6 Star

I messed around with the timing on the Brat today. I adjusted the idle to sit at 700rpm, and then made it so that piston 1 was firing at 10 degrees before top dead center. It seems to like it at that timing. I will fine tune it a little more later. I also noticed that the car tends to hesitate a little at low rpms, like when I start off from a stop. When I did the rebuild, I focused entirely on the long block. The carb has not been touched. I see that the previous owner installed a new fuel filter in the engine bay. I'm wondering if it could be a pvc valve or egr that needs to be replaced. Any insight would be greatly appreciated

Looks like you already have them removed.

A complete rebuild; new bearings, seals, pistons, bored cylinders, shaved surfaces, etc... will cost you over a grand. Double that if you want a shop to do all the disassembly/assembly.

Check your ground and the tightness of the battery terminal connections. They should not be loose at all. If you can move the ground or terminals by hand they need tightening.

Sounds just like mine Hmm... I will have to investigate why my door chime and lights on the dash aren't working. I forgot all about those features. Nice work

Give the guy some credit lol. Have you seen his car?

Okay, so not everything mechanical is fixed... I still need to address the blown muffler. I will either replace it or just straightpipe it... I'm thinking straightpipe The drivers side rear bushing is looking a little worn. Same thing with the passenger side... this one looks worse. The undercarriage looks really good as a whole. Very little rust.

Some interior things; I'm looking for a center/shift console... didn't come with the car when I bought it. Didn't come with a stereo either, but thats no biggie. Also the seats are badly torn and are almost held together by ducttape, which is why the seat covers are there. I need to fix the heater too, before the cold weather comes. I need to put the door panels in. I have them, just need to put plastic on first to keep out moisture. Almost 370,000 miles and still truckin along (my milage post in the o.p. was off a little) The bed is in excellent condition. No rust, and all of the jumpseat features work like new. Just need to put the top trim on the tailgate and get new struts for the canopy lid.

Now that I have the Brat mechanically sound, I can start addressing the cosmetic things. There is a little ding/mush in the drivers side fender. Also the previous owner replaced the drivers side blinker with a running light. It blinks... but looks dumb lol. It is secured in place with screws that go through the top of the bumper (smh). So I am looking for a oem replacement. Hammered out passenger fender, needs to be smoothed out. Surface rust on the passenger rear quarter pannel Banged up tailgate and rear bumper from the p.p.o. backing into it with his backhoe, this is after I have banged it out a little bit. Need to also fix the handle... having to open the tailgate from the inside mechanism. Some scratches, nothing major, should be able to buff them out. Some minor crunches to the front valence.

I agree with all of this. The only things I dont change at the same time are lights, and fuses. Only because I keep spares for all of those. Everything else on the car needs to be changed evenly, not just convenience wise but to prevent damage or uneven wearing to the car.

Lol I was bracing for a wheel to break off or something

Very nice. I plan on leaving the 4speed in mine. Keeping it OG :cool: haha I kind of like the taller gearing. And I already have a 5speed dual range in the '86 wagon, so if I'm looking for mileage that will be the dd. I have to drive the brat while I work on the wagon though. Once the wagon is done the brat will be the weekend warrior fun vehicle

This is similar to how mine on the brat look... Guess I need some new bushings

Ooops... well I don't have it anymore lol. The place I got the new cv axle from charged me a core, so it came out to 104$... to get my 50$ back i went and brought in the old one. I think it was pretty far gone anyways, who knows how long the previous owner had been driving with it torn. Just about scared the crap out of me while I was going down the freeway and it was shaking

New cv axle is in No more acceleration shakes!

Oh my goodness... I commend you on that! If I had to helicoil all that I think I would have cried. I take it the exaust bolts were rusted/ironed in?

So here is the emissions thing that was attatched to the old heads: I took the spacers off the bottom, and cut the piping that leads back up to the carb and welded those shut. Here is the finished product: Made a little more engine space and I didn't have to find a manifold that was designed to run without spacers.

So basically the bigger clutch feels smoother/stronger? Thats deffinately something I will look into when it comes time to change clutches out. Thank you for all the info, everyone.

Well... when it comes to small things like brakelights or blinkers, replacing one thing at a time can slide. Most deffinately if I had to replace a timing belt I would do both at once. But like a few weeks ago: My tail light went out. The other one was still perfectly fine and its not like they are hard to get to, so I just replaced the one that needed it.

I like this picture As for me, right now I am doing a driver's side cv axle replacement.

Yup, the whole short block is sitting on a crate in the shed, pressureplate clutch and flywheel still attatched. So I'll have that sitting there next time I need to swap. Hopefully that is not for a long while. Thank you for turning me on to the different dimensions of clutches... Its quite the difference? Right now I am changing out the drivers side cv axle. I was going down the freeway when all of a sudden my front end started to shake but only when I was on the gas... got off the freeway immediately and took backroads home, took it easy. Lol the thing sound like a hotrod, I have a hole about the size of an elongated football in the muffler. It blew at the seam. I will either need to just get a new muffler or straightpipe it. I don't really want to draw attention to myself, but at the same time I can't help but like the loudness of the car Oh, and the heater doesn't work... no speeds of the fan come on. Hehe I'm remembering more about whats wrong with the thing the more I think about it.

Good thing I didn't order an '85 kit then, considering I'm using the flywheel from the '82 I don't plan on lifting or anything with this rig. Its not too far off from being restorable. If I want a monster I'll buy a worse condition one zzz

Well, it may be a grand for the mechanic to fix it, but with your time and effort it would only cost you under 100$. The head gaskets need to be replaced which cost about 50$ for a set of fel-pros. And then considering new fluids/ oils... Be very skeptical... The engine may have been overheated. Look under the oil cap. If it looks like a bunch of superheated crap is all over the cap and in the hose, or if it just smells like burnt oil in there, its probably a toasted engine.

thank you Well, the chassis/tranny of the car is an '85, but the engine I was swapping in was and '82. I ordered a '82 pressure plate, clutch, pilot bearing, and throwout bearing. Everything matched up good, except for the throwout bearing... had to order another one for an '85 lol. I did not know they made different sized clutches...

My dad had a spare ea81 that he gave to me in trade for long hours of yard work... it was worth it $930 later of professional engine surfacing, boring, new pistons, bearings, etc... made sure to rustoleum all my pulleys to keep them fresh : new clutch kit: engine going in: assembly: and all finished (minus exaust setup... that was a headache trying to find new bolts and nuts to incorporate the spacers for the emissions recycling thing...) I ended up just removing the whole emission recycler thing... just welded shut the holes on the back of the spacers. And I ended up just buying some all-thread from Tacoma Screw for hardware. More pictures to come of further progress!