RelicGL

Somehow, the float level in the fuel bowl comes to mind. Make sure it's set properly and that shipping turmoil doesn't have the float stuck at the top. If that's the case, put everythiong else on the carb back to a base starting place, ie the mixture screw set back to 1 1/4 to 2 turns and go from there.

and now, for something completely different. that re-ring kit looks interesting. Rods, mains, gasket set and rings.

oooooh, that'll make the wagon just spiffy! :lol: Thanks! :banana:

I got a line on a set of 4 of these with tires. Question: Will they fit an '83 GL Wagon 4x4? Any clearance issues for brakes and whatever? Thanks. The wheels on my wagon are fuuuuugly! Black 8-spokes that must have been painted with a brush or something, years ago. I could deal with them but I'd rather just up-grade to these IF they fit. Oh, the PO described them as 14 inch but the site here lists them as 13" Any help on this matter would be much appreciated.

Robertson screwdriver, if it has a nice thick shaft and a squarely machined shoulder at the tip to load on the roll pin and thus prevent the wedging effect. You probably have one laying around.

Somehow my brain registered that as the springs in the pressure plate. In which case I would say as a result of not tightening the bolts correctly. With any pressure plate tighten each bolt only a small amount and follow the tourquing sequence. You can only go a few turns at a time on each bolt. Do this constantly and consistently until finally tight enough to pull out the tourque wrench for final tighten. None of the springs in the pressure plate want or should be any tighter than any other spring at any given time. This will ensure maximum longevity. Broken disc springs? LEADFOOT!

Neautralize the acid corrosives on all the nearby metal in the battery well quickly with lots of baking soda and water and rinse well after. No point in allowing a rust problem to come about because of the event there.

I've been slowly going through my 83 EA81 wagon and have done the wheel bearings and seals and am awaiting new axles [payday] so some more crap DOES have to be removed than if one were just changing axles. With 3 types of penetrating fluid and patience, I had great success sticking a second small floor jack and a piece of wood under the ball joint with the nut very loose but threaded on, then jacking it until a reasonable amount of pressure contacts the nut and then using a piece of wood and a 3lb sledge to smack the lower control arm down off the tapered part of the ball joint. It came apart beautifully that way without stressing any rubber roots on the ball joint. Tie rod popped fairly easy. Due to some rusty hell on the driver's side I removed the whole strut and knuckle as an assembly, [calipers wired off to side, hub and rotor off] instead of screwing with rusted pinch bolts for the ball joint to knuckle or the lower strut cartridge itself. I undid the two top outer nuts on the strut mount, left the center nut tight, [spring! DO NOT TOUCH!!!]] and just yanked out the whole unit, after smacking out the axle with a piece of wood. Axle popped out very pleasantly with only a few blows of the same 3lb sledge and a piece of 2x4. I had to make one crafty cut for the brake cable to come away from its strut mount, but it will assemble fine with the prong bent back into place and the clip replaced. It was easy popping out the old seals and wheel bearings and putting in the new ones even though it seemed an odd angle at times. Did it right on the pavement on a piece of cardboard right beside the car with, of course, plenty of rags and brakecleen. I had a new grease gun cartridge of chasis and wheel bearing grease I had been neglectful to load into the grease gun so I pillaged it for doing the wheel bearings. Run what ya brung and it's what I had! Saved a trip to the store. Now I just have to source the new GCK axles here locally and experience the utter joy of getting the new axles in through the knuckles and new bearings. I am hoping the NEW axles and NEW bearings make the pull-through a little more co-operative than possibly otherwise. New Raybestos semi-metallic PGD brake pads as well. I went with the cheap-rump roast rebuilt water pump and surprise, it had the correct original-style impeller, excellent! I've also been changing spark plugs, cap and rotor, [new wires already there, 7.5 mil] engine seals and the oil pan gasket. I used gasket adhesive to glue the cork to the cleaned oil pan and just left a nice clean surface where it mates to the block and got the bolts back in quick enough for a little wiggle room before the adhesive set further. The idea for that is so if I ever have to take the oil pan off again, for whatever reason, the gasket will stick to the pan and release cleanly from the engine block saving the gasket for re-use. Thwarting Murphy's Law by being prepared for a second pan removal means I WON'T have to ever remove it again! I hope! [also cleaned the pick-up screen with lots of brakecleen and a brush and a old towel to catch the drippings; also cleaned the inside bottom of the oil pan. Surprisingly not very cruddy. I expected all kinds of crap to lay in there] and doing the water pump as well as the rear brakes. Basically just going through it and making it safe and operate dependably for another 100,000 miles. One rear wheel cylinder was leaking, no big deal. Two new wheel cylinders and cleaned up the shoes, drums and backing plate with brakecleen and reassembled, final bleeding stilll to come. New gear lube concoctions for the trans and diff as well. I still haven't found a local retailer for GCK axles, but I must admit, I haven't looked that hard yet. Front axles have to wait for payday anyway but I will Phone and google around. Doesn't seem to be an Autozone in Vancouver, yet, but SOMEONE here locally, wet coast Canada, has to be able to source them. I bought the car for a hundred bucks and by the time it's done I'll have another $600 or $700 or so into it and I'll know exactly what I have as I drive down the road, or off-road. I got a little delayed due to a back-log of bills and other life expenditures but they are all paid finally and I'm getting close!!!

Best and cheapest way to reduce road noise and perfect for Bucky right now would be sheet form rockwool insulation, about an inch thick or less. You can get it with one side adhered to what looks like foil sheet. Great for built-in dishwashers as well. Cheap too, at least in comparison to automotive specialty crap.

I have a variety of hard rubber head mallets with wooden handles. One of them is pretty big. I start with the regular rubber hammer and if necessary pull out the bigger one when needed. Bought 'em used cheap at the local pawn shop. Apparently the previous owner of the hammer set installed stone floors or something like that.

Perfect timing for this '83 GL wagon new owner! Parts come in tomorrow and this photo-spread is EXACTLY what I needed for a procedure breakdown. Perfect time to slip in a new cv axle as well which is what I'm also doing. If it stops raining today I can rip it apart and bring the old cv axle in when I pick up the new one and avoid a core charge. The seal info is also perfect timing. I'll be sure to get the dust shield version. I just hope my hub splines have survived.... I've been working almost every day and finally have two days off to do this job. Soob mobile soon and this helps alot!!!

Crop circles on the hood...yep, it's a keeper!

Lucas Oil offers a few interesting additives to improve gear lubes. One was very good for the gears inside to carry up the most amount of oil to transfer to the gear above and better lubricate the uppermost shafts and gears while retaining other desirable properties. Sounds viable enough to improve the lubing.

The EA81 has a two-step initial valve adjusting procedure which shouldn't really vary from the EA82 much, at least as far as Hydrailic lifters are concerned. When initially setting valve clearance upon re-assembly put #1 cylinder at TDC and adjust both vaves for #1, and also the exhaust valve on #3 cylinder, and the intake valve for #4 cylinder. Rotate engine now so that #2 cylinder is on TDC, adjust both those valves as well as the intake valve on #3 and the exhaust valve on #4. Keep in mind that with hydraulic lifters there is a 15-minute bleed-down requirement that is done by having each valve positioned wide open and let the pressure of the valve spring take out the pressure in the lifter by the 15-minute wait under pressure. The zero-point is then determined by opening the adjuster screw until the valve closes and pressure is no longer present on the screw. Then, I think 1 and 1 half turns will set it. Not sure exactly about this but initial adjustment is with each valve seated and the lifter fully collapsed by the 15-minute bleed-down first. Check the FSM for your engine, it is outlined better there as a two sequence procedure with each step outlined more thoroughly.

Before you do anything drastic like change a transmission do one thing FIRST! If it's not shifting smoothly into reverse because of what feels like slop in the shifter and you just can't seem to find reverse without it grinding then try this: If, when the engine is not running, the trans seems to shift ok, but when the engine is running it's slop city and grindarama then do this: Check your clutch pedal free-play travel. If it's excessive, like lots of sloppy, dead travel before it seems to meet resistance [disengaging the pressure plate from the flywheel], then the clutch cable needs adjusting, and pronto. Lift hood, remove spare tire and right under there you'll see the Clutch Release Fork with one or two cables attached to it. The main cable goes from the Release Fork to the clutch pedal. The attachement at the pedal is fixed and non-adjustable [i think] but at the Release Fork there are two nuts that travel along almost a couple of inches of threading. The small nut is the locking nut and the larger nut is the adjusting nut. With open end wrenches on BOTH nuts, and a shot of penetrating fluid, crack loose the smaller locking nut and then start turning the bigger adjusting nut closer towards the firewall. The Factory Service Manual states that The Clutch Release Fork should have 2-3mm of free-play, [which will be more at the pedal] and the full stroke of the Release Lever is 17-18mm [for a full clutch-pedal stroke]. Note: If there is a second cable and that one acts as the return spring for the Release Lever and heads over to the driver's side and connects just around the brake master cylinder, then that is the hill-holder clutch cable. A sight search here of the forums will tell ya all about THAT thing. Blew me away!! Never heard of it before. If so then that cable has to be disconnected [just grab where the cable hooks up at the hill-holder device and turn it to create enough slack at the Release Fork to disconnect it at the release Fork]from the clutch Release Lever when doing the above adjustment. Hook a bungee cord to the Release Lever and run it over the air cleaner and attach it to the front bumper or something. That's what I did. The object is to SIMULATE the return spring that was on the hill-holder cable. Bungee cord worked fine. Once the big nut has been turned down the threaded rod end until the adjustment seems to be within the given parameters [the 2-3mm of freeplay of the Release Lever] then turn the smaller locking nut down the threads and tighten it tight to the larger nut using BOTH open end wrenches. Check your clutch pedal free-play travel and give the clutch a good full stroke. I ended up with under an inch of pedal free-play. If this seems well, disconnect the bungee cord [temporary return spring] and reattach the hill-holder cable the same way you took it off. That system is now adjusted on its own. Search the Forum, you'll find lots of info I hope. Hop into car, stroke the clutch pedal and shift some gears around. Start engine, find reverse now and I'd bet it finds it, and ALL the other gears, right away with no grinding whatsoever. One of the tells for me on initial diagnosis is the transmission shifted fine without the engine running, but once the engine was running it was slop city and grindarama. Adjusting the cable has made it feel like a brand new car! I had the luxury of finding a brand new cable already there in place but was merely extremely mal-adjusted. Caveats might include whether or not your cable has stretched so there is no more adjusting room. or, perhaps, the clutch disc has worn and with a stretched cable there may not be enough thread left for adjustment. Either way, perhaps buy a new clutch cable [they are reasonably cheap] and repeat above adjustment process. Heck, you're gonna need a new one eventually and, of course, they will ALWAYS break while in traffic, leaving you FOOKED, unless, of course, you subscribe to the theory of creative driving. Good to have a spare and carry the wrenches to change it should the need ever arise. The stretched but serviceable one could always be the spare. Good Luck, and I hope this simple and long-winded explanation solves your dilemna.