Txakura

Album is here http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d59/Triquel/WCSS%2013/ Some pics here I love this thing. and 35 years later you can do this... a carbon fiber WRX. How's that for evolution? My son couldn't come, but his rabbits did. It's important. Absolutely amazing. Like a trip back in time to the dealer lot. WOW The RS visits with NED the almighty. Don't buy a car from that guy with his fingers open, he's telling GD some tall tale about how 5 Suubies couldnt pull him from a ditch tethered together

There were dealer installed vacuum cruise systems, 2 or 3 versions of, IIRC. I seem to have 2 of them, and one factory set up. If your cruise panel is to the right of the wheel in a rectangular slot (normally used by the power mirrors) it is a dealer add on. Mine went bad at the little switch box itself, the 'on/accel' button was simply not working. Unfortunately I followed the whole system all over the car before I figured that out. My non attractive repair was to wire a small non locking push button switch from radio shack to the circuit board and bore a fugly hole in the panel and mount the switch on it. It may be the panel itself, pop it out of the dash and carefully take it apart at the seam. Rig a temporary switch to bypass the one on the board and see if it could be that simple. Also: The cruise control brain box is behind the glove box, there are switches on the clutch and brake pedal. See if one of the switches has fallen away and is not allowing it to work. Check for voltage at the brain box. Good luck and welcome to the board.

I need to know more about this. 'Retrofitting' I presume. :cool:

Leaving now. Be safe everyone.

nvm, I had thought it was the regulator and a diode failing, but that wouldn't put out 14.2 at an idle

Good Lord, come stay at my place when you finish that one up would ya?

Wow, lot of views, no posts. I was able to get it to take a charge of about 20 oz of R12 and as I was charging it the compressor shut up. It still rattled a bit on the way home, but it was making cold air. I suppose the PO probably ran it low and kept running it until it didnt work at all, or it all bled out through osmosis. Mainly works now, it's too bad we cant be grandfathered and still service those without the conversion.

if I can get some small stuff sorted... the RS as it still has it's R12 A/C!

post it all in the for sale section, you might have something useful to a fellow member - give it some time, if it doesn't go anywhere you can always send it away then

The compressor makes a very loud rattling sound when engaged, I thought maybe low on freon/oil might make that noise. In my shop we have a manifold and several pounds of R12. I have never serviced A/C. There is no procedure in my Chiltons. Most searches here talked about the conversion to 134a. Before I waste extremely rare and valuable R12 to a line leak or bad o-ring... what should I see for normal pressure on the gauges when I connect them? could it be that the compressor itself is simply bad/ going bad (no cold air at all, loud rattling) TIA

No. GD was being kind.

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

The problem was mainly me. The 4/2 lever was always a little off, it had 98% of full travel to the rear before hitting the center console. It had even less travel after dropping the transmission for the lift. I made a 1.75 inch spacer for the linkages, and cut and welded the D/R lever to a new length and angle. When I posted this, and did not mention the drop, I had the linkages rigged for test flight only. I freaked and posted too quick as it SEEMED like it should have all worked normally. So, TY all for putting up with me and trying to help me out when the problem was the owner/operator. :-\ It works great now, and adding one turn to the lo/hi rod has really tuned that to be better than it ever was.

Loose connection on the back of the instrument cluster? I have some similar issues on a 90 Legacy, gauges drop off, come back on... that's where I was heading to check mine since none of the systems have anything in common other than that connection at the cluster itself. mine is the tach and fuel gauge.

Mine did not appear to be leaking, I was driving the donor engine around and knew how it ran. It had a lot of weepy gaskets, valve cover, valve grommets, oil pan, etc etc. I'm just throwing that out there, I'll never move another engine without changing that again. It was the ultimate burn, and it crapped all over my nice clean engine crossmember too. it drips like he// on the cat and gives that ultra sexy cloud of oil smoke when you stop and comes through the vents to perfume the interior. IT was SOOO not worth the hours to remove and reinstall the engine just to spend 15 minutes replacing the gasket. Rant over, I hope you get a D/R going. Good people here, they'll help you through it.

You found all the stuff under the passenger seat, so I'm not sure what else you've followed around. Do you have power at the main switch panel? The main switch panel wiring comes through the door and enters behind the driver kick panel into the car. Do you have power at those connectors but not in the door?

Mine too. I did a d/r swap in my s/r 90 Loyale. With the matching 3.9 ratios it was simply a transmission swap. I was also able to take the best bushings from both linkage sets and get a better feel at the shifter with less free play. Members of this board sent me the 3 pieces I needed to make the nice d/r console, where the s/r had only a boot and carpeted floor hump. My donor car was an 87 GL wagon. Everything was a straight across deal, you do have the vacuum ports on the left fender up by the wiper motor to cap after you go to the mechanical linkage from the previous vacuum set up. btw, I used that time to pull the engine and re gasket it, just dont ask me about the one gasket I DIDN'T change, the rear main, that let go two weeks later so, uh, if you have it all out anyway... you might as well change the ONE gasket that requires the engine to be removed to change it inspect your clutch, yadda yadda yadda

I just had a 90 Legacy barf it's guts out due to a stuck thermostat. It got pretty hot and came back up the overflow reservoir. You said the temp seemed normal but that it was getting hot and you were shutting it off? +1 on the weep hole in the water pump (btw)

Hmm. Ok, now I know the dif between the hi/lo rod and the 2wd 4wd linkage. It refuses to come out of 4wd, is this the thing I have read about where you have to jack the car to take the load off and run in reverse to disengage? rolling backwards and forwards has done nothing

O WOW thats an interesting idea... hmmm

TY all, GD is right in that if I don't understand normal system operation, I cannot determine the solution for abnormal operation. re: rod length, there was no need to change the length of the hi lo rod, I disconnected it at the non shift lever end to isolate the rod vs. gearbox, which seemed logical at the time, but was based on a false understanding of the aforementioned normal system operation. Let me digest the info you all posted, do some crawling under and get back to it.

I'm saying I have disconnected the entire linkage/rod, and that all the way back is now 4 hi, (instead of 2wd like it was) when I shift it under the hood by hand so right off the side of the transmission with no rod or shift lever attached I now have 4 hi, false neutral, and 4 lo where before I had 2 hi, 4 hi, 4 lo back to front for both those descriptions

Just went under it at 10:30 pm with a flashlight. I should have mentioned this is an '87 ea82 d/r 5. I'm not seeing the fork you're referring to. I see the 5 spd shift 'tube' on the top right side, and the 3 position lever under the hood on top and just behind the bellhousing. What am I missing? I'm feeling very dimwitted. Is this the 4wd binding in other posts? I was baffled by the empty slot in the 3 position lever where before I had thought the 2wd lived there too.

Oh crap, did I break it? I disconnected the 4wd linkage from the gearbox and cycled it through the 3 positions by hand with the engine off. I have 3 clear detent positions. Starting engine I get this; all the way forward is 4 lo, center is false neutral - nothing happens in gear (vroom vroom), all the way back is 4 hi. No 2wd. I rolled back and forth in the alley, fwd back fwd back... no dice, it's 4wd hi or lo, nothing else you see, I had it jump out of gear with a nice metallic *BING* a few days back... and it hasn't seen 2wd since any D/R Doctors out there? am I boned? do I need to find a new one?