was the only thing providing the last shred of friction to get things moving. So, it is known that if you are already so far along that trans death is inevitable, that a total flush could make things worse. FYI. If you are going to flush it and take the risk, ( small risk ), at least when I did it on the Volvo, I would fill the fluid, disconnected the ATF line at the cooler and ran a big clear tube to a container where I could watch the tube as I sat in and idled the engine. The second you see air in the tube, kill the engine. Refill, run for a few seconds, solid fluid flow, then air, then you kill it again. You go through this process 4 or 5 times until the fluid coming out is completely clean and fresh. This way, you know you have pumped ALL the crap out, and all the stuff in there is new. You are never running the pump long enough to hurt anything since you are shutting down the instant you see air in the clear hose. Have a big drain container, as you will go through a decent amount of fluid ( took me 12-13 quarts if I recall ) until you get total clear coming out. Again, this on a Volvo trans, ( aisin ), don't know the capacity of Soob trans... Here is some good info from a Volvo site I used to use regarding ATF, flushing, etc, that may be of use to you: http://au.geocities.com/ozbrick850/atfflushindex.html FWIW

me like. i think you can get the good hella euro spec 7" round lights too, i had them on my raider i used to have, much better lighting. i think auto barn carries them on the web if i remember right... personally, probably not room to mount it, but would be cool if you could do a third equally sized round light in the center. three equally sized big round lights in the front would wierd people out. yeah, here are the good hella lights that are a great upgrade to round light cars: http://www.autobarn.net/hel70479.html

would seem to make sense. hyper-advanced timing would mean octane more critical i would think. thinking more about it, considering that a car from the late 80's or early to mid 1990s probably has about 1000 times less computing power than a new car today, the sensitivity of an old turbo car to fuel octane is probably orders of magnitude greater than a new car. around here, you can get midgrade at 89 or 90, i would at least run that. the 96 volvo 850 turbo wagon my wife had said 90 or better now that i think about it...

Just remember, an old saying: There is fast, good, and cheap. Pick two. For some reason just thought of hearing that a long time ago.

Well, in theory, since higher octane means the fuel does not burn as easily, if you had no or a poor intercooler, and the temperature of the intake charge was high, I would say that higher octane gas would be of benefit. The more risk of detonation, the greater the need for higher octane. My other initial impression is that modern cars from the last few years with very sophisticated engine management may be able to compensate much better for lower octane fuel than older more primitive systems. I would imagine that the older your car, the more benefit being conservative and running higher octane fuel would be. On a "primitive" turbo car, I would err on the side of running higher grade fuel. Less of an electronic safety net should you need it. On a recent car, you won't notice things going haywire due to low grade fuel as the electronics will compensate and back off timing advance, boost, or other factors to save expensive parts from damage. The driver would not notice or would only notice a little performance loss. This would explain why someone with a relatively new high performance car may have run lesser fuel and not noticed any difference, although much may be actually occurring to adjust. For a non-turbo car, I would say that 90% of the time at least, premium is a waste of your money unless you are running high compression or have some cylinder head temp issues of some sort...

MOBIL 1 synthetic atf. I can get it locally at the typical Advance Auto slash AutoZone kind of places, so should be available at the big chain auto parts outlets near you.

1990 Loyale SPFI 2wd 5 speed about 29.5 highway last I checked...

Great choice, like the color. My only small beef with this series is that the tires on every one I've seen look a size or two too small for the rim, like a forklift tire. Minor carp. Thumbs up.

Brrrroooowwwwnnnnn.

In my experience, you will detect the small cracks in the boot and general deterioration of the rubber long before the boot splits to the point where enough grease is expelled to smell it. By the time you have that much grease coming out, it has generally been cracked for some time. You will notice splits beginning and getting worse for quite some time prior to actual structural failure of the boot. I've seen quite a few older cars where the boot has not actually failed yet, and grease is not actually being lost, but the rubber appears quite ages and there are numerous small splits appearing, with failure imminent.

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