Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
March 01/2008
Oh I also messed around with my tailgate...rear window would only go up about half way and then stop. I pulled all the weather stripping, some was twisted and bent pretty bad, starightened everything the best I could but it was still binding against the seals.
So I used some heavy pliers into the channel and then pryed them gently open to expand the clearance on the side weatherstrip channels. Now the rear window scoots up and down with no problems....I also lubed all the mechanislms with new white lithium grease.
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
March 02/2008
wrote ... Originally posted by Potatoe
Quick question, since the T/C has power drum all around does the disc booster offer more pressure to the drums?
OH YEAH!!!! I nearly went through the windshield when I hit the brakes.
I'm going to have to develope a very light brake foot. But I wasn't going to buy a drum brake booster to only run for 6 months or less. I'll be going to my 73 C-body disc brakes in a couple months when I rebuild the front end.
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Tue Jun 17 2008, 02:24PM ]</span>
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
March 04/2008
Well took the wagon through inspection today....it didn't pass...
It only failed on some minor things.
The vent windows wouldn't roll open, I knew this but didn't figure it would be safety related but all the glass has to function properly. I have spare roll open vent windows for spare parts.
One or two dash light bulbs aren't working....you can stil see everything but ALL the lights have to work.
The battery terminals were loose...I never tighten mine down but I guess I'll have to at least for the re-inspection.
The front U-joint needs replacing...I did the rear but the front seemed fine...oh well easy fix.
And then the biggie was the front strut rod bushings are shot...too much play for his liking so I now need to replace those before the re-inspection. (see thread in tech)
Anyway I have 30 days to get re-inspected on just these few things and then I can finally get it registered and insured.
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
March 04/2008
The only time a car here in BC has to have an inspection like this is if it's brought in from another province/state or country. Otherwise people drive around in P's.O.S that shouldn't be let out of the driveway!!!
A couple weeks and I'll have her ready for re-inspection...
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
March 10/2008
Well I replaced the front strut rod bushing on the wagon today...as per my repairs to pass re-inspection...
Anyway wanted to let you guys know how I went about it and if someone has to do these on their car this seems to work quite well.
I first pulled the spring pin and removed the front nut from the strut rod, then removed the rear nut fromt the strut rod, within the lower control arm, You will also need a pipe wrench to hold the strut rod while removing this nut.
Then I removed the lower bolt for the front shock and pushed it up out of the way. I then removed the brackets holding the swaybar to the strut rod.
I then removed the nut from the lower control arm stud that runs through the subframe. I then used a digital dial caliper to measure the distance from the torsion bar adjustment nut to the flat metal piece the bolt runs through...mine were 1.18inches. I then removed the tension from the torsion bars, and removed the torsion bar retainer clips from the rear of the cross memeber.
Then I used several pry bars and pieces of wood and hammers to loosen the control arms from the cross member and move the lower control arm rearwards and thus giving me enough room to slip the strut rods out and back in.
Once the new bushings were in it was just the reverse...except you don't tighten the lower control arm stud that goes through the sub frame, AND the front nut on the strut rod bushings...until the car is back on the ground.
This worked great and it only took me about 5-6 hours to do from start to finish.
Yesterday I did the dash lights....not too bad...but my big hands and tight dash spaces don't always make the job easy. Aslo put in the new front U-joint so now I'm only waiting on the vent windw cranking mechanisms and I'll be ready for re-inspection....
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
March 17/2008
Well over the weekend I thought I would try and weld up the crack in my pass side HP manifold.
I know welding cast is tricky at the best of times but I found a company that sells special welding rods for all kinds of applications. SO I bought their manifold welding kit, which requires no pre-heating or special cooling, just V out the crack and weld.
Click for larger image....
So I'm not a bad stick welder, no formal training other than lots of practice and picking info from professionals heads for years. SO I was fairly confident that things would turn out OK....Well you bee the judge....
Click for larger image....
Well I used up the 2 anchoring rods, couldn't get the heat right or the weld to flow, even folowing the instructions from their website. Anway after you use the anchoring rod you go over right back over with a machinable rod...it just kept cooking and blowing holes in the manifold.....
So anyway the end result was what you see....worse than when I started but a lesson learned I guess.
So now I need a new pass side HP manifold.........
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Wed Jun 18 2008, 12:26PM ]</span>
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
March 22/2008
Well been bidding on manifolds on e-bay...but keep getting knocked out at the last second... Oh well that's E-bay. Will keep at it.
Got the vent window cranking mechanism from Chris (AZblackhemi) last week and got them installed today...THANKS CHRIS!!!!.....now everything that was on the re-inspection list is DONE!!!
Will make an apointment for the re-inspection next week and should finally be able to register the ol' girl and get proper moving permits and insurance....
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
Mach 27/2008
IT PASSED!!!!
Well it went through inspection today and passed....I got it registered in BC and now I can get proper permits and insurance if desired. I also had to pay the tax on the car a second time...first when I came through the US/Canada border and now again when I registered it...what a scam having to pay tax twice on the purchase price!!!
Oh well...now it's get the car ready for exhaust and I'm working on rebuilding the spare front end from the 300, will do a one day swap of the front end when it's ready to go.
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Mon Nov 09 2009, 02:04PM ]</span>
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
March 30/2008
Well I have been pulling apart the front suspension from the 71 300 parts car...gonna redo it and then do the swap into the 68 wagon.
So I dismantled as much as I could with my big hammer, 2x4's and hand tools but I needed some special tools to remove the upper BJ and upper/lower control arm bushings.
So I borrowed a B-body front end removal kit from a buddy and found out today that the only thing in that kit that will work on the C-body is the torsion bar remover and maybe the upper ball joint socket, not sure which one came in the kit since my buddy had 5 and he lent them all to me. The upper control arm bushing remover will not work on C-body bushings due to the raised "Hat" on the outside of the bushing, and the lower control arm pivoit shaft remover for the B-body is WAY too small to thread onto our big C-body pivot shaft.
So I got the upper balljoints out...ended up tearing by bench out of the wall I was prying so hard... But I couldn't get the bushings out so I went to my buddies shop and we played with his plasma cutter.....MMMM...Plasma Cutter....Droooool....
We made big fire and smoke and got most of the bushing cut out, now I have to cut the outer shell out carefully with my dremel...lower control arm shaft and bushings will have to be removed at a shop....then I can sandblast everything and start assembling all the components..
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
April 09/2008
Well I have been working a bit on getting the spare front suspension apart and ready for blasting.
Have learned a few things while I've been at it so I thought I would share.
First is the upper control arms. The bushings can be removed quite easily without any fancy tools. The outer washer on the bushings, the large end, is just pressed into the center shaft, so if you clamp the big end into a vice and then twist it will POP off.
With this off you can now use fire, (love to play with fire..), to heat up the center shaft and then slide it out. Now pry out the rubber bushing and all you have to do is pound the outer shells inwards and then out. I used my buddies plazma cutter on three of them before I discovered this.
So next was the lower control arm bushings. I had my shop press out the center shaft, then I used my dremel and a small cutoff blade to cut mostly through the shell surrounding the center shaft. Cut almost all the way through but not quite, then use a cold chisel to bang down the center of the cut and it cracks and popped off.
The real fun was the outer shell in the lower control arm. I tried the, "weld on a thick washer and pound out the shell" but my little wire feed wouldn't get enough penatration on the metal so it kept comming off after a few hits. The I decided to try and cold chisel my way though, well this worked to about half way down the shell then I couldn't get the chisle to grab any more material. So next I tried heating up the shell to glowing red and trying to pry/bend the shell inwards...nope didn't work either.
So I returned to the old dremel tool. I used some grinding stones to start with but after only a minute or two the stone would explode, I went through three stones before I figured out what was happening. The stones were not made for grinding heavy metal so they were generating too much heat and then exploding. So my solution was to grind for about 10 seconds, then stop the dremel and dip the stone into water, then wait a few seconds, start the dremel and grind for another 10 seconds.....I did this until I ground almost all the way through the outter shell. Then I used a old crappy flat screwdriver and pounded under the shell and it cracked down the middle., then all I had to do was bend both ends inward and the shell slid out....
So after all this I cleaned everything in my new(old) parts washer and discovered that my idea of running a fuel filter to replace the origianl bag style filter was only good for about 10 minutes....So I switched to the original bag filter and it lasted about 15 miutes before clogging up. Then I decide to run the washer with no filter...Much better!!!
So all my parts are now clean and ready for blasting....then I can paint and reassemble the new front end. Hope to have it ready to bolt in by the end of April. But the new Exhaust comes first.
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Wed Jun 18 2008, 12:28PM ]</span>