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I've been long overdue in making a thread about my cars, and after so many delayed promises to do so, I am finally doing it! This thread will document the work on my cars as well as the projects I'll be doing to them and the occasional car show and other things I encounter relating to cars. I tend to type a lot of  so keep that in mind this post might be a mess. I cut it down from a LOT more, trust me! This post will start with just a background on all of the cars and the next posts I'll make later tonight or tomorrow will go over each one and what I've done with them!I'll try to give some backstory on the methods to my madness: == Part 1: My First Car AKA ==Sometime in the early-mid 70s my Grandfather was moving from engineering job to engineering job and finally landed a gig at the Romeo Engine Plant. It was at that point my whole family on my mum's side pretty much committed 100% to Ford has stuck to that ever since. My grandparents always traded up their cars every few years or so, my grandmother moving from various sedans in the 70s to a Tempo to Windstars to Escapes, you name it, but my grandfather stopped buying new cars after his purchase of a 1994 Thunderbird LX, citing it as the greatest car Ford had ever made at the time. Many Ford people I've talked to at shows and things seem to think he was crazy, but as we'll get to later, I believe him. Here's a picture of me with it sometime around 1994:  Fast forward to around 2004, my Grandfather lost a lengthy battle with lung cancer and I was soon coming to driving age, my mother bought the Thunderbird off of my Grandmother and it was now mine. The car only had 24,000 miles on it and it served unfailingly for nearly 100,000 miles after that, losing only a fuel pump, alternator, rear shocks, and front struts in the entire time I owned it. Being a stupid teenager and well into my early 20s I was hell on the highway. I always kept the car cleaned and detailed but I drove the hell out of it.  My parents lived right up by the Northern Illinois / Wisconsin border and the car was always parked outside, then I went to school in Missouri and Iowa, where the car was always parked outside. I always kept it as clean as I could but road salt kept getting to it worse and worse. I even had it covered while I was in the final years of school but the cover would get ripped off by other students from time to time so it was futile. I promised myself I would move SOUTH and finally get the car the care it needed, but by the time I graduated, it was pretty much gone:  I got a job and moved to a town north of the giant DFW sprawl and kept the Thunderbird going while I lived in an apartment, but I couldn't escape the rust and the brake lines blew on me one day at work. Nobody down here would touch it given the rust it had, which I found out was pretty much swiss-cheesing the underside. The Thunderbird was DOA and there wasn't much I could do about it. The interior was spotless and I had somehow kept the clearcoat from going so the apartment would never know it was immobile. I began looking for a replacement. == Part 2: Poor Choices AKA ==Having had such a good experience with the Thunderbird I was committed to Ford, and like all good Ford fans I wanted a Bronco, and I didn't have much of a budget. Alternately I just wanted another Thunderbird but I was effectively priced out of everything I wanted so I was running out of time and options. I was borrowing my roomate's car for work (he worked from home) and didn't want to wear out that welcome. I was looking around and found it, and it was really all I could find anywhere. What do you get when you combine a Bronco and A Thunderbird? A 1987 Ford LTD Crown Victoria S Wagon!!!  The paint was baked, it was a fleet model, the AC didn't work, it had a smash in the door (from the dealer I bought it from), the headlights barely worked, it was everything I could have wanted. I cut my teeth properly working on this car. Unlike the Thunderbird this car was pretty well abused by the previous owner. The interior plastics were trashed, the door seals were ruined, it was a mess. But I realised that Hey, I could park this IN car shows! and got to working on it! I buffed the whole car by hand with a bottle of NuFinish, not too shabby! I fell in love with the car, and as Paul Niedermeyer of Curbside Classic once wrote: I finally found Broughmance.   Work was starting to pay, I paid my loans off, things were going good: I replaced the door seals, the clock, put a new AC compressor in, put the Thunderbird's tires on it, cleaned up the interior, fixed the door mirror, upgraded the radio to another OEM radio, replaced a ton of brightwork, redid some wiring, just in general got the car daily driverable! But all was not well in LTD land, as about a year later I tried to pass a dumptruck and it blew out the upper radiator return hose going about 85:  While waiting in the car for AAA to come get me from my hometown (and having the gas station attendant repeatedly threaten to call the police on me for loitering) I did what anyone else would do when they have insurmountable car trouble, I called my dad. The words he said to me I'll never forget, "You've spent all this time working on this one, why don't you just buy a nice one?" Later that night, I got an email from my dad linking to a Ford dealer in Pennsylvania, he had found something great. == Part 3: Wood You Believe It AKA ==I jumped on it:  And a few weeks later, this was being delivered, a 1989 Ford LTD Crown Victoria Country Squire LX   Here's a recent picture of the window sticker I just had laminated:  It's amazing how opposite these two years apart cars are in how they drive and how they're put together. I sent the Thunderbird to the great wrecking yard in the sky (donated it to NPR) and pulled out a few items that I thought would be useful. I now just had the two wagons. Fast forward another year and the red '87 is starting to show more and more problems having been driven daily. It's burning oil more and more, something in the transmission was starting to go, it was leaking just about everything, and the brakes are getting worse and worse. I start looking for a replacement, I figured I'd have the Squire for a show car and the other car would be a daily driver. Something fun that I could beat on and leave outside and not care too much. Just a raggedy beater. I decide to get something sporty, I wanted a rear wheel drive stick shift convertible roadster that wasn't a Miata, because I'm stupid. Some goons may remember my 90s Mercury Capri temptations. I was courting everything from Foxbody Mustangs to Corvettes to SL560 roadsters. Till one day I found it on Craigslist and I couldn't say no: == Part 4: I buy a RWD sporty convertible roadster manual that's not sporty, a roadster, or track-capable as my fun sports car ==   I mean, how could I say no? The seller had it for only a few weeks when I bought it, he didn't even know how to open the hood despite having a collection of 20 something 1930s, 40s, and 50s cars at the property I bought it from. He said he got it for his daughter who refused to touch it because it was a manual! I didn't know how drive a manual myself and begged my friend who used to work for the Mecum auctions to drive it home for me. I learned that night. I looked up the RPO codes and ordered a new roof and got new tires. But I had a problem... I bought this as a beater and it was too nice.  There's no rust anywhere on it... I can't leave this outside!  At this point I've got three cars (not counting my roomates) and the apartment's not happy about it. This was the middle of september and with spring coming in 6 months meant hail and this Geo had sheet metal like tissue paper. The Squire was normally covered but the apartment didn't like that. I had to buy a house... so I could have a garage. Plus the apartments were getting worse and worse and our town was about to go through a huge industry boom that we had learned about in advance so I could get a jump on the market. A lot happens in the next year: I find a house, it's run down but fixable, I'm in debt, I have a health crisis: I inhale quite a bit of asbestos thanks to a well-meaning contractor, I go to a therapist who helps me get through it as-best-os I can, my house starts having tons of issues, I'm in more debt, something has to give, and the red 87 is it, it has to go. It's falling apart more and more to the point where it's almost un-driveable and I can't afford to fix it. Here's the last photo of the cars together, note the Geo has different wheels.  My financials start to stabilize and I use the red wagon for one last big project. It was a hell of a moving van for the move from the house to the apartment and it did me one last good gesture with this 1940s display case I found on Craigslist:  This was mid-removal. The entire thing actually fit in the wagon.  I sold the wagon to a nice college kid and his grandfather who was a mechanic. They said they could take care of just about everything that was wrong with it and gave me some good money for it. I sent him a CD of all 300 some odd photos I took of the car and all the books and brochures I found as well. Things are looking up, I no longer feel like my house is actively killing me, my money's stable, and I've got time to enjoy my cars and hobbies again! == Part whatever: Now == So now I start my thread, I spent way too long typing and cutting down the contents of this for but I'll make the next posts be the full history of what I've done on the Squire and the Tracker since I bought it!!! Although... all is not well in the the world... because there's another car in my life... I've mentioned it before but you rarely saw it in photos... for a reason...My roomate's car... a 1999  B5 VW Passat : More to come on that later. Luxrage fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Mar 17, 2019 |
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Mar 17, 2019 02:13
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I didn't even have to scroll past the "moved north of DFW" to realize who it was or where you were. I miss your city a shitload more than I should, especially since I only lived there a few years. I know that city has always been considered "little Austin". Welp, I'm in Austin now, and still miss the hell out of it - and I refuse to give up my phone number from up there. I might be back some day. Maybe. If nothing else, you might find me buried in the basement of the bookstore downtown that's on the verges of collapsing under its own weight when it finally does collapse - next to the automotive section of course. (also I know drat well I've seen several early 80s Ford repair manuals there, including FSMs at one point.... the automotive section is at the far back corner of the second room downstairs - go downstairs, go past the tiny little room that has the maps, then go into the next room that has cookbooks and the like) Go pig out at Mi Ranchito for me, and send me some of their rellenos damnit! And if you ever wind up in a Honda/Toyota/Nissan, PM me and let me know - I'm friends with the owner of a drat good import shop just east of downtown, I've known him for well over 20 years. He's touched every car I've ever owned, except for my first one and my current one. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Mar 17, 2019 |
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Mar 17, 2019 09:51
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Sorry for the delay, work's been brutal. So I'll go over what's been done on the Country Squire so far and what I'm planning on doing with it in the long run. From the moment I got the car I already had to work on it. When the auto transporter loaded it up in Pennsylvania, they loaded it under a 1950s car which promptly dumped oil all over the windshield and hood. The car unloader tracked it into the car and got it on the doors, the seats, the steering wheel, you name it. I spent a fun first few days cleaning it top to bottom.  God, that pissed me off, but I was able to get it all out! Except for the rearview mirror which had some sort of permanent discoloration, but that wasn't a big deal because I was going to replace it! == The Mirror / Dashcam == The first thing on the agenda was a dashcam, I took the one out of my other wagon and got to work wiring up the car. Since I was going to do the wiring for the dashcam, I might as well do the mirror as well!    This is the mirror from the Thunderbird, a Gentex auto dimming model. I was dumb not to cut the thunderbird's cable off when I took it, but I found they upgraded to a larger pin count of the same connector and you could condense it back to four. I dremel'd it and it fit perfectly. For the actual install, I bought a little fuse block with spade connectors coming out the sides.  I made a miraculous discovery when I was fudging around with fuse-taps looking for circuits. It turns out on mine (and this may apply to other CVs as well) the supposed "Unused" fuse position in the fusebox was actually powered AND switched! Another neat discovery was that this car actually has a grounding bar full of spade connectors, so I just hooked up the dashcam and mirror grounds right to it!  I bought one of these for the Dashcam and sliced off the fusetap portion and made it into a standard spade to use in one of the slots, and the mirror power would go in the other. Here's how I ended up running the wires, I was able to go from the fuse box under the steering colum, through the dashboard, out the side, through the A pillar trim, up to the roof trim, and out to the mirror and dashcam!     I somehow managed to not ruin the headliner and was able to make it look ~somewhat~ OEM in the process. The TownCars had a hole in the top trim for the cabling to come through but I wasn't about to do that! https://zippy.gfycat.com/MagnificentVariableGentoopenguin.gif == The Trip Computer == One thing the car has that kind of let it down was a bare-bones clock. Just a simple piddly little one line display which promptly fell apart when I took the dashboard off:  Well, one amazing ford Accessory I found thanks to the brochure I picked up on ebay was the TRIPMINDER  Which gave you a full readout of all of the digital dashboard / cruise control / EFI control info on a TWO line display!   I was expecting this big crazy setup of wires with it and instead just got a single plug. Being naive as I was, I was expecting to have to wire it up to all these different points in the car. After all, the 87 red wagon had them, but for some reason, the Squire didn't! It took a whole day of fighting and reading documents and broken photobucket links to find out that in 1988 they revised it and moved all four data lines to one plug in the dash.  More digging around the car and documents and I managed to find the pinouts: Pin 1: EMPTY Pin 2: EMPTY Pin 3: Ignition Power (light blue/black stripe) Pin 4: Dimmer (light blue/red stripe) Pin 5: Power (light green/yellow stripe) Pin 6: Fuel Flow Input (light blue/pink stripe) Pin 7: Ground (black) Pin 8: Speed Input (dark green/white stripe) Pin 9: Ground (black) Using both plugs, plus a lot of wiring and two days of blowing fuses and in general having an absolute crap time, I finally got readouts! Using a troubleshooter I found in the car's owner manual I had ~Success!~    Going from left to right, top to bottom, it has a trip timer, average speed, total gas used by the gallon, distance traveled, instant MPG and average MPG! And the default is a two line clock!  I was in business! == Stuff Breaks ==  This had a crack in it when I bought it and it gave way on the highway. If the Thunderbird taught me one thing, it's that plastic is bad news on the front of an old car. But this is old detroit iron! How bad could it b-    Some of that is colored wrong, but it's the entire front of the car from the hood forward (with the exception of the bumper) The other thing that went somewhat recently has been the driver's side door lock actuator, I fixed it without taking too much time but it was a pain in the rear end. I was also an absolute madman and didn't take the original mounting bracket out, so I replaced the entire thing while it was still in the door.    however in the process I had to pull the plastic vapor barrier off which took of a lot of paint!  I ended up repainting it and using thick mil shower curtain and 3M strip caulk to rebuild it!  The next thing I did was replace the headlights and front bulbs. The high beams were plastic and starting to fade:   Some of the OEM fitment was showing through... like this side marker lens not being installed flush with the trim.  == Future Fixes == So when I first bought the car the dealer noted that the trim was peeling, it's only gotten worse since then but it fades to the color of the car and is still in good condition underneath the peeling clear coat so eventually I will try to have them restored. There's also one spot underneath where the gas cap is where the main wood siding is cracked, but other than that it's in great condition all over so I won't worry about it for now. I just keep drowning it in 303 Aerospace Protectant to keep it slick n' shiny!   My father was in town visiting and got very very invested in the idea that he could repaint them and clear coat them himself. He's an avid hobbyist and works on race bikes and restores things so I believe him. The main challenge for me is going to be removing them without damaging them or the clips, plus finding extras just in case. I ran into someone who made their own replica of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster and they had repainted all of the trim themselves so I have some nice photos of how it's supposed to look from the factory. After all, that wagon was an 86 Squire!   When the car's cleaned up you really can't tell any of the imperfections, here's a photo taken by Steph Schrader when I was at RadWood a few weeks ago in Austin. It really cleans up well! The second one I found on Bringatrailer.com.   The other minor annoyance is the wheels are all pitted to hell and back, I might see about having them sandblasted and refinished.  Other than that, the car's in really good shape! Mechanically it is all original, so just about every hose is leaking and I've been slowly replacing all the clamps and trying to stop them. The air conditioner is constantly losing pressure and freon, so that's going to have to be addressed soon. STR posted:I didn't even have to scroll past the "moved north of DFW" to realize who it was or where you were. If it wasn't for work being where I live now I'd most likely be living in Denton, I love that town so much! I'm actually even further north than that, up in Sherman! But all my friends (and all the good bars) are in Denton so I'm there just about every weekend! A proper Dallas friend I know called Sherman the boonies and super rural, but I don't consider an hour drive any inconvenience at all, plus in the Squire it's a dream!  Their Arts and Autos car show every year is a blast! I talked to my friend who lives down there and he knew all about Mi Ranchito so next time I'm down there I'll hit it up! Same for the bookstore's automotive section, that place is huge but I never thought to venture into the deep recesses of the basement!! Thanks for the tip for the Honda/Toyota/Nissan stuff, because I might just be looking for a Toyota LandCruiser soon, these two cars are great but neither is really the type I want to take out in horrible weather and face TOO much of the elements! Making a post this long is probably bad for my health, I'll try to break the Geo one up a little more, plus that way I can do it on my lunch hour at work! Luxrage fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Mar 20, 2019 |
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Mar 20, 2019 05:38
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Ways to spot someone who's spent too much time in or remotely near DFW: they consider an hour drive to be normal.  I wouldn't have minded living in Sherman or anywhere between Sherman and Denton to be honest, if I could find work in those areas. Unfortunately I'm very much a part of the gig economy, and only 1 of the companies I worked with at the time serviced Denton (the worst paying of them - Uber - Doordash now handles Denton too I think, but they're scammy as gently caress when it comes to pay). I don't think any of them service Sherman.I wasn't sure if you weren't mentioning Denton on purpose, hence why I was a little ambiguous. I've been in an Austin suburb since August, and I'm already used to bitching if it takes more than 10-15 minutes to get anywhere (though I keep calling Randall's "Tom Thumb"... it's the exact same store, just a different name here). When I last lived in DFW (on the border of Garland/Sunnyvale/Rowlett), I had a 40 minute drive just to get to my doctor's office, 20 minute drive to a decent grocery store (Sprouts in Rowlett, Winco in Garland, or Tom Thumb in Garland or Rowlett - 10 minutes to a really run down and tiny Kroger, same to an equally old and small Albertsons). Pretty sure every Ford with EFI in the 80s could be had with that trip computer, except for maybe the slant nose F-150 (80-86). My 80 F-150 had the more basic version - digital clock that could also track trip time, but it just used 3 wires (and I don't think EFI was even an option until 84 or 85). I know my dad's Thunderbird had the Tripminder, though I don't remember what year it was (somewhere from 86-89). Autodimming mirrors are a must once you've had them, IMO. I've had two Saturns now, one top level, one base model - the first thing I did when I got the replacement car (base model) was swap over the auto dimming mirror w/temp + compass. Thankfully all the wiring is already there (since the base has OnStar, and could be optioned with autodimming or autodimming w/outside temp and compass as a dealer item - and the wiring was already under the hood for the outside temp sensor too), but GM just drops the bundle and plug out of the front of the headliner. There's no trim panel across the front like what you have. And I'm pretty sure the factory wiring for mine runs exactly how you ran yours (and I'm almost positive Ford ran it the same route as well). That grounding block is a drat nice find. I know in the 80s, CB radios were pretty popular - maybe they put it there knowing some people would install them? Or maybe it's shared with the Crown Vic, and was there for police equipment?
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Mar 20, 2019 07:23
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MN12s will always have a soft spot in my heart so here's to you for taking care of your Grandpa's. Your cars are indeed 
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Mar 20, 2019 14:06
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Luxrage posted:
I pulled similar wheels out of a junkyard in similar shape and cleaned them up for my lincoln in a couple days     https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3734747&userid=158277&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post449823028 I went with polished as gently caress because of the nature of my car, but you could level them out with a flap wheel then skip the polishing steps and just run some 800 grit up each spoke for a more matte look or some 240 grit for a machined look. That trip computer stuff is so awesome. Powershift fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Mar 20, 2019 |
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Mar 20, 2019 15:29
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Those wheels came out really good! I'm impressed! Sorry for the disappearance, there's been a lot going on IRL for me, including going from 0 to 7 cats in the span of about an hour. I had a stray start living in my garage who was heavily pregnant and ended up fostering all of the kittens until they could be adopted. Kept two kittens and the momma cat but it has been so much work! However, I'm back now and with an update. We had a couple of close calls with hail and tornados the last few weeks and I'm getting sick of taking my Geo to work and watching the weather. I wanted a proper beater car. A friend in Denton hit me up that he had a car rotting in his driveway; he said if I could get it running I could have it for $300. It has (when parked) new tires and brakes. I stopped by to look at it last night, having been told it was parked about 8 months ago, but the registration went out four years ago, so I'm a little wary:    I put a walmart battery in it, checked the oil and the rest of the fluids, and everything was where it should be. We managed to cycle it a few times and get it running with some good gas (I suspect it has been driven with no registration up until 8 months ago) and take it around the block a few times. The only thing that's not working on it is the digital dash, the HVAC controls, and the clock won't come on. I saw the same thing on a car I used to have so I'm going to the local pick n' pull because by the powers that be in cardom, another one just showed up at a pick n pull two days ago!  Other notables: The car has a bunch of weird rust spots and the gas filler door looks cursed, but the tank still held pressure when we took the cap off so there's something!   The other reason I'm tempted to bring this back to life is this is in their back yard and I don't want it to meet the same fate:  Now the real question remains if I do get the ignition switch swapped in and it all powers up as it should, should I oil change it in his driveway before driving an hour back to where I live or just drive it back on the potentially 8-48 year old oil it has? It seems like it'd be safer to do it before I go but his driveway is a mess and it was holding proper level sitting all this time. Luxrage fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Nov 2, 2019 |
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Nov 2, 2019 16:43
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Luxrage posted:Other notables: The car has a bunch of weird rust spots and the gas filler door looks cursed, but the tank still held pressure when we took the cap off so there's something! looks like body filler cracking. Have you checked the rear frame or seams inside the trunk? based on the weird bodywork issues at the same place on both sides, i would wonder if it took a shunt from the back. The most damage from starting up a car that's been sitting for that long is likely the lack of initial oil flow. On the latest free ep of roadkill the boys felt it important enough to hack up a distributor to prime the oil pump on a car of similar vintage. I would definitely change the oil there first, but if you could manage to cycle the oil before starting it it would probably be even better.
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Nov 2, 2019 20:31
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Powershift posted:looks like body filler cracking. Have you checked the rear frame or seams inside the trunk? based on the weird bodywork issues at the same place on both sides, i would wonder if it took a shunt from the back. The oil pump drive is a notched shaft. Instead of hacking up a distributor, you could just get in there with a speed handle, a long extension, and a flat head bit. I rigged something similar with a chisel (that happened to be hexagonal) taped into a socket when I had to do something similar. Make sure you keep track of where the distributor was before you take it out, though!
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Nov 2, 2019 23:03
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Powershift posted:looks like body filler cracking. Have you checked the rear frame or seams inside the trunk? based on the weird bodywork issues at the same place on both sides, i would wonder if it took a shunt from the back. I took a look in the trunk, but it was so full of crap that I couldn't see past the broken kitchen appliances and other things they put in there, my friend's parents tend to hoard junk everywhere they can put it. More on that later in the post. I hit up the yard and pulled some things from this 93, not a lot matched the 89 as far as trim went which really irritated me because the back MAXIMA panel is broken on the 89 and this one's didn't match. I also stopped at Half Price Books on the way and found two basic repair books for it! Not that they helped too much but it's good to know where the oil pan plug is and things like that:   I grabbed the igntion switch + wiring as well as the turn signal lenses and some interior trim bits, a not disgusting ashtray (there was something nasty in his), and the owners manual. 55 bux for the whole haul wasn't too bad. Bonus lego head under the rear seat:  So I got back, waited for him to get home, and then swapped in the ignition, no dice. I dug deep into the owner's forums and found that if the instrument cluster goes bad, the climate control and the windshield HUD don't work either. Here's what I'm seeing:  Here's what should be there. The Dashboard powers the HUD on the windshield as well.  The climate control came on and off a few times while I was messing with it, so I know the cluster isn't actually dead, I suspect there's bad solder joints or something in there, so the question remains do I try to dig into this and see if I can get it working, because man that's cool. I work with old electronics as my job so I have some knowledge of what I'd be getting into trying to fix this, it's more of the getting it out of the car that's the hard part! So here's the bad part, While I was at the yard, my friend started the car up several times and even took it around the block on whatever gas it had in it. Now, I didn't see any oil leaks starting and I didn't hear any god awful noises when I got back and he showed me it ran, so I'm hoping that the bad gas prevented it from starting for a while and it had time to circulate SOME of that sludge around. Despite them telling me they had the title, they couldn't find it. I waited for about an hour while they dug through big mountains of unsorted paperwork throughout their house. I just gave up and told them if they couldn't find it I wasn't going to take the car, so they offered to have AAA tow it up to my house Wednesday ( can you do that with AAA? Just move cars around with it? ) and they'd have the title for it then. So for 300 dollars I'm still tempted to see if I can pull that cluster and get it going. I really just want something to take to work during bad weather. The Country Squire is out of the question and the Geo is too nice to get hailed on. I, unfortunately, fixed my roomate's car up too much to get it ruined now as well, so this would be the beater. From what I gathered from driving it just around the block, it still drives really well, it just has a horrible exhaust leak that makes it sound like those old cars you drive at Six Flags. I think with an oil change and a little TLC I can get it driveable. And the interior is nice so I don't feel gross in it, I just have to remove the aftermarket crap tint job. 
Luxrage fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Nov 3, 2019 |
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Nov 3, 2019 17:24
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That same Pick n Pull location gave me almost $300 for a totaled Saturn, I'd imagine they'd give at least $200-300 for that if it doesn't work out. Change the timing belt ASAP on it. I'd just say gently caress it and drive it back on the oil in it, so long as it doesn't look horrific. And as for the cluster, it's almost guaranteed to be bad solder joints, like you think. They use a VFD display, I don't know what kind of power supply those use, but since other modules aren't getting power, it's probably not the driver for it. The nicoclub.com forums used to be pretty knowledgeable when I had my Altima. Looks like there's another forum called maxima.org that has a subforum dedicated to the 3rd gen. And I agree with Powershift, that's bondo that you see cracking. But it's a $300 Maxima that looks like it's in decent shape. Yes, you can use AAA for that... you tell them you "broke down". So long as the car has a license plate, they'll send someone to pick it up. 99.9% of the drivers don't give a poo poo and know exactly what you're doing, just toss them  as a tip. If they've lost the title, SO LONG AS IT'S IN THEIR NAME, it's dead simple to get a replacement title in Texas. If it's NOT in their name, then you have to do a bill of sale and apply for a bonded title - but that shouldn't be expensive on such an old car (looks like $100 for the bond so long as the state appraises it for less than $6k).
randomidiot fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Nov 3, 2019 |
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Nov 3, 2019 17:37
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That is a really cool dashboard
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Nov 4, 2019 00:28
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Previa_fun posted:That is a really cool dashboard Agreed, but the increments on the speedo are weird as hell
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Nov 4, 2019 01:46
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Turns out AAA will tow a car for any reason up to 100 miles, so it worked out! I got it in yesterday afternoon. We attacked it with a hose, and when that didn't work, a mop. It is still a total mess, like the black stuff is part of the paint at this point. Oh well!   Today I did a few little things, I did a baby's first oil change on it and put a new filter on as well. That engine's very easy to work with. The oil was burnt but not a milkshake or full of engine shards so I'm grateful for that! I was able to reach the filter from the top of the engine with enough room to fit a wrench in as well.   The window tint that's on this is awful, the back window's horribly peeling and the passenger side is blurry. I scraped as much of it off as I could and it looks a lot nicer now.  (this is halfway through to show you how bad it was initially) One highlight is I took the nasty foam steering wheel cover off to find the wheel in nice shape, which is a plus for once:  Another thing I did was pull the front license plate off to see why it was missing the mounting box:  The high mount taillight and the turn signal lenses in the front are trashed so tomorrow I'm gonna swap those and get that box installed. I'll take a greater inventory and get some video of the car in action. Quick notables that I'm worried will make it fail inspection: 1. There's a big exhaust leak somewhere, it sounds like a 19-10s car when you have it running. 2. The digital dashboard is toast so there's no odometer to read It's super cold outside but I'm still tempted to go dig around the back seats more for fun since my roommate just went to bed and I've got not much else to do! Luxrage fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Nov 8, 2019 |
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Nov 8, 2019 06:01
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Double posting, but I forgot to add had a run in today with this one man who seems to walk the neighborhood and find me when I least want him to. He calls himself "Q" and always tries to buy my cars. He feeds me lines about how he's an honest man and doesn't believe in lying and then just pelts me with lowball offers. Even though I'd love to flip this Maxima, I'm not gonna give it to him because I'm sick of his constant lowballs and you think a man who wants to buy a car from me would actually tell me his name. The conversation went a bit like this as he saw me getting into the car while it was in my driveway by the street:  "You just get that car? Did you sell your wagon? (I had that red '87 parked in the street) "Yeah, just got this from Denton yesterday for $300" "How much you want for it? I know you want to get your cut but I'm an honest man and I could give you $450 for it."Like, drat, get your own car lmao. I just told him I was interested in selling it to get rid of him and if he calls me I'm just gonna tell him it has some big problem with the title and it's gonna take a long time to sort out. I also got antsy since I've got nothing to do other than make a mix CD for the car and decided to take a look at the high mount brake light to see why it wasn't coming on. Figured the bulbs were bad. For some reason both the clips were missing and the housing was just free-floating in the back deck...   those monster bulbs melted their housings!I put some way smaller bulbs in for the time being but now they don't shine right because the mounts are bad and that makes me
Luxrage fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Nov 8, 2019 |
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Nov 8, 2019 06:41
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Tell him $600 and wash your hands of it imo. Let inspection be his problem.
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Nov 9, 2019 13:03
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angryrobots posted:Tell him $600 and wash your hands of it imo. Let inspection be his problem. As expected I haven't heard from him since. I've been working on the car more and more in the meantime. My goal with this is to try to spend as little money as possible as a failsafe for it grenading itself. So far I'm down like $55 so it hasn't been too terrible. Just a walmart battery, an oil filter, and some junkyard parts. I'm just gonna plod away at it until something happens. I put the junkyard license plate holder and turn signal lenses on. It looks a lot better already. The license plate bracket was a pain to put on because I had to unbend whatever damaged bumper braces were under there to get the clearance. Also, the hail damage is horrific and the windshield is cracked but other than that it now looks acceptable from about... 30ft away. The whole point of the car is to take it to work in hail anyways. I don't want my daily driver Tracker getting damaged, so I am not gonna go crazy with fixing it up like I did the Tracker when I bought it. More on that Truck later. It's also giving me a chance to work on a lot of the more crummy car stuff that I haven't encountered in my other cars yet.    Upsides are it isn't leaking oil and doesn't seem to be burning any as well. I don't see any loss of coolant or anything else either. The engine looks to have been replaced at some point. I can see paint marker on it with "150K" but who knows how long ago that was. The tires are holding air and there's no screaming belts or horrible noises. I've been driving it to work the last two days ( I drive a rural farm road in the morning so it's rarely full of cars) and haven't had any scary moments. Regarding the Texas vehicle inspection, as far as I can tell, doesn't care about no speedometer, so we'll see on Thursday or Friday when I get it inspected if it passes. My county doesn't do emissions, so that saves a lot of hassle. The only upcoming big purchases I'm going to do are to replace the hood struts and patching that exhaust leak. My friend mentioned it had one and you can clearly hear it but he said he never could find it. It took about two seconds under the car to see:  so once I get that patched this weekend that should be all it needs to pass inspection and get registered. Other issues is the car seems to randomly forget overdrive exists and the whole digital dashboard / climate control issue, but that'll all get fixed when I pull the cluster. If I get that working that'll be a good selling point (to sell it and the HUD by itself if the car dies) Speaking of the truck earlier. It was supposed to be what the Nissan is now, but it's too nice to get trashed in severe weather, and I'm working on getting that prettied up as well. Here's a recent picture of it from earlier this week. I experimented a few weeks ago with painting the bumpers black again with some trim paint. It seems to be holding up okay:  However, the power steering hose clamps have finally given way and are not so slowly leaking as of a few days ago. That'll be this weekend's project along with a big rearview mirror replacement job I'm still working out the details to. I'll make a post about that later this week when I get that somewhat finalized.   Also, an update on the kittens, we kept two and the mom, who they won't spay yet and it's extremely annoying having her in heat right now trying to escape as I work on the garage.   Edit: The car taunted me by turning on a section of the digital dash and then turning it off again while I was warming it up this morning: 
Luxrage fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Nov 13, 2019 |
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Nov 12, 2019 04:37
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That exhaust leak is a perfect opportunity to learn how to patch with a beer can, hose clamps, and muffler putty.
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Nov 12, 2019 05:39
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This is insanely stupid. Subscribed.
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Nov 12, 2019 18:01
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Crunchy Black posted:This is insanely stupid. Take away the too-nice-to-drive cars and leave the beater Maxima, and this is Real Life for some of us.
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Nov 12, 2019 19:53
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^^ True, I shouldn't really say they're 'too nice to drive' cars though, the Squire and the Geo were both daily drivers at one point for me, and the Geo still is used almost every time I have to go out regardless of the weather, but I'm sick of worrying about or horrible hail storms taking out my cars! Having the Squire outside was one of many motivators that finally pushed me to buy a house. I didn't even have covered parking!  And speaking of hail, we had one storm come through a few weeks after I bought my house, so the Squire narrowly missed getting hit and the Geo already went through one since I got it. My experience living at the Texas / Oklahoma border so far is that this area has been a nasty habit of forming hail storms out of nowhere around here, and I work shift at a manufacturing facility so it's not like I can duck out of work. I just have to sit there watching stuff like this roll in:   This is the hail balls from the one that hit the Geo while I was trapped at work:  So I promised myself this wouldn't happen again! That Geo has sheet metal like kleenex. So anyways, I am thinking about how I'm gonna do this Geo dimming mirror project this weekend. I have replaced the rearview mirror in the truck twice now because the things keep breaking and dumping little plastic bits all over:  At $30 a set I am getting sick of doing this over and over. I flip them up and down a lot since my commute is half daytime half nighttime and they end up always failing. So I'm going to do what I did in the Country Squire and wire up a Ford auto-dimming rearview mirror. I picked Ford's Gentex ones because I'm familiar with the wiring and they seem pretty robust. The first issue I have is the way they mount the Geo mirrors. They're mounted on the roof!  However, this leaves me with an access hole that I can use to run wires through the truck down to the footwell where I believe in the dash there's an access panel I can remove to get into the body structure. I'll just mount the new mirror button on the windshield. It'll run like this:   down to the fuse panel that I might have to wire up a breakout box for. There's no empty fuses like the Country Squire had. That thing was practically cheating since the standardized fuse box had several switched and unswitched power taps for police/taxi accessories.  It's a real rats nest in there right now with one tap for the Dashcam. The mirror is this one that I posted in the terrible car stuff thread about. Just a standard Gentex 7-pin mid-00's auto dimming mirror. I accidentally ripped off a layer of the donor car's windshield for so oops! I have one from a Lincoln MK VIII but that one looks out of place so I'll use the more basic Crown Vic one.   Seat Safety Switch posted:That exhaust leak is a perfect opportunity to learn how to patch with a beer can, hose clamps, and muffler putty. That hole is suspiciously close to the taper in the pipe so I might have to get crazy with it! Here's some bonus art from the owner's manual:  
Luxrage fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Nov 13, 2019 |
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Nov 13, 2019 20:01
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So I've done a bunch in the last few days, both good and bad. I'm gonna try to break this down into two posts. The Maxima and the Tracker. The Maxima I took the Maxima to my friendly neighborhood Ford dealer on Thursday with the hole in the exhaust and the non functional cluster just to see what would happen. I'm friends with the manager of the quicklane there and he assured me it'd pass.  It's funny because the guy knew just from looking at it what it was and was asking how all the cool (and non working) features were. it failed. Reason: No speedometer  But, they told me if I get that fixed they'd pass it and didn't charge me. So I took to the internet for my options. Lo and behold, you can just swap in an analog cluster! So I pulled up a guide and pulled my cluster out for now. Getting a working analog one in will buy me some time to get this one fixed anyways. Here's the gauge cluster without the dark lens on it  Here's the board in the back that I believe is the source of my problems. I'm not seeing any cracked solder or bad capacitors so I might have to throw myself to the lions at the Maxima owners forums and see if they know the specific components that go bad. It was actually a nice easily removable board that I wan swap off the back of the cluster so I don't have to mail it off if I find someone willing to repair it for me if I can't:  Working on this was hell because I was under constant assault by acorns and had quite a few bounce up in my face  So, I broke a bunch of brittle trim panels doing all of this so I set off to the pick n' pull this morning to get the cluster from that one! Nobody had messed with it since I was there last time which was good and the interior was immaculate (but not blue but oh well!)    as I am very smart and cool, I immediately realized that the plugs in the back were different. That's right, I'm replacing the whole dash harness for this! Since I had the dash apart, I also pulled the clock and the keypad door lock controller board since mine's not holding a code. I am gonna see if that solves that problem. The master reset code is on a sticker on the box which makes it easy! I was going to take the keypad from the driver's side door as well but it is attached to huge pigtail and wouldn't be worth the hassel. It works just fine but some of the numbers have worn down.  That panel full of buttons snapped in half and broke ALL of the tabs on it when I pulled mine. This one was much nicer. That wiring harness has about 10 plugs on it but it isn't very hard to figure out. Nissan did a decent job making each one different. When I got back I did a test fit, and guess what? It works! There's no speedo cable in this so I just plugged in the harness adaptor and plugged in the cluster and it popped right on!  Here's a video of the initial test. Listen to that exhaust go! I did end up testing the speedo just by driving straight forwards in the driveway. I saw it move a little so I think it works! The car at the yard had a few reasons for being there written on the windshield and none of them were electrical. https://i.imgur.com/xuhTjhB.mp4 The clock also worked  The cigarette lighter I pulled also worked! The transmission switch backlighting didn't work so I took the one from the car as well.  It looks like an utter disaster at the moment, and I work 12 hour days for the next three days. Wednesday is gonna be when I get this all back together and get it passing inspection. The hardest part is fishing it all back through the dashboard. This harness goes from the instrument cluster to all the buttons below it, the clock, to the glovebox lighting and switch for that.  This has been pretty fun so far messing with this car, and I'm only now about $200 in. They only charged me like $110 for all those parts! The big hurdle is going to be to figure out the airbag light on the cluster. It's not a light but an LED with a board that might be tied to something else. I'm gonna do some research before I mess around with it too much. I might just leave it behind the cluster and cover the hole up so I don't accidentally trip some failsafe. The only thing that I'm going to lose from this conversion is that the fuel gauge won't read correctly as the digital has a different sending unit. I'm not concerned about it as I'm sure the fuel pump will fail sooner or later. To get to the pump to swap the sender units you have to pull the back seats entirely out and that's not something I really want to get into. If this passes I'm going to celebrate by getting some hood struts for it AND someone on the Maxima forum is has remade the 4DSC stickers! https://www.makestickers.com/design/190819221700-3tc0vn0h4k3gf5icog1312xb?pgid=ae32995f-f804-4246-9e9a-78d282a2de19 I'll get a post together on what I did with the tracker next... Luxrage fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Nov 17, 2019 |
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Nov 17, 2019 04:13
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So I did 90% of the mirror work for the Tracker this weekend. The one roadblock I had was that I was a bit incorrect on my memory of the access hole under the mirror mount...  At least it looks nice when you put the screws back in. I might put some little plugs in instead but I think that's good enough. I'll probably find a better way to run it in the future, but the wire runs I've got at the moment should be big enough for two cables. The Gentex 7-pin plugs all share the same wiring, the layout is like this:  Most of the functions like the reverse dim-disable and the tempurature sensors I'm not needing for obvious reasons which makes this very easy. I simply ran a wire for hot and for ground. I had some leftover plastic wire wrap whatever it's called and used the last of it for this.  This photo has the other wires on the plug still, this was just for the first initial test fit. I slapped a fuse tap on it for a quick install.  There's one unused fuse slot in the truck for a rear window defrost what I can use. I might use that as a breakout point for a power block.  I have a brown cover for mine, I don't know why there's so many variant colors! and it works!   The button's in and needs 24 hours to cure. I might bring it all with me and install it all during my lunch break at work Monday  
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Nov 17, 2019 05:16
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Luxrage posted:
Erm, is it just me or do the connections around that blue bar thing and the green bar thing look...'burnt', as well as whatever those bar things are themselves?
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Nov 17, 2019 11:28
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That was some sort of plastic film looking stuff that was chipping off. Maybe that's part of the problem. I can find posts on the Maxima forums of people saying they've fixed this board problem but never what they actually did. I'll get some close up shots of the board later this week. The nice thing is if I do get this fixed in the future it's a simple plug-in test to ensure it works and not something I need to gut the car for. Luxrage fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Nov 17, 2019 |
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Nov 17, 2019 13:57
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Nice work man! Your IACV isn't working though, it shouldn't be idling so low on a cold start. Most cars of that era idle around 1500-2000 immediately after a Texas cold start (i.e. not below freezing); my 99 Altima definitely idled around 1300-1500 on a cold start. At least, I'm assuming it was a stone cold, sitting overnight start..
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Nov 17, 2019 17:34
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Nissan ECUs from that time period are sort of infamous for having dicky FETs. However, they usually fail in exciting ways that involve blowing shrapnel across your board. I also wouldn't discount those capacitors as being bad until you've put them on an ESR meter; although I'm never one to suggest shotgun replacement of capacitors, they can definitely fail without visibly leaking, blowing the bung, or denting the vents. Also not sure what is going on at R18. That board needs a scrub with isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush. Seat Safety Switch fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Nov 17, 2019 |
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Nov 17, 2019 17:49
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Well, I'm in the thick of it now! I tried every trick in the book I could to get that digital dash working without tearing into it too hard so now I'm going to focus on getting that analog gauge cluster in there. I pulled the glovebox to get the end of the wiring harness out. He had four and a half pairs of sunglasses in there...  See that gold box on the far right of the first picture, that's the keypad control box. Nissan is nice enough to print the reset code for the box right on it. It's that bottom number. This picture's of the original non working one.   I put the junkyard one in and.... https://i.imgur.com/BGNGlHF.mp4 It's like 60 degrees and overcast so I gotta keep working to get the most out of this day!!!! Luxrage fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 18:22
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The blue and green bars are transformers. The magnet wires wind around the bobbin and then terminate to stiff wire leads on the side. The soldering of the magnet wires to the leads generally looks poor on most cheap teansfoemers. It's probably exacerbated by the conformal coating sprayed over the board, which is what is flaking off. R18 does look odd though.
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Nov 21, 2019 05:45
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I had no idea Nissan ever did the keypad entry, I thought that was strictly a FoMoCo thing. Awesome that it can roll the windows down too!
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Nov 21, 2019 05:57
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great thread!
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Nov 21, 2019 21:09
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Sgt Fox posted:The blue and green bars are transformers. The magnet wires wind around the bobbin and then terminate to stiff wire leads on the side. The soldering of the magnet wires to the leads generally looks poor on most cheap teansfoemers. It's probably exacerbated by the conformal coating sprayed over the board, which is what is flaking off. R18 does look odd though. I'll try to get some better board photos. In the meantime here's how yesterday and today went! So right after that last post I found out something awful, the trim with all of the buttons on it wasn't the same as the one in my car because the junkyard car didn't have tilt steering.  But it's a good thing I have a dremel!  After that, I got the car back together and vacuumed it out. It looks really good now! I mean, on the inside it does...    So, shortly after these pictures were taken something happened. Something awful. As I was leaving for the inspection place I noticed the engine was eerily quiet, like all of the exhaust noise went away. However, the car now was barely able to hit 30mph and would die at every light. It wasn't able to idle at all!!!!! So naturally I took it to my friendly neighborhood Ford dealer for the inspection anyways. My friend who works there sure likes this car because he fought with the state inspection guy to get it passed despite it not really running right and told me if I couldn't fix this engine issue to tell him and he'd buy it off of me. This is the same guy who I met at Radwood Austin and also was all over this car before so he's very sympathetic towards the cause of keeping 80s cars alive. I owe him big for that one. I took it back and checked to see if I was getting spark from any of the plugs and it seemed like half the plugs weren't firing. I went out and grabbed an in line spark tester but gave up because it got dark out. Here's what it was idling at, if you can call barely staying alive idling:  The inspector told me he was only passing it out of pity. I mean, it's a state safety inspection and what's safer than a car that doesn't run! Anyways, it's a real kick in the dick to get all this stuff finally working and have the car nearly die on you, that's for sure!!!! But, all was not lost, as I took my rage out on the Geo and installed the wiring for the mirror.  It's hard to see but the wiring is there. The mirror works like a charm. So all of this was Wednesday. Today I get up and go out to check the worst and wouldn't you know it the car's working just fine! Here's the idle speed now:  I drove down to the registration office which is also the town's fallout shelter and was promptly denied registration because my friend forgot to sign the back of the title. This is good because I was sitting there and realized I had forgotten to submit my paperwork for my Texas Classic Vehicle Plate which does nothing but say that your car's 25+ years old. I swear by these useless plates and will put them on everything.  For classic plates there's no extra charge for adding your own lettering, up to 6 characters. Also, if it's a truck like the Geo you can get classic TRUCK plates. Anyways, I drove it around a ton and tried to replicate the issue but it never came back. No idea what that was about, but I did a few things to it in the meantime. I noticed one of the reverse lights was out so I put LEDs in there, now they're bright as hell. Same with the high mounted stop light since those were melting the housing. I also pulled the wind guard off of the top of the car to clean the crap out of the sunroof and see if I could get it retracting again. I couldn't but at least it's clean! Also the light on the transmission mode selector came on! Only C though, no P for me.   I drove the car around town and stop and started it several times. The issue hasn't come back since then and the horrible rattling from the engine bay has stopped. The coolant temp is holding good and it isn't leaking any fluids. I think it is almost ready for the maiden voyage tomorrow to South Dallas in which I will visit the pick n' pull again and maybe steal the climate control unit from the car down there. This one's still not working and I want to get some functionality out of it! Other than that, it's looking pretty good!   There is one little issue that the car still has, and that it seems to be stuck in 3rd. There's been a few times where it shifts normally, but 9 times out of 10 when I start the car it is locked in 3rd. It is like driving with a CVT. A few times I've had it shifting through the gears so I'm not sure if this is a failsafe kicking in on the transmission or something but it's very odd. The shifter is sloppy so maybe that is something that has to do with it. There is one at the junkyard... but I don't know what could be causing this. I'm impressed the car can power through it and still drive normally but I'd like to get this thing shifting again. Edit: My dad just sent me this so I'm not the only one dealing with car work at the moment:  I have a whole post about 100 series LandCruisers lined up for some time in the future. I want one so bad. Luxrage fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 01:37
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Is this a wasted-spark coilpack, or some kind of distributor? If only every second fire is working I'm willing to bet it's a wasted-spark coilpack that can no longer revive itself during the dwell period.
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Nov 22, 2019 05:31
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Pretty sure it's a waste spark setup. As for the car being stuck in 3rd, that sounds an awful lot like the PRNDL switch has failed (thus the TCM has no idea what you've actually selected as far as a forward gear goes, so it just defaults to 3rd so you can keep moving). I'm fairly sure Nissan put it on the transaxle itself, so you have to partially disassemble the shift linkage to fix it. It's pretty easy to check it out with a multimeter though. If you put it in 3 (or D without a circle, I forget which they used), does it shift normally? What happens in 2nd or 1st? IIRC Nissan also used a fuse for the TCM, so the transaxle may just be going to 3rd if the TCM isn't getting power/isn't working. That low idle/no power may be a roached catalytic converter. Maybe. Just a shot in the dark. Nissan lists the PRNDL switch as an inhibitor switch, or a neutral safety switch. A quick google shows it's specific to 88-90, so the 94 FSM that's out there won't be much help. But I'd think it's just a power wire, plus various outputs depending where the shifter is. Sure looks that way from looking at the switch, anyway. It's also stupid expensive on Rockauto; OEM will probably be cheaper if that's the culprit. Courtesyparts.com was who I used for parts when I had a Nissan, they had very reasonable prices (I lived 20 minutes away, so I could pick stuff up instead of having it shipped). randomidiot fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Nov 22, 2019 |
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Nov 22, 2019 18:15
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So, STR, reading through your post today at the registration office got me thinking. I know I've had that thing working before so I'm wondering if like the Climate Control, it is just coming on randomly whenever the car is set to "run." One of the reasons I knew it was staying stuck in third, other than the tach numbers kind of making sense, is that the manual has this blurb in it about the transmission control switch:  Now, you know from a previous post that the Comfort light has gone on before, but I've never seen the [P] power light come on. I even messaged my friend the previous owner about it and he said he never had seen either light on. This makes me suspicious about some long term problem. I remember way back when I first moved to Texas hanging out with him when he still drove it and it being slow as hell. I'm sitting in the grocery store parking lot with my newly registered classic plated (coming in the mail) Maxima dicking around with the ignition when all of a sudden:  and it stayed solid! Good god, it's like someone kicked this car in the rear end, the amount of get up and go this thing has is bananas! I couldn't believe it! It shifts beautifully and both the comfort and power settings do work. You can set it to power and have it hold third until something like 4000rpm and as soon as you select off of it it shifts into overdrive. At this point it makes me wonder if it really is the neutral safety switch and not something in either the transmission control box or the ECU. I took it to a back farm road outside of town that's barely maintained so this video is a bit wobbly but I didn't want to do a pull anywhere near town: https://i.imgur.com/KdrskIo.mp4 I'm blown away by my friend telling me he has never seen a light come on on the switch box... does that mean he's been driving this thing in 3rd gear the entire time he's owned it? No wonder it has already been through one engine  To celebrate this monumental occasion, I went out and bought a pair of speakers for the car. Now, I went with what crutchfield said were the recommended speakers but I might have boned myself on that one. This is another good example of something that makes me absolutely rage about prevoius owners of cars: My friend told me one speaker just straight up didn't work. And he has an aftermarket radio in it that, up until I took charge, was in demo mode. I set to finding out what was going on there. This maxima has the BOSE audio system in it so it should be pretty good! Well...  Whoever put the aftermarket radio in the car bypassed the amps and left everything hanging which caught on something and pulled the guts of the speaker out!!!!  For the speakers that crutchfield recommended ( which BestBuy had in stock and price matched ) I don't need the whole housing so I pulled it out. I have to just use the factory holes for the non BOSE unit. It has been a real pain trying to get these things installed and I ended up running out of daylight to do this job, not to mention a good set of bolts to keep these things installed. I am gonna run to the hardware store tomorrow and get some good mounting hardware for these things.   The cabling for the speaker wire is so thick it can't fit under the speaker so I might have to do some wire cutting and just remove the BOSE amp wiring entirely if these don't fit correctly. This is the BOSE housing that went under the deck and bolted to the top, it is huge:  This job would be 900% easier if I could find these things instead of dealing with nuts:  To get these speakers out I had to pull the back seat bottoms to pull the back seat backs out to get to the deck cover. Most of the bolts were missing which tells me whoever did this just didn't care. I'm finding on every job I do that a majority of the screws are missing.  Now, I found another problem here. Neither of the rear seatbelts actually work. They are both locked in position. I have no idea how to remedy this one! Luxrage fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Nov 23, 2019 |
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Nov 23, 2019 02:04
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Luxrage posted:This job would be 900% easier if I could find these things instead of dealing with nuts: What you want are rivnuts https://www.harborfreight.com/45-piece-threaded-insert-riveter-kit-1210.html
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Nov 23, 2019 02:11
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Powershift posted:What you want are rivnuts Krakkles fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Nov 23, 2019 |
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Nov 23, 2019 02:32
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I've got a riveter I could bust out but I don't know if it would fit given the rake of the windshield... Although typing this out I just realised I could go from the bottom! I'll try some stuff tomorrow! Tomorrow I'm also gonna do a proper high speed highway drive to cycle out the seafoam and gas in the tank and also to go see a drag race! I picked up a fuel filter today and I'm gonna install it before I go.
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Nov 23, 2019 02:52
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You can buy speed nuts like those pictured from the Help! aisle of any parts store. They're really cheap and usually come in a little blister pack. So much stuff uses those, always good to have around.
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Nov 23, 2019 05:24
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| # ? May 4, 2024 09:19 |
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Luxrage posted:I've got a riveter I could bust out but I don't know if it would fit given the rake of the windshield... Although typing this out I just realised I could go from the bottom! Granted its a bicycle tool website, but there are some clever hacks here to seat rivnuts. I'm personally a fan of the quick release skewer (if the thread size/pitch is right). https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/water-bottle-fittings
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Nov 23, 2019 17:57
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