NVBigBlue

They were even nice enough to let that good lookin' Chevy play with the Subes!

OK guys, I'm gonna try and get out of here around 8 or so to meet up at the Shell on Red Rock at 10 or so.....(gotta make a stop or two in Reno first). If I don't show, don't worry.....I've got Jibs' number and I'll call to let him know I'm not comming, otherwise I'll see ya there. Should be an interesting drive....the heater fan in the car doesn't work, so I only get warm air going down the road!

Oh geez.....why do I get the feeling that if I show up I'll be the only one in a stock Roo? No lift, street tires, guess I'd just have to rely on my sweet off-road driving skills.... gosh! Looks like I'm gonna try and sneak up and meet you guys at the Sheel station. And I've got a GPS. NV

Zen, Normally when I change out a part, I try to look at what other components are related to it. In this case, since you have to take certain things off and drain the cooling system to get the water pump off, I would replace the items that could only be replaced when the system is drained as well. E.g.; the thermostat and gasket, heater hoses, etc. Obvisoulsy you'd only replace the hoses if they are worn or deteriated, but I consider a t-stat and gasket as a standard replacement part anytime a pump is changed. It might also be a good time to back flush the system, and replace the radiator cap too. Maybe the drive belt? So maybe a list like: Pump and gasket Thermostat and gasket Extra hose clamps (just in case..) A tube of RTV (if you use it....) Antifreeze Radiator cap Drive belt Wire brush (to clean pump mounting bolts.....if you don't have one) Good luck. NV

Hey guys, Where the heck are the "moon rocks"? I'm thinkin' I might be able to sneak away with my sons car...... NV

Thanks for the input guys! I think I'm going to go with the '88. I went and looked at it today and it HAS to have the best interior I've ever seen on an older car.....almost perfect! And yes, it does look like the belts are blown. No big deal there, although the guy did admit that it has one other "problem". It has push button 4wd and it isn't working. He says it just kinda clicks when you push the button but nothing happens. Any clues as to what this could be and how to fix it? NV

Speaking of that.... if the trans does go south, what options for replacement, other than auto, are there? And how big of a pain is it? Thanks....

Her answer when I asked her that question was: "Well, that's what my husband says it needs....." Which does remind me of another question I had..... Are these non-interference engines? Timing belt changes don't scare me.....but bent valves do... Either way, I'd only be out $500 for both cars, so......

Hi guys, I'm looking at buying another car for my daughter and I'm looking at these two vehicles. Here's what they are, and what is supposed to be wrong with them.. #1 - 1990 Turbo Loyale (not starting due to starter not engaging flywheel...auto tranny) #2 - 1988 Wagon (The person I called doesn't know if it's a DL, GL, etc, needs timing belt) What engines are in these beasts? Also, how would you rate the auto tranny in the Loyale? Thanks, NV

...with my fuel supply that is. '86 Hatch, JDM engine, Hitachi 2bbl. Finally got the carb running good, but the car continues to act like it is vapor locking. I've cleaned the tank 4 times (actually pulled it out and flushed it..), replaced the fuel pump, replaced ALL of the rubber lines, and have replaced the filters many times (prob over 15 filters...tank still has rust in it.....) Car might run great for a week and then it will start starving for fuel going down the road. BTW, the pump runs continiously. Their is no vapor seperator anymore. Bascially gas come from pickup in tank, through filter one, through pump, down hard line, out fire wall, into filter 2, to Y-fitting @ carb, return line comes off Y-fitting @ carb, and is running back down the return line to tank. I've blown out the hard lines, but I still suspect there might be something in it blocking the flow once in a while...... I'm considering running rubber hose from the carb to tank to verify that the hard lines are or aren't the problem. This is really starting to get old..... Anyone else ever have a problem like this? Any thoughts? Thanks, NV

By main spark wire I assume you mean the one running from the coil to the center of the distributor cap right? While any wire can fail, as was stated the spark can jump a pretty decent gap. So an internal break in the wire, when tested, would show infinite ohms (open), but the car could continue to run with no appearent problems (perhaps a small drop in spark gap voltages...). I personally have never seen a coil wire fail by breaking, but I have had them vibrate out of the coil or cap..... however, I have seen what looks like a failure, that was caused by some type of contaminent on the wire. Remember, that large voltage is looking for ground, and if the resistance across the plug gap is greater than resistance somewhere along the wire (that is, the spark can reach ground prior to the plug), the spark will never reach the plug. An example of this would be cross firing inside the dist cap (this can sometimes be seen as a light carbon trail inside the cap). Any chance you might have had a dirty wire/boot or the like? (come on... be honest, were you out playing in the mud?...hehehe ) Many things can cause a spark not to reach the plug, but it seems llike dirt/oil and water tend to be the main culprits (e.g.; water in the cap....) But like you said, the ea81's are fairly simple to work on. And being able to diagnose a problem and solve it on your own is a great skill to have. And even if you can't fix it yourself, if you have a good idea of what the problem is, it's a lot harder for a shady mechanic to pull one over on ya. As a slight side note..... while taking auto shop in high school, my instructor liked to remove the coil wire from the test stand engines and replace it with a piece of similarly sized rubber hose. Then have the students trouble shoot why the engine wouldn't run. (they rarely check the coil wire) However, one day after swapping the wire for a hose, the students started the engine right up with no problems. Turns out he had used a piece of dirty hose.....the spark was traveling down the inside of the hose along the water/dirt, delivering the spark right where it needed to be! hehe NV

Ahhhhhh..... that would explain things.. I don't have a wagon..... or a brat Just a hatch. Thanks.... NV

I'm sorry to ask.... but WHAT plastic breather jug? I don't think I've ever seen this before. NV

Might try this: http://www.frostfighter.com/

Hello all, I have a project in mind that the running gear from an older 4WD suby would be perfect in...if I could make it do what I needed it to. Basically I want to take the entire drive train out of the car and reverse it. That is, the motor is now in the back of the vehicle. But the tranny would have to run in reverse to go forward. Is there a way to (internally) reverse the final outputs of the dual-range trannies? NV

Hello all, I've got my sons '86 hatch up and running finally (for those of you that have been following the saga....with a carb) and the thing is running pretty well, but I have a problem with rust in the tank. I've drained it a couple of times, sloshed rocks (pea gravel) around to clean the inside, and rinsed it (yes, this does work nicely most of the time...), but after a day or so of gas sloshing around in it, the filter will plug up again. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to clean this thing up? I have a friend that told me once about a product you can dump into a tank to "seal in the rust", but I can't remember the name of the stuff. Basically you drain the tank, let it dry, dump this stuff in, slosh it around for a while and then let that stuff dry. I coats the inside of the tank with a sealer and then you're good to go. Anyone ever use this stuff? Or do they make a replacement tank for these cars? Metal is okay, hdpe plastic would be fantastic. NV

Well guys (and gals) I'm finally back online and it's time for an update! Of course, I have gone from a blazing 3.25MB broadband connection to a blistering 31.2kbps dial-up connection So here's the update.......first off, even though we were 18 days late on closing.......finally.... http://www.bristlenet.com/atlast/default.htm And secondly, the conversion has been put on hold for a bit. So here's the deal..... We got the whole conversion pretty much fully installed, including mounting the ecu, routing wires, and making everything look "pretty", but when it came time to fire it up, it popped over a couple of times and then nothing, I mean, nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch, no thing. We checked and rechecked the coil, plugs, disty, wires, ecu, harness, everything...... We worked on this for about 5 or 6 nights after work, and never did get it to fire again. And no, we didn't replace the ecu, mainly due to a lack of time because of moving on the weekends, and getting home after dark from work. So where do we stand now?... Well, due to the fact that my son REALLY needs a car that can get him back and forth to football practice / weightlifting now that school is out, I made the decision to pull all of the SPFI stuff and throw a carb back on it. The good news is that after putting everything back on, the engine fired after a couple of turns.....something it hadn't done for about 8 years. We did have a small problem with the exhaust, and we're still fighting some rust in the fuel tank (when you drain the tank, is gas supposed to be red?!? ), but the engine is running really well, and I've had it up to about 85 so far...yes, it took a bit to get there.....and I was going down hill......which is a good thing since the car is for my son.....and he doesn't really need to be going that fast anyways right? But it will pull a steady 70 - 75 on the flats.......until the filter plugs anyways.....(I'll post a tech question about this problem.....) At any rate, the car is running and should be registered and legal by the end of the week. (my son likes that news.....) So what does this mean for the SPFI conversion? I'm fairly certain that it had to be the ECU causing the problems, and that'll be the first thing I pick up at the PNP when I start on the next project car, if I go that route.......you see, I made a deal with a guy up the road from us for another little hatch for $100. The body is pretty decent, but the front window is smashed. According to him, it was running fine when his son put a tree branch across the window, and since I've already got the parts............ Things I might do differently next time?.....I was thinking about going with a megasquirt unit. Everything else is a pretty much bolt up, but not having to mod the disty would be nice. At any rate, sorry it took so long to post an update on this, but to say I've been busy the last few weeks would be an major understatement! Feel free to shoot me questions about what we did, or how we did it. Don't expect too many pic posts though.......dial up sucks. And again.....I'd like to say this is an easy to do swap, but if you do decide to take this on.....you really should be able to do without the vehicle for a while.....if we'd had anything else for my son to drive, we would have made this thing work..... Thanks for all the support and following.....made me feel kinda funny being on the "cutting edge" of converting 20 year old cars! NV

Hey there... I would think that doing this would depend on what you want to do with the car. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no expert on performance mods, but from what I've heard... A "heavy" flywheel is what you want for something like rock crawling. Lots of mass spinning means lots of stored potential energy to transfer to the wheels....longer to spin up, but longer to spin down as well. A "light" flywheel is what is wanted for engines that need to spin up into the powerband quickly, as in racing....quick revving, quick slowing.....as in rally maybe? As for pro and cons... Would less metal effect heat disappation for the clutch? Cost?.... I would think any competent machinist should be able to lighten one up at a reasonable cost. Say shave a bunch off the deck and clutch face area. Punch a lot of holes around the edges...... be sure it balanced tho... Of course, what you might run into is a machinist that wouldn't want to do it for fear of modifying an "important" peice of a vehicle and being sued when it (if ever) fails. I ran into that problem with a guy that didn't want to lighten up some brake rotors for me on a custom car project. Rotors came off a 4500lb vehicle, but were being used on a project that came in at a massive 850 lbs. Slight over kill. But I had to search around a little before I found someone who would cut them down for me. I hope some others can help here..... Good luck, NV

HA! I think I'm gonna try this part number from JCWhitney....ZX378602 Only $20 and it's adjustable from 170 to 240 degrees....

That's odd.....the autozone here in Carson said they had one in stock "for some reason.....it's usually a special order item...." But they want $22 for it. I'm seriously thinking about buying it, because the last 6 I've pulled from the JY have all been bad.....on the other hand I was hoping maybe there was a "universal" one available, maybe something like whatever they use for those generic electric cooling fans kits....

Hello all, Is there an another option for replacing the thermo switch that's in the radiator? I'm talking about the one that turns the radiator cooling fan on and off. The one I have is shot, and the parts house wants $23 for a new one. Not a big deal, but if anyone is replacing it with something else I'd be interested in hearing about it. NV

I'm sorry....when you say ballast resistor I'm curious as to which part you are talking about.:-\ I've never seen a resistor on a coil before....but I have seen capacitors (aka condensors). Are we talking about the silver can with a mounting tab that has a wire coming out of it (possibly out of each end)? One wire goes to the coil and if there, the other wire usually goes to the block. Just curious. NV

hehehehe......while we DO have those out here in Nevada.....I actually went to the local PICK-N-PULL! .....pink-n-pull......I kill me! That'll teach me to type after a few run and cokes....

Well, I know you guys want to know what's going on with this swap.....so here it is..... at this point ...... nothing. I wish I could say it was done, but life has a way of getting in the way of the fun stuff. Actually I shouldn't say nothing, it is moving forward....slowly. We went to hook up the exhaust and found that the Y-pipe is like an inch to short to reach the heads.... ahhhh....it's missing the little spacer things (one spacer, one spacer/pipe connector)...not biggee, we'll just use the Y-pipe from the donor car......except it's got a different connector to the exhaust pipe....no biggee, we'll just use the whole exhaust system......except after gettting everythig cut off and cleaned up, we find that one of the pipes (right where it turns up to connect to the head) is shattered almost all the way around! Sooooooo.....we go to the local pink-n-pull to get a new one....except THEY CUT THE CONVERTERS FROM THE FRIGGIN' Y-PIPES! aaaarrrrgghhhhh!!! Plus with the problems we've been having getting our house to close, I haven't really been in a 'work on the car' mood. So not having to work today (because we were SUPPOSED to close on the house:banghead: and I already had the damn day off....) I went to p-n-p (1/2 price day!) and pulled some non engine related parts. But I feel better now, and will try to get something done this weekend. NV

What can I say? I've been known to sneak around that area once in a while. And yes, I would care to join you! Trust me, as soon as I get settled in the new house (which we're STILL waiting to close on.. ..) I'll have something smaller than my truck to cruise the hills in. NV