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I am always so jealous of seeing these proper-hand drive FDs, as opposed to the shitted up RHD ones that float around the Fraser Valley in BC. What does a semi decent FD go for in your neck of the woods / any for sale?
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Oct 12, 2015 21:26
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Ugh that greasy FD is super gross 
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Oct 12, 2015 21:26
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On to the final project of the week and some misc. This 93 SSM Touring was brought to me after two other shops mis-diagnosed and failed to repair the issues it was having. It was originally taken in for a fuel leak. Normally I would have said no, but a friend referred them to me. The shop it was at was planning on charging them $1k to fix the "vacuum" issues they diagnosed. Read further down and you'll see for yourself why that would not have fixed the real problems. It's a super clean car. Bone stock. 100% female owned, the majority by an older lady who traded it in after it left her stranded on the side of the road. It's now owned by a lady just north of me and it's her dream car. I felt like I had seen the car before, but could never place it.    First bad sign:  It just got worse and worse as I tore into it. The wiring harness was 100% shot. One of the worst I've seen.    The vacuum hoses were pure WTF. I have NO idea why there are so many random lines, check valves, and T's.    At this point I called the owner and told them the bad news. $900 for a new harness, a full hose job, and the possibility it would need more as I tore it down. They OK'd the work and I tore it down.   What the ever living hell? Someone replaced the pulsation damper with a brass hose barb? Must have been the first shop when they tried to troubleshoot the fuel leak.  Finally! The first bit of good news. It's a Pineapple rebuild! And I remember when this engine was built. Great news for the customer. I was concerned it was a no-name rebuild with who knows what parts.  I pulled the injectors to inspect them. The first shop also had the injectors "cleaned and tested"  Looks like this one was not firing- no idea if it was due to wiring or just being dirty.  VS this one that was firing.  "Cleaned injector" Looks like left over metal shavings from drilling/tapping to me.  The wiring is just... crispy. Every connector had it's retaining clip snapped off. Bare wires everywhere. 90% of the wrap missing. Seriously, I can't believe the car even ran.      Here's a close up of the brass barb... Check out that sweet 1.5" thread engagement and galled threads!   So all said and done, it needs a harness, hose job, fuel pulsation damper, fuel lines, primary fuel rail, coolant temp/fan switch/coolant level sensors, and injectors serviced. About $2200 worth of work. What a mess.
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Oct 12, 2015 22:15
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Random: While I was home last week, we hired a mason to grind, re-point, and acid wash one of our chimneys. Hard to tell from the photos, but it's 100x better. I'm going to have him come back and do the other two next.    I treated the truck to a new set of tires. Not sure on the white lettering out, but it's the least of my worries now.  I went to Pineapple for an after noon and this beauty was there. 1978 SA with 40k! Original owner who's 72!    Random stock 240 we saw on a parts run. These are rare as hell around here.  I was there to fab a quick S4 Auto- Manual mount for a customer of his. The fellow auto-x'd his car and FINALLY decided to listen to us about ditching the auto.  Now I'm just waiting on parts for pretty much every project. Most of them arrive this week, so I should be able to get some of these cars outta here over the next few weekend.
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Oct 12, 2015 22:23
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DefaultPeanut posted:I am always so jealous of seeing these proper-hand drive FDs, as opposed to the shitted up RHD ones that float around the Fraser Valley in BC. What does a semi decent FD go for in your neck of the woods / any for sale? They are currently going through the roof. The silver FD above sold for $14k, which was a steal. Rebuilt engine, new turbos, stock. It's worth $16k once I'm done with it. the spyder fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Oct 13, 2015 |
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Oct 12, 2015 22:26
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Are the lathes 3 phase or single phase? If so, do you have a rotary phase converter?
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Oct 13, 2015 04:38
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 How did that wiring harness get so bad? That's just loving horrible.
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Oct 13, 2015 04:55
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the spyder posted:They are currently going through the roof. The silver FD above sold for $14k, which was a steal. Rebuilt engine, new turbos, stock. It's worth $16k once I'm done with it. Is it a "its winter, better get a project car" thing, or just going up all together? There was a fellow here in BC that was selling a Washington titled LHD shell in really poor condition for $9K. Interior was stripped out, bumpers were off, engine was out and apart. "but but, its all there" Suuuure. drat shame, because I would love to have a decent shape FD without spending 20K+.
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Oct 13, 2015 05:43
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Are the lathes 3 phase or single phase? If so, do you have a rotary phase converter? The lathe is 2hp Single Phase. A rarity, simply because anything 10" or larger is usually 3ph. We do have a rotary phase converter, albeit not wired up. All of our 3ph machines that are currently in use run off Teco FM50 VFD's that take single phase 220v in and put out 3ph 220v. They range from $140-200. I usually get mine from factorymation.com.
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Oct 13, 2015 17:44
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some texas redneck posted:
Well, a combination of things. It was a early production car and the the next year they switched to a slightly better harness (thicker insulation, shielding, etc). It still has the stock pre-cat at 90k, which is known to cook turbos and wiring harnesses by retaining too much heat in the engine bay. (The turbos have been replaced.) And finally several shops have been through it. Exactly how it got this bad I have no idea, but I can only imagine techs braking clips/plugs/insulation falling off and just going "Eh, shouldn't hurt anything". A new harness will last another 20 years and who knows if we will even have replacement parts available then. the spyder fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 13, 2015 17:49
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DefaultPeanut posted:Is it a "its winter, better get a project car" thing, or just going up all together? There was a fellow here in BC that was selling a Washington titled LHD shell in really poor condition for $9K. Interior was stripped out, bumpers were off, engine was out and apart. "but but, its all there" Suuuure. The average price for a FD has gone up $5-6k over the last three years. That shell was a rip off. I'd pay maybe $5k for something like that, but I would also have all the "missing" parts. $18k is not unheard of now for a clean FD.
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Oct 13, 2015 17:50
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the spyder posted:The average price for a FD has gone up $5-6k over the last three years. That shell was a rip off. I'd pay maybe $5k for something like that, but I would also have all the "missing" parts. $18k is not unheard of now for a clean FD. We have a customer who bought a second FD over the summer from someone who kept it garaged and didn't drive it much. The thing is mint as could be and had about 15k miles on it I think. The tech who does all of the rotary cars told me he paid about 22k for it, and then spent another 2-3k on work done because it had been sitting for a while. You could eat off the engine bay it was so clean and the bolts on the exhaust and the rest of the underside of the car looked brand new
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Oct 13, 2015 18:18
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Nodoze posted:We have a customer who bought a second FD over the summer from someone who kept it garaged and didn't drive it much. The thing is mint as could be and had about 15k miles on it I think. The tech who does all of the rotary cars told me he paid about 22k for it, and then spent another 2-3k on work done because it had been sitting for a while. You could eat off the engine bay it was so clean and the bolts on the exhaust and the rest of the underside of the car looked brand new Oddly enough I was called last week about working on a 8k FD that's been sitting for 10 years. Still waiting to hear back from him.
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Oct 13, 2015 18:28
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Yeah, I made up a 10 or 15 HP RPC with some nice big oil filled surplus caps and a junker of an old motor off someones junk pile at a conveyor belt supply company. Well, turns out the windings were shot in the motor from sitting in the rain outside a loading dock for god knows how long (well, maybe, that's what I chalk it up to in my uneducated opinion). Anyway, we picked up a 8 horse somewhere and I just need to revisit the design to make sure I wasn't excessively inebriated during the last spin. It'll be sitting up on the wall with 3d printed shaft covers and pretty wiring once we get the insulation in the shop sorted.
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Oct 13, 2015 19:48
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Seeing how rare these cars are now, I wonder what it's competition of the era costs? The NSX and the 4th gen Supra must also be into stupid money territory. I so rarely see any of these three vehicles these days. Come to think of it, I rarely saw these(FD, NSX, Supra) when they were new. E:JFC 
BloodBag fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Oct 13, 2015 |
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Oct 13, 2015 22:44
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the spyder posted:The lathe is 2hp Single Phase. A rarity, simply because anything 10" or larger is usually 3ph. We do have a rotary phase converter, albeit not wired up. All of our 3ph machines that are currently in use run off Teco FM50 VFD's that take single phase 220v in and put out 3ph 220v. They range from $140-200. I usually get mine from factorymation.com. Strange, usually all those big lathes are 3 phase. Can that teco run a welder, or does it throw one of the legs off? I know I could easily get a Miller 3 phase mig for next to nothing, but I know rotary phase converters make the arc all screwy.
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Oct 13, 2015 22:48
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BloodBag posted:Seeing how rare these cars are now, I wonder what it's competition of the era costs? The NSX and the 4th gen Supra must also be into stupid money territory. I so rarely see any of these three vehicles these days. Come to think of it, I rarely saw these(FD, NSX, Supra) when they were new. You can get an NSX for a lot less than that on average, that's an outlier
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Oct 13, 2015 22:54
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Strange, usually all those big lathes are 3 phase. Our lathe was ordered as a single phase model, which is an odd option. These were commonly found in schools, but this was ordered for a shop that had no 3ph power. It's just big enough where it probably could benefit from a slightly larger motor, but we haven't run it enough to tell. It's not like we're taking heavy cuts on it. I've never heard of someone using a VFD to run a welder. I know a blacksmith running her Miller 350p off a 25hp RPC with no issues. No idea on the brand of converter though. I've read comments on both sides- I think the big issue is cap size/quality. I could see myself blowing up some caps welding thick material. the spyder fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Oct 14, 2015 |
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Oct 14, 2015 00:04
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Alright. Let's get the worst outta the way first. I fixed the loving Mini. Again. Hopefully for the last time if I have anything to say about it. It's getting listed next week. The coolant tank (1 year old) split, the thermostat gasket failed (9 months old), wheel speed sensors were dead (2 years old), and the bastard would not pass emissions due to the Trifecta of warning lights on.     No more lights! (Airbag has a cold solder joint and I don't care.)  I bought a set of used (80% tread) tires to replace the 1 year old Kuhmo's that went bald in 14k. Did a oil change, replaced the drain plug while I was in there. It still needs a half dozen things, but It's running just fine and soon it will be someone else's problem. Total cost this time: $400 + registration. Next up: Fog lights! I've always wanted a set of OEM fogs for my car, but the 99+ japanese spec are expensive. I found these for a decent price on eBay. When they arrived, I found TERRIBLE corrosion all over the bodies. I ended up tearing them apart, media blasting, priming, and painting them. Now I just need a $620 bracket to install them... drat it.           Next: Shop update. I finished half the upper loft! I ended up re-framing this from 24" on center to 16" to support the load better. I also added a doubled up 2x6 for a "lifting" beam.    I added a few more lights...   Had one of those, WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS LAST YEAR moments once I saw how much brighter they made the bay. Project update: I went to Rob's and borrowed his parts washer and media blaster. I need to buy one. He showed me this plug wire when I got there, the auto/5spd swap from above wouldn't reliably start. Turns out this HV lead had been rubbing on a aluminum bracket.     All the parts get here this week to finish the White, Silver, and Black Automatic FD's- which will knock my workload down significantly. Now for the bad news. After getting our truck all cleaned up, this happened.   A 16 year old, new driver did not yield when turning left to oncoming traffic (me). There' no real story here. I yelled at him, his parents came, yelled at him. Once all of that was out of our systems, we exchanged info. Two witnesses even stopped and left numbers. I actually ended up deciding to do a cash settlement and not screw the kid over- on the condition his dad signed him up for a local defensive driving class. Probably a stupid idea, but the truck's fine and I'm fine. Plus they paid for my new tires  . I'll just have to keep an eye out for a bumper on my next junkyard trip.After I got home, I went and found something to consul my sadness and tore it apart.   There were a few broken clips. But nothing bad.   I took a come-along and pulled the bumper back into shape, wiped the other car's paint off and put the headlight back in. Not bad. 
the spyder fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Oct 28, 2015 |
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Oct 28, 2015 01:33
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Thats why I bought an aluminum coolant tank for my mini haha. Speed sensors were a bitch too, I just left mine broken how much you want for it 
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Oct 28, 2015 03:16
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I was going to joke that the damage to the truck would buff right out and then it did just that. I think you did the right thing not screwing the kid
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Oct 28, 2015 07:31
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Nodoze posted:Thats why I bought an aluminum coolant tank for my mini haha. Speed sensors were a bitch too, I just left mine broken You don't want it. Known Issues Did I mention my wife/son have treated the car like a trash can? I'm going to put the poor thing on CL for $4500 and let some other idiot dump $$$ into it. If I recall correctly, I'm $15k into a car I paid $6k for. Live and learn. Just because it's a rebuilt "fixer"- does not make it a good deal. Welp. This post made me want to drink. Ugh... the spyder fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 07:58
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Weekend report: My aunt asked me to look at our Grandma's car. Its had a broken heater for... a year? After researching it, there appeared to be a few common failure points on this platform. It's pretty clean for a 1997 Mercury Sable GS driven by a 93 year old lady.  At 83k its only had oil changes and a factory service 15(?) years ago.  It looks to have a pan gasket leak and some other leak just a bit higher. Not front main seal or valve cover.   After checking everything, I decided to flush the coolant and do the backlog of maintenance it had acquired. Thankfully a local Ford Parts dealer was open on a Saturday. We started with a oil change. I believe the last one was a year and a half ago?  Next up, transmission flush and filter. The magnet was a covered with the expected 1/4" of metal sludge.  My brother changed the plugs while I replaced the serpentine belt, and thermostat.   The coolant was... well yea. I'll let the pictures explain. I'd bet $$$ this was the original coolant.   So after flush the coolant system with a garden hose, back flushing the heater core, and replacing the overflow/expansion tank- the heater worked! But not very well. It turns out the high pressure switch on the AC was running the fans constantly. I temporarily unplugged it and will have to track down a sensor. According to forums, the part is NLA.   I kept joking we should have just taken her car shopping, but this thing should easily last the remainder of her driving years. Next up is a brake fluid flush, fuel filter, and a second coolant flush. I'll probably put off the oil pan gasket until she mentions any oil on the garage floor. the spyder fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 20:38
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Is it safe to flush with the hose? What about all this "only use distilled water" stuff I see on forums. I am just asking because I am trying to decide whether or not to flush my later model Taurus this week before we take it on a 1000 mile round trip. During very hot days on the interstate the past year the temp gauge would spike (though never overheated). Other than those scenarios it stays at 1/3 and does not move no matter temp or AC on or what. I don't want to go looking for trouble if it's not going to be a problem.
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Nov 2, 2015 20:57
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I just flush with distilled water with the heater on full blast until the water runs clear out of the radiator. Then fill the radiator with coolant which mixes with the rest of the water in the system.
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Nov 2, 2015 21:24
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everdave posted:Is it safe to flush with the hose? What about all this "only use distilled water" stuff I see on forums. I am just asking because I am trying to decide whether or not to flush my later model Taurus this week before we take it on a 1000 mile round trip. During very hot days on the interstate the past year the temp gauge would spike (though never overheated). Other than those scenarios it stays at 1/3 and does not move no matter temp or AC on or what. I don't want to go looking for trouble if it's not going to be a problem. You can blast the old poo poo out with a hose, but be sure to let all of the tap water drain out before you refill with the appropriate coolant.
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Nov 2, 2015 21:26
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Only use a hose if you have to flush it like 90 times to get all the rusty nasty poo poo out. There's still going to be some left in the block that you won't get during a drain and fill and have to run it through a few times to get it out. I had to do this on a junkyard engine I bought and it still never came out totally clean after flushing it 4-5 times. Afterwards I filled with distilled and coolant. It's not really feasible to flush it a billion times with distilled (for me at least).
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Nov 2, 2015 21:45
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This one was packed bad enough that we went ahead and used the hose. When we finally got clean water from both the radiator, block, and heater core (read: 20+ gallons of water ran through), we let it drain and blew the system out with compressed air. Every hose was pretty much disconnected. I filled it with distilled water and new coolant, knowing that in a few weeks/heat cycles I'm going to be flushing it again with just distilled water and more new coolant. After letting the car warm up, the coolant went from green to murky green. I personally don't like those radiator flush kits, but I'm tempted try it. There's just so much rust/corrosion in the system.
the spyder fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 21:50
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the spyder posted:This one was packed bad enough that we went ahead and used the hose. When we finally got clean water from both the radiator, block, and heater core (read: 20+ gallons of water ran through), we let it drain and blew the system out with compressed air. Every hose was pretty much disconnected. I filled it with distilled water and new coolant, knowing that in a few weeks/heat cycles I'm going to be flushing it again with just distilled water and more new coolant. After letting the car warm up, the coolant went from green to murky green. I personally don't like those radiator flush kits, but I'm tempted try it. There's just so much rust/corrosion in the system. Nothing wrong with a little muriatic acid flush, just don't let it sit in there.
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Nov 3, 2015 05:22
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Taurus' have horrible heater cores that rot inside and you shouldn't feel bad at all hitting it with the most nuclear option you have to clean it out otherwise you'll never get reliable heat in there ever.
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Nov 3, 2015 07:27
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Larrymer posted:It's not really feasible to flush it a billion times with distilled (for me at least). It doesn't take long if you're just flushing out old coolant. Took me a couple gallons and it was good.
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Nov 3, 2015 08:28
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Well not to derail this thread but I am not sure what to do: my Taurus has hot reliable heat, runs perfectly, doesn't overheat (other than those random interstate temp spikes on hot days). I just bought Motorcraft t-stat, coolant, and five gallons of distilled. Should I flush this and replace t-stat before vacation or leave well enough alone?
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Nov 3, 2015 16:56
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leica posted:It doesn't take long if you're just flushing out old coolant. Took me a couple gallons and it was good. the spyder posted:(read: 20+ gallons of water ran through) This is what I was talking about. I'm not buying 20 gallons of distilled and dicking with it that way. Spyder is doing it how I would have. On a normal  flush aka drain and fill I would use distilled for sure. I never had much luck with the radiator flush stuff (block innards was the rusty area on mine, even after taking off the water pump and other poo poo when it was on the stand hand hosing out the water jackets around the cylinders) on that junkyard motor and tons of tap water, and multiple flushes so I just gave up. 
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Nov 3, 2015 17:20
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The whole distilled vs tap is really based around water you're going to be leaving in the system long term with heat cycles and poo poo. If you're literally just blasting water through an opened system with a hose, it doesn't matter as long as you make some minimal effort to flush the remnants of the tap water out.
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Nov 3, 2015 17:55
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Larrymer posted:This is what I was talking about. I'm not buying 20 gallons of distilled and dicking with it that way. Spyder is doing it how I would have. On a normal Obviously if you're trying to get a bunch of gunk out of an old system that was never serviced (as in spyder's case) you want to force the poo poo out by backflushing with a hose. What I'm saying is, is that you don't have to do that to a system that has been properly maintained, all it takes is a couple of gallons of distilled water to flush out the old coolant, then add new coolant. Backflushing in that case is overkill.
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Nov 3, 2015 18:36
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Its a Mercury with a Vulcan V6. I'm sure it will be fine with a little bit of tap water floating around in it.
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Nov 3, 2015 18:46
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Its a Mercury with a Vulcan V6. I'm sure it will be fine with a little bit of tap water floating around in it. I removed old t-stat and flushed the system (with 5 gallons of distilled!) my fluid looked good but some was a little milky/foamy? New t-stat (one of the housing bolts broke off so that was a pain to drill and tap) and fluids all refreshed. Also blew compressed air through as good as I could. Here's hoping no problems on the way to the beach.
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Nov 5, 2015 00:57
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On Halloween night, I went to hang out with some friends across town. On the way over it started dumping buckets of rain. Ten minutes into this storm and I feel a drop of water hit my knee. The sunroof drains had clogged and water started seeping in. I grabbed two towels from behind my seat and shoved them into the visors. It did little good. My seat, my pants, and my wallet were soaked. I pulled it into the shop yesterday and started searching for the drains. Turned out only the front two clogged and the rears worked fine. Everything got a good blast with the compressor and seems to be working fine.  While the car was on the lift I went ahead and did a quick inspection. I had hit a "water diversion" bump pulling into my friends driveway. Scratched up the underside pretty good. Who the hell puts a 3.5" tall asphalt curb in front of someones driveway. Ugh. I still need to do tie rod ends, a steering rack boot, and fix a broken under tray bolt. Since I felt like messing around, I wire brushed the rust off the rotors and hit them with high temp paint. I also decided to half-rear end paint the calipers. I will probably regret this later, but I like it.   Between coats of paint, I fixed a leaking passenger marker light. The air vents were missing and allowing water in.   Here's those fog lights I cleaned up last week. I only now realize I need a $600 mounting/crash support to install them... ugh. Oh well. I'll probably just buy it and get it over with.  I got some used floor mats from eBay. They seem to fit decently, despite being for a RHD car. I may keep them, I may not.   Much better.  Also scored a set of door handles off eBay. They were listed as "door garnish" and for about 1/2 what just a single USED door handle would cost. They are off a RHD car, but they swap over. 
the spyder fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 04:43
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God drat it. I just got talked into 5 more projects. Expect idiocy to come as the weather get's colder and wetter. Only doing it to fund the 20B project.
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Nov 6, 2015 04:45
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If you're going to paint the calipers red (which I kinda am not into), at least take some sand paper to the Mazda letters so they're silver.
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Nov 6, 2015 17:02
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