l75eya

Articulating suspension.

Yeah, I get you. It sucks when everything is coming along so nicely and then you hit a snag. I guess the cleanest way to get them off would be to drill them out. I've heard a lot of people have issues with them slipping, I guess I was lucky when I took mine off they were all intact. Good luck!

haha, your leggo is a bit heftier though I took everything out of Ben before the runs, no spare tire, all my tools, he was empty save for me and a passanger and a full tank of gas. When I time him myself he averages about 16 seconds to 60. I'll try and get a video. He's pretty swift (for what he is =P ), and very well maintained, though he looks like hell.

So I subjected hooptie to the Dynolicious ($13 app store or free with installous) tests. I set his weight at 2700 (say 2400 curb and two 150lb people in the car) and his drivetrain loss at 25% because he is an automatic. I definitely guessed on the drivetrain loss, but from the results I got it seemed about right. Keep in mind this is an app that uses the built in accelerometers in an ios device to measure G-forces and that's pretty much how it builds it's results, so I took them with a grain of salt. It does have a pretty intensive calibration for you to do before-hand, and from what I've read it is fairly accturate, but it is not a real dyno so it's more for entertaining purposes than straight up detail. That being said, here are my results! Max speed: 76.6 Max Acceleration: 0.47g's Peak Horsepower: 76 Through some brisk curves: Lateral G's: 0.77 Yep. Blatant power, that EA82.

Agreed. How many of the bolts do you have slipping? If it's just one or two, you can try and cleanly cut around the bolts, if you want to salvage the cover. The covers are a P.I.T.A and unnecessary.

Wow...beautiful paint, that flake is ..... There's just something extra special about these slow pain-staking builds...especially when they start to fall in to place. Good luck with the progress. Looking forward to the end result. (Not nearly as much as you are though, I bet haha)

And on another plus side to the junkyard route, I can see it being so much easier to just remove the whole assembly and then swap it right in to your ride. No spring compressing involved. That wouldn't be so bad I suppose, especially if the yard didn't charge too much for the whole thing.

I sure wish my EGR solenoid would "mystery fix" itself. =\ It does fix itself but usually only for about 5 minutes, and then the CEL pops right back on.

I think it's most likely the exhaust leak. My GL has a bad exhaust leak..well it's not even a leak anymore, it's a huge hole, and I'm pretty sure she is running rich too, and at stop lights and idling the fumes can get pretty noxious.

I mean, you can check the milage on the vehicle and look at the conditions of the struts on the vehicle, bounce the car around a bit, but all that is is educated guessing. You really won't know until you have them installed on your vehicle, and personally it's a big enough task to get them out of your car to begin with that I wouldn't mess around with educated guesses. I just put KYB struts in the front of our Loyale and I couldn't be happier with them. I didn't have a good enough spring compressor to change them out myself safely, so I just took them out of the car, brought them to a shop and they changed them for me for 20 bucks each. I really do recommend you just get new ones. rockauto had the KYB's for around 30 bucks each I think.

I'd fill up your power steering fluid too haha, use ATF to fill it. Specifies which one right on the resevoir cap. You can use power steering fluid, I did, but I don't like the results. Made the steering a lot stiffer.

Not likely...especially if it's as stuck as the one was on my passanger side. The only way I can think of that working is if you prop something very solid underneath the ballstud and then hammer the control arm downward. If you bang on the castle nut, it's just going to strip out. If you need pickle forks, I recommend http://www.ebay.com/itm/Grip-On-Tools-5-pc-Pickle-Fork-Kit-21318-/330744485186?hash=item4d01e85542&item=330744485186&pt=Motors_Automotive_Tools&vxp=mtr They are cheaply priced, but they're above quality for the price. I had no complaints while using them.

Yea, thanks for that encouragement. I decided to give it one more go with the fork and I put the momentum of getting very pissed off behind my hammer swings and it popped. :cool: Go figure that on the other side of the car the ball joint came right out.

What is the reverse feature? And in other news, Ben got all new tie rods, tie rod ends, ball joints and KYB shocks up in the front. Aside from the passanger side ball joint being a real PITA to get out of the lower control arm, and the really crappy spring compressors I got (had to take the struts to a shop to get them done. $40!), everything went well and the difference is SO noticable. The car just rides so much smoother and the steering is nice and tight now. The tie rods ends were falling apart on both sides of the car and the tie rods themselves were BENT. (How do you bend tie-rods?) Car is much more planted now, and here I thought it handled well before! Do need to go to a shop and get the alignment done, I tried to do it with some string, and it's tracking pretty straight, but I can just feel going in to turns that the toe is not correct, and the steering wheel is off centre. Overall though, very satisfied. Need to do the rear shocks next.

Wow! Nice improvement! Looks exponentially better. IMO I would leave the lower vinyl gray though. What kind of paint did you use?

Kept thinking alternator while reading through the post, then I hit the bit about mice. That throws a little wrench into the mix haha. Throw a new alternator in it and see if that solves anything, and then I guess start multi-metering away. Damn mice.

haha! You're quite right, your reputation most certainly precedes you. EA82 basher extroairdinaire!

Why GD always gotta be hatin' yo. Oo look! Banana! Dead banana =P

You know even with the car PILED with stuff for the trip, and it being a trip literally across the country from NJ to NV, it was me, my father, my brother and his girlfriend in the car, and it really wasn't *that* uncomfortable. We were a bit cramped but that was mainly because we had sooooo much stuff with us. All the stuff you see ON the vehicle (Three garbage bags full of stuff tied to the luggage rack, two bicylces hanging on the bike rack, the weight of which over 4,000 miles bent my trunk hinges, then the trunk itself was completely packed with stuff, and we had a bunch of stuff IN the car as well). This car went from sitting for years to driving across the country straight through, and when we got back it went right back to hibernation. Poor thing =\ When money allows, I'm definitely putting some love into the GL. It just wants to continue. She sits for 7 days at a time, until the street sweeper comes and I have to start her up and move her out of the way. Always starts on the first turn. Always.

I mean, the sheet-metal is thin and what would normally just dent one car crumples these things up like it's a tin can, but that's probably part of the reason she didn't get hurt in either of the accidents. The car just absorbs the impact completely. Ben is a damn trooper. He just keeps going despite what happens, though he's currently all ripped apart in the driveway for some front end refreshing. Thanks for checking out the Hoops!

This is an awesome write-up. Must have taken some time to write it all up and edit the pictures and what-not. Looks like you went about it in a very organized manner. When I do attempt this myself, I will positively be following this. Thanks for taking the time to make this! Should wind up helping lots of peeps.

Got it out! I let my anger get the best of the hammer and the pickle fork and after some very agressive swinging, it finally popped out. So today I got the tie rod and tie rod end installed on the passanger side, and the ball joint. I was having trouble with the strut, probably because I have some crappy cheap spring compressor, and I don't have a vice, so it was very difficult to get good leverage on the whole thing. Because it's already removed from the car, I think I'm just going to take the strut assembly to a garage tomorrow and see if they'll remove the spring for me and switch it over to the new shock, and then i'll do the same for the driver's side when I'm at that point. Was hoping to not have to go to a shop for any part of the job, but having the right tool is what it's all about, and I just don't. =\ Oh well. More fun tomorrow! Thanks for the tips/ideas/links Any future search references, pickle fork seems to be the best way to get the ball joint out. It may seem like it's not working but you gotta make sure you wedge it from various angles. Hammer the pickle fork on one side, wrangle it around a bit, then remove it and hammer it back in on the opposite side, then from the front. Gotta work that fork, yo.

See that's the issue I'm having with the ball joint press tool I borrowed from a buddy (The big rump roast clamp style) All of the spacers don't sit flush on the control arm, and only one of them (the largest) rises up high enough to give the ball joint some clearance to move upward. The issue is that the stud (and the joint itself in that respect) is at a slight angle and it's causing me a ton of issues. Maybe I'll take a look at a tie rod end puller and RV; I was putting everything I had into hammering the pickle fork in there, and it didn't do a damn thing the rubber boot is ...gone. That's all I accomplished.

Gonna head out to autozone and see if they have a suitable puller I can grab. HOPEFULLY that works. If not I'll try out what I saw in the youtube video, I hate to put the knuckle all back together before I've gotten it out, but we'll see. Thanks for the help guys, mucho appreciate. wish me luck