AMC Eagle Den Forum
The Shop => Project Cars => Topic started by: priya on June 01, 2008, 05:14:05 PM
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I actually bought this car 10 years ago for $400 and I'm just now ready to start restoring it. I had hoped to start on it about a month ago but my boyfriend is building a trailer and I can't get my car in the garage until he's done. I originally bought what I had licensed as an 80 Eagle wagon however after being on the nest for a while I see the body style and plastic valve cover means it must have been an 81 or later. I really loved my Eagle wagon and as I recall got around 30 miles to the gallon with it (I've seen most people on the nest don't get near that so I wonder about my memory, but it seems pretty clear) and it had I thought surprisingly good power for a 6 with full time 4 wheel drive. I had a couple of front end accidents with it and the head gasket was leaking and when a wheel bearing went I parked it for good. I used to have a 47 acre parcel of land but I sold it to move into the city with my boyfriend and unfortunately the wagon stayed there as we have no room for it in the city. We pulled off CV joints, the trans a few trim pieces and engine accessories from it but it was a shame to leave so much behind.
I bought the 81 SX/4 with a leaking trans, head gasket but what looked to be a fairly good body. I towed it a 150 miles or so with the drive shafts hooked up so I figure its transmission is toast but I pulled the one out of my old wagon to put in it. I had the hood off of it for a couple of months while it was outside and it appears water got down the carb although I had plastic over it. When my boyfriend and I tried to turn over the motor with a strong arm on the crank it wouldn't budge so I'm planning on rebuilding a motor as well. I bought a spare motor from Shin-x which may be in better shape than the one currently in the car. I also have a clifford 4 barrel manifold and header for the 258 as well as 390 Holley, performance/economy cam and matching lifters and valve retainers. I don't remember the cam specs but it has around 10-15% more lift than stock with less duration and overlap than stock to retain higher cylinder pressures and give better performance and economy. I hope to boost the compression ratio by half a point or so by milling the head but I can't find any reliable specs on compression ratio's for the 81 258 - some sites say 8.0 to 1, some say 8.3 to 1 and others say something else. I don't want to go too high so I can still run it on regular gas.
The car is pretty basic with auto trans and no power options. It has a blue interior which needs some work as well. I only plan on driving it in the winter as I have a 1980 280ZX I am also restoring for a summer driver.
As you can see from the picture below I started some dismantling quite a few years back
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0064.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0065.jpg)
This appears to be the worst of the rust on the car, the rest of it seems pretty solid although I have yet to get underneath it and haven't taken most of the plastic body cladding off to see. The 81(?) wagon I had was pretty solid underneath so I'm hoping this will be as well although I'm not really concerned if there are some problems as I've restored some quite rusty cars in the past although it did take me quite a while. I'm tempted to replace the driver's door as it has similar rust on the inside and I'm thinking by the time I sandblast it off it'll be full of pin-holes and fabricating the metal for the lower right hand corner will be a challenge as once the rust is cut away there'll be no reference points for how tall or wide to make the metal or how far in or out to put it to match the door opening. My boyfriend says no sweat though, we'll fix it anyway and he'll help, I'm a little less confident then him.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0068.jpg)
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Nice, looks like an easy resto. ;D
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If that is all the rust there is then you should have an easy time of it. Thanks for the update and pictures.
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Looks like a great project. Have fun with it.
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Mudkicker are you talking about the corner of the door? How did you know where to position the metal so the gap between the door and frame was right and the corner was flush with the quarter/rocker panel?
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Woo Hoo! After two months of waiting I finally got my SX4 in the garage as my hubby finally got his trailer done. The hoist is going to be a nice addition, I've never had one before, its good to have a hubby who's a mechanic.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/AMCEagle001.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/AMCEagle002.jpg)
I finally got a chance to look under the car and while not as good as I was hoping for it was better than I expected. There's no rust in the floorboards or in the "frame" section. The passanger side had about a 2 inch hole in the inner rocker although I'm sure more checking will reveal an area several times that size that needs to be fixed. The passenger side rear wheel well has a cheesy area of about 4" diameter just in front of the rear wheel but doesn't have an actual hole in it so no mud got into the rocker area to widen the problem. The driver's side Wheel well had a hole 2 or 3 inches in diameter ahead of the rear wheel which was full of mud and the inner rocker just ahead of the rear wheel is cheesy as well. I'll have a better look tomorrow and get a feel for how big a repair that's going to be. I still have to get the plastic body cladding off but so far so good and I don't see anything much that scares me. The lower rear corner of the passenger door has a bit of rust on it but it doesn't look too bad either. The lower door sill opening on the drivers side has a couple of fairly rusty spots and although there are no holes in it a couple of sections 4 or 5 inches wide and an inch or two high will need to be cut out but that area is flat with right angles so it won't be too hard to fabricate a patch panel and weld it in.
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Great News! We we all borrow your garage?
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Well, we removed the trans, front diff, motor, and cvs. The garage is getting pretty tight with all that stuff lying around. I also removed the plastic body cladding and most of the interior except the headliner and dash. I shouldn't have been surprised, but found more rust. There's a couple of spots on the passenger fender, passenger outer rocker panel, behind both kick panels inside the car, and just above the front coil springs. Sigh...Looks like it won't be as easy a fix as I was hoping. After having thought more about the driver's door I'm feeling more confident about my ability to do that. The part that scares me now is the inner rockers just where the leaf springs mount to the body. They don't have holes but the surface rust is pretty heavy and they may need to be repaired. I don't see how I can get cutoff wheel/ welder in there to work but once again my hubby says "not a problem" - he figures there's room or if necessary we'll cut off the outer rocker and patch it from the inside. I'm leaving this one until he's around to show me how.
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I got a start on the rust repairs, I decided to start with something easier since its been a couple of years since I did any welding. This is the passenger front fender.
The welding on this patch was crude but acceptable. I got some burn through on the lower edge of the repair as the metal is thinner there than I thought so I'm going to remove the fender and put in another patch to cover the lower flange where it bolts to the rocker panel, I also need to repair the rocker panel just below this patch as well.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0071-1.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0073.jpg)
After a little bit of practice the welding went much smoother on this piece. Good thing as I haven't got much of these easier repairs to do, next is inside the car behind the kick panels and underneath in the inner rocker panels - I hate overhead welding, such a messy pain!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0072.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0074.jpg)
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You can come and practice under my car anytime.
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Yeah, If I practice under your car you won't be able to see the mediocre work. Could be a while though, given the rate I'm going on this one and I have another vehicle to restore after this yet.
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Mediocre is 100% better than I can do.
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I started today planning on replacing about 6 inches of the outer rocker on the passenger side at the front. After checking with a hammer and a scratch awl we found probably half the front part of the rocker was too rusty (scratch awl poked through). I cut that off and the inner rocker didn't appear to have much left either, so I cut that out too. The result was this:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0075a.jpg)
More of a job than I was expecting on this car. That's the floorboards you can see in the picture, fortunately they look pretty good. There's also a small patch I completed in the upper right hand corner of the picture - my welding continues to improve. We don't have access to a sheet metal break until Wednesday so I'm not sure when we'll get around to putting in new inner and outer rockers. My sweety says he's going to bend those up for me but after working all day Wednesday he might not want to hang around to do it. Maybe next weekend we'll get the panels made and I can have a go at welding them in. He also said we might have a go at it tomorrow with a piece of angle iron on the work bench, not sure if that'll work out or not.
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You know, if he gets really good at making up inner/outer rockers then he might have a few dozen customers right here at the Nest he can cater to.
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priya,
I have had pretty good luck making bends with the the angle iron, using mild steel and aluminum.
Eddie
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Well, my Sweety decided we needed one so he bought a sheet metal brake. $300 from Princess auto. We have two other vehicles that need rust repairs so it should see a fair bit of use. Here's the first item we made with it, the front half of the inner rocker panel which as you can see from the picture has since been welded into place.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/eagleinnerrocker001.jpg)
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I just tossed an egg your way for the good pictures, saving Eagles, working with Sweety (your Sweety!), etc,, etc.
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You needed another egg too. When you get good at this (not that that one is not good) I will keep watching my front door step for a set for me. ;D
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:D :D :D
Nice work Priya!
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Thanks guys, I was pretty disappointed when I saw the rust was more extensive than I thought but I'm feeling a lot more confident now. I've gotten into the swing of it and its going slow but steady.
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We got the outer rocker formed and I welded it on save for a couple of minor spots.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0076.jpg)
I cut out about a foot of the rear portion of the outer rocker today and its going to be a bit more of a challenge. That portion of the inner rocker is bad as well except now I have to work around the mounts for the rear leaf spring. Part of the wheel well ahead of the rear wheel will need to be replaced so after I have it all cut out there be no reference points so I'll have to be careful working out the proper dimensions of the inner and outer rear rockers and wheel well. A surprising amount of dirt somehow found its into both the front and rear portions of the rocker even though the cheesy metal had no actual holes to the outside.
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Looking better and better. So, when are you coming to my house?
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After the Eagle, a 280ZX and a Dodge van are done.
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Here's the next section I'm working on after I cut out the rusty areas, this is going to be a challenge. Just below where the blue and white paint meets you can see a 2X6 we had to use to keep the floor in place after key parts of the structure were cut out.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0078.jpg)
Here's the first panel to go in, still to come, outer rocker, wheel well, and a small piece of the floorboards.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0080.jpg)
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Are you going to beef up the area where the front of the spring bolts up?
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Hadn't planned on it, just replacing the stock sheet metal as it was. I'm open to suggestions as to how to do that, though.
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I don't know. Thought you might. Just seems to be a critical area for reinforcement.
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If possible I would use double the orignal metal thickness.
Eddie
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Although some of the car is built with galvanized the inner and outer rockers aren't galvanized. I discussed it with my sweety who's worked for body shops for several years and he didn't think it was necessary or advisable. He says the factory layout was designed to have a certain amount of flex in it and if we stiffen this area that could result in extra flex elsewhere that could cause other portions of the unibody to fail prematurely. As well the car was designed to have a certain rate of crush of structures and a change like that could affect this in a possibly negative way. I'm going to trust that the factory design was adequate and reproduce that as well as I can. Thanks for the suggestions though.
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I got the inner rocker welded in today. It was a bit of a fight as things had shifted around after all that stuff was cut out. Things gradually came together as I pushed, hammered, clamped, prodded and welded.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0082.jpg)
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Nice bends. I think you are getting the hang of it. So when are you coming to my house again?
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After the Eagle, 280ZX, and Dodge Van - assuming I don't by any other projects in the meantime.
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Darn! You remembered the other projects again. At least I tried. Maybe that should be a group project at the meet. Fix Doug's rust???
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I'm surprised to see its been two weeks since I posted last. I took a few days off and things were going a bit slow but I didn't think this slow. Anyway, I have made some progress, I got a patch in the wheel well on the passenger side and the rear part of the outer rocker.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0084.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0085.jpg)
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looks great
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When you go to Iowa to work on Doug's Eagle, you can stop by Arkansas on the way and work on mine. ;)
I like your work.
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Thanks Jim.
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I hate to admit it, but I'm probably going to fix my outer rockers with roof flashing and self drilling sheet-metal screws. looks like you're doing a great job, keep it up.
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Very nice work love all the pictures
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Very nice work love all the pictures
Yes! I agree!!!
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Well, I've taken more days off than I should have but I'm starting to get back into the swing of things. There was a small part of the floorboards on the passenger side just ahead of the rear wheel well that was spongy and needed to be replaced. Its surprising how much of the work so far has been like this, it looks solid with some surface rust but when you test it to see how solid it is, it isn't, and has to be cut out.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0086.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0088.jpg)
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Yup, that be the area I need to address too.
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You can come and practice under my car anytime.
How much would you charge to come to Omaha and fix the couple of parts that I have rust on? Nice work. I wish I knew how to weld. Sorry to throw off the flow of this thread, but I have been away for awhile.
Very nice work.
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Well, considering travel costs from the centre of Saskatchewan, lodging, and labour, probably more than it would cost you to get a local shop to do it. Although at what I hear local shops are charging these days, maybe not. You could learn how to weld, it didn't take me that long to learn how to make an acceptable weld (if a little crude). The worst part is that if you're not good at it you tend to end up with a pretty thick weld that takes a lot of grinding but even that works out fine in the end. Also, burn through is pretty common at first and you have to zap at the hole, wait a couple seconds, zap it again, etc. until you fill it in. To avoid warpage tack weld your piece in every couple of inches then weld between one set of tacks move several inches over weld between two other sets of tacks, and move around so you don't do too much in one area and build heat to warp the metal. I figure it only took me 2 or 3 hours of practice before I could do an acceptable weld on most surfaces. Overhead welding is another story though as the molten metal drips as you're going and it can take A LOT of grinding, the best way to do it is with short bursts of the welder so big drips don't get a chance to form. I still have trouble with overhead welding, about half the time I get my sweety to do it for me as he's better at it than I am. Its important to have a good mig welder as well, the first mig I bought was $300 (the cheapest I could find) and I was never able to produce a continuous weld with it, it kept cutting in and out. For the longest time I thought it was just me being unskilled, but eventually I decided I couldn't be that bad, it must be a faulty welder and one day my boyfriend bought me a new Lincoln mig pak 15 and sure enough as soon as I tried that one I could see my problems were soon to be over.
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Here's the next area I tackled. Its just above the front spring on the passenger side. Once again, no actual holes but the metal was soft enough to merit replacement
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0089.jpg)
This was after the offending rusty metal was removed:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0093.jpg)
Here's the patch I made, it was more difficult than it looked as despite having straight lines the angles varied from front to back, side to side and top and bottom. I was expecting a lot of trouble with this piece but to my surprise it fit quite well after a little tweaking. Pays to spend extra time on the pattern before actually cutting metal.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0091.jpg)
And here's the repair after it was welded in, the overhead welds were mighty thick after I was done. I initially asked my hubby to do the overhead welds but after he messed up the first couple I decided I couldn't do any worse. Once I was done the overhead welds I wasn't so sure about that. Oh well, they're complete and solid if pretty ugly.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0094.jpg)
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Solid is good and no one will see them anyway.
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Yes, I'm glad I don't have to grind these flush.
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The corner of the passenger door had some rust on it so I fixed that next:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0095.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0097.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0098.jpg)
This completes all the rust repairs for the passenger side of the car, I'm considering that a major milestone. I have fiberglass fill on the welds that will be visible which has to be sanded down, body fill will then have to be added, shaping and the prep for paint to do yet, but the worst part of the repairs are done on half the car.
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Looking good...
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Getting better and better. You will be a professional by time you get around to Jim's and my Eagle.
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I got into the driver's side of the car a couple of days ago. Its rustier than the passenger side, definitely going to be a bigger challenge than the passenger side and that was a challenge for me itself. After I sanded away the bondo on the outer rocker I discovered the car had some work done on that side and none too well.
You may not be able to tell from this picture, but there's close to 1/2 an inch difference between the levels of the metal where the patch was put into the rocker, I'm surprised the body fill there never cracked and fell out as its not supposed to be more than 1/4 inch thick.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0100.jpg)
My sweety advised me to cut off the entire outer rocker as the inner rocker looked pretty bad from what you could tell inside the car and underneath the car. The front leading edge that joins the outer and inner rockers is almost completely rusted away and unfortunately I need this to locate the position of the outer rocker and get the length right. The edge for this is barely hanging in place, hopefully I can get the outer rocker formed with out disturbing it so the outer rocker matches up with the door, fender and inner fender liner. I'll probably put a bit of fiberglass on that section so that its sturdy enough to allow me to form the outer rocker without accidentally bending the front edge out of place and leading me to form the outer rocker incorrectly.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0101.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0102.jpg)
The entire inner rocker will need to be replaced and there are a number of bad spots in the lower door frame area just above the rocker. Turns out a section of that had been previously replaced as well. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to just patch those three areas of the lower door frame that are bad or going to cut out an area larger than the entire previous replacement patch on the lower door frame (most of the lower door frame). My sweety favours the latter, he always wants me to do a larger area than I want to. The day after tomorrow I'm going to start forming the outer rocker panel. I'll have to do it in two sections as the sheet metal brake I've got can do a maximum 36" width and the rocker is 70" long
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Yes, totally missing in action.
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Well, here's the latest bit I got done on my SX/4:
There's a couple of small patches towards the front of the picture on the floorboard/firewall but this is mostly how it looked after I got the front part of the inner rocker cut out
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0107.jpg)
And here is the front half of the inner rocker installed.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0109.jpg)
Not sure what I did all of September, but my rate of progress slowed down considerable.
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Are you bending your own?
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Sheet metal you mean? Yes. we bought a 36" sheet metal brake in the spring.
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Yup, maybe I need one of those.
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They're pretty handy. You can't do everything with them but when you need long straight bends they can't be beat. I used to use a flanging vice grips for such bends but doing that is a little rough over longer distances and you can only make a bend a few inches in from the edge of the sheet metal because that's as far as the jaws will go.
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I will have to see if our tool wholesaler has those.
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Hey priya, anything new?
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i tip my hat friend nice work so far
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Hi there Priya!
I just found this thread. WOW! You and your sweety (sorry, wasn't sure if he is your boyfriend, or Husband, etc), are just amazing with your talents. Your descriptions and photos are so clear and the before and afters are just incredible! I've just been reading and looking at these pictures and I'm just transfixed! I would be SO intimidated to try and tackle that myself. I would just love to be there while you were both doing the work and just watching and learning! It's just amazing! Thank you so much for sharing and I hope that we can see some updates soon of your most recent progress! You seem to think that you are slow, but I've been amazed at the progress! Best of luck to you both and hope we hear from you again soon!
-Tim
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Hi guys, thanks for the appreciation. I had major surgery in October so that was what interrupted me initially. I've since recuperated but I'm really a wimp when it comes to getting outside in an ice-cold garage and waiting for it to heat up. Earlier in the year I was whining about the coming of winter and my reluctance to go outside and my boyfriend was kinda stern and he was like "you need to get at it". Since then he seems to have relented and when I suggested I might go out to work on a couple of the days where it got up to the freezing point he said leave it until April when its consistently around the freezing point and you can work on it steady - we were both wondering about the wisdom of cutting away the remainder of the inner rocker on the drivers side, it getting cold, and then me having to leave the car for several weeks while the body sags from lack of support structures. We also figured it would get to be too expensive to heat the garage up daily when its -20 out and it takes an hour or two to get the garage up to 50 degrees or so.
So, look for more updates in April. Till then I'm huddling inside and cheering for global warming.
Tim, I was intimidated by the job when I started to cut away all the soft metal and see what was ahead of me. I was going to do my previous typle of repairs and just put small patches over the rusty metal and lap weld them into place but my boyfriend was like "that's crap and no body shop would do that, and it won't pass inspection..." and so on. Before each repair he and I discussed the approach in detail until I became semi-comfortable with the plan and semi-confident that I could do it and then as I was doing the repair I consulted with him again in the middle to clarify and ask about problems or questions that came up. I'd have to wait until he'd come home from work so sometimes this interrupted my work for the afternoon. Anyway, now I'm a lot more confident that I can do serious rust repairs than I was.
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Can't wait for spring this has to be one of my top 5 treads. keep warm glad to hear you are doing ok after surgery.
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Thanks landphil.
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Glad to hear you are recovering. The Eagle can wait until you feel you are ready, they are very understanding and patient cars.
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Best wishes to you too Iowa Eagle.
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Well, I'm finally back at it. I got back started on the SX/4 the second week of this month. I bought a replacement driver's door last fall because I decided it would be a lot easier than fixing all the rust on mine. I stripped the guts out of the old door and although the replacement isn't rusty it does have some minor damage so I repaired some of that. On the inside of the door where the tag is there's a bolt near the bottom that holds the runner for the window. On my replacement door that hole was broken out somehow so I had to weld in a patch to replace it. There's also a dent in the upper window frame I'll get to later and a bit of a bend in the inner edge just above the door latch.
I got back to working on the driver's side and formed the rear half of the inner rocker:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0115.jpg)
I also formed a small piece for the floorboards where the wheel well meets the inner rocker and removed the reinforcement for the rear seatbelt bolt from the old rusty inner rocker:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0117.jpg)
Here's the car after the rusty part of the wheel well, a small rusty area of the floorboards and the rear half of the inner rocker was removed and prepped for welding:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0120.jpg)
And here's the new rear half of the inner rocker welded in:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0123.jpg)
The original inner rocker was pretty banged up so it turns out I didn't get perfect measurements from it. The completed new inner rocker is about 1/'4" lower in the middle where the front and rear halves meet than where the front and rear ends are so when I go to put the outer rockers on its going to take some tweaking to make it fit and look okay. At least this isn't an area where fit is critical like the door frame.
The next part I have to tackle is the lower door frame and the rusty/dented part of the rear quarter panel between the wheel well and door - you can see that area in the picture above between the door opening and the rear end of the inner rocker panel. I'm pretty nervous about that as I'll be cutting away key reference points for where the lower door frame goes and the top flange for the outer rocker so I have to get it very close or the door may not close right or at all or there will be big/mismatched gaps between the door and rear quarter or outer rocker - I can't be 1/4" out on that part.
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Good work! Glad to see you making progress.
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From what I can see there is some good work going on here.
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NIce work, glad to hear your back at it and feeling well.What gauge of metal are you using for the rocker pieces? I admire your fabrication skills, I am an sheet metal worker by trade ( or was) and loved doing layout and fabrication.
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68AMXGOPAC the only gauge of sheet metal I can get is 22 so that's what I'm using for all the fabrication. Its a little thinner than the original but I figure compared to the original rusty stuff its a great deal stronger. I had a fair bit of practice at fabrication. I originally started on a 280ZX that needed rocker panels, floorboards, rear quarters and parts in the wheel wells. I fabricated all my replacement pieces with hand tools as I didn't have a sheet metal brake at that time. It was all trial and error, I did a number of pieces 2 or 3 times before I got the proper shape - a lot of hours of pounding, bending, tweaking and wrestling went into that car. Of course sometimes I still have to scrap my first attempt at making a replacement piece, that's part of the game, but a lot less often than I did at first.
Thanks for all the encouragement guys!
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The next section to be replaced is the lower door frame. A section of this had actually been replaced before at some point (apparently from collision damage) but it rusted through in three places where the replacement lower door frame was welded together.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0125.jpg)
I cut out an area a couple of inches on either side of where the replacement door frame was put in to get back to the original sheet metal:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0130.jpg)
Here's the replacement piece I salvaged from one of Teamamc's cars My husband wanted me to fabricate a new piece but although it is all straight lines the angles vary from one end to the other of the piece and I thought that'd be pretty hard to replicate especially given that the piece I cut out didn't have exactly the correct angles to begin with and that was all I had to go on.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0126.jpg)
And here's the "new" lower door frame welded in. There's going to be a few hours of grinding to get these welds flush.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0131.jpg)
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That looks mighty nice. Did you trace it before installation so when the day comes fabrication of such pieces needs to be done?
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No, I figure the next time this rusts out it'll be a bigger area than the last time and that door frame piece goes into the rear quarter where a number of panels come together and I figure at that point it'll be beyond my ability to repair. Your point is well taken though - I threw away the patterns I made for panels on the passenger side once I'd cut the sheet metal and then when I was doing the driver's side I was like "You idiot, if you'd have saved those patterns you wouldn't have to spend all this time redoing them for the same panels on the driver's side". C'est la vie.
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The next piece to get repaired was the corner of the door frame. Here it is after the rusty area was removed and the remainder prepped for welding:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0141.jpg)
Here's the replacement piece. This was salvaged from the same car as the lower door frame and the two were originally attached by fifteen spot welds. It was a lot of fun seperating the two pieces but I managed to do it without destroying a piece I probably wouldn't have been able to form by hand.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0144.jpg)
And here it is welded in, I was nervous about it, but the welding went fairly smoothly.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0146.jpg)
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That would be a hard piece to form from scratch. Excellent work, again.
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So will you answer the phone when I call just after I cut the roof off this parts SX/4 in my yard to weld onto the Money Pit ?? hahaha.
Hey it looks great , you are doing a top notch job there,we should all be so lucky to have your skills, and a welder of course.
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He can come to my shade tree anytime.
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I'm female Iowa Eagle.
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So will you answer the phone when I call just after I cut the roof off this parts SX/4 in my yard to weld onto the Money Pit ?? hahaha.
Everything's possible for the right price.
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Very , very nice work. I started digging around at the crispy areas in my Wagon the other day and found many similar holes. Parts of my rear wheel houses are starting to separate as well. I'm also thinking about making some way to tie the subframes together underneath the rocker panels while they are hacked out. Not quite sure if I will, but I'd like to.
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Thanks for the appreciation guys. Your encouragement helps to keep me motivated.
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Hey there Priya!
Your skills are just wicked (in a GOOD way!). I just gave you an egg for all of your photos and documentation. Your SX/4 is indeed a lucky bird to have your careful and amazingly skilled hands tending to her! It's just SO COOL to see how the pieces look before and after and how it works! Thanks again for taking the time and effort to share this all with us!
-Tim
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Thanks Tim!
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I'm female Iowa Eagle.
My apologies. I need to pay more attention to whom I am replying too. You may come and weld under my shade tree anytime.
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I'm female Iowa Eagle.
He must of had a senior moment , we apologise for him. 8)
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You know I have never figured out how to give out eggs ? Can we? or is it just admins etc. ?
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Anyone can. Click on the "plus 1" to the left under the name.
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Yes, 68AMXGOPAC! I just figured it out myself about two weeks ago! LOL! :) I was on a thread and I saw the "plus one" thing on something that had read and liked and realized that I had given the person an egg! I've been very "Egg-cited" ever since! (I know, I know guys and gals...I'm sorry...REALLY bad puns come really naturally to me, unfortunately!)
Oh..so as not to derail the thread....the work on this car by Priya is just tremendous and I am truly looking forward to seeing and rooting her on to completion!! GO PRIYA, GO PRIYA!!! :)
-Tim
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Anyone can. Click on the "plus 1" to the left under the name.
Hey, I just realized I can't give myself Good Eggs. Now how will I ever get any more? ???
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Carolyn can, if she really wants too. Of course I can manage eggs from behind the scenes -- if I really wanted/needed too.
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Oh..so as not to derail the thread....the work on this car by Priya is just tremendous and I am truly looking forward to seeing and rooting her on to completion!! GO PRIYA, GO PRIYA!!! :)
-Tim
Here I go Tim and Mudkicker! Here I go!
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The next area I replaced was the part of the quarter panel between the rear wheel and the door, that's it in the top half of this picture from an earlier stage of work.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0120.jpg)
Here's the area after the rusty/damaged metal was removed and prepped for welding:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0154.jpg)
Here's the replacement panel I made. It may not look like much but it was particularly tough to do because its subtly curved including a compound curve at the top which transitions to a flat area at the bottom. There's also compound curves on both the left and right edges so I couldn't simply use the sheet metal brake to do those, they had be formed by hand very slowly. It took me about 12 hours to form this believe it or not. It turns out a carpenter's hammer was ideal for gradually stretching the metal to create the compound curve
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0148.jpg)
And here it is welded in. I struggled with this piece because even after all the time I spent forming it it still wasn't quite right and I had to force it into place to match the existing body lines. To do the top edge I had to put a 2X4 between the panel and my chest, lean into it, and tack weld it into place. Despite this still I didn't get a perfectly flush weld - I must have relaxed before it cooled or when I filled in between the tacks the heat allowed the edge to move. The top edge wasn't too bad despite this, the worst part was the panel warped at some point and now there's too much of a bulge on the left side where it should be mostly flat. At some point, maybe after I weld in the outer rocker, I'll take the oxy-acetylene torch to it and shrink that side a bit and it should come back mostly into place. As it sits it'll probably take a little over 1/8 inch of body fill to get the proper contours and although it can be up to 1/4 inch thick I like to try to get it so I need less than 1/8 inch of body fill on any exterior panel.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0157.jpg)
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Excellent Job. Yes, that piece would be hard to form.
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I have a parts SX/4 that I will unfortunetly probably be cutting up soon,I am wondering if there are any "patch" panels I may be able to cut out of it if you needed them.
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Hey, I just realized I can't give myself Good Eggs. Now how will I ever get any more? ???
That's ok, jim, I just gave you one.
priya, I am very impressed with the amount of work done on this machine. Your project makes mine look like a walk in the park.
mike
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Thanks Mike and Iowa Eagle.
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I have a parts SX/4 that I will unfortunetly probably be cutting up soon,I am wondering if there are any "patch" panels I may be able to cut out of it if you needed them.
The only one I could possibly use would be would be the inner wheel well area as you can see in the first two pictures of my post #99, but that area is unlikely to be in very good shape on your SX/4 and would be a big hassel to cut out as it ties into the floorboards, inner rocker, outer rocker, and rear quarter panel. Other than that, except for a small area on the rear of the quarter panel that looks pretty easy to form all I have left to put on is the outer rocker panels and I formed those back in September of last year when I cut the old outer rocker panel off. Thanks for asking though.
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Priya, you are just amazing and so inspiring! :) Take more pictures this weekend if you get the chance....maybe even an "all over" shot so we can see a semblance of the "overall" status of how she's coming? Thank you for your compliments on my SX/4....they are all our cars collectively in "Spirit"! :) Rock on!
-Tim
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Thanks Tim! I'll see what kind of overall pictures I can get, it might be tough because the garage is pretty tight and packed with stuff and the hoist is also in the way, but I'll see what I can do.
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Here's a surprise I found hiding under the rear bumper corner:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0160.jpg)
I would have normally been putting in the outer rockers, but I figured I'd better mount the driver's door first and check the alignment of the bodywork to this point before I weld in the outer rockers and make it permanent. I have to wait until the weekend to do that when my husband can help so I decided to fix this bit behind the rear wheel first. Here it is prepped for welding:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0162.jpg)
And here's the rather simple patches - didn't take long to put the simple curves in these:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0161.jpg)
Here it is after I welded them in. Hopefully back to the outer rocker after this:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0165.jpg)
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Little surprises behind every corner. Another good job. Maybe simple curves for you, for me probably complex.
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Thanks Iowa Eagle. Yes, there were a lot of surprises hiding under the plastic body cladding.
My hubby came home from work yesterday, snuck into the garage and took a picture of me welding. I was reluctant to post it because I've gained a lot of weight in the past few years and the winter work suit doesn't help, but he convinced me it was a good picture and said none of the guys at his work could weld as well as me. It was 70 outside yesterday, but only 50 in the garage so I wear a winter work suit because I really hate being cold. The hoist is a wonderful piece of equipment for doing bodywork, it gets everything to eye level instead of forcing you to lay on the ground. The last time I did bodywork laying on the ground it gave me severe neck pains and I was laid up for several days. It was so bad, that at night I couldn't lift my head to change sleeping positions so I had to grab my hair and lift my head with my arm to turn it or the pain was overwhelming. Anyway, so here I am in all my plus size glory.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/PriyaweldingEagle2.jpg)
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I am glad he took a picture of a true Eagle artist at work. You know, we have this book I am still working on, and ...
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The ONLY plus here, is PLUS 1 egg!! For sharing and being brave enough to post your photo despite your own misgivings! You look just fine! Honest! Your SX/4 is coming along nicely!
I truly think that you will have one of the ONLY TRULY rust free Eagles around by the time you are done! Every square inch of your car will have been gone over and combed through, so even though there are many struggles, and MUCH time put into your car, you will truly have a really, solid platform to work from when all is said and done!
Good luck this weekend working on her! :)
-Tim
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Like I said before, she can come to my Eagle's rescue any time.
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Thanks guys, you're all very sweet. And thanks for the egg Tim!
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Tim asked for some more pictures including some "overall shots" so I did my best in the cramped spaces.
Here's the whole car, or what you can see of it underneath the fenders hood, etc. We're extremely cramped for space in this garage, I'm not sure how I'm going to prep the thing for paint as there's really no space to have the car in there and room to lay out the hood, fenders, doors, and rear hatch at the same time.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0173.jpg)
Here's the rest of the SX/4 pieces in my husbands van - a full size extended van at that. He's wanted to use it twice since the project has started so unfortunately that's meant moving everything in the van back into the SX/4 and garage and then back into the van again.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0138.jpg)
Here's the passenger side after the first coat of body fill went on.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0167.jpg)
I tried to get a picture on the driver's side similar to the one above but for some reason the lighting wouldn't cooperate and the same sort of angle wouldn't work out.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0171.jpg)
This was the best "overall" picture I could get of the driver's side - sorry I couldn't do better, Tim.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0172.jpg)
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From what I can see the rest of the unibody looks pretty solid.
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Yes, all things considered the rust wasn't really that bad, certainly it could have been much worse. I've only had to make very small repairs to the floorboards in six different places, only about 12 or 18 square inches in total.
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Wow Priya! You sure aim to please! THANKS for the photos! It makes it that much more inspiring to know that you are doing such amazing work in such a tight space! Incredible! Well, keep plugging along and thank you again! I love to have the "big picture" of projects...it just helps keep things in perspective and allows one to see the scale of the overall project! Looks like you are pretty close to finishing up any and all rust repairs. Is there any where next to you for sale...I should just move to wherever you are so we could be neighbors. I could paint your house and you could help me with the one spot of rust I've found on my SX/4. Otherwise, I can't find any. The only area I found was on the passanger side door frame. (It's on the body frame at the weld seam where the door jamb comes down from the windshield...just below the upper door hinge.) It's not really bad...seems to be mostly surface from what I can see. It's at a really hard spot to get a camera shot of it, but maybe I'll post it later. Anyway, great job and the photos looked great!
-Tim
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Yes Tim, I'm feeling pretty good about where I am on this one, I haven't got too much left to do in terms of Rust repairs although the prep for paint is going to be a fairly big job as I'm changing colours and will need to paint door frames, engine compartment, etc. and the piece I need to form in the wheel well is a bit of a bear as its got compound curves.
I'll let you know if any place near me comes up for sale, lol. If you're able to get a picture of your one rust spot I'd be happy to give you my best advice on it. Sounds like kind of an unusual place for rust, hopefully its just a bit of surface rust like you say, you could test it by putting a pointy object against it like a scratch awl and hammering on it lightly to see if it goes through or is still solid, but if you're not ready to repair it that might leave it worse than it was.
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Well, I got the front half of the outer rocker on today. Here's the area after the backing plate for the top edge was welded into place as well as the jacking re-inforcement plate:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0179.jpg)
Here's the replacement panel I formed last September, it needed a fair bit of tweaking to make it fit right:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0177.jpg)
And here it is welded into place. It put up a fight but I was more determined that it go on than it was that it not go on properly.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0184.jpg)
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Priya, I'm going to have to quit reading about your work, I'm hanging my head in shame. I actually bought a roll of roof flashing, self drilling screws, acid for killing rust, and some roofing tar to fix my rockers (if you know what I'm going to do with all this, you might be a redneck) You're doing a great job.
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Yes Tim, I'm feeling pretty good about where I am on this one, I haven't got too much left to do in terms of Rust repairs although the prep for paint is going to be a fairly big job as I'm changing colours and will need to paint door frames, engine compartment, etc. and the piece I need to form in the wheel well is a bit of a bear as its got compound curves.
I'll let you know if any place near me comes up for sale, lol. If you're able to get a picture of your one rust spot I'd be happy to give you my best advice on it. Sounds like kind of an unusual place for rust, hopefully its just a bit of surface rust like you say, you could test it by putting a pointy object against it like a scratch awl and hammering on it lightly to see if it goes through or is still solid, but if you're not ready to repair it that might leave it worse than it was.
Hey Priya!
I tell you what, your bringing the SeXy back to your SX/4! :) It really is amazing to watch your progress! It must be cool to think that the light your seeing at the end of the tunnel (as far as getting nearly done with your rust repairs) is truly the light at the end of the tunnel and not the light from a mig welder! LOL! :D
I will try to get a picture posted this weekend of the rust on my car to show you. Thank you for the offer of looking at it...I truly appreciate it! :)
-Tim
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Thanks trapperjack and Tim! Trapper, I wouldn't have done this extensive a job myself but the car has been unlicensed for over 13 years and as such has fallen off the provincial licensing system computer so it has to go through a safety inspection before it can be licensed again. That means the body has to be structurally sound and there can't be any holes into the passenger compartment. My husband does safety inspections so he's been telling me how it's got to be done and he fancies himself a bit of a taskmaster when it comes to this sort of thing.
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now that is love. That crazy work that i would never do. keep up the good work
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Thanks Eagleneer360, I'll keep at it. A friend of my husband's asked why I chose to restore such a "hard car". I wasn't sure what he meant exactly as I don't see the Eagle being any more difficult to restore than anything else, but I told him I had an Eagle wagon and was really impressed with its good gas mileage and power for a 6 cyl 4WD plus it was great in the snow so I thought an SX/4 would be even better because its lighter and I like the looks much better. If I'd have found the Eagle nest before I bought this car and realized it was not in as good of shape as I thought I would have gotten something else needing a good deal less work. But as it was I paid $400 for the car, $300 to tow it to my new home, bought roughly $1500 worth of parts for it, so not fixing it up was really no longer an option I was willing to entertain. At this point, no regrets as the rust repairs have come along pretty well and have cost very little beyond my labour.
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I get Hemmings Classic Cars (an AMC friendly publication) and I have seen cars, parts wise, that are much harder restores than our Eagles. What I think you do for all of us, priya, is keep us motivated to do what we can and to learn new skills regardless of our age or present abilities. Now if it would only stop raining for a few days so I can do at least a few things on my neglected Eagle.
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Yes, Doug, I think if I can do it anyone can. I haven't had any formal training in welding or autobody, back when I was in my late teens I bought a book on autobody with lots of pictures and being too dumb to realize I couldn't do it I decided to try it and bit by bit picked up the skills I use today. My husband's been a big help, although he's a mechanic by trade he's been employed by various body shops and has picked up a great deal of knowledge about it. The only thing I'd say about it is that it takes a lot of patience - as my husband says, if you're into instant gratification this isn't the hobby for you. I've seen a lot of cars for sale where someone has decided they wanted to restore it, stripped it apart, stuffed all the pieces inside and then given up. I try to not focus on the total volume of work, but just stay focused on the immediate job in front of me and just keep at it and that way it doesn't seem to get the better of me.
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Good way to look at it. Not one big project. Instead, many smaller ones which are usually best tackled one at a time.
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This all wants to make me take a better look at the parts SX/4 I got to cut up for the money pit repair and think twice about it...... :(
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I got the rear half of the driver's side outer rocker on today. Bit by bit I'm getting there. Here's the area after the welding backing plates and jacking re-inforcement plate were welded into place and the area was ready for welding:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0187.jpg)
Here's the rear half of the rocker panel ready to go:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0193.jpg)
And here it is welded into place. It fit surprisingly well given all the tweaking I had to do with the front piece. I had a lot of trouble with the welding on this one. I was finished most of it and then I decided to check my settings and found I had bumped the wire feed speed accidentally before I started and it was set on 6 rather than the 3 it should have been - D'oh! Next time the welding doesn't go as smooth as I expect I'll remember to double check my settings.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0195.jpg)
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Nice work, priya. A little grinding and no one will be any the wiser. 8)
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Thanks, Route 66 Rambler.
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Ah --- new metal. Looks good to me too.
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Wow you are making great progress. I agree with your approach to looking at the Eagle as a series of smaller projects. That outlook can keep us from getting discouraged. I can't wait to see how this project progresses.
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Thanks 83Eagle and IowaEagle. All the encouragement is much appreciated.
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Glad to see folks puttin forth real effort to save Eagles.
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I've completed repairing a couple more rust spots. The first is the lower front portion of the driver's side rear wheel well. Here's the area prepped for welding:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0197.jpg)
Here's the replacement piece ready to go in - it's not quite identical to factory, but it isn't goiing to be seen and it lines up, so good enough!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0209.jpg)
And here's the area after the replacement was welded into place. This ties together the previous repairs to the inner and outer rocker panels as well as the quarter panel patch between the door and wheel well - it was a big relief to have everything line up properly:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0211.jpg)
That left a small piece of the floorboards just ahead of the rear wheel well to be fixed:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0213.jpg)
And here's the rear of the car's rust repairs completed:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0215.jpg)
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Very good work!!!!! You need to find some more eagles to fix and resale. We need people like you to keep these cars on the road. Egg to you!
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Thanks Malcom!
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Yes!! Excellent work. My Eagle is still waiting, patiently. ::)
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Thanks Doug, your Eagle is fourth in line.
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Good thing I took a number early.
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I've competed another part of the rust repairs. Its the driver's side area at the front of the inner and outer rocker panels that joins the two. Here's the area ready for the new pieces:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0218.jpg)
The original factory panel is a rather complicated shape, with presses they did it in one piece, me...that was well beyond my abilities. I was really nervous about this when I first found the area rusted away as once again it has to be fairly precise to get the fender and fender liner to line up and go on properly. Here's the jigsaw puzzle pieces I finally came up with to duplicate the factory shape. It took several attempts to get these to fit together right in the repair area.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0221.jpg)
And here's the completed repair. As you can see I had some trouble (as I usually do) with the overhead welding at the top of the repair. It may be ugly, but its solid. Despite my initial misgivings when I found this area rusted out I'm fairly confident I got it right, but I guess I won't know for sure until I try to put the fender and liner back on.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0224.jpg)
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Is that the part where the fender bolts on with the two little screws at the bottom rear edge of the fender? Another fine job! :notworthy: :hello2: :occasion14: :hello2: :notworthy:
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Thanks Iowa Eagle. Yes, that's the place where the lower edge of the fender bolts on with the two little screws.
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Wow, that is some top notch metal fab work. Do you guys use a press brake to get such nice bends on those pieces?
Something I find ironic about rust repair and body work is that you spend hours and hours of hard work just to make it look like nothing ever happened. ;D
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Thanks TLC87Eagle. I use a sheet metal brake whenever I can however on this latest repair all the bends were done by hand with a flanging vice-grip.
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Yeah, sometimes its hard to get small pieces like that in a brake. I usually just use the vise and a pair of flanged vice-grips too, and a hammer helps too with heavier metal. It seems whatever method you use, it always turns out great.
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Hey there Priya! Wow, once again, your work is just STUNNING! You make me want to weld something and I haven't the FIRST clue how to even do it! Bravo!!!!!!! As I've said before...once you get this car back together, you will KNOW without a doubt, that it is truly one RUST FREE Eagle!
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Thanks Tim! You always give me such great encouragement, I really appreciate it.
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I found a couple of spots of rust bubbling up on the floorboards. This is ahead of the front driver's seat where the floorboards make a 45 degree turn to join the firewall, right where the "frame" joins the floorboards. Turns out the part of the "frame" that flanges to the floorboards was rusty as well as that part of the floorboards.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0227.jpg)
Here's the area after a new "frame" flange was welded into place:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0234.jpg)
Here's the patch panel for the floorboards:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0236.jpg)
And here it is after it was welded in:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0239.jpg)
The same area on the passenger side was rusty as well:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0229.jpg)
Here it is after the new "frame" flange was welded into place:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0244.jpg)
Here's the passenger side floorboard patch:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0245.jpg)
And here it is with the repair competed:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0248.jpg)
With a little luck this completes the rust repairs on my SX/4 - WooHoo! There's some of what appears to be minor surface rust around the windshield so I have to remove that and sandblast it before I'll know for sure if all the rust repairs are completed, but it looks like it at this point.
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I hope you got it all as well. I can't wait to see what you tackle next.
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Very nice repair on the floorboard and frame rail edge. Mine rusted out in the exact same place right above the frame rail on the driver's side. I noticed it when the carpet would get wet under my feet when it rained lol. I think water and salt gets between the floor pan and sub-frame and around the spot welds and just stays there until it rots everything. So when I fixed mine I filled that outside seem of the floor pan and sub-frame with roofing cement.
Keep up the awesome work.
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Thanks TLC87Eagle.
I hope you got it all as well. I can't wait to see what you tackle next.
It'll be my '80 280ZX. I'd like to document it here in one of the project threads if that'd be okay, I haven't found any Zed sites where people do project threads.
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If it can teach us some more about fixing stuff then that would be fine. rust is rust and paint is paint no matter what it is on.
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Oh goody!
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GEEEEEeeeeee ;D Does that mean the 1952 Minneapolis Molines I am restoring fits in here too?? LOL , then again I should do some shots of the sand blasting booth I made and the blasting work , it would fit in I think.
I have been working on it now for like 4 months.......arggggggggggg
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280zx.. Thats a nissan isnt it? My previous project that i put on hold 4 the eagle is a 86 200sx coup gettin the 2.3L turbo engine outta the Merkur XR4Ti parts car.. Hehehe.. Its gona be a rank lil machine 4 autox n such.. But i needed the "FAMILY" car done 1st.. Lol.. Awesome job on ur beast so far!
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Thanks Lynx_Gen. Yes the 280ZX is a Nissan, or Nissan by Datsun back in those days.
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Glad that your SX4 is finally rust free. I have enjoyed all the installments to your project and would like to see more on another vehicle. It is great to learn how these repairs are done and hopefully someday I will get around to doing some of my own. You do a great job Priya. Thanks
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Thankyou Eagleearl. There's still quite a bit of work to be done before the car is complete and painted but the worst of it is over. I've still got to rebuild the motor, replace the drivetrain, replace the steering column, put in a tach, paint various interior trim pieces, replace the headliner, make front seats from a monza fit the eagle, shape the body fill over the rust repairs, fix a number of minor dents, prep the engine compartment and body for paint, etc. etc.
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Are you doing all that yourself too? It's nice to see cars that real people build rather than the 100 thousand dollar+ cars that the elite buy and show as their own, don't get me wrong they're nice and all but I enjoy what people conjure up in their own garages and backyards more. Excellent work so far.
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Thanks Shaggimo. I'll get the pros to do the machining work on the motor, my husband will reassemble it with my help, install it and the drivetrain and he'll probably do most of the work in fabricating the monza seats to fit. I'll be doing the rest of the interior work, removing the dents, shaping the bodyfill and doing all the paint prep in the engine compartment and on the body and then when its ready to be sprayed, once again I'll get the pros to actually point the spray gun. I've sprayed two cars myself, the first came out poorly, the second was fair, but I don't have the facilities any more to do a proper spray job so I won't be attempting it a third time. There may be various other repairs made to steering, suspension and brakes in order to pass the necessary safety inspection, I expect my husband will do the more complicated repairs and I'll do the simpler ones, I expect to do most of the reassembly of the car myself after paint is completed.
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Awsome!
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great job sofar on your sx/4. I,m really impressed with the effort that you are putting in on it. my 16 year old son and I are just getting started on a 1983 sx/4 that I picked up for him at one of the local wrecking yards. can,t wait to see more pics as you progress.
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Thanks vj318. I'm in the process of applying bodyfill to the rust repairs and shaping it. Unfortunately my inline sander gave out about a week ago and the local princess auto doesn't have one in stock and the only other one I can get is over $400 so I've been on hold for a while. One of my husband's co-workers was in Winnipeg and picked one up there for me so I expect to have it by tomorrow morning and be back at it.
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wow this is amazing.. These Manitoba Eagles all rust in the same places.. I am in the middle of my restoration as well.. my baby is in Winnipeg too.. I have a 2 door sedan that will be ready for safety next Monday... thanks for the pictures ...
maybe we can cruise portage avenue after their done :)
Laterz
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Nitron, actually I'm in Saskatoon, my husband's co-worker was in Winnipeg on business and returning to Saskatoon last night. But next time I'm in Winnipeg with my Eagle I'll give you a shout and we can cruise Portage avenue like you say.
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I still haven't got the windshield out to be able to see for sure if my rust repairs are done, my husband's been too busy to help me. He says there's a special cutting tool he's going to borrow from the body shop to do the job so, hopefully that'll happen before the temperature drops below freezing for good. In the mean time I've been laying on the fiberglass fill over welds, sanding, laying bodyfill over that and repeat, repeat, repeat. I've gotten all the repaired areas filled and shaped nicely with the exception of one join on the driver's side rocker panel and a small repair on the driver's side front fender. These filled areas still have to be smoothed out with finer grit sanding, they're done with 40 grit at this point in time, but I'll do that when I'm ready to prep the rest of the paint on the car with 120 grit and up.
There were a few minor dings on the car to be repaired, the worst of them was on the front valence:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0254.jpg)
Here's the valence panel after I straightened it and welded the splits.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0264.jpg)
The crossmember underneath was bent in a couple of inches as well, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it before we straightened it. My husband brought his hydraulic porta-power home from work and did most of the work in straightening out this piece. The final work to get most of the kink out of the cross member was done with a blunted chisel and a sledge hammer. It didn't come out perfect, but better than I thought I'd be able to do on my own. The area that was bent in is on the left side of the cross member where the darker brown is:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0269.jpg)
Here's the repaired area on the driver's side rear quarter between the door and the rear wheel: I was very concerned that replacing the rocker, lower door frame, and the piece of the quarter panel between the door and rear wheel wouldn't come out right and the door wouldn't have proper gaps or close right. Fortunately it came out pretty well, all the gaps are right where they should be, or very close anyway.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0270.jpg)
Here's the driver's side rear quarter behind the rear wheel, there were some minor dents just below the side marker light and the rust repairs were just below that:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0271.jpg)
Here's the passenger side rear quarter just behind the rear wheel. Some idiot opened his door into it and put a crease here:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0272.jpg)
Here's the passenger side rear quarter between the door and the front of the rear wheel:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0276.jpg)
Here's the passenger side rocker panel. I only sprayed etch primer on the bare metal so it looks uneven but it actually is nicely shaped.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0275.jpg)
Here's the passenger side front fender between the door and front wheel:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0262.jpg)
Here's the passenger side front fender ahead of the front wheel:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0263.jpg)
I had hoped to at least get the car painted this fall but that's starting to look unlikely. Its starting to dip below freezing at night and the freeze/thaw cycle causes condensation on the car so I'm reluctant to continue sanding and have large areas of bare metal be prone to rust so I'm not sure how much more work I'm going to get done on it in the next month or so before winter settles in for good. My husband says that once the first snow flies or freezing rain occurs the body shop will be too busy to paint it anyway so it may be next summer before this one gets painted. I don't have that much to do on it before its ready for paint but I don't want to rush it either and do a poor job. In the meantime I can probably find some things to do on it that don't involve bare metal, so we'll see what else I get done this year.
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Still coming along nicely. Will be a fine automobile when you are done.
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Excellent work, rockers turned out great. I know how you feel about getting as much done as possible before winter hits. :(
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Thanks guys.
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Looking really good there Priya. All that time spent with the body work and surfacing will pay off after a nice shinny finish is on it. I might have missed it in earlier posts, but what are your plans for the paint scheme of it? I can't wait to see the finished product. ;)
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Thanks TlC87Eagle. I'm having a lot of trouble deciding what colours to paint it. I was initially thinking electric blue lower body and hot pink upper, or matte black lower body and purple upper body, or maybe matte black lower body and a light purple upper body. Or some combination of blue and light or dark purple or hot pink and light or dark purple. I've had six test panels sprayed but haven't been able to get the shade of pink and light purple I wanted and am not any closer to deciding what looks the best together.
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I'm also thinking of a dark purple lower body, light purple or silver upper body. And two racing stripes down the hood, over the roof and down the hatch. Arrrggh! I can't decide!
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Ah, very cool. Yeah it's hard coming up with color schemes especially since the possibilities are endless. It seems easier to pick if you have a limited selection instead of any color you could think of. ;) From the schemes you mentioned, I think the matte black or dark purple lower with light purple would look awesome. Especially if it was a metallic or pearlescent type paint, and you could even have light purple SX/4 logos. That's just my humble opinion though. ;)
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Or a 50's retro look with the pinks and browns or the pinks and grays Rambler used back then?
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Sure Doug, that's what I need, more possibilites to consider.
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Wow!!!! This is the first time I read the post. WOW!!
You are doing an incredible Job. I have some cars with less rust than you started with and I am felt intimadated by them.
I believe I will give it a shot now.
Thanks for the pictures.
Bryan
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Thanks Teamamc. I initially thought i had very little rust to repair on this car but when I got the plastic cladding off and got into it discovered it needed much more than I was prepared to do. My husband works as a mechanic in a body shop and has seen a lot of different types of repairs done so, between his advice and a lot of careful planning I was able to do much more involved repairs than I initially wanted to.
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Hey Priya, This is the first time I've looked at your entire project. Talk about bringing one back from the dead. Oh my god that's just cool. As soon as my wife gets home I'm going to show her this link so that she can see just what you can do if you want to.
Secondly I'm hoping after seeing this she will want to try and restore a car with me. She was a total girly girl when we met but after 15 years of marriage she still can't believe all the stuff that I have taught
her to do. Until now she has drawn a line at cars except for pumping the brakes when I bleed the system but who knows!!!!
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Thanks Milliard. I hope you and your wife have good luck with restoration if you give it a try.
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After following this thread from the beginning, I am very impressed with the quality of your work. It is hard to believe that anyone would take on a large project such as this, and I thought I had seen in yours the most extensive rust repair project ever, but then I saw this: http://www.radikal.ru/USERS/otis124/116?pg=1
I am a Mercedes Benz enthusiast and saw this on an MB forum. It is hard to imagine this to even be possible to do. Before seeing this, I thought your SX4 was a complicated job!!!!
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After all that work, they couldn't put better tiers on it?? ;D
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After following this thread from the beginning, I am very impressed with the quality of your work.
Thanks Rollguy.
It is hard to believe that anyone would take on a large project such as this, and I thought I had seen in yours the most extensive rust repair project ever, but then I saw this: http://www.radikal.ru/USERS/otis124/116?pg=1
Yes, that's really something all right, I'd have said that one was beyond repair, but there's always someone out there willing to attempt the seemingly impossible. I actually didn't think the rust on my car was that severe I've seen a number of people take on substantially worse. I was at a car show this summer and my husband was talking to a friend of his who had a 70 Barracuda that looked showroom fresh. He had some pictures of what he started with and I couldn't believe what a piece of crap it was - rust holes you could climb through, major dents, I'd have never dreamed someone would attempt a restoration on something like that, but there it was.
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Here's another resurrection of monumental proportions. :o
http://57rustbucket.com/
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My first time reading this. Wow, wicked work there. That was some resto. I took welding in school (stick and gas) and I've done some minor body work, but that is quite extensive.
VERY NICE WORK!!
As for the colors, I don't want to add to your choices, but I remember my dad saying Pink and charcoal grey was quite the color combo in the '50-'60's. The purple idea would look pretty cool. I also like a true copper (and not that burnt orange everyone is going for these days) but a true copper. I've seen a 'Cuda with a dark copper color, and wow! Looks like it had some brown in it, to darken it up.
The color was stunning.
I can't wait when you decide to paint it up, and post the pics!!!
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Thanks Whuntmore, its been a lot of work and its going pretty slowly, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. I'm annoyed to be sidelined by winter, but I'll be back at it in the spring and judging by past progress I'm predicting I'll have the car done next year.
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very cool work, very well done. Im very excited to see this progression 8)
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Thanks Mojobean.
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And this is my first time seeing this post, I couldn't get enough! I've been reading for about 45 minutes now lol. I love the pictures of your work, you sure know what you're doing...As everyone says, just fantastic, that can't even describe it...EXTRAORDINARY, BREATH-TAKING... :hello2:
If you have any update, I'm sure we're all DYING to hear!
Once again, great work. I nominate you as AMCEagleNest member of the year if we did such a thing :D
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Wow, thanks amc78concord! I expect to back at it in April. My husband says in the spring he's selling the van I'm driving now so I have to get the SX/4 done by the winter of 2010 or I won't have anything to drive - gulp!
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Are you seriously going to drive it in the winter when it's done?? :covereyes:
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Yes, in fact it'll be solely a winter car, that was my intention for it from day one. I bought a 79 Corvette at the end of November that'll be my summer car and I won't be driving that in the winter.
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I can't wait to see what you've done to your car. any updates?
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Hi Whuntmore, just saw your post. I got back in the garage April 1st but haven't been highly motivated so nothing major to report as of yet. Hopefully I'll have something done worth documenting soon.
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That's cool... I just really like following these projects, and yours is interesting to see the work you've done. Looking forward to the next update!
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Well, I've been working on the SX/4 for over a couple of months and It seems like I haven't accomplished much. There's been 3 or 4 times the normal amount of rainfall this spring and I tend to not work when its raining so that's part of it but I'm still surprised I'm not further along. I had hoped to have the car ready for paint at the end of last month but I'm still a ways away from that yet. Its been a lot of filling and sanding so I thought I'd post a few pictures of the sort of work I've been doing recently.
The driver's door although it has no rust has needed quite a bit of work. The window frame had what appeared to be a minor bend in it and my husband and I spent a lot of time straightening it out but the gap between the right side of the window frame at the top of the door frame is about 1/2" larger than the gap between the lower right side of the window frame and the door frame even though the door is properly aligned so more work is needed. The door had a lot of dings in it so I decided it was easier to remove all the paint, body fill the entire door and sand down the entire area:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0308.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0309.jpg)
The body fill on the door has been sanded to 80 grit and the door primed so any bare metal doesn't rust until I get back to the finer sanding:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0324.jpg)
I'm now working on prepping the engine compartment for paint, here's how it looked before I started:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0285.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0289.jpg)
Here's how it looked after I removed the stuff that's coming off for paint, cleaned the grease and dirt off of it, sandblasted the rusty areas and spot primed to prevent rust until I get the finish sanding done:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0320.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0321.jpg)
There was a fair bit of rusty surfaces in the engine compartment and I was prepared to find holes after the sandblasting but the panels all turned out to be solid despite the rust.
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I finally got a chance to see if I was done with all the rust repairs. I could see some surface rust around the windshield frame and thought that once I got the windshield out and sandblasted that I might find some holes. Here's the worst area I found after the windshield was removed:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0312.jpg)
After sandblasting and checking to see if a scratch awl would poke through after a solid whack it turns out the windshield frame is solid and I don't have to do any more rust repairs to do - woohoo!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0315.jpg)
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Great work! It's looking awesome, and thanks for the updates.
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No problem. I figured after 2 1/2 months I was long overdue to get some sort of progress report. I've done more on the car but its not the sort of stuff that really shows much of a change.
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Lookin good there...I really, really, really, really......... wanna see MORE! lol ;D
Post more when you get another update.. 8)
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Sure thing Robert. Hopefully it'll stop raining for a couple of weeks and I can get a little more motivated than I have been. I want to get this car painted fairly soon.
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Roger that on the rain! It's been raining here for six straight days in Central Wisconsin! :P
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Just when you're sure you've done all the rust repairs...not quite. I just put the passenger door on the stand to start prepping the exterior for paint and I noticed that there were quite a few little mounds of rust where the moulding had been that divides the lower colour from the upper one and I thought "uh-oh, that's worse than I thought it was". Sure enough I sanded away the paint and there was deep pitting along the length of the door:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0353.jpg)
After sandblasting the pits I put a scratch awl in some of the deeper ones and gave it a smack with the palm of my hand and it went partway through so I knew I couldn't just bondo over it, it had to be repaired. I had already prepped the edges of the door for paint and I sure didn't want to cut a 4" by 3' hole and try and do all that welding without warping a pretty flat panel it so I sandblasted the pits, took the mig and zapped the deepest ones spot by spot:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0358.jpg)
I ground down the welds and to my relief everything looked fine. I took the 7" angle sander and started removing paint. I got to a spot on the lower edge of the door and for some reason the paint wasn't cutting. After sitting there for a minute or so I suddenly noticed a spot to the left that was glowing red and realized I was tilting the sander that way and that's why the paint in the centre wasn't cutting. I stopped sanding and looked at the spot and noticed a crease about an inch long and thought "That's not good". I took the scratch awl to it and gave it a smack and sure enough it went through like tin-foil. So it was back to the welder and after several minutes of making short bursts I had a bumpy puddle about somewhere between the size of a quarter and a loonie. I ground that down and it looked pretty good and then I noticed a pretty big warp in that part of the door, I guess I didn't weld slowly enough to prevent heat build up. So then it was hammer and dolly, hammer and dolly for a fair while until I felt it was close enough that body fill should take most of the ripples out without being too thick.
Now I've got to prep the hood for paint, unfortunately there's a number of dents in it I hadn't noticed before so hopefully I can get those close enough so that very little body fill is required as if there's too much it'll crack from the opening and closing and vibrations while driving. Prepping the underside of the hood is going to be pretty slow going too as its all irregular surfaces so I can't use power tools and I'll have to sand it by hand.
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OK, that's all fine and good, and your doing an excellent job,I would hate to admit, I certainly wouldn't be doind as good a one, and would of been discouraged by now. But what is a "loonie" , in reference to size ? LOL< sorry never heard that,.
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It's a dollar coin, somewhat larger than a quarter.
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a 'Loonie' is the nickname for the Canadian dollar coin. On the tail side, it has a loon. So we call it the Loonie.
Our other coins: The penny has a maple leaf, the nickel has a beaver, the dime has the Bluenose schooner, the quarter has a Moose, the half dollar has a coat of arms, the dollar coin has the Loon and the two dollar coin has a Polar bear.
When the two dollar coin came out, it was nicknamed the 'Toonie', because of the 'loonie'
The 'head' side has Queen Elizabeth II.
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Here's a loonie and a quarter side by side:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0360.jpg)
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Here's a loonie and a quarter side by side:
That quarter actually looks like a UK 10 pence coin... about the right size though.
Back to the subject at hand... I admire your dedication to restoring this car. Most people (myself included) probably would have deemed it beyond their abilities. I also envy you for actually having the time to do all of this. I spend more than 20 minutes in the garage, and I get yelled at for it when I go back in the house. :(
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What is that? a British Quarter?? It ain't a Can. quarter.
I feel for you there Dean... that sucks. Not only does Priya have the time, she's got the place and the skills to do this. Talk about having all yer ducks in a row... I want her to adopt me... so when I get an eagle she can teach me MIG (at the level she knows it) and resto work.
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Back to the subject at hand... I admire your dedication to restoring this car. Most people (myself included) probably would have deemed it beyond their abilities. I also envy you for actually having the time to do all of this. I spend more than 20 minutes in the garage, and I get yelled at for it when I go back in the house. :(
I feel for you there Dean... that sucks. Not only does Priya have the time, she's got the place and the skills to do this. Talk about having all yer ducks in a row... I want her to adopt me... so when I get an eagle she can teach me MIG (at the level she knows it) and resto work.
Thanks a lot guys. I owe it all to my husband. He works hard so I have the extreme good fortune to be a stay at home housewife. I couldn't do a restoration like this if I had to work a regular job.
What is that? a British Quarter?? It ain't a Can. quarter.
Yes, its a Canadian quarter, its one of the limited edition ones that had a variety of subjects on the tail. I didn't have a regular Canadian quarter so I took one of the unusual ones my husband is collecting.
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On second thought, maybe its not a Canadian quarter LOL. It says 10 on the tail and my husband spent some time in England. Anyway, its the same size as a Canadian quarter.
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No worries, we're just razzing ya on that...
I can't wait till your done with this resto. I do enjoy reading up on your work, and what you've done to 'fix' the issues. Well Done You!
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Thanks again Whuntmore. Its been going pretty slow this spring/summer but I guess paint prep is like that - there's a lot of tedious work that doesn't show a whole lot of change until the car gets sprayed, but I'm getting there!
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Here's the passenger door after I put body fill on and did shaping and rough sanding to 80 grit:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0364.jpg)
The door was full of creases and the waves I put in it so it took more bodyfill than I would have liked. It would have been nice to hammer and dolly the metal more so it'd need less fill but given that most of the dents need to be hammered outward and there's very few places inside the door where you can swing a hammer that wasn't possible. The grey areas are the high spots where the metal is showing through. The different shades of green are different layers of body fill. I'm not sure why but I kind of enjoy the filling and shaping process even though its pretty slow going.
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You are right! A lot of fill on that door. I am sure it will look great when you get some primer on it.
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That is why I made those suggestions about door panels to be made for the whole door. Yes the bottoms rust but 30 years of parking lot dings really add up. I hope they do make them.
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Look at it this way.........If the car was made by GM, you would need that much filler just to smooth out the factory defects :rotfl: , I'm not kidding either, I don't think I'll ever go back to the GM side after working with an AMC ;).
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I recently finished prepping the underside of the hood for paint. Due to all the intricate curves I couldn't use power tools so I had to do this all by hand - that was very exciting. There was a lot of oil on the underside of the hood so first hauled it to the car wash and then gave it a wipe down with lacquer thinner. Then it was sandblast the rusty areas, primarily where the battery was, featheredge those areas and a few spots where the paint was lifting, fine sand all surfaces and then I had it to this point:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0368.jpg)
The green/yellow areas are where I sprayed it with etching wash primer after the sandblasting to prevent rust until I got to sanding the rest of the hood's underside.
After that I coated the whole underside with etching wash primer which is as thin as water and almost as transparent:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0370.jpg)
This completes the paint preparation for the colour change on all non-exterior portions of the car, the engine compartment, the door frames, and the edges of the doors.
This weekend I asked my hubby to help me drill the holes for the rear spoiler. We found some tips on the Eagle nest and started by making a cardboard pattern of the centre section:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0377.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0378.jpg)
We transferred the cardboard template to the hatch, centred it and using a sharpie marked the holes for the bolts. As you can see a bit of sand has gotten into the interior:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0375.jpg)
Ward drilled 5/16" holes in the spots and the fit wasn't quite right so he drilled 3/8" holes to give us a bit of play to adjust the spoiler. On the underside of the hatch we simply drilled holes where the dimples were as the tips we found on the Eagle nest suggested. Here's how it looked on:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0380.jpg)
It's still slightly too far to the right so Ward's going to bring home some tools from work and we'll enlarge the holes on the left a bit so we can get it just right.
Ward did up a template for the small side pieces:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0383.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0382.jpg)
He transferred the driver's side one to the car and I held the side piece bolts to the marks he made and it was clearly 1/2" too high. We argued about it for a few minutes and then he said "Mark the spots where you think they should be and we'll drill.". I marked the rear one 1/4" below the mark Ward made and the front one 1/2" below the mark he made. Ward drilled the holes, I tried to place the piece in it and Un-oh, its too low to go on. :o Ward just looked at me with that "I told you so." grin. He said "How about we do the passenger side my way?". I felt pretty sheepish so he laid the template on the passenger side, marked the holes, drilled, and it fit perfectly. I should have known better than to challenge the master - I won't make that mistake again. :)
I was thinking that at this point all I needed to do was the finish sanding on the exterior and the car would be ready for paint. As I was thinking that I walked by the rear quarter on the passenger side and thought, "The rear quarter is dented!". I got closer and realized it wasn't dented, ran my hand over it and it was clear the shaping of the body fill I had done there wasn't even close to right and upon looking at the driver's side it wasn't even close to the same as the driver's side. I can't figure out how I missed that, its so obvious and yet at the time I was doing the rough sanding I was sure I had it bang on. So after reshaping that area I should have nothing left but the fine sanding on the exterior to be ready for paint.
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Thanks for the great write up and pictures. Your pins and bushings will soon be on their way to you.
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Thanks Doug. I wish we would have realized we were going to replace those sooner. We're planning on putting the doors, hood and fenders back on the car to do the finish sanding and to get the car down to the body shop for paint. We'll probably want to do that early next week so we'll have to remove the doors again when the hinge pins and bushings get here to install them. As well I spent a day or so prepping the hinges for paint and couldn't get at a lot of them to sand but once they're apart I'll be able to do a better job so I'll be re-doing the hinges after that stuff gets here.
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Well, I've got an appointment to get my SX/4 painted next saturday. I've been working hard all week to get it ready for paint and I'm pretty close. I've got the exterior of the driver's door to do finish sanding on and I have to prep the area under the rear hatch where the weatherstripping goes yet. Other than one rude surprise the rest of the car is ready for paint:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0394.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0398.jpg)
Yes, believe it or not that motley looking car is smooth and ready for high build primer and then top coat.
Here's the rude surprise I got when we put the nicely prepped and ready for paint passenger door on the car:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0396.jpg)
D'oh! The repair I did to the lower left corner isn't right. I didn't check closely enough and made the 4"X4" patch as a right angle and in fact the left edge of the door curves in and as you can see the door gap is uneven. I was willing to live with the less than perfect visuals but my husband and I discussed it and even though the door closes without hitting now there's only about a 16th of an inch gap in the corner and he said as time goes by the door's going to shift and start rubbing so we decided tomorrow I'll get out the grinder and welder and open up the gap - so much for the paint ready finish in that corner. I'm pretty stressed out this week as I'm putting in long days (for me) and trying to have the car ready for paint Monday so the painter can look it over and make suggestions for anything that could be improved. Between that and trying to do the best job I can its got me a little wound out.
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I agree with your husband. Adjust it now.
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After all the fine work you have done you shouldn't let a small boo boo upset you.
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Yes, you're right Jim. Its just that I was planning on having the car ready for paint on Monday and now that won't be happening. Hopefully I can repair this in one day or less.
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with the work you put into this car, I think that would bother me as well. I mean if the car's a total "I'll patch it for now" kind of job well, I'd probably let it go, but with this kind of work, it would bother me alsol.
Sorry to see your paint job postponed till this is fixed, but with work like this, I have to agree with your husband as well, fix it now, and then it will be perfect, and then paint it. it will be worth it in the long run.
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Well, it only took me 1/2 a day to get the passenger door gap a little more reasonable. For some reason it looks a little closer in the picture than it does in real life. In any event the gap is big enough now that the door won't rub and I'm not going to have at the edge a second time.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0406.jpg)
I got a start on the hatch area where the rubber seal goes, it was worse than I thought, I should have checked that before I started prepping the car for paint, I just assumed it was in pretty good shape. We pushed the car out of the garage and took the sandblaster to it. The sand blaster didn't touch the seam sealer so between hubby and me we chipped it out bit by bit with a dull flat tip screwdriver and a hammer. About 3/4 of the hatch opening needed to be sandblasted and sealer removed. And another surprise, for the second time when I think I've got all the rust repairs done I find out I don't - this is what I found on the driver's side of the hatch opening where the rubber seal mounts (the red paint is a weld through primer):
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0403.jpg)
Fortunately its all straight edges and bends so I should be able to get a new piece welded in fairly quickly. There's an outside chance I might have the car ready for paint tomorrow evening, but if not it should be ready to go Tuesday and then the painter can look it over and if he has any concerns hopefully I can address them all before Satuday when he's going to spray the car.
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One surprise repaired and another one pops up. Like say, it appears to be a "straight"forward fix.
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Well, its wednesday and I finally got everything ready for paint on the SX/4. I discovered three more areas on the hatch opening lip that needed to be replaced as they had pinholes. Fortunately a few weeks ago we bought a shinker/stretcher:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0410.jpg)
While I was preparing the hatch area for welding my hubby set to work on making the 4 patches we needed for the lip. Two of them were in the upper corners and the shrinker/stretcher made it easy work for him:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0408.jpg)
Here's some of the test pieces he did with this machine to show what it can do:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0409.jpg)
Here's two of the repairs made to the hatch opening lip, the same areas on the other side ended up needing to be replaced as well.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0411.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0412.jpg)
It's supposed to rain tomorrow and friday so I was happy to get the car completely prepped today, if two days later than I was originally hoping. Ward fabricated brackets to fit a tow bar he bought to the Eagle and we hauled it down to Perfection Automotive at suppertime. Our luck was good as it started to rain about 10 minutes after we got the car in the shop.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0414.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0413.jpg)
The painter is going to start on it tomorrow night, I'm not sure exactly how he's doing it, but a basic primer is going on first and then at some point a high build primer and Saturday is a go for paint.
The engine went to the machine shop a couple of weeks ago. Its getting a .030 overbore, the crank is getting ground .010. I wanted to raise the compression ratio half a point but the only pistons available were' the factory 8.2 to 1 so the shop is milling the head .015 and decking the block .015 which will give a .6 point increase in compression ratio. The shop is installing the cam bearings but other than that the works is coming home disassembled and hubby will be assembling it himself.
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Fantastic work! Now he needs to start rolling rockers for all of us.
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Here's some of the test pieces he did with this machine to show what it can do:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0409.jpg)
That is too cool! Very professional job! I've got to hand it to you (an egg that is), you are impressing a lot of folks around here!
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Thanks Rollguy.
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WOW , that is awesome.Those hatch lip patch pieces are perfect,great work.Was that piece of equipment reasonably priced?
EGG2U
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Awesom priya! So by next spring you'll be ready to run it?
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WOW , that is awesome.Those hatch lip patch pieces are perfect,great work.Was that piece of equipment reasonably priced?
EGG2U
We were talking about it the other day. I recall us paying around $250 but my husband remembers us paying $300. Ward was giving me the gears about it because I thought all the Eagle rust repairs were done, I didn't see a need for it and was reluctant to buy it. I didn't expect it to come in handy so soon.
Awesom priya! So by next spring you'll be ready to run it?
Yes, we should easily be ready to run it by next spring. My husband is taking 2 weeks off in the middle of September and we're going to put the mechanicals in and by we I mean mostly him. The plan is to have it ready to drive by the time the snow flies because I'll be taking my Corvette off the road then and have nothing to drive. The interior needs a lot of work so I'll probably be driving it with a lot of the interior missing/half finished.
Doug, 68AMXGOPAC, and shaggimo, thanks for the encouragement.
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That is too cool! I can't wait to see it in paint!!
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We got some of the painting done on Thursday and Friday night. Thursday night a grey high build primer went on and a dusting of red for a guide coat which will show low spots on the body work as its sanded off.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleinprimer001.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleinprimer003.jpg)
Then the doors, hood, hatch, and fenders came off and Friday night we sprayed the underside of the hood, the hatch and door jambs, the sides of the doors and engine compartment. It was a very long night, we were there until midnight and the painter still had an hours drive home that night! And all this after the painter and hubby had already worked an 8 hour day. I was beat and I didn't start until 5:00 that afternoon, I just can't imagine doing what they did. Here's some of the results:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eaglejamssprayed.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eaglejamssprayed1.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0416.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eaglejambspainted002.jpg)
We put the hood, fenders, doors, and hatch on this morning and here's how the engine compartment looked. For some reason the pictures kept wanting to come out blue, but its a really bright purple:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eaglejambspainted010.jpg)
I thought we were going to be painting the whole car Saturday but it takes a lot longer than I realized and Ward and John the painter had actually planned to do this over a one week period and finish spraying the majority of the car next Saturday. After that paint dries we still will have to go back and paint the door window frames and roof drip rail blue as it was too complicated to do this all at once. Between now and then I'll be sanding down the high build primer to hopefully remove all the imperfections in the preperation work I had done previously. The quarter panels, doors, roof, and sides of the fenders had a few spots that weren't so good, the hood and tops of the fenders have a lot of things that never came out too well but hopefully a careful sanding of the high build primer will get most or all of those. The hood had all manner of little dings and I filled them seperately and most of them showed up as uneven layers in the primer. I was going to put body fill over the entire power bulge of the hood and sand that down as one like I did with the doors and in retrospect that's what I should have done as the doors came out very straight despite having quite a share of dings and waves themselves.
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Looking good, so far!
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Sweet
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WOW! that is a beautiful color and an excellent job your doing on it ..... good luck on the rest of the project
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Looks like a great purple to me. EGGselent job.
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Thanks everyone!
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My question is are you using that new waterborne paint on yours or are you doing it old school (The shop i work at just converted to that stupid waterborne)
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Yes, its a water based paint and its a pain in the butt. When I told the painter I wanted the door window frames and the roof drip rail painted blue he got upset and said no way, that's too much work, I won't do it. We asked the shop if they'd do it for money and they said with waterborne paints its a logistics nightmare and they want no part of it. We eventually got the painter to agree to paint those areas purple and then after the clearcoat is dry if I go back and mask and scuff those areas he'll paint it with a regular paint which probably won't be quite as shiny and may be a slightly different shade but at least I'll get it all the colour I want. Apparently even with that its going to be a very long day Saturday to paint the exterior purple, the lower body blue and put two blue racing stripes acroos the hood and roof. The purple is sprayed first, then after 3 hours the blue is painted roughly where its going to go and then 3 hours later we mask off the blue we want to remain blue, the car is repainted purple again, the tape comes off some time later and then a number of layers of clear go on. I was told that back in the old days it was much easier to paint a car the way the sport model Eagles were done but nowadays you never see cars with those sort of multi-partition colour schemes, they're almost all one colour or at most a two tone with the lower body one colour and the upper a different one.
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Sounds like a lot of work. Never knew it took that much to paint a car.
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Sounds like a lot of work. Never knew it took that much to paint a car.
It usually doesnt take that long but this car is being done the right way all around. The results should be amazing.
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Looks great so far! It can be done quick & easy or done right. Not often the same thing.
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It usually doesnt take that long but this car is being done the right way all around. The results should be amazing.
That's what I thought before the primer went on. After I saw all the imperfections on the hood in what I thought was excellent prep I wasn't so sure anymore. I'm sure I can improve on it when I sand down the high build primer but I'm a lot less confident than I was that I'm going to get a really good finish. Strangely, the last car I did body work on I couldn't see any flaws in the repairs or paint finish although I didn't really scrutinize it either.
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Yes, its a water based paint and its a pain in the butt. When I told the painter I wanted the door window frames and the roof drip rail painted blue he got upset and said no way, that's too much work, I won't do it. We asked the shop if they'd do it for money and they said with waterborne paints its a logistics nightmare and they want no part of it. We eventually got the painter to agree to paint those areas purple and then after the clearcoat is dry if I go back and mask and scuff those areas he'll paint it with a regular paint which probably won't be quite as shiny and may be a slightly different shade but at least I'll get it all the colour I want. Apparently even with that its going to be a very long day Saturday to paint the exterior purple, the lower body blue and put two blue racing stripes acroos the hood and roof. The purple is sprayed first, then after 3 hours the blue is painted roughly where its going to go and then 3 hours later we mask off the blue we want to remain blue, the car is repainted purple again, the tape comes off some time later and then a number of layers of clear go on. I was told that back in the old days it was much easier to paint a car the way the sport model Eagles were done but nowadays you never see cars with those sort of multi-partition colour schemes, they're almost all one colour or at most a two tone with the lower body one colour and the upper a different one.
I know all too well about that waterborne being a pain in the but. If you don't let them bake for an entire day the whole finish will wash right off. We had a problem with a Suzuki XL7 in the shop on friday where we forgot to paint the underside of the new hood and the painter (who has a higher spot on the totem pole than I) decided to just dust the hood in and no clear it. Needless to say it got to the QC/Detail guy and he used a high powered pressure hose to clean under the hood and took ALL of the paint off. But as deadlines go with that shop we ended up cleaning all of the paint off and sending it out the door with the underhood just in it's factory primer. And people wonder why I'm looking for a job in another body shop
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We've been working on the car in the evenings this past week using sanding blocks to sand off the red guide coat to further smooth out the surfaces of the car. There's a very thick primer underneath and as one sands with a block and gets to the grey primer underneath if there is a low spot where you're sanding that spot will remain red. You continue sanding and lowering the surrounding grey primer until either the red in the low spot is gone and you're smooth, or you've sanded through the grey primer and the red remains in which case you need to add filler to the low spot and re-sand to make it smooth. Ward has enlisted the help of a friend who's a professional bodyman and we've got just about the whole guide coat removed and the car a good deal smoother than it was:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleprimerblockedoutalmost004.jpg)
The power bulge in the centre of the hood was really a mess. There was a lot of minor dents and dings in it originally which I hammered and dollied and filled and smoothed but after priming I could see all manner of imperfections in it and you know when you can see imperfections in the flat primer its going to look really bad when the shiny paint goes on. Even after sanding off the guide coat many highs and lows showed up. I added filler to the individual low spots, started sanding them down and Ward's friend looked at it and said "No, no, you can't fill here and fill there and there and there, you have to cover the whole area with filler and then sand it down as one section". I said "That's what I wanted to do, but Ward told me not to do it that way.". Trevor let out some sort of "Bloody 'ell" comment and proceded to fill the entire power bulge with filler and sand it down - that's why it's all white now. Even though I've been relying on the hubby for advice, aparently now sometimes I know better than him how it should be done.
I'm more confident now than I was that we're going to get a good smooth finish on the car. Trevor is bringing some experienced friends to help blocking the rest of the car out tonight (the hood and areas that sanded down to bare metal will have to be reprimed) so hopefully we can still have it done tonight. We're working on it only in the evenings as the car is in the shop at Perfection Automotive and we can only work on it after working hours. All the plastic body cladding remains to be sanded down and most of the car was sanded with 240 grit and now needs to be resanded with 400 grit. Even if we get it ready tonight it may not get painted on Saturday as the painter has been sick the past couple of days and may not be available to do it. If not this Saturday, then it'll be the next. Any way you slice it I'll be sure glad to have the paint finally on (assuming it looks okay!).
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Awesome, no doubt you'll have a heck of nice ride when finished! I had to prime the sx a few times to get the body half decent, my first attempts were the spot fill type. My dad then chimed in to tell me that I was doing it all wrong, and to fill the big area rather than the little spots, lol.
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I recommend the stud welder technique for raising the low spots. Lord knows i am in for ALOT of work once I finally start on my wagon's bodywork. i have a few pretty good dents in the rear hatch pillar and some bondo cracking on the bottoms of 2 of the doors
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For the most part I was able to get behind the panel to hammer low spots however I was unable to get the panel perfect just using hammer and dolly hence the need for filler.
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filler is a necessary evil when making a car "perfect". just remember to not go too thick or it will crack. My dad showed me a method of pulling dents years ago; take a piece of dry ice and rub around the dent and it should pop itself out. I have yet to try it but i have seen him do it dozens of times with his "seller" cars
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We weren't able to get the SX/4 into the paint booth a week ago because after the filling and sanding of the hood it needed to be reprimed Friday night and wouldn't have been ready for paint until later Saturday which didn't leave enough time to paint the car during the weekend. We did get it ready Thursday night and yesterday it was into the autobody shop at 5:00 pm. After a few hours of cleaning and masking the car was into the paint booth by about 9:00 PM. The initial stage of the paint job was done by 12:30 AM and a sealer coat, one coat of purple and 3 coats of blue roughly where the final blue was to be were laid down. As this is water-based paint the base coats are flat until after the clear coat goes on and makes it all shiny. Here's how the car looked very late Friday night:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0421.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagletwocoloursreadytostripe.jpg)
Johnny the painter still had an hours drive home that night and an hours drive back in the morning and we were all there by 8:00 AM Saturday to continue the job. I had developed back trouble in the middle of Friday afternoon so I wasn't able to help at all beyond telling Ward and Johnny how I wanted the paint job done. The two started masking off the areas that were to remain blue so when the rest of the car was repainted purple they'd stay blue. It took five hours to lay out the stripes and mask off the areas to remain blue. Here's how it looked before the final coats of purple were ready to go on:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0423.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0422.jpg)
Three coats of purple were then laid down on the car and here is the result:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0427.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0426.jpg)
Two coats of clear were then painted on and the car was all shiny but unfortunately I wasn't able to get into the booth to get pictures as it needed to dry first and we all wanted to go home as it was 5:00 PM by that time. Monday morning we go down to pull the car out of the booth and I'll have pictures of the shiny clear-coated car then. The plan is to that evening mask off the entire car except for the door window frames and drip rail so we can paint those blue as well. All the plastic body cladding, bumper corners, mirrors and window trim pieces will then be painted blue at some point later in the week and the blue stripes on the spoiler will be added as well.
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8) NICE!!!!
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We at least need a before and after shot, and maybe another before and after Eagle of the month category. That is going to be a very nice car when it is all done. I think it is the most rust repair/body work ever done to an Eagle on this forum. You deserve another egg!
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Thanks guys!
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I am envious!
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Looking Great !!
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Definetly way cool.I can relate to the amount of work , such a nice job you guys did. I just finished a tractor restore for a client,I probably have 8 months time in it , talking averaging a year and a half out into 8 months total probably. some pics out on my facebook page. Egg your way.
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it will be a very nice eagle when finished congrats here´s another goo one for you
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Thanks everyone!
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Where would I get some of that weld through primer in Winnipeg? All the places I have asked about it have no idea what I am talking about. Does it go by a different name?
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Where would I get some of that weld through primer in Winnipeg? All the places I have asked about it have no idea what I am talking about. Does it go by a different name?
Have you checked with any autobody supply places? It should be readily available through them, especially in a city the size of Winnipeg. Check your yellow pages for autobody supplies and if you can't find one contact an autobody shop and ask them where to find it. Chase autobody supplies has its head office in Winnipeg and any of their outlets should have it. You can call them at (204) 633 4576 or toll free at 1-800-486-3111. That's where I got mine from.
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priya, im impressed with your Eagle. I've been following it for a while now, and after a brief absence from the site...I've come back to a masterpiece unfolding here! Love the changing color paint...GENIOUS. I still say you deserve AMC Eagle Nest Member of the Year. We should do something like that. I'd vote for you :)
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Wow, thanks a lot Robert, that's very sweet of you to say.
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8) Looking very nice there! Are you going to carry the stripes onto the spoiler as well?
Awaiting the shiny :drool: , lol.
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Thanks Shaggimo. Yes, the stripes will go across the spoiler as well.
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I got some pictures of the car today with the clear coat on. These first two are from first thing this morning when the car was still in the booth. The actual colours are a little darker than they appear in these pictures:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0428.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0429.jpg)
The next pictures we got late this afternoon and unfortunately after sitting out of the booth in the body shop the car got a pretty thick layer of dust on it but the colours in the pictures are a little more true to life despite that:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagletwocoloursdone007.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagletwocoloursdone005.jpg)
In this next picture you can see the amount of dust on the car if you look at the finger marks on the front passenger side of the hood and fender. Still looks pretty sweet, though!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagletwocoloursdone001.jpg)
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looking good!! I am just curious to ask was there alot of dirt in the clear? I only ask because i have been using the waterborne "watercolor" paint at work for the last month and since we switched I have noticed alot more dirt in the paint that needs to be wetsanded then buffed out
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There was a fair bit on the driver's side lower window frame of the rear quarter window but other than that very little, I noticed one speck on the hood and maybe one or two elsewhere on the car. I'm going to be painting that part of the rear quarter window frame blue so the dirt will be sanded out at that time.
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WOWZERS!
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:occasion14: Awesome!! Judging by the reflections , it doesn't appear it even needs wet sanding/buffing..Again, very nice!
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Thanks guys!
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:faint: :hot: :hello2: :eyepopping: :D **Speechless**
Keep it up, and keep posting!
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Will do Robert ;)
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Looks great Priya! Thanks for sharing with us.
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Thanks Eagleearl.
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Looking better all the time. Can I send you a bill for the drool shorting out my keyboard? ;D
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Very shiny! ;D
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very nice this eagle rocks
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Thanks everyone! And 1OldFordMan I'm willing to pay for your keyboard if you'll take a third party out of province post-dated cheque.
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Thursday the final bits of painting on the SX/4 were completed. The side window frames and drip rails were painted blue and all the plastic body cladding was painted blue. The whole car had to be masked off to paint the window frames and drip rails, it took hubby and I about 4 hours to do this:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0441.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0439.jpg)
So, after 3 summers and 2 and 1/2 years the body work I started is finally done and all the paint applied. I may be pretty slow but I stuck to it, was never tempted to give up and I got the job done. I avoided thinking about the all the work necessary, focused on short term goals and made sure I did at least a little on a regular basis and because of that I knew I'd eventually complete it.
The car is back home now and a couple of days ago we picked up the engine from the machine shop. Next on the todo list is to clean the sand out of the garage and hubby is going to assemble the engine.
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Awesome work priya!!! Can't wait for a glimpse at your finished product! :o
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Thanks Shaggimo.
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Thanks everyone! And 1OldFordMan I'm willing to pay for your keyboard if you'll take a third party out of province post-dated cheque.
One sweet looking ride. Great, no, EGGselent job.
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Thanks 1OldFordMan.
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Wicked, I can't wait to see the finished product!
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Me too, Whuntmore. Shouldn't be long now, although it'll probably be snowing by that time and I'm not sure what sort of pictures I'll be able to get.
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I got my new carpet yesterday! And its purple!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Priyalikeshercarpet001.jpg)
And what would new purple carpet be without matching floor mats?
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Priyalikeshercarpet003.jpg)
I also got 2 yards of extra carpet I'm hoping I can fit to the hatch area behind the rear seats.
I'm happy to get the carpet but it looks like its going to be a harder to install than I thought. The manufacturer said to take the carpet out of the box, spread it out and leave it for 24 hours and then it'll regain its proper shape. I did that and no noticable difference in the carpet 24 hours later. Its full of all manner of kinks from being squeezed in a small box and the indentations one would expect for the footwells and trans tunnel for the most part don't seem to be there. Hubby figures once we lay it out in the car it'll regain its proper shape but I'm less confident. Part of the difficulty is that the carpet was listed for "2 door 4 door" and "fits 80-88" and I thought the 2 door carpet was different from the 4 door and the 4 door different from the wagon so I'm not sure exactly what I've got. In any event I'm going to be cutting out several inches or a foot in the middle to try and make it fit properly and I think that's going to be a challenge when I can't tell very well where the front and rear footwells are.
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OMG! that is freaky. I can't wait to see this done. You gotta post lots of pics.
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LOL, yes, this SX/4 is going to be out of the ordinary.
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Was that a special order dye job? The two door models listed by all of these carpet people are for the 30 series cars. So far, at least to my knowledge, we have not found carpets specific to either of the 50 series cars.
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Looks to me , by the way it is laying in the pic, the front would be the upper right hand side,short back edge indents on the left would be the rear seat area,the longer runs up the front edge would go up under the dash area......just my opinion.The carpet I got for the AMX had the same issues.All wrinkled and jammed in the box,it layed down ok, but it was summer and I let it sit on the roof of the car in the sun to soften in up better.If you have the time you can allwasy lay it out inside get it lined up pretty well, and wieght it down in the seat well areas to get it to drwa down into them and let it set, or warm it up in tough spots with a hair dryer, or even one of those hand clothes steamers.The seat bolts will help draw it down, the toughest area I think will be the shifter/tranny hump.I would say start there and work it out from there centered and toward all the outer edges.
Good luck !! ( I used to put wall to wall down in houses , and custom work ) LOL< and yeah where did you get PURPLE ??
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LOL, yes, this SX/4 is going to be out of the ordinary.
It's gonna be soo freaking cool, I can't wait to see her finished. Everytime I check the 'replies to your posts' and I see this come up, I'm thinking, "is it done now? is it done now..?" Man, I'm almost willing to head out there, just to see it. you're in Sack, right? Bloody heck, that's only 6-7 hours drive from me... It's tempting just to see it...
You got decent and cheap motels out your way????? j/k
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Was that a special order dye job?
No, its one of the "neon" carpet colours they offer in their ads which include orange, hot pink, and the royal purple I ordered. There's a $17 dollar extra charge for the neon colours on top of the $115 standard carpet price.
The two door models listed by all of these carpet people are for the 30 series cars. So far, at least to my knowledge, we have not found carpets specific to either of the 50 series cars.
What are the 30 and 50 series cars? Do all the 30 series cars take the same carpet and do all the 50 series cars take the same carpet?
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What are the 30 and 50 series cars?
The 30 series are the "large" Eagles and the 50 series are the Kammback and SX/4.
Do all the 30 series cars take the same carpet and do all the 50 series cars take the same carpet?
Yes, I believe so.
By the way, which vendor did you order that carpet from?
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Wow $115is not a bad price (even the extra still cheaper than many I've seen).
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Looks to me , by the way it is laying in the pic, the front would be the upper right hand side,short back edge indents on the left would be the rear seat area,the longer runs up the front edge would go up under the dash area......just my opinion.
I can tell where the front edge is from the heel pad for the dirver's side footwell. The front edge is the lower right hand side of the picture, the heel pad is just above the green vest in the picture and just below the brown table corner with the red package on it.
The carpet I got for the AMX had the same issues.All wrinkled and jammed in the box,it layed down ok, but it was summer and I let it sit on the roof of the car in the sun to soften in up better.If you have the time you can allwasy lay it out inside get it lined up pretty well, and wieght it down in the seat well areas to get it to drwa down into them and let it set, or warm it up in tough spots with a hair dryer, or even one of those hand clothes steamers.The seat bolts will help draw it down, the toughest area I think will be the shifter/tranny hump.I would say start there and work it out from there centered and toward all the outer edges.
Good luck !! ( I used to put wall to wall down in houses , and custom work ) LOL< and yeah where did you get PURPLE ??
Thanks for the suggestions, that's helpful. Here's where I got the purple carpet from:
http://www.stockinteriors.com/AutoCarpet.asp?Itemid=8049&MakeId=2&ModelId=9
I got this link from nest member nwamc who also used it in his SX/4 after some cutting. He just cut it off at the rear part which he says cut out part of the rear footwell so he suggests cutting out the extra in the middle of the carpet under the front seats.
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It's gonna be soo freaking cool, I can't wait to see her finished. Everytime I check the 'replies to your posts' and I see this come up, I'm thinking, "is it done now? is it done now..?" Man, I'm almost willing to head out there, just to see it. you're in Sack, right? Bloody heck, that's only 6-7 hours drive from me... It's tempting just to see it...
You got decent and cheap motels out your way????? j/k
Yes, I'm pretty slow at this but I do eventuallly get it done. I'm having a hard time getting restarted on this since the paint went on. We were in a hurry to get the paint done before the busy season at the body shop (plus my summer car was about to go into storage and I have nothing to drive until the SX/4 is done) and I was working for 3 weeks almost straight through except for one day off so after the paint went on it was like "that's a relief, we can take a break for a bit now". That was about 3 weeks ago and I haven't done much of anything on the car although hubby's partially assembled the motor while I shouted encouragement.
Yes, I'm in Saskatchewan. Hubby and I were discussing hotels here a few months ago, I was thinking there must be some for $50-60 a night, he said, no way, they're all expensive unless you get a hotel in the 'hood where your car will be vandalized the night you park it, and the hotel will lieave a chunk of hash on your pillow at night. I can't even offer to put you up here because we have a very small house and its jam-packed to the rafters with stuff. When I'm done I'll check into cheap hotels and get back to you ;)
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What are the 30 and 50 series cars?
The 30 series are the "large" Eagles and the 50 series are the Kammback and SX/4.
Do all the 30 series cars take the same carpet and do all the 50 series cars take the same carpet?
Yes, I believe so.
By the way, which vendor did you order that carpet from?
Thanks, that clears up that confusion. See my post #293 for the link to the carpet vendor.
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That is wild. I wonder what color to choose if my interior is 'honey'. Not bad pricing either. I'd probably have to send them a small section to match it up right.
Also, it would be nice to get carpet that's a little harder wearing then just plush carpet.
Yeah, no worries about staying. I mean it would be really cool to come out, and see it all for myself, but it's not feasible for me. Anyways, I wouldn't expect or even ask for you to put me up (that's very kind you would consider it - Thank you), and I'd hate to have my car wrecked on a trip. So no worries... but you gotta post tons of pics once it's done... maybe even post a video of the walk around?
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Wow $115is not a bad price (even the extra still cheaper than many I've seen).
With the floor mats (surcharge on those for neon colours as well) and 2 yards of flat purple carpet it was about $200, the killer is the shipping. They shipped it UPS even though I told them not to and they charged me $146 up front and the last time I had something shipped UPS they've later sent me a bill beyond the up front charges for an extra 20% of the up front shipping charges for taxes and duty and an extra 150% of the upfront shipping charges for "brokerage fees" so I'm expecting another bill from UPS for around $250 for total shipping costs of roughly $400.
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Also, it would be nice to get carpet that's a little harder wearing then just plush carpet.
Yeah, no worries about staying. I mean it would be really cool to come out, and see it all for myself, but it's not feasible for me. Anyways, I wouldn't expect or even ask for you to put me up (that's very kind you would consider it - Thank you), and I'd hate to have my car wrecked on a trip. So no worries... but you gotta post tons of pics once it's done... maybe even post a video of the walk around?
No problem, I'll post lots of pictures when its done and I can manage a video too.
ACC offers a heavy duty backing for the carpet for an extra charge, not sure if that's what you're thinking of in terms of harder wearing.
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With the floor mats (surcharge on those for neon colours as well) and 2 yards of flat purple carpet it was about $200, the killer is the shipping. They shipped it UPS even though I told them not to and they charged me $146 up front and the last time I had something shipped UPS they've later sent me a bill beyond the up front charges for an extra 20% of the up front shipping charges for taxes and duty and an extra 150% of the upfront shipping charges for "brokerage fees" so I'm expecting another bill from UPS for around $250 for total shipping costs of roughly $400.
Check that, the total bill was $447, so it was about $250 up front for shipping. If they send me another bill for 170 percent of that on top it'll be a reall killer - I might as well have driven down to the factory to pick it up myself.
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No problem, I'll post lots of pictures when its done and I can manage a video too.
ACC offers a heavy duty backing for the carpet for an extra charge, not sure if that's what you're thinking of in terms of harder wearing.
Actually, I just sent them an email asking if I could get the nylon loop in the form for the AMC Eagle. I also checked the later concords to see if they offered nylon loop.
Nylon loop is the same type of carpet you'll see in offices. it's harder wearing, and it puts up with more rigorous cleaning
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I got some new tires and wheels for the car and broke the budget. I originally was thinking $500 for wheels and tires. I bought a set of factory alloy wheels for $250 and they were a bit beat up and the finish was kind of rough. I talked to hubby about refinishing them myself and he said I couldn't get a nice even shiny finish by sanding so he recommeded I take them to a place that refinishes wheels. We got an estimate of $500 and I thought "Oh my!". Sat on the wheels for another month thinking about leaving them as is or redoing them myself and eventually decided the paint job didn't cost me anything so I could afford to go overbudget on the tires and get the shop to refinish them. They have a computer controlled lathe and they input the make of wheel and it takes the original dimensions and shaves off 5 to 10 thousandths of an inch to give it a new appearance. Got the wheels back a few days ago and the bill was $660! :o I was having a lot of buyer's remorse until I got a look at the wheels today and WOW! Do they ever look good! I had them painted the same shade of blue as the stripes and lower body of the car. Hubby mounted and balanced the tires and surprised me with a set of chrome valve stems.
Too bad I didn't take a before picture. The pictures don't really capture how nice these turned out but between these three you can get an idea of how they look:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Priyasrims012.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Priyasrims014.jpg)
I took this one outside when it was overcast so it looks quite a bit different from the previous two, but a lot more even:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Priyasrims017.jpg)
And here's the Nokian Hakkapelitta 7 super duper winter tires. $860 for four, ouch!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Priyasrims015.jpg)
So I've gone about $1200 over budget, the wheels look great but I'm starting to run out of cash and I still have various things to buy so I'll have to start cutting some corners now.
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Wow they do look great. The price is a bit much for me too. I wonder what a set of new rims would have been. You might have been able to get something close to those but I guess having the right ones is nice. Are they clear coated?
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Yes, that occurred to me too, I could have bought a nice set of new rims for that price. My husband said new rims would certainly have cost that much so its a bit of "which do you like best". I do like having the original style Eagle rims colour coordinated to my car and they do look like new so I guess I'm okay with it despite the sticker shock. The rims are clear coated as well.
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Wow! Those are very nice. Should look good when on the car.
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Thanks Doug and Regalwizard.
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Now the question is, what are you going to do about the plastic center cap?
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I have the plastic centre caps unfortunately they're in the same sort of shape the wheels originally were, lots of gravel rash and a number of dents. It'll be quite a mismatch when I put those on these new looking wheels. I'm almost tempted to leave them off, I don't think the alloy wheels look too bad without them, and maybe a person could get some sort of smaller cap that would just cover the part of the axel that shows through. I discussed it with my husband and he says he's going to cast some aluminum centre sections in the spring/summer to replace the plastic ones. He'll then stick them in his lathe to give them that nice machined look the rims have. He's got a lot of stuff to do in his off time so I've got my fingers crossed that he'll find the time to do this.
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Yes, I sure am. I bought my first Eagle as a winter necessity and was really impressed with its snow-going abilities. I bought this one for the same reason and my plan to use it as a winter car has never changed. My summer car is a 79 Corvette so that's not going to be my winter car. On the bright side I don't drive a lot these days, maybe 2-3000 Km per year so perhaps 1000-1500 km on the Eagle so I don't think winter will take a lot out of it.
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those rims do indeed look awesome!!! i like the idea of no center caps and getting smaller hub covers because of the paint in the lug recesses (unless the lugs cover all the paint up). Who did the wheels?
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The wheels were done by Saskatoon wheel works.
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:o Awesome!!
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paint the center caps. either one of the colors of the car or black.
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I'm going to give that some thought greaythorn3, thanks for the suggestion.
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Before I abandoned my first Eagle my husband removed the tilt steering column from it so I could put it in this SX/4 which had a standard column. I started prepping it for paint when Ward asked if I would rather have him disassemble it to make it easier to paint. I said sure and he pulled it apart for me. Here it is partially prepped for paint:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1003.jpg)
Here it is after painting and with the sport steering wheel I got from El Matador:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1019.jpg)
After hubby reassembled it:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1025.jpg)
And after I installed it in the car today:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1026.jpg)
Prior to installing it in the car I noticed the old column had a three prong electrical plug that the tilt column didn't have and the tilt column had a four prong plug that the standard one didn't have. I thought "Oh no!" but Ward looked and said the three prong plug on the standard column was for the column mounted dimmer switch with the tilt column didn't have. He said he'll put a dimmer switch on the floor and that'll cure that. The four prong plug on the tilt column turns out to be for its cruise control switch which the standard column didn't have. After I installed the column I noticed another thing that has me nervous. There's a long electrical socket on the column with a single row of wires. That connected up to the female end in the car but then I noticed the colour of the wires comming in doesn't match the colours of the wires going out. Sounds like trouble to me but I'll see what Ward says when he gets home. The tilt column was originally in my 81 Eagle wagon so I'd think if it worked there it should work in the 81 SX/4 but the tilt column originally came out of some other AMC and I'm not sure what it was other than I don't think it was an Eagle.
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just keep us posted, and cool tank btw...
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just keep us posted, and cool tank btw...
Yes, its pretty neat, it was a christmas present for my husband. The tracks move independently forward or reverse, the turret rotates, the gun elevates and lowers, when you fire the gun the gun recoils and the whole tank rocks back and forth like the real thing. I thought I was buying him one that shot BBs but I mistakenly got him one with a lazer that allows up to 8 people to shoot at each other and if the lazer is on the tank a red light goes on to show it was hit.
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can you ask your huisband how to take the ignition switch out and install? imine didnt come with a switch so i need to put the key cylinder in it. sick of starting it with pliers
Thanks
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Okay Greythorn3, I'll ask him about it later today or tomorrow morning.
I asked him about the wires in that one harness being different colours on each side of the connector and he thought it was not that unusual and shouldn't be a problem. I guess the tilt column worked in the 81 Eagle wagon so it should work in the 81 SX/4
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Hello Greythorn3!
This is Ward here. If I understand correctly you have a working car without the ignition lock cylinder. For tools you will need a steering wheel puller and a lock plate tool. Under the dash on the right side of the column is a flat connector with about 10 wires or so going into it. undo this connector, this is the turn signal switch wiring. Back up on top remove the steering wheel. The lock plate has a little plastic cover that pries off, once it's off use the lock plate tool, various little screwdrivers, and just a little bit of swearing, get the little lock ring out of it's groove and up the shaft. You can now remove the lock plate and horn slip ring under it. Congradulations! The most ignorant part of the job is done! You can now remove the turn signal stalk (1 screw, if the car has cruise just pull it out enough to clear the column and let it hang there.) Push the hazard button in then unscrew it. The turn signal switch is held in with 3 screws, you will need to push the top of the switch down from center as if it was signalling right to get at one of the screws. Once the screws are out you can pull on the switch with a needle nose pliers and push on the harness underneath and get the turn signal switch up and out of the way. You do not need to get the switch right out of the column, just up enough to get it off the shaft and out of the way. If your column is tilt, have it in the central or straight position as the harness will feed up easier.
There will be a little plastic widget with two copper fingers sticking out of it stuck in a sqaure hole, if you don't have a lock cylinder in the car this should just pull out with needle nose pliers. For anyone else reading this if your column has a lock cylinder in it the key may have to be be turned to the "on" position. You can now see a slot that the lock cylinder release clip is in. with a small screwdriver push in on the little locking tab and the cylinder will slide out. Reassembly is basically reverse order of disassembly. Best of luck.
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Just be careful when you pull the steeing wheel theres bearings i there, when i pulled mine i lost several bearings and i think i put the steering lock thing back in wrong...It was awful, on my way to work i made a right turn..the steering wheel locked and the horn stuck on and there i sat...embarassing to say the least. Its pretty easy to do just pay attention to the order in which all those parts come off and go back in.
By the way Priya what kind of paint did you use on that? was it a plastic based stuff...It looks nice I think I might go that route on mine rather than have the steering wheel re-wrapped.
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By the way Priya what kind of paint did you use on that? was it a plastic based stuff...It looks nice I think I might go that route on mine rather than have the steering wheel re-wrapped.
Yes, it was a plastic dye rather than an actual paint.
http://www.dyeandpaint.com/Details.asp?productid=VARIBOND
The company I bought it from said it can be used on metal if you prime the metal first. They will colour match the dye for you if you send them a swatch with the colour you want but you have to buy a quart of dye before they'll do that. A quart is $100 not including shipping. The colour came out exactly as I'd hoped.
I have to paint the pieces in the same garage the car is in so I built this state of the art down draft paint booth for painting the plastic pieces, I can't wait to use it:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1028.jpg)
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I bet it will work just fine.
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I bet it will work just fine.
IE, I just noticed that this is your 30000th post! WOW!
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Sounds like some stout stuff..Ill bet ya dont want to get it on your hands though...you'll match your eagle...lol. Thanx for the link!!
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I bet it will work just fine.
IE, I just noticed that this is your 30000th post! WOW!
wow, That is quite the number of posts.
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I bet it will work just fine.
IE, I just noticed that this is your 30000th post! WOW!
I wasn't even paying attention. I guess it was.
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Time for an update. Some of this work was done last fall but I was waiting until something significant was complete before posting. This is the engine assembly and installation.
The first thing we did was take the used Clifford valve cover I bought and strip the green paint off of it:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Picture001.jpg)
We painted it Chrysler electric blue and Ward suggested that he use his mill to remove 20 thousands of an inch (five thousands a pass) off the top so the ribs and writing would show through as bare aluminum. Here's the valve cover after painting and prior to milling
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/valvecoverinmill.jpg)
The milling operation is underway:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Picture006.jpg)
And here is the finished product:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Picture010.jpg)
Engine assembly was next. Hubby handled it while I shouted encouragement.
The crank goes in the block:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0445.jpg)
Pistons are installed:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/IMG_0446a.jpg)
Head and valvetrain installed:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Valvetraintogether.jpg)
I cleaned, prepped and painted the block and head:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1044.jpg)
Here's the motor with brackets installed and ready to go in the car:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleengineinstallation001.jpg)
Hubby starts lifting the motor to go in the hole:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleengineinstallation004.jpg)
Lowering the motor into place:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleengineinstallation006.jpg)
The motor in place and mounts hooked up:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleengineinstallation007.jpg)
:blob1:
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:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
:drool: :faint:
*Speechless* :notworthy:
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giggle!
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comming together nicely, looks like alot of the hard stuff is finished
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:hello2: :hello2:
:hello2: :hello2:
HI IT LOOKES SO GOOD THIS IS ONE FINE LOOKING EAGLE
A FAN.....................Don
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WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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That's gonna be a show car. That is some wicked work there you two!
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Thanks everyone!
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HI Thanks to you two ..........This is one car I have to see in person......
.Wops I egged the two of you........
........Don
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Thanks again, Don.
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That has got to be the most AMAZING custom Eagle I have ever seen!!! That motor is georgeous. Egg to you for some spectacular work!!!......very very nice!!
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Thanks Shanebo!
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Awesome!! minus the the stripes, yours' and eaglegirls' are almost each others negatives with the color scheme between engine and body, lol.
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Looks amazing Priya! Please Please get a youtube video of her running for me!
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Great looking engine too!!
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AWESOME Priya's !!!You two make a great team ! I like the idea of shaveing the valve cover , that worked great. I had thought of tapeing it off, but that is a much better idea. What kind of Milling machine do you have ??I have a Bridgeport in the shop that I am just learning how to use.It is amazeing what can be done with the right equipment and skill. Great Job !
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Thanks again, everyone!
Will I'll get a video of it running for you but if I wait until the car is done that might be a while at the rate its going ;)
68AMXGOPAC, the milling machine is a Morgon. It wasn't big enough to do the whole valve cover in one pass so my husband had to do 2/3's of it, then swap it end for end and do the other 1/3. That left a transition area that can be seen if you look closely. The valve cover isn't cast precisely and was higher in the middle than on the ends. After he took all he could off of it and still have the writing in the middle there there was still paint on the outer 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch on a couple of the ribs. I used a sanding block to remove that paint which once again left a different texture on the aluminum that can be seen if one looks closely. Despite that it came out pretty nice all in all.
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Me is drooling. That's it, ma'am.
The car itself is outstanding, it promises to be one of the most beautiful (if not the best) custom SX/4 ever.
But the thing that hits me each and every time I look at this thread is the job the two of you are doing. Not the result, but the work itself. It's amazing !
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Thanks LaGuardia!
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HI I would love to help you two on this Wonder Car but I don't have a pasport. lucky you .........Don
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Don, if you ever get a passport you're welcome to come help ;)
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Its so cool to see a husband/wife team share in a project like this...Unfortunatly, my wife sees my Eagle as a time and money consuming piece of junk...I see it a bit differently ;D...but at any rate this project sure shows just how much can be accomplished when 2 people share a common passion! My hat is off to you both for creating such a beautiful machine...I cant wait to see the final product!!!
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Thanks Shanebo. I'm eager to see the finished product too, but its going so slowly! I've spent a lot of time waiting for parts and for Ward to come home from work to give me advice on how to do various things but I've got enough stuff now that I should be able to work on it more consistently than I have plus the weather is warming up which makes me less reluctant to go out in the garage.
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I've read this whole thread and to say I'm implessed is a understatement.Wish my wife would take that kind of intrest in my eagle.Instead of just walking past it and shakes her head and sayes,What are you doing to it now!Anyway supper job and keep up the fine work.
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Thanks Eagleman ;)
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My poor Ginger is taking a while too...Its so frustrating when I dont have the time and parts to work on her. I just want to lock myself in the garage for a week with a truck full of parts and get her done....best of luck on that awesome car!
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Thanks again, Shanebo.
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Some more progress on the SX/4. We decided to install the transmission this weekend. The original trans in this car was bad so we removed the transmission from the first Eagle I bought which had been sitting in a field since '97. Ward figures it might have gone bad from sitting so long, but we decided to take a chance and put it in anyway. After we slid the trans out from its storage place Ward noticed something on it we hadn't seen before:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/rewldedtranscasehousing1.jpg)
Looks pretty scary, makes you wonder how it got cracked like that, but I did drive the car with that trans for 6-8000 miles and it worked fine so, here's hoping for the best.
The first struggle was getting the transmission on the trans jack. We tried with me at the bellhousing and Ward at the back but after we lifted it off the ground it started to slip out of my left hand and we had to put it down in a hurry. Then we switched places and I got my end of the transmission to about stomach level which was a few inches too low to go on the trans jack and that was all I could do. We set it back down and I said to Ward "I don't think I can do it.". He suggested puting down a couple of layers of 2X4's and trying again and after catching my breath he convinced me to try one last time. We lifted it off the ground, I stepped onto the 2X4's and just managed to get my end on the trans jack. I then spent the next 5 minutes gasping trying to catch my breath - I'm in terrible shape!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/transonhoist.jpg)
Here's Ward ready to lift the trans in place, I never noticed the pose until after I uploaded these pictures:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/transgoingin.jpg)
Ward lifting the trans and showing one of his better angles:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/transgoingin1.jpg)
Ward bolting the trans in place:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/transgoingin2.jpg)
And finally the trans in place and the jack coming down:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/emptytransjackcomingdown.jpg)
The next day it was time to put the front differential in place:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1058.jpg)
Took some wiggling but we got it in place:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1059.jpg)
Then it was time for the shiny new constant velocity joints:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1056.jpg)
They were surprisingly reluctant to go in, but after much swearing and exertion Ward got them in place:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1061.jpg)
I had wanted to get the carpet and front seats installed before the trans, but we're replacing the poor condition Eagle seats with some I had in a 79 Monza I owned and the installation is turning out to be a good deal more difficult than I first thought it was goint to be. The plan was to remove the tracks from the Monza seats:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1063.jpg)
And then to take the lower seat frame and tracks from the Eagle seat:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1057.jpg)
And weld some tabs from the Eagle seat frame to the track mounts on the Monza seat. I calculated the Monza seat would sit 2 inches higher than the stock eagle seat but we did a test fitting first, put the Eagle lower seat frame and tracks in the car and then sat the Monza seat on top. It was waaaay higher than I expected and even with the tilt steering all the way in the up position there wasn't enough room for me to slide my leg between the seat cushion and the steering wheel. Ward's plan now is to make a jig that mirrors the SX/4 floor panel, remove the Eagle tracks from the Eagle seat frame, move them 1 inch or so closer together and then bolt them to the side of the Monza track mounts which are narrower than the Eagle's track mounts. Then we make new holes in the floorboards and hopefully the thing then bolts in without being overly high. I'm disappointed it didn't work the way I first envisioned as I could have done that myself, but now I have to rely on Ward to do the modifications so I'm filling up yet more of his weekends with stuff I wish I could do myself.
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Great progress !! Not to be meant as a critique ( sp ? ) comment, but I am suprised you didn't paint all those parts going back in, with all the work you have done on it otherwise.........
That tranny jack looks like it helps, I had a fun time doing mine on my back with the car on blocks. I took it out one piece,( the tranny/tcase) but put it back in seperately , it was much easier.
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I never really gave much thought to painting the underbody parts as this is going to be a winter car and it wouldn't last long. Ward was even questioning whether or not it was worth the trouble to paint the motor, but I thought I wanted to do that much anyway and while I was at it, did the various motor brackets as well. This project is already taking a lot longer than I planned, I was supposed to be driving this car last November, so spending more time prettying up the underneath isn't in the cards.
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with access to a lift you can always go back and undercoat and paint all of the undercar componets at a latter date ;D
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Yes, could do. What I've got in mind after I'm done is to take it to one of those rustproofing places and get the underside sprayed with oil or whatever material they have to inhibit rust and then to do that every fall.
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the lord fusor company makes an undercoating that is sprayed on and looks dang near exactly like the AMC undercoating that was used. i am waiting for my sprayer to get ordered in through work so that I can give it a try ;D
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I'm looking for something that doesn't need any surface preparation. I know in Ontario its common to spray the undersides of cars with used motor oil but I'm thinking there may be something else that can go directly on panels with surface rust.
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I'm looking for something that doesn't need any surface preparation. I know in Ontario its common to spray the undersides of cars with used motor oil but I'm thinking there may be something else that can go directly on panels with surface rust.
when i went to the lord fusor training deal (I only went for an I car point) they didn't say a thing about surface prep
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Oh, well then maybe its just the ticket. I'll check into it. Thanks.
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Great Update! With the transmission in place, it's almost a complete car now!
Keep up the great work.
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It's a job well done, and you both have put alot of time ,$$$ , and effort into it.and it was just my own thought on it , myself I tend to be that a - retentive word, about stuff like that.I put my whole transfer case in a big plastic livestock water trough and cleaned it up that way , then the tranny next. Mine was so crudded over , and also when clean I could see if any and where the leaks were.
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Great Update! With the transmission in place, it's almost a complete car now!
Keep up the great work.
Thanks Robert, it does feel good to have the major drivetrain components in place.
It's a job well done, and you both have put alot of time ,$$$ , and effort into it.and it was just my own thought on it , myself I tend to be that a - retentive word, about stuff like that.I put my whole transfer case in a big plastic livestock water trough and cleaned it up that way , then the tranny next. Mine was so crudded over , and also when clean I could see if any and where the leaks were.
Thanks 68AMXGOPAC. I did feel a little twinge of reluctance putting that grotty trans and differential in place without cleaning them after spending so many months looking at a nice clean car.
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Getting closer and closer. I think NervousJim used to recommend something called waxoil, something they use in England. I don't know if that is the right name or not, or if its even available in North America.
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Actually I have an aerosol can of waxoil I'm spraying in the rockers, doors and insides of the rear quarters. Maybe a company like rustcheck has something similar for the undersides of the car.
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HI young lady I have been waiting patiently for an update . I know you have outher things to do but
we need some news on this grand eagle ......So I am asking for some news or an update
YOUR fan club ......Don
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HI young lady I have been waiting patiently for an update . I know you have outher things to do but
we need some news on this grand eagle ......So I am asking for some news or an update
YOUR fan club ......Don
X2 (or more)
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X3, or X4, whatever... give us an update, Pul-ease!!
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Hi guys,
Yes, I know its going very slowly, I've been mostly painting/dyeing interior parts I've got just about all of them done, except for the glove box door, heater/radio bezel and some parts I"m still trying to find, speaker grills for the front door panels and a package shelf. I'm also having trouble finding the aluminum trim that goes around on the driver's side rear wheel flare (a wagon won't work, but I'm 90% sure the passenger side will work on the driver's side). I can't put the all the interior in until I get that piece and can seal up the inside clips and get the carpet installed. Unfortunately I've got a growing list of things I need my husband to do so I'm waiting for a lot of that to be done before I can proceed further. He's going to mount the tracks from the Eagle seats to the Monza seats and likely move the mounting holes so I can't install the carpet until that's ready. We got the rear window re-installed in the hatch and I've put some aluminum covered foam on the roof and passenger door. I've got the silver dash pieces from a Spirit AMX I'm going to install but I want to try re-painting them first and no place has the aluminum colour plastic spray paint so I'm waiting (long time!) for an order of that to come into the local hobby shop and then Ward wants to re-do some of the under-dash wiring so I'll have to wait for that even once I get the dash pieces re-painted.
I'd like to install the headliner but as my car has a hatch spoiler I need hubby to work me up some sort of hatch release before that can go in. I want to install the headlights, grill, and so on but before I do that I need to align the hood and fenders but I can't do that until the driver's door is aligned. We tried to align it last weekend but couldn't get it high enough because all the adjustment was used up. We plan on removing the driver's door today and slotting the adjustment holes so we can get more adjustment and get it into place, as it is now there's a noticeable gap between the side window frame and the door frame opening. Ward is also planning to install the wiring for a hatch solinoid so I can get the headliner in and then he has a solinoid from some newer chev car he's goiing to try to fab in to open the hatch. I could do some further assembly of the motor, but I'd like Ward to install the distributor first and I think he said he wants to hook up the trans lines and speedo cable before we mount accessories on the motor so I'm holding off on that as well.
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HI Thank you for the update .I know were your coming from with waiting .You have to go
one step at a time ..Its not easy waiting all the tine when your getting this close to being dune
Your fan club.............Don
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I'm 90% with you. That molding looks the same side to side.
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I'm 90% with you. That molding looks the same side to side.
Yes, I'm pretty sure the rear molding I've got on the passenger side I tried to fit to the driver's side and it fit right.
We spent a couple of hours this afternoon and got the driver's door lined up acceptably and the gap between the door weatherstripping and the door opening closed up enough not to leak. The rocker panel had been replaced on the driver's side sometime before I got the car and there was a dent in the driver's side rear quarter panel so we're pretty sure the car had been hit on that side. We had replaced the driver's door and the window frame was bent in which we straightened, but between that and the hit on the driver's side things didn't want to line up and there was a gap between the weatherstripping on the window frame where the roof meets the A pillar and the door opening when the door was closed. The body lines on the door are a little higher than the rear quarter and the front fender and the window frame isn't quite as close to the A pillar/roof corner as it should be and isn't quite as close to the roof/B pillar corner as it should be but it all fits well enough to seal and look reasonably lined up everywhere. Turns out we didn't have to slot the hinge adjustment holes afterall, it just took a lot of loosening, lifting, moving, tightining and pushing on the window frame and so on. Now I can align the hood, fenders and start putting on the headlights, grill, front valence, bumper, etc.
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commented cause I thought I had it. Answer is no
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Are you talking the outside piece that goes around the wheel well and fits over the edge of the Kryton flare ?
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Are you talking the outside piece that goes around the wheel well and fits over the edge of the Kryton flare ?
Yes.
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Cool, I'll have a look,I think I remember keeping all the trim etc off of the parts rig I had.
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Sweet! I've got my fingers crossed.
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HI you said the wagon tram wont work .............Don
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HI you said the wagon tram wont work .............Don
No, I've got one from a wagon and its about 6 inches too short.
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HI All I have is wagon trim sorry Don
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Some things are getting done on the SX/4. Since this is going to be a winter car I decided to add a bit of insulation to it. I found some rolls of ducting insulation, sticky one side, aluminum foil the other. So far I've done the doors and roof:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1073.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1074.jpg)
I had my headliner recovered some months back. I was initially thinking of replacing it with a blue similar to the original but the upholstery shop I went to didn't have any headliner material at all similar to the original shade so hubby suggested purple like the carpet. I looked through the books and found a purple not too far off the shade of the carpet. Once again there was no purple headliner material so the fabric needed to have some stretch to it and have a foam liner glued to the headliner and then the fabric glued to that. I decided to leave this one up to the upholstery shop and they did the headliner and also recovered my sun visors in the same material:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/headliner002.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1075.jpg)
After a great deal more of a fight than I was prepared for Ward and I finally got it all installed today. Here's how it looks now:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1086.jpg)
As you can see the camera is really playing tricks with the colour, the actual colour is about midway between the shades shown in the two pictures above.
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Where did you find the insulation at? Did it affect the fit of the headliner at all? Looks great by the way!
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Where did you find the insulation at? Did it affect the fit of the headliner at all? Looks great by the way!
I got it at the local Co-op hardware store in the heating/ductwork section. Any hardware store should have it. It didn't affect the fit of the headliner at all.
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That's turning into one very cool ride 8)
:occasion14:
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I might be coming some SX/4 chrome in the next month or so. I'll keep you posted if you haven't already found some.
I have two or three sets off of a wagon, but you said those won't fit?
Anyways, really looking forward to seeing the finished product, maybe you could make it to the Calgary eagle meet at the end of July.
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hello priya. i looked and i do not have a crome one here. sorry
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I might be coming some SX/4 chrome in the next month or so. I'll keep you posted if you haven't already found some.
I have two or three sets off of a wagon, but you said those won't fit?
Anyways, really looking forward to seeing the finished product, maybe you could make it to the Calgary eagle meet at the end of July.
Thanks for keeping me in mind Mechanic, you're correct, the wagon pieces won't fit, they're too short. I'll see what I can do about getting the Eagle done before the end of July.
hello priya. i looked and i do not have a crome one here. sorry
Thanks for looking.
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That's turning into one very cool ride 8)
:occasion14:
Thanks Robert, I'm really liking the way its turning out too.
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OK, I "officially" have the chrome piece : ) . Now to get it shipped. I did not have any of the other goodies I thought I did.Both trays have vents,wich would be cool with maybe some small "tweeters" in place of the vents....or interior lights...... or or or.... : )
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Great, thanks 68AMXGOPAC!
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That cars really coming together nicely! Its gonna be a real eye catcher!
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Thanks Shanebo ;)
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HI Priya Its looking good that head liner is nice ...is the rest of the car coming together as nice .... Don
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Oh I wish I had a lift or a real garage for that matter,your SX/4 has gone thru quite a transformation,,it's threads like yours that keep us motivated. 8)
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Thanks Teneagle and Philotomy. The rest of the car is coming together pretty nicely, if I could only stop scratching the paint as I'm assembling it! I'm still running into delays in assembling it, for example, I put the front bumper and corners on, the headlight assemblies and am ready to put the grill and headlight bezels in but the old screws are rusty so I wanted to put new ones in. I've checked a number of places for them and the only place that had something that might work didn't have any in stock so I had to order a box of fifty with an estimated time of arrival of two weeks.
The hoist has been a huge help. As those who've restored rusty cars know, most of the work is near the ground and for me spending long times lying on my side caused a lot of neck problems, even severe spasms that had me laid up for several days. Soooo much nicer to be able to lift the car and have a rocker panel at chest level to work on, not to mention doing any mechanical work underneath.
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I'm also having trouble finding the aluminum trim that goes around on the driver's side rear wheel flare (a wagon won't work, but I'm 90% sure the passenger side will work on the driver's side).
After looking more closely I discovered the aluminum trim for the rear wheel flares do NOT interchange between passenger and driver's side. The edges of the trim piece are folded over to form lips. The side that goes over the bumper end cap has the bottom inch or so of the lip cut away to allow it to sit flush on the bumper end cap. For the driver's side if you're holding it as it fits on the car the cut away lip part would be on the right side of the trim piece.
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Holy wow! I just went through this whole thread...reading some, but mostly looking at pics. Well done priya! Giving you my first egg! Great job...can't wait to see this thing running down the road! :)
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Thanks Prafeston ;)
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engine question -
earlier in the post you mentioned taking .015 off the head and the block. did that ever happen? if so, what else did you do to the engine and why? any cam changes?
i was thinking about doing the same and putting in the following cam -------->http://www.compcams.com/Company/CC/cam-specs/Details.aspx?csid=7&sb=0
any thoughts?
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engine question -
earlier in the post you mentioned taking .015 off the head and the block. did that ever happen? if so, what else did you do to the engine and why? any cam changes?
i was thinking about doing the same and putting in the following cam -------->http://www.compcams.com/Company/CC/cam-specs/Details.aspx?csid=7&sb=0
any thoughts?
Yes, I did remove .015 from the head and block. Then engine was overbored, if I remember correctly .060, but it might have been .030. It got a slightly hotter than stock cam with a bit more lift, less overlap on the cam to maintain higher cylinder pressure and give more torque and better gas mileage. I bought stiffer valve springs, stronger retainers and keepers all from the same manufacturer as the cam as that's recommended to provide the best compatibility in terms of wear and performance. The internals of the motor are otherwise stock. I am putting a GM HEI distributor in it, a Clifford header, Clifford intake and 390 CFM Holley vaccum secondary four barrel. The primaries in the Holley are a bit smaller than the venturies in the stock 2 barrel so it should improve gas mileage in normal driving will allowing added power under heavy throttle The goal of all the engine mods was primarily to improve gas mileage will at the same time adding a bit of power while still maintaining the ability to run on regular gas. If I had a chance to do it again I'd have bought the Offenhauser dual port 4 barrell water heated intake. because the Clifford is single plane and the dual plane design would give better flow at low speeds through the primaries and theoretically better gas mileage while the secondaries would still flow through the second plane and once again provide higher velocity and stronger flow theoretically producing better power in the mid-range and somewhat higher RPM range whereas the single plane clifford would be best at high RPM. I was looking for one and my husband said it wasn't worth the money because I only drive a couple or 3 thousand kilometers a year and with at best only a slight improvement in gas mileage I'd never recoup the cost of the Offenhauser in fuel savings. If I remember correctly one problem with the Offenhauser dual port is that it says "Not for automatic transmission" which think is due to the downshift linkage hitting the intake. I felt my husband could modify/fabricate a downshift linkage to overcome this, but that might be a larger concern for you.
The cam you selected looks very familiar, it is from the same manufacturer I chose, I don't remember precise specs, but that may in fact be the exact cam I chose.
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Thanks Priya. I'm getting ready to send the block and heads off the machinist and I just wanted to check my numbers. The overall objective with my SX/4 is to optimize the efficiency of the engine and its components without sacrificing fuel economy. If you could double check on that cam for me it would be most appreciated.
Aside from that I was going to do the following:
heads -
3 angle valve job
port / polish
harland sharp roller rockers
clifford intake and headers
not decided on carb. was thinking weber38/38 from clifford as well
lemme know what you think. is there anything i missed?
best,
Will
ps. your sx/4 is looking amazing.
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Thanks Will. Off the top I can't think of anything you're missing. From what I've read polishing is not really worthwhile on anything other than a race motor as a street motor will soon get carbon buildup in the ports erasing any effect of the polishing. I'll have a look later tonight and see if I can figure out which cam I got, its in one of my books but most of my stuff is still in boxes from moving three years ago so it might be a problem finding it.
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you rock. thanks again.
Will
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By the way Pria, i have those SX/4 trim pieces if you still need them, those and most any other trim pieces.
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Oh, thanks Mechanic. 68AMXGOPAC put the piece I need in the mail a little while back, I'm expecting it Friday. I'll keep in mind the other pieces you have if I need anything else.
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Will I can't find the catalogue I had marked with the cam I bought. I know it was a Comp Cams grind intended for low end torque and increased fuel mileage and it had around .415 lift so I strongly suspect it is the same cam you linked to.
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thanks again priya. will keep you posted.
best,
will
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Believe it or not some progress is being made. I got all the wheel well trim on yesterday, special thanks to 68AMXGOPAC for getting me the last piece of aluminum wheel well trim. Most of the exterior is together, excepting the rear spoiler, the mouldings that seperate the lower body colour from the upper body colour, and the various decals, such as the SX/4 door stickers. Had the car out in the sun yesterday to soften up the plastic wheel well flares to make them easier to install as the plastic has shrunk with age and needs to be pushed into place to insert the various clips and screws. The car is pretty dusty and the sun wasn't at the ideal angle, but the picture didn't turn out too bad and I thought it was about time to show the current state of the car:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleflairson001.jpg)
After being unable to find a rear hatch release solenoid my husband found this electric popper in the Princess Auto surplus bin for the princely sum of $5.00:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1096.jpg)
Hubby was able to mount the gear driven electric popper without even having to modify the hatch at all. And it works!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1108.jpg)
I just need to figure out a way to plug the hatch keyhole and then I can mount the spoiler. From here I'm focusing on the interior. I've got the carpet mostly installed, a bit of trimming around the shifter to do. I'm doing some more insulating as well. The front seats are almost ready to go in, just need some more slight adjustments to the adapter brackets and they'll be ready for permanent installation.
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WICKED :o 8)
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You should be able to just find some pop in plugs for the hole.Either plastic from the "help" rack , or maybe even a metal one like they use to plug up knock out holes in an electrical box, etc.
Car looks awesome !!! Glad the trim piece worked out for you.
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Thanks guys! I'm really thrilled with how this car is turning out.
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Before you mentioned an electric latch popper I would have never thought about that....That is just plain awesome! What a clever idea!....By the way the car looks stunnig!
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Before you mentioned an electric latch popper I would have never thought about that....That is just plain awesome! What a clever idea!....By the way the car looks stunnig!
Thanks Shanebo! Initially my husband said don't bother looking for a factory solenoid, we'll fabricate something. After some time went by I thought if I can get a factory solenoid for a reasonable price I'll buy it. A member had one in an auction and as I recall I bid up to $30 on it and then decided it was too high when the other bidder went to $35. A couple weeks later hubby asks me if I can find the factory solenoid as a spare he'd brought home from work didn't have the power to do the job. I was "Arrrgh!", thinking I should have bid more on the factory one but then hubby found this one and you sure can't beat $5 for a fix.
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HI Priya this baby is looking good as soon as I saw her I said that is going to be hot with the wheels on
it ....Grate work you two......I love that car ....Don
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Thanks Teneagle ;)
I guess there's nothing stopping me from putting the new wheels on, I should do that and see how it looks.
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Yes, picks please! The only thing holding it back right now are those wheels! :) Can't wait to see the spoiler on there too!
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Thanks Teneagle ;)
I guess there's nothing stopping me from putting the new wheels on, I should do that and see how it looks.
HI I am all for that ..if I were closer I would help you ...but I'm not .........Don
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Thanks guys. I've been thinking some more about it and I'm removing and reinstalling the wheels quite a bit so far and I'm not sure if the car is going to need brake work, balljoints, bearings, etc. in which case there'd be more removing and reinstalling of wheels. I don't want to scratch the new wheels so I'm tempted to leave them off until hubby can tell what other work is needed mechanically, if any.
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That's a good idea, how close are you to taking your joy out for a test drive?
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That's a good idea, how close are you to taking your joy out for a test drive?
Well, its going to be a while. Very little of the interior is installed, but I think that is going to go fairly quickly now that the outer trim is in place and the hatch release motor is wired in. Hubby was saying something about redoing some of the wiring in the dash and I might be getting a cruise control unit for it so I can't really assemble all of the dash until that's done. The motor and trans are in place, but no radiator, power steering pump, alternator, distributor, manifolds, etc. are installed yet. I've been wanting to do some assembly on the motor but keen on installing the rad first so I can hook up trans cooler lines with nothing in the way but the rad had a loose bracket and hubby didn't want me attempting to solder it so it waited until he had time a couple of weeks ago. Then we notice the rad drain tap is missing, we searched for one in town but couldn't find a match, have ordered one from the internet and are waiting for it to arrive.
Adpating the 79 Monza seats to work with the Eagle seat mount/sliders has taken a fair bit of Ward's time, he's got both assembled, but the driver's seat is a little cockeyed and the passenger seat hasn't been put in the car yet to see how that fits. I'm wanting Ward to adjust the driver's seat but that is no small matter as it takes cutting apart the adapters he made, trimming or refabricating them and rewelding.
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All in due time, lol, I still haven't fully reassembled Eaglegirls yet, lol there needs to be about ten more hours in each day, then maybe work can get done, :rotfl:. The monza seats sound interesting though.......Comfier than the SX seats?
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Well, I don't really remember what the SX/4 seats felt like, I only drove the car for about 1/4 mile when I bought it. They were pretty beat up, the vinyl torn, the foam worn to the springs. The Monza seats were cloth which I really wanted over vinyl for a winter car, I much prefer the looks of the Monza seats to the SX/4 seats, and when I was driving the Monza I was really impressed with how comfortable they are.
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I'm looking for something that doesn't need any surface preparation. I know in Ontario its common to spray the undersides of cars with used motor oil but I'm thinking there may be something else that can go directly on panels with surface rust.
Ask me! Ask me!
I'm in Ontario, and no! never! to motor oil, used, new, synthetic or otherwise. Too thick to wick into the nooks & crannies, and the used stuff has nasty stuff in it that eats metal, and is toxic.
I know exactly what to do.
From the really picky British car restorers, when POR-15 or it's competitors aren't good enough, two words: Penatrol & Waxoyl.
- Wash the dirt off the underside.
- Let dry. Thoroughly. Days required for all the nooks & crannies to be dry. Don't worry about stray dirt that finds its way on during the drying, it'll just get soaked with what is used to treat the metal.
- Penatrol oil paint conditioner. Brushed, rolled or sprayed on. Under $10 a quart in Lowe's in the States.
- Let the Penatrol dry. This takes a few days. Leave it a week to be sure. The solvent evaps off quickly, but you have let it "cure", as a major component (linseed oil) is a "drying oil" which means that it oxidizes to cure. It takes oxygen from the air, and from the surface rust it soaked into. Don't worry if you haven't got rust. It's a great metal prep/sealer coat.
- Once cured, you can top coat it with anything.
- But, you want to use the Swiss product of oil & wax emulsified together. Waxoyl. In rattle cans or larger cans.
Waxoyl
"Hard wax", for underbody undercoating
http://www.roversnorth.com/store/p-5727-waxoyl-hardwax-underbody-500ml-aerosol.aspx
it's black, really sticky, takes weeks to fully dry, but it does skin down
"Soft wax", for inside doors, floor pan, but also the seams in the hood and around engine compartment (I use a bit on nuts & bolts so I can get them apart another year)
http://www.roversnorth.com/store/p-5726-waxoyl-rust-inhibitor-clear-500ml-aerosol.aspx
this never really dries
I know the second one is called "rust inhibitor" not "soft wax", but as the undercoating one is "hard wax" it seems that the other gets called "soft wax" by those in the trade.
You can use the Penatrol on clean metal or rusted metal. When
* you're doing a perfect restore job, or
* when you need to arrest rust development on something until you get back to it later, be that in five years (check once a year and give it a fresh coat if there's more rust).
Remove the scale first. And you can scrub it into the metal with a scrub brush for heavily rusted spots.
If it's a beater but you need it to last: brush the Penatrol on, leave a week, rattle-can the Waxoyl Hard Wax over it.
I brushed Penatrol onto the parts of my rebuild that I couldn't get to until later. It stopped the rust from progressing.
If I'd had Penatrol and Waxoyl I'd still be driving the '81 Eagle Wagon instead of it dieing of rust.
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Thanks Canoe. My husband found some of the Waxoyl for interior body cavities and I've been using that inside the car. This stuff is pretty hard to find in Canada but I'll look for the other products you mentioned.
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Thanks Canoe. My husband found some of the Waxoyl for interior body cavities and I've been using that inside the car. This stuff is pretty hard to find in Canada but I'll look for the other products you mentioned.
I have Rovers North ship mine to the UPS store in Ogdesnburg, NY. I drive down and bring it across.
I pick up the Penetrol from Lowe's in Ogdensburg, NY.
I haven't seen either in Canada.
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After my last post I decided to tackle modifying the Monza to Eagle seat adapters to straighten out the front seats. After a couple of weeks I got them tweaked pretty well and they fit fairly nicely now. I'm going to wait to install them until the rest of the interior is done as it will be easier to do dash assembly and wiring while the front seats are out.
I originally bought carpet for a wagon as at that time carpet was not available for the SX/4. Just my luck a couple months after I bought and fitted the wagon carpet carpet was released for the SX/4. After much internal debate I decided to shell out and buy the SX/4 specific carpet. I ordered it with the "mass-backing", an extra thick rubber like backing that's supposed to insulate more and dampen sound. When it arrived I noticed the sides were creased over badly and I wondered if I should send it back. I decided to put it in the car and see how it looked and it fit poorly. I asked Ward about it and he said it'd probably fit better once I trimmed it. I trimmed it and it still fit poorly and then I wished I had returned it. The wagon carpet with part of the middle cut out actually fit quite a bit better and I spent a couple of weeks debating whether to use the wagon or the SX/4 carpet. I eventually decided that although the SX/4 carpet didn't fit as well, I preferred wrinkles over a cut from one side of the car to the other. We pushed the car outside on a warm day, removed the carpet and placed it upside down in the sun so the black side could heat up. After a couple hours we quickly put into the car, pushed it into position and put various weights in the footwells to push it into position more. That helped somewhat. The carpet for the hatch area fit pretty well so I was satisfied with that.
Before installing the carpet I put down more insulation in the car:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1106.jpg)
Here's the carpet after it was trimmed to fit and holes cut for the seats, seatbelts and shifter:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1122.jpg)
Here's the carpet in the hatch. I placed the duct insulation in the quarter panels and on the wheel wells as well as around the tailights but the pictures of that were accidentally deleted. You can still see some of it in this hatch carpet picture:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1118.jpg)
The interior quarter panel trim pieces and interior tailight cover were next. I insulated them with carpet padding as well. I got the idea from nest member Draekon, here's how mine looked:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1126.jpg)
The plastic on the rear quarter panel interior trim pieces had shrunk over the years and they were a real bear to install. I had to start screws in one place and then with Ward's help, pull, push, and vice grip into place the other parts of the panel, insert screws and at the bottom of the B piller drill new holes as the original holes several inches back didn't hit the inner rocker as I assume they were supposed to. I replaced both those inner rockers but duplicated the factory panels so I have no idea why the factory panel holes didn't line up to the inner rockers. Here's how it all looked after I finally got it into place:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1130.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1133.jpg)
The rear seats were next, I pulled them out of the van we were storing them in and....Ewww!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1134.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1135.jpg)
An hour and a half of vigourous scrubbing later:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1152.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1147.jpg)
And then finally to install the rear seats, they put up a bit of a fight but I won in the end:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1160.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1167.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1176.jpg)
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Looking awesome! :o Too bad you don't have time to post a video of the car on You Tube... Do you?
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LOL Regalwizard, I'll have to slow down, don't want to have a car to drive when my other car goes into storage for the winter.
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WOW! I will even say it backwards: !WOW That looks so cool!!! This site does not have enough eggs to give you (others may need them as well), but I will throw some your way to make it an even 100!
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Looking awesome! :o Too bad you don't have time to post a video of the car on You Tube... Do you?
Thanks Whuntmore. Maybe if I get the car outside I'll take a short video for you.
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WOW! I will even say it backwards: !WOW That looks so cool!!! This site does not have enough eggs to give you (others may need them as well), but I will throw some your way to make it an even 100!
Thanks a million Rollguy, I'm really thrilled with how this is coming out.
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WOW! I will even say it backwards: !WOW That looks so cool!!! This site does not have enough eggs to give you (others may need them as well), but I will throw some your way to make it an even 100!
Thanks a million Rollguy, I'm really thrilled with how this is coming out.
We would love to see your car all finished at the International Meet some year. I know you probably will not make it this year, but maybe next?
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I'll talk to my husband about it rollguy.
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i'm not the biggest fan of purple but that interior looks nice.
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Thanks Maddog. I wasn't sure about how it was going to look when I came up with the idea, but I sure like it now that I see it.
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your welcome Priya now to keep my younger sister from seeing the pics of your sx/4 because if she sees them she will want me to do one of my wagons just like it. :rotfl:
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your welcome Priya now to keep my younger sister from seeing the pics of your sx/4 because if she sees them she will want me to do one of my wagons just like it. :rotfl:
Do it! Do it! How about sending me her email, I promise I won't send her a link ;)
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nooooo waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy am i doing that because i know you will. :help:
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Work on the Eagle is being temporarily delayed. Some good citizen broke the driver's side window in my Corvette 3 days ago so we had to push the Eagle out of the garage so the Corvette can sit in it. We're going to get a window out of Calgary but can't order it for another 4 days. In the meantime we're working on the Eagle outside and I don't have a lot I can do on it right now as Ward is wiring up the motor and other stuff I don't want to attempt. I tried to install a u-joint on the rear driveshaft today and dented it taking out the old one - now I don't want to touch anything mechanical. I have dash pieces to install but again there's wiring to be done so I can't put it together. If I feel courageous and Ward says its Okay I might try installing the header and intake next week, other than that I'm going to shop for some sticky trim to seperate the lower body colour from the upper and figure out designs for some decals I want to add.
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I was instructed by a u joint specialist older than you and I combinded maybe. Haha. Anyway put the free ends loose in a vise. Loose. Than hit the fat part of the shaft. I had one stuck so bad my press could not budge it. Took it 3 whacks done. I was shock and awe and grumpy about my press.
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Thanks Casper :)
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That insulation looks excellent, ought to stay perty warm in the winter! Sure beats holes in the floor ;)
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That insulation looks excellent, ought to stay perty warm in the winter! Sure beats holes in the floor ;)
Yes, that was one of my goals, the ultimate winter car.
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Lookin good!
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Thanks Shanebo. I got the Corvette out of the garage yesterday so the Eagle is back in its rightful place.
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The contrast of blue and purple put together is really interesting. Really creates a pop to my eyes lol. Nice work, once again.
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Thanks Robert, I'm really pleased with how different it looks. I'm thinking of painting my Corvette blue and purple as well.
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I think I will ship my 2 Eagles up to your house for the winter. Incase you get bored when yours is done
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Sure, that's what I need, more Eagles to do ;)
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Believe it or not some progress is being made. I got all the wheel well trim on yesterday, special thanks to 68AMXGOPAC for getting me the last piece of aluminum wheel well trim. Most of the exterior is together, excepting the rear spoiler, the mouldings that seperate the lower body colour from the upper body colour, and the various decals, such as the SX/4 door stickers. Had the car out in the sun yesterday to soften up the plastic wheel well flares to make them easier to install as the plastic has shrunk with age and needs to be pushed into place to insert the various clips and screws. The car is pretty dusty and the sun wasn't at the ideal angle, but the picture didn't turn out too bad and I thought it was about time to show the current state of the car:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleflairson001.jpg)
After being unable to find a rear hatch release solenoid my husband found this electric popper in the Princess Auto surplus bin for the princely sum of $5.00:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1096.jpg)
Hubby was able to mount the gear driven electric popper without even having to modify the hatch at all. And it works!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1108.jpg)
I just need to figure out a way to plug the hatch keyhole and then I can mount the spoiler. From here I'm focusing on the interior. I've got the carpet mostly installed, a bit of trimming around the shifter to do. I'm doing some more insulating as well. The front seats are almost ready to go in, just need some more slight adjustments to the adapter brackets and they'll be ready for permanent installation.
You got a princess auto part number for that popper?
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It appears to have been a limited buy in the surplus area, there's no part # in the princess auto catologue. What I can do is next time I'm there is see if they still have any and pick you up one if you want. If I remember correctly it was $5.00
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They used to have one under their store brand. I bought one ($20 to $30), but now I can't find it to install it...
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It appears to have been a limited buy in the surplus area, there's no part # in the princess auto catologue. What I can do is next time I'm there is see if they still have any and pick you up one if you want. If I remember correctly it was $5.00
Was this the Portage or Panet location?
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It was the Saskatoon location, Maximus.
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Things have been going pretty slow on the Eagle, but I have a few small things done. I'm pretty much relying on the hubby to fabricate the exhaust system and get the motor running. He wants to put in relays for the headlight and blower fan switch to save those hard to come by switches. Unfortunately he's pretty busy at work so we don't get a lot of time on the weekends for him to help with the Eagle. To top it off we decided it was getting too pricey to keep paying people to store my Corvette over the winter so our last few (and next few) weekends are taken up building this:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1243.jpg)
It's going to store the Corvette in the winter and the Eagle in the summer and it's just barely big enough to fit them in. That opening on the side is going to be a door so I can open the driver's door after I get one of the cars in there. The weather's been pretty good for late October/early November but it could snow any day and drop to -30 so I've got my fingers crossed for a couple more "mild" weekends. We've spent about $1000 on storage and towing the past two winters so this project will pay for itself quickly
I did get the door panels installed and what an incredible pain that was. Here's how they looked when I got them:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/lightblue001-1.jpg)
The fiber board on the back was broken around most of the clip holes and in other areas so I pulled back the vinyl and fiberglassed both sides of the board and covered with wax paper to get a smooth finish. Despite my best efforts I got a lot of fiberglass resin on the vinyl and to my dismay the acetone I used to remove it also removes the colour from the vinyl. I did my best to remove it and leave as much colour as possible. I used contact cement to glue the vinyl back on the board and that was a mistake. I put it on thick with a paint brush and the contact cement makes the vinyl soft and expand and end up wrinkly. It got a bit better after it dried but its still noticeable, I should have used something else or a spray on contact cement to minimize how much got on the inside of the vinyl. Hubby suggested that but after the mess with the fiberglass I thought spray on contact cement would also be too messy.
I also decided to "customize" it a bit by painting the brown trim strip black. Here's the panel after repairs and cleaning:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1236.jpg)
My car doesn't have power windows/locks so I had to do something with the hole in the panels for the window/lock switch. I decided to make little plates out of aluminum with my name on them and hubby fabricated them for me by tig welding this clip on the back:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1206.jpg)
After sanding with 220 to give them a brushed aluminum look I took them to the engraver and $50 later they looked like this:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1230.jpg)
So, after that it was off to install the panels, I'm thinking 6 clips and 4 screws, 5 or 10 minutes - boy was I wrong. Turns out the fiberglass added enough thickness to the board I couldn't get the clips over it and spent hours re-bending them and trying to force them onto the board. After that I went to install and got four of the clips in and the other two were not close to the holes in the door, it was like the door panel had shrunk like the other interior parts had. So, it was back into the house and carve away part of the fiber board to move the clips over and then fight again to get them to slide onto the board. I can't believe how much trouble this interior has been to put together! All in all it took me three afternoons to get the two door panels clipped and screwed into place but here's how it all looked together, not bad:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1239.jpg)
I also got some NOS "SX/4" decals and put them on along with mouldings as close as I could get to the original that seperated lower body colour from upper:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1260.jpg)
I had some decals specially made for the car. Hubby suggested this one for the hatch window (I can't believe how dusty the car's gotten since paint!):
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1242.jpg)
And being a Ford girl at heart I couldn't resist this one for the front fenders:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1259.jpg)
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When I first saw the shed and you said it was going to be fore a car I was like what...it's barely big enough for a motorcycle! :) Great idea with the door for the door!
The decals look great. And the panels look good too. If you wouldn't have said anything I wouldn't have known any better. Don't beat yourself up. They look good and the name plates was a nice touch.
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Thanks, Prafeston.
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They look great Pryia !! You two have done such a nice job on it all.The name plates are a great touch. I noticed one day in the MoneyPit II, that Smitty had a little name plate or something put behind one of the little rectangular spots below the speedo. It simply says "SMITTY" , lol, I laughed when I saw it and it remains there still, like a tribute I guess.
I built a small garage like that , on my side door I made it like a gangplank and it dropped down as a ramp, weighted for ease of use, the other end was just wide enough for a 8' garage door and the frameing needed for the rails.
Nice job !
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8) those names plates look great! As always, awesome work! :occasion14:
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Thanks 68AMXGOPAC and Shaggimo!
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Wow Priya you are doing great! Your Eagle is one of the reasons I bought mine last year. I hope to complete mine with as much love and attention to detail as you have shown yours. I am also starting with a white SX/4 and it may stay white. We will have to see.
Thanks for sharing!
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No problem, Rohnk, thanks for the encouragement :)
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I can't believe you're going to drive it in winter. I realize that's what Eagles are meant for, but if I had that much time, effort, and money invested into one... well, I'd do my best to ensure it never saw snow or road salt again.
I drive my '86 wagon year round, but I have a very minimal investment into it. I'm pretty diligent about washing it frequently during winter to keep the salt knocked off, but rust is still becoming a problem.
There's not only the rust factor, but the other drivers around you. All it takes is one idiot with bald tires and/or no concept of winter driving, and your many years of work is negated in a second.
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There's not only the rust factor, but the other drivers around you. All it takes is one idiot with bald tires and/or no concept of winter driving, and your many years of work is negated in a second.
If you talk to your insurance company, and they seem the vehicle to be 'worth it' or a hard to replace vehicle, you can get them to do an agreed value policy, so if it is written off, you don't have to fight about the price after the fact.
If it's going to happen either way, you might as well be protected.
There is usually a minimum value, and age range, unless the vehicle is listed as heavily modified.
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I can't believe you're going to drive it in winter. I realize that's what Eagles are meant for, but if I had that much time, effort, and money invested into one... well, I'd do my best to ensure it never saw snow or road salt again.
Yes, that's a common reaction when I tell people this is going to be my winter car. I tell them it isn't any different than someone spending $30,000 - $50,000 on a new car and then driving it year round, winters included
If you talk to your insurance company, and they seem the vehicle to be 'worth it' or a hard to replace vehicle, you can get them to do an agreed value policy, so if it is written off, you don't have to fight about the price after the fact.
If it's going to happen either way, you might as well be protected.
There is usually a minimum value, and age range, unless the vehicle is listed as heavily modified.
Yes, I'll do what I did with my Corvette. I'll get it appraised and then I can get insurance coverage for the appraised amount. I'm guessing it'll be appraised at around $5000 which is nowhere near what I have into it (in labour in particular) but at least if it get's written off I won't have them saying "An 81 Eagle goes for
$800, here's your cheque for $300".
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If its any consolation to you El Matador, I typically don't drive any more than 2-3000 miles a year so the Eagle will actually only get 1000- 1500 miles a winter on it.
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If you talk to your insurance company, and they seem the vehicle to be 'worth it' or a hard to replace vehicle, you can get them to do an agreed value policy, so if it is written off, you don't have to fight about the price after the fact.
If it's going to happen either way, you might as well be protected.
There is usually a minimum value, and age range, unless the vehicle is listed as heavily modified.
Yes, I'll do what I did with my Corvette. I'll get it appraised and then I can get insurance coverage for the appraised amount. I'm guessing it'll be appraised at around $5000 which is nowhere near what I have into it (in labour in particular) but at least if it get's written off I won't have them saying "An 81 Eagle goes for
$800, here's your cheque for $300".
Yep! That's exactly what I was talking about. ;D
It's so much easier than fighting them for a value when the car is written off.
Generally, when they do that, they'll also cover if the vehicle was in an accident, and say was worth.. 10,000$. It cost 3,000$ to repair, but now it's only reappraised for 5,000$ because of the accident. In my policy it states they'll sent me a cheque for the 2,000$ lost in value (basically, value lost minus repair costs) after the repair, which is pretty neat.
With anything older than 15 or so year's, it's really a smart way to go, if you have a decent amount of money tied up in the car.
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Well, I got my Eagle outside today to get some pictures of the current state of the car. Here they are:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1272.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1276.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1280.jpg)
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It looks great... a little naked minus the wipers! :)
I mentioned this in the Nov. EOTM thread, but I'd be curious to see what it would look like with black Handles...or maybe even the blue to match the rest of the car...
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Blue door handles sounds interesting, but I wouldn't know how to do it and have the paint stick.
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Proud supplier of mirrors and steering wheel to the Priya SX/4. ;D
I should show this to my daughter, she loves purple. I hope you do as you said earlier, and keep the winter miles to a minimum. All of your hard work deserves to be preserved!
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Wow, that thing is just gorgeous!
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Couldn't you use some prepainted black handles from a Jeep? Then you could paint it I think.
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Couldn't you use some prepainted black handles from a Jeep? Then you could paint it I think.
Yeah, I was just thinking to use the Jeep Black handles...not actually painting hers black...though if she wanted to do the Blue to match then yeah, the Jeep handles would still probably be easier to paint over than the Eagle Chrome ones.
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Proud supplier of mirrors and steering wheel to the Priya SX/4. ;D
I should show this to my daughter, she loves purple. I hope you do as you said earlier, and keep the winter miles to a minimum. All of your hard work deserves to be preserved!
Wow, that thing is just gorgeous!
Truly amazing!! Words fall short.
Aww, shucks, thanks everyone. I owe a great debt to the Eagle nest and all its members who supplied parts, expertise, advice and encouragement, without your help I couldn't have done this.
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It is amazing. Makes want to repaint mine. Truely inspiring.
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Thanks Mudkicker! I've owned roughly 50 cars in my time and while I had quite a few favourites in some ways this is my all-time favourite because so much effort has gone into it and its the first car I've had that's been highly tailored to my personal tastes.
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Couldn't you use some prepainted black handles from a Jeep? Then you could paint it I think.
Sounds workable, I'm going to give some thought to that.
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For your thoughts, those handles obviously come apart.
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:o Out in good light those colors just pop, awesome, great choice on the scheme! :occasion14:
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Thanks Casper and Shaggimo :)
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Priya, you and Ward have done such a great job on this SX/4. I always check in to see any updates and get a little sad when the Priya thread starts dropping down. The little touches that you've made really make it, plus I really like the "different" color choice. Really works and really pops out. As a side note, if painting the door handles is a pain, have you thought about powder coating them? Might be tough to get done, but if you're not in a rush, you might get lucky and find someone to do it cheap.
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yes, I agree, You have taken this restoration to a whole new level. i admit you have managed to break down the HUGE TASK of restoring your eagle into manageable form. You should be very proud of the quality of work you have done. some people would have gotten discouraged even before starting. Congratulations on your progress. Keep up the good work, I am sure you give many others including myself that with patience and with determination and a bit of skill anything can be done.
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Thanks a lot Alcology and Hawk258. I ended up getting discouraged on my previous project and giving up on it so I didn't want it to happen again on this one. Its been pretty slow going but I've stuck with it and when I didn't feel like doing anything always tried to do at least a little bit. That's my philosophy, just keep at it and eventually you'll get it done. I know others have been a lot quicker at their projects but I'm happy to get it done eventually rather than not at all. At this point there's no doubt its going to be finished off in the not too distant future and it'll sure feel good.
I've thought about it and I don't think I'm going to do the door handles, at least not any time soon. The door panels were such a huge chore to get in place and the clips kept wanting to pop out I really don't want to remove it and start fighting all over again and perhaps damage the backing board more to the point where it won't hold the clips.
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That does bring up an idea I have for you. You might want to find another backing board and use it as a template to make more. you should only need 1 as they are left and right compatible, that way if you decide to play with future ideas or you do get into a position you feel you need the backing replaced you can. and Take pride, I have been stuck on research for a long time, I just hope that I too can get to the point you are now.
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Sounds like a good idea, I'll keep an eye out for one.
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HI Priya.....I saw your car in Eagle of the month and it is AWSOME .........The car is beautiful .........
Grate work girl and of course your hubby to ....Good Luck ...........Don
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Thanks Don :)
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WOWW
I'VE BEEN WAITING TO SEE THE END RESULT OF YOUR SX/4 FOR A LONG TIME. JOB WELL DONE!!!
:notworthy:
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Thanks a lot Robert.
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I LOVE how you fixed up those stock rims!! Shined up with the blue accents they put the icing on the cake! Just the picture alone threw me back in my seat....I can only imagine what it looks like in person...you have done some amazing work on that car. :occasion14:
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Thanks Shanebo :)
And you're right, the rims do look incredible in person.
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We finished fabricating the Exhaust system two days ago. One Clifford Header, one 45 degree connecting pipe, eight 90 degree connecting pipes, 12 feet of straight pipe, one Dynomax 17731 Super Turbo muffler and here's what it all looks like on the car from front to back:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1294.jpg)
We used the factory routing as it didn't occurr to us until the headpipe was built that we wouldn't be putting in a cadillac converter so we could have gone straight back down the driver's side. We used the factory mounting bracket for the cadillac converter to hold the exhaust and Ward made a flange at that point so we could unbolt the headpipe if needed to drop the trans. You can just see the flange as the verticle black line bisecting the pipe just behind the second weld in this picture:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1295.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1296.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1297.jpg)
And of course what exhaust system would be complete without the obligatory chrome exhaust tip? The shiny chrome exhaust tip alone adds an easy 10-15 horsepower over the stock exhaust system.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1299.jpg)
When we bolted the header to the motor the output pipe was about 1/8 inch away from the driver's side "frame" which Ward said was not enough clearance. I suggested grinding away the pinch weld on the frame and rewelding it to give us another 1/4 inch clearance, Ward figured it was better to heat the header outlet tubes and bend the header output pipe to get the clearance. That's what we did but the front four inlet tubes are welded to a flange at the head and the rear two inlet tubes are welded to a seperate flange at the head. The result was after we bent the outlet tubes the connected four front inlet tubes and connected rear two inlet tubes didn't line up to the head correctly and we ended up having to use the intake/exhaust gasket to make a 1/4 inch thick full lenght flange to bolt the header to to get the front four and rear two header pipes in the same plane and proper distance apart after heating. If I had to do it over again I would have grinded off the 1/4 inch from the driver's side "frame" rail rather than bending the header.
The factory exhaust system is 2". The muffler and pipe we used was 2 1/4" in keeping with building this motor aiming for a 10-15 percent increase in horsepower and gas mileage. 2 1/8" probably would have been closer to the ideal size for that purpose but the muffler I wanted wasn't available in that size.
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That's an excellent job !! and - With all due respect, but I can't resist this - exactly what cadillac does your car convert to ?? : ) hey I said I couldn't resist - mainly only because I have 2 cadillacs.
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That's an excellent job !! and - With all due respect, but I can't resist this - exactly what cadillac does your car convert to ?? : ) hey I said I couldn't resist - mainly only because I have 2 cadillacs.
The "Cadillac" converter is a long time joke for me. I posted it once before and one member thought I was being serious.
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O yes, please share the joke if possible Pyria. : )
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Its not much of a joke. Its just that catalytic sounds like cadillac if you're dumb and not listening carefully and every now and then I like to play dumb and pretend I think a catalytic converter is called a cadillac converter. I've been doing this since catalytic converters first appeared on cars around 75 or so. I can't remember if the "joke" was my own invention or I heard or read some comic do the bit - probably the latter.
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Being in the parts business, I can't count how many times I've been asked for "cadillac converter" :rotfl:, and ones who ask, typically aren't joking either, lol. I used to have a hard time holding a straight face at this, but now I'm so used to it, half the time I don't even pick up when they say it.
Reminds me of a comic I read a long while ago, I think it was a far from home.
Caption read: Due to budget cuts, the local hospital had to take on entry level employees to help the nursing staff.
Pictured: Nurse saying to her "hillbillyish" helper, "this is a Catheter, can you say Catheter?" Hillbillyish helper standing next to the bed ridden patient holding said Catheter replies "Carpet Hair" Patient wears look of terror. :rotfl:
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just sat and read this from the beginning...that is a tremendous transformation...i am beyond impressed. that engine looks fantastic, as does everything else. can't wait to see the final results -- i hope it all goes smoothly and you get it done soon!
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Thanks a lot, guys. The most recent pictures in this thread are how the car looks now - the last little bits on the car are taking a long time as I have little to do until my husband can do what he wants to the wiring and finish reassembling the motor and get it running. Then he's going to check out the steering, suspension and brake components to see if they're all up to snuff to pass a safety inspection. He's quite busy at work and I loathe asking him to do anything on his days off so I'm not sure when this will be finished. He has a week off between christmas and new year's and is planning on working on it then so hopefully we get a lot/'most of it done at that time. Once the under dash wiring is done I can install the front seats and all the dash pieces which shouldn't take me too long and then the entire interior and exterior will be complete with just perhaps some mechanicals to be addressed.
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The motor assembly is coming along slowly. When I last posted a picture of my motor it looked like this:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Eagleengineinstallation007.jpg)
Ward installed the GM HEI distributor:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1114.jpg)
And proceeded to modify the wiring for the new distributor and remove any extras for carb, etc that were no longer needed:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1115.jpg)
As you can see I need a blue or black HEI cover, the red clashes with my engine compartment! We searched Saskatoon to find a black or blue one and no one had any so finally ordered one out of Tennessee. Some 6 weeks later it arrived only for us to find the screw holes for it were in a different place than the original cover on the distributor.
This is the rat's nest Ward cut out initially to adapt the wiring:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1116.jpg)
The Clifford 4 barrel intake and header went on next:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1303.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1314.jpg)
Then a test fitting of the 390 Holley:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1306.jpg)
Since the summer I spent maybe a dozen hours searching wreckers for an air cleaner to fit the Holley. We bought a couple thinking they were likely candidates but discovered they didn't fit - should have known! I got smart then and measured the Holley base for the air cleaner and went searching for one of the same size. I finally found an air cleaner on a 99 Dodge Dakota with a fuel injected V6 that fit the Holley. Several weeks later after having painted it and seeing pictures of various stock 258s on the Eagle nest I thought "I bet this isn't going to clear the master cylinder". Checked it out and sure enough, it didn't.
We pondered modifying the stock air cleaner to fit and decided the filter element in it looked pretty small so decided to cut chunks out of the Dakota air cleaner and make it work.
I started with a cardboard pattern of the bottom of the Dakota air cleaner and then cut it to fit in the space available:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1305.jpg)
Next was surgery on the Dakota air cleaner and a test fitting:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1309.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1311.jpg)
Patches formed and all welded up:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1316.jpg)
The metal was under tension from the stamping process and when I cut the pieces out of the base and lid the metal sproinged at it took a lot of bending and tweaking to get the two pieces to mate satisfactorily.
Painted and assembled:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1321.jpg)
And voila, a motor that's starting to look mostly done:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1325.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1331.jpg)
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Dang, that looks sharp. Gonna be a real sweet ride when you get it done. Gonna take it to some car shows I presume?
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Dang, that looks sharp. Gonna be a real sweet ride when you get it done. Gonna take it to some car shows I presume?
I'm thinking about it. It isn't quite as pristine all over as I think a car at a car show could be but the last car show I was at I saw a lot of cars that were a bit rough so I don't think it'll really be out of place. It certainly would be different than anything I've seen at a car show recently!
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How tightly does the air cleaner element fit?
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Looking awesome Priya !! Is that header from Clifford? and is it the one for the 258 cu. in. head ?? I forgot if you did a 4.0 head or not. Any issues with the fit ?
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How tightly does the air cleaner element fit?
To be honest, I haven't tried it out since the modifications. I'm pretty sure its not going to be a problem as the mating surfaces on the air cleaner for the filter have sharp curves around them that weren't cut so I don't think that part of the air cleaner base or lid sproinged when I made the other cuts.
Looking awesome Priya !! Is that header from Clifford? and is it the one for the 258 cu. in. head ?? I forgot if you did a 4.0 head or not. Any issues with the fit ?
Yes, the header is from Clifford and it is for the 258 head. When we first bolted it up the output flange was about 1/4 inch from the pinch weld on the "frame" and Ward said that wasn't enough so we heated the pipes with an acetylene torch where they join together at the output end and bent the output pipe about an inch. Trouble was the flange that joins the input pipes at the head is in two pieces so 4 of the input pipes were then in a different plane than the other two. We took the intake/exhaust head gasket and marked out the openings for the intake pipes on a piece of 1/4 inch plate and drilled holes for the bolts, bolted the flange with 4 pipes to it and then heated the other two input pipes where they joined together at the collector and then bent them into place and clamped them to the 1/4 inch plate guide and waited for it to cool. This got the input pipes close to the proper places but it still took some prying to get them all bolted to the head. Ward says the first few times the engine heats up the intake pipes will set in the proper place on the head and it won't be a problem. If I had it to do all over again I'd have done like I initially planned and cut away the pinch weld on the "frame" where the header output pipe was close and then re-welded the "frame" pinch weld and left the header as it came from Clifford.
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Your car is plenty fixed up enough for a car show. I've taken mine to a couple when it was all original. Of course it did only have like 35k and was pretty pristine...it still has some rough areas.
You're car would be very well appreciated at a car show...especially if you make a scrapbook of the build process with before and after photos.
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We have had both of ours in car shows, and neither comes close to matching Prafeston's. I feel that I'm doing a public service by educating the public about Eagles.
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Okay, if I can talk my husband into it I'll do it.
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:hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2: :hello2:
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All other "normal" car shows, I had to park outside, walk in, & get my registration papers before they'd let me in. And this was even after I'd washed it & everything! :rotfl:
Hahaha, that's funny!
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All other "normal" car shows, I had to park outside, walk in, & get my registration papers before they'd let me in. And this was even after I'd washed it & everything! :rotfl:
Don't lie. You've never washed it ;D
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Don't lie. You've never washed it ;D
I did too! >:( Though I have to admit, there was no soap involved, simply pure river water brought up to the roadside by the bucket load (http://www.bcjeepclub.ca/Smileys/default/laughing021.gif)
:rotfl: hey that's better than than what Eagle Eyes gets. the only time she gets washed is when it rains. :rotfl:
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id go find a good mudhole, get the car texture painted brown a day or so before. let it dry, then show up at the car show. show some AWSOMENESS!!!
Haha, love this idea!
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How tightly does the air cleaner element fit?
To be honest, I haven't tried it out since the modifications. I'm pretty sure its not going to be a problem as the mating surfaces on the air cleaner for the filter have sharp curves around them that weren't cut so I don't think that part of the air cleaner base or lid sproinged when I made the other cuts.
Looking awesome Priya !! Is that header from Clifford? and is it the one for the 258 cu. in. head ?? I forgot if you did a 4.0 head or not. Any issues with the fit ?
Yes, the header is from Clifford and it is for the 258 head. When we first bolted it up the output flange was about 1/4 inch from the pinch weld on the "frame" and Ward said that wasn't enough so we heated the pipes with an acetylene torch where they join together at the output end and bent the output pipe about an inch. Trouble was the flange that joins the input pipes at the head is in two pieces so 4 of the input pipes were then in a different plane than the other two. We took the intake/exhaust head gasket and marked out the openings for the intake pipes on a piece of 1/4 inch plate and drilled holes for the bolts, bolted the flange with 4 pipes to it and then heated the other two input pipes where they joined together at the collector and then bent them into place and clamped them to the 1/4 inch plate guide and waited for it to cool. This got the input pipes close to the proper places but it still took some prying to get them all bolted to the head. Ward says the first few times the engine heats up the intake pipes will set in the proper place on the head and it won't be a problem. If I had it to do all over again I'd have done like I initially planned and cut away the pinch weld on the "frame" where the header output pipe was close and then re-welded the "frame" pinch weld and left the header as it came from Clifford.
Thanks Priya, I bought one when I got my first wagon, but yet have to install it.Figure it will fit on the wagon or the SX/4 long as it's a 258.Looks like it works well with the intake too.
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I like rideing around in the farm fields too . ( not sure if 1,300 acres and apx. 350 head count as a ranch) ;D , but it is cool to just be able to wander around. I usually take my son as the "gate" person , PIA to get out and open, drive through, and close.They are black angus and red devons and seem to be attracted to the little black SX/4 LOL.I can't rip around much in the fields etc. , because they are " grass fed" , and they need every square inch of usable area to grow and cut.
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Just curious Priya. What make you decide to go with the Clifford intake vs the stock intake?
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Just curious Priya. What make you decide to go with the Clifford intake vs the stock intake?
My goal with this motor was to make modifications that boosted both power and fuel efficiency. I decided that one way to do that is to have a 4 barrel vacuum secondary carburetor with smaller primaries than the stock 2 barrel. If I remember correctly the stock 2 barrel is 250 cfm while the primaries on the Holley, which the car will run on most of the time, are 195 CFM. This way I in effect have a smaller, more fuel efficient carburetor for normal driving and if I decide to floor it the vacuum secondaries will open on occaision and give the car any CFM it needs above 195. The 390 CFM Holley is actually quite a bit more flow than a mostly stock 258 can use but because it is vacuum secondaries the carb will only provide enough secondary opening to meet the requirements. I figure the vast majority of the time the car will run on only the primaries. For my goals I think the ideal 4 barrel would have been about a 300 CFM model but if anyone makes such a carb I'm unaware of it. I suppose I could have cabbaged together some sort of adapter to mate the Holley to the stock intake, but I think that would be less efficient than having a manifold designed for a 4 barrel to begin with.
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Very nice priya! Don't expect much better gas milage just yet, lol, you'll probably have to train yourself to stay out of the secodaries :rotfl: , the I6 just sounds sweet when the secondaries are wailing :drool: (it's hard to resist). You'll love the spread bore on there though. :occasion14:
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Shaggimo, the primaries and secondaries on the 390 Holley are the same size (is that called square bore?). A spread bore might have been better if it was available.
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:-[ oops, Yes you are correct, I thought you had a spread bore there, lol, no matter though, either way, I think you'll like it. ;D
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Question for ya about the door trim - was it you that did the write-up on restoring that stuff? I remember reading something like that many, many moons ago, but can't find it now? It's the rubber/chrome strip near the bottom of the door I refer to. :)
No, it wasn't me that did the write-up on restoring door trim. Mine was really beat up, I searched various shops to find something similar but couldn't find anything close. Eventually what I did was find some thin black trim and some thin chrome trim, lay down one strip of black, then one strip of chrome and then another strip of black. It's not the same as original but its about the same total width and similar looking.
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Priya, I'm a very new member to the Nest, and have to say, Wow. Your car is looking amazing. If I can make my SX4 look half as good as yours, I'll be pleased as punch with myself. Now I just need to get a garage closer than a 5 hour drive to work on her. Well, that and scrape my jaw off of the floor...
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Thanks, jcsmn74!
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Priya.. all I can say is WOW!!! :o
Absolutely STUNNING! I tried to get my hubby to let me repaint the engine and bay before we put an engine back in (it was supposed to get rebuilt, and still sits ready to reassemble) but instead of letting me clean and paint, he threw a used engine in. Looks as sh*tty as it did before, with less grime. (atleast i can drive it now) seeing yours gives me hope for the future!!!!
Can i ask.. when you did the rear hatch lift wiring.. do you have any photos of the wiring you ran from the glovebox switch into the engine bay and solenoid and all those miscellaneous fusible link spiders web? Or did you wire it differently than the diagrams? Please do tell, as that is my current half done project and the part i'm stuck on.
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Awww, thanks Mojobean.
The only pictures I've got are the ones I've posted but I can take more if it would help. I decided I didn't like the hatch release switch in the glove box and wanted it accessible from standing at the driver's door so we mounted it on the left side of the dash just below the instrument cluster. I only have the foggiest understanding of what my husband did with the wiring so I'll ask him to respond to your question but that won't be until late tonight at the earliest.
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The hatch usually needs to be wiggled to work. I mount my release switch in the back. I use a doorbell switch mounted out of sight above the inboard corner of the passenger side tailight. This lets you wiggle and pull up to help the solenoid while you push the button. Even a properly working solenoid gets stuck occasionally.
Every hatch solenoid will not work reliably with the factory ground post. You must run a ground wire from the roof to the hatch. The positive comes through a wire to a copper post but the ground is supposed to come from the grounding of the hatch itself. The problem is that the hinges isolate the hatch electrically and the ground post is worthless. Before running a ground wire you will see less than 6 volts across the solenoid. Afterwards you will see 12 volts across it. It will click weakly and not work without the ground wire.
To lock the hatch I put a rocker switch in the glove compartment. When it doesn't send power the doorbell in the back has no power to it. The doorbell switch is a momentary switch that is supplied power only if the glovebox switch is on. You cannot use a on off switch directly to the solenoid because the wires will melt if the solenoid has power going to it for more than a few seconds.
The switch I use is snapped backwards into the plastic holder it comes with. The original screws for the factory glove box switch are the perfect width for this bracket. I used the old screws and didn't need to modify anything. This exact switch is available at Walmart and most auto stores.
The whole system is a single 12V source wire with an inline 30 AMP fuse, heavy gauge, to the glove box rocker switch. Then it goes from the rocker all the way to the doorbell. Then doorbell to positive post contact point.
(http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x427/captspillane/Eagleweb%20Postings/DSCF0645.jpg)
(http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x427/captspillane/Eagleweb%20Postings/10-05-11_1934.jpg)
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I must say, I like that! ;D
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Well, I am glad mine works just fine.My son found out it needs to be pushed twice for some reason.Seems it gives it an extra wack on the arm and it pops open.I say though, it did take a bit of work to get the hatch and the parts aligned to work easily and pop itself up a bit when the switch is hit.That and new strut arms worked best.
Great fix and repair youv'e got there if one has problems with them, that seems the answer.
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Mojobean, here's my husband's response to your question:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/Hatchreleasewiring.jpg)
Some notes regarding power hatch release:
-The power supply can be switched or on
battery power. I it's switched you will
have to turn the ignition to "on" or
"accessory" before the release works.
-The fuse rating is usually determined
by finding the current demand of the
circuit and multiplying by 1.5. If
you use 14 gauge wire for everything
except the switch and a 20 amp fuse it
will work without issues.
-The wires from relay pin 86 to the switch
and the switch to ground can be much thinner
(16 or 18 gauge) as they only carry 1/4 amp
or so. The smaller wires make easier to hook
to the switch also.
-I would recommend that the solenoid ground
wire be brought back up the hatch and grounded
to the body of the car. Hatch hinges are not
really good conductors of electricity. If
you do ground to the hatch run a ground strap
(14 gauge) from the hatch to the body to
provide a reliable ground.
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Did you have to build a custom air filter for your air cleaner?
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Did you have to build a custom air filter for your air cleaner?
No, it still fits the factory air filter which is used on a wide variety of chrysler products including the 318 in my husband's truck.
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Good to know. :D
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I have not been on the site in a while, I was so happy to see your progress. Awsome work
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Thanks landphil.
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Hubby got all the wiring done under the dash so I've been able to assemble it. He put in relays for the headlights, each setting on the blower fan, for the oil and temperature light (don't ask me why, I didn't understand it), various circuit breakers and a relay for the hatch release. As we didn't include a light for the rear defroster he wired it so the check engine light comes on when the defroster is on (a little odd but it works). He also wired up the stereo I got from Gronk (thanks Gronk!).
The first piece to go in was the instrument cluster:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1347.jpg)
The button underneath the headlight and wiper switch is the hatch release. I never liked trunk release buttons in the glove box and wanted one I could reach while standing at the driver's door. It doesn't need the key on either another common feature on power trunk cars I really disliked:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1349.jpg)
The vent and lower steering column bezel went in next:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1352.jpg)
The radio and heater control bezel was next but first I needed to refinish it as the one I got from the Spirit AMX dash wasn't in the best of condition:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1068-1.jpg)
I got some aluminum flashing, and cut out a rectangle and proceeded to trace around a plastic overlay from another bezel with a scratch awl. This was the third attempt as I screwed up the first two:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1066.jpg)
I used my husband's gasket punches to make the smaller holes and the rounded corners and the aluminum was soft enough I was able to cut out the rest with an ordinary pair of scissors:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1077.jpg)
Here's how the Spirit AMX bezel looked after painting and installation of the aluminum overlay:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1320.jpg)
And here's how the radio/heater control bezel looked installed in the car with the AM/FM cassette:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1353.jpg)
The glove box door went on next. Try as I might for 2 to 3 hours I couldn't get it adjusted nicely, I guess the parts warped over the years and/or weren't perfectly formed from the factory:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1355.jpg)
The Eagle glove box label fit in the same holes as the AMX label so of course I had to shine it up:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1363.jpg)
The package tray went in next and the interior is really coming together!
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1369.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1371.jpg)
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Coming along nicely!
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Thanks guys!
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I have to admit something. At first I looked at the color combination and thought, that can't work. Seeing it now with how clean it is and having all the aluminum in place, it really brings it together.
Have you thought about get a paint match for your carpet and maybe doing a bit of pinstripping on the dash? That would really tie the dash together with the floor.
Can't wait to see your seats. Did you get them recovered in blue or purple?
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Can this thread be made a sticky? Priya has so much good and useful information here, it should be at the top of the list all the time. Just a thought.
Priya, if I can do half as well on my car as you have on your's, I'd consider myself a great mechanic/fabricator. You and your husband of course are the masters!
Well done. Keep the info coming.
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I have to admit something. At first I looked at the color combination and thought, that can't work. Seeing it now with how clean it is and having all the aluminum in place, it really brings it together.
Have you thought about get a paint match for your carpet and maybe doing a bit of pinstripping on the dash? That would really tie the dash together with the floor.
Can't wait to see your seats. Did you get them recovered in blue or purple?
The pinstriping idea hadn't occurred to me, I'll give it some thought. I didn't use the original Eagle seats as they were in poor shape. I had a set of light blue seats from a 79 Monza that I liked a lot and Ward adapted them to the Eagle seat tracks and they're going in next. They're a lighter blue than the rest of the Eagle interior but hopefully it won't be too far off.
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Ok. My brother had a Monza in high school. What a mess of a car! We had a lot of fun with it though.
Pinstriping would be nice. Maybe your name in purple script and maybe following the lines of the dash with a purple line just to highlight it. One idea I had for my car was to take the headliner into a shop that does embroidery on coats and hats and things and have the AMC Eagle head logo embroidered in the center of it. I won't mention colors yet for myself, I haven't fully decided yet.
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I don't think I have seen the color interior before. What's with the Jeep steering wheel?
Also what is the black box behind the shifter?
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The interior is a custom color , as is the exterior : ) . Quite alot of work, and lots and lots of time and effort.
It's looking awesome !! I cringed at "useing the gasket puches" on metal , but now ya got me thinking : ).
I have a complete set and they are awesome and never thought of useing them on light metal ( aluminum).It cuts with a sheetrock knife, so guess they would work on it ( obviously they did ).
Looks great :occasion14:
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Coming together very nicely priya! Funny I had the same issue with the glove box door on the miss' SX/4, no matter what I tried, I couldn't get a proper fit, lol. The aluminum overlay turned out great! Back a few years ago my girl found some faux stainless contact paper, she cut out overlays for my malibu's dash to get rid of some of the wood grain, lol. I still can't believe this will be a daily driver 8) .
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I don't think I have seen the color interior before. What's with the Jeep steering wheel?
Also what is the black box behind the shifter?
If I'm not mistaken, I believe that black box is a little space heater. Pretty nice idea for a winter car!
She mentioned the dash is from a Spirit AMX, so that's probably why it has a different color scheme.
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I don't think I have seen the color interior before. What's with the Jeep steering wheel?
Also what is the black box behind the shifter?
I liked the style of the Jeep steering wheel better than the factory eagle sport steering wheel. At some point in the future (if he gets the time) my husband is going to make a different centre cap for the steering wheel, probably just put "AMC" on it.
The black box behind the shifter is a car warmer for the winter. When the block heater is plugged in it'll come on as well and warm up the interior a bit so I don't have to scrape windows.
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The interior is a custom color , as is the exterior : ) . Quite alot of work, and lots and lots of time and effort.
It's looking awesome !! I cringed at "useing the gasket puches" on metal , but now ya got me thinking : ).
I have a complete set and they are awesome and never thought of useing them on light metal ( aluminum).It cuts with a sheetrock knife, so guess they would work on it ( obviously they did ).
Looks great :occasion14:
You've got to give the gasket punches quite a whack to get through the aluminum. I backed it up with a piece of particle board left over from cutting out a hole for the sink in our kitchen counter top. Then you need to use a flat body hammer to take out the indentations left over from the punch.
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Coming together very nicely priya! Funny I had the same issue with the glove box door on the miss' SX/4, no matter what I tried, I couldn't get a proper fit, lol. The aluminum overlay turned out great! Back a few years ago my girl found some faux stainless contact paper, she cut out overlays for my malibu's dash to get rid of some of the wood grain, lol. I still can't believe this will be a daily driver 8) .
While it'll be my "daily" driver, I only drive perhaps 1000 - 1500 miles a year and perhaps a couple times a week.
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I don't think I have seen the color interior before. What's with the Jeep steering wheel?
Also what is the black box behind the shifter?
If I'm not mistaken, I believe that black box is a little space heater. Pretty nice idea for a winter car!
She mentioned the dash is from a Spirit AMX, so that's probably why it has a different color scheme.
The Spirit AMX dash was originally black so I dyed it the same colour as the other interior parts. The Jeep steering wheel is a slightly different shade of blue. The door panels, kick panels and rear interior tailight cover didn't get dyed so they are all a slightly different shade of blue as well and the front seats will also be a different shade too -close enough for me.
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Thanks for the compliments guys!
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I don't think I have seen the color interior before. What's with the Jeep steering wheel?
The interior is a custom color , as is the exterior : ) .
Actually the blue of the interior is the factory colour. I took a patch from the original factory door panel and sent it to a plastic dye manufacturer and they made up a blue to match it.
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I liked the style of the Jeep steering wheel better than the factory eagle sport steering wheel. At some point in the future (if he gets the time) my husband is going to make a different centre cap for the steering wheel, probably just put "AMC" on it.
That little jeep emblem pops out, it looks like part of the center cap, but the chrome ring with the jeep logo removes with a little instigating. I have the same center cap set aside for the SX/4, plans to make a little :amc: logo for it as well.
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That little jeep emblem pops out, it looks like part of the center cap, but the chrome ring with the jeep logo removes with a little instigating. I have the same center cap set aside for the SX/4, plans to make a little :amc: logo for it as well.
My husband popped the Jeep emblem out before we put the wheel on, I've tried to do it since but can't figure it out. Hopefully he can remember how to do it when the time comes.
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It's all coming together nicely Priya :hello2:
I seen awhile back where you were looking for the side molding. But never seen where you had found yours, unless I missed it somewhere. Where did you find it? Looks to be oem or very close.
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It's all coming together nicely Priya :hello2:
I seen awhile back where you were looking for the side molding. But never seen where you had found yours, unless I missed it somewhere. Where did you find it? Looks to be oem or very close.
I got it from 68AMXGOPAC.
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Sharp looking interior. Blue really goes well with purple in my opinion... also with pink too.
Keep on truckin' Priya! Post more pictures when you get a chance, I would like to see more of your SX/4!
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I saw your posts before when you were doing body work to it. That interior is just ............. Well, there aren't really words to describe how sharp it looks. Congrats to you & your husband both for an
outstanding, no make that excellent, no wait, make that EGGselent job. Have a couple while you're at it!!
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Thanks amc78concord and 1OldFordMan!
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How did you dye the interior parts? Brush on, spray on, dipped? Can you tell us where you got the dye from?
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How did you dye the interior parts? Brush on, spray on, dipped? Can you tell us where you got the dye from?
I have a compressor so I bought a small touch-up type spray gun and sprayed the parts. The dye comes in aerosol cans for small amounts or quarts of liquid you can put in your spray gun. I got the dye from here:
http://parasolinc.com/Products.asp?ProductID=VARIBOND
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I installed the 79 Monza seats in the SX/4 today. Here's the adaptation project:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1063-1.jpg)
Ward did the initial design and fabrication to adapt the Monza seats to the Eagle seat tracks. He put the Eagle seat bottom on a makeshift work bench and added various pieces of wood until it was level, then seperated the set tracks from the Eagle seat bottom:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1088.jpg)
Then he put the Monza set on top of the Eagle seat tracks and blocked the Monza seat until it was level:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1090.jpg)
Here's the Monza to Eagle seat adapters he came up with:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1091.jpg)
Here's how they look mounted onto the Eagle seat tracks (the Monza seats bolt on top of these):
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1103.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1105.jpg)
I wasn't happy with the alignment and tilt of the seats at this point so seeing as Ward had done all the hard thinking designing the adapters I felt I could tackle modifying them and tweaking them to get the alignment I wanted and so I did so. We both found getting the Monza seats adapted to the Eagle tracks was a long and tedious process with LOTS of tinkering, tweaking and seats in and out of the car repeatedly. If I had to do it all over again I think I'd have refinished the stock Eagle seats even though I much prefer the looks of the Monza seats.
So now the Eagle interior is finally complete and here's how it all looks together. The Monza seats are a lighter blue than the rest of the interior but the difference is not as great as these pictures make it appear:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1410.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1399.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1402.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1393.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1404.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1396.jpg)
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SWEEEEEET. They look great. Nice Work, as always.
:occasion14:
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L00KS Awesome , must feel great to finally be able to "sit" behind the wheel and know how it's going to feel driveing it.
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L00KS Awesome , must feel great to finally be able to "sit" behind the wheel and know how it's going to feel driveing it.
Sure does. Plus its nice to be getting most of the Eagle parts out of our small house.
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That's pretty excellent, Priya! Maybe if you're feeling dangerous, you could dye the vinyl on those seats to match the trim exactly.
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Thanks Baskinator. The top of the seats is actually cloth. The pictures make it look like they're a lot lighter than the rest of the interior but in real life the difference isn't that great. I took these pictures inside the garage and the flash from the camera lights the seats much more than the farther away door panels and dash. If I can get some interior pictures outside of the garage in daylight it'll look a lot closer in colour.
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since this project is on it's way to driver (and looking great) ...... what are you going to start on next ;D
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since this project is on it's way to driver (and looking great) ...... what are you going to start on next ;D
Well, I've got a brown 79 Corvette that really needs to be hot pink, electric blue, silver, or some other colour. I've got a 5 speed trans to put in it and some motor modifications planned but hubby says I've had his garage for 4 years so its his turn. He's got an 81 Dodge van that needs rust repairs and paint and an 85 Dodge 3/4 ton truck that needs some rust repairs and paint. I'll probably start on the Dodge 3/4 ton truck as that's his baby and he can use my Eagle for his daily driver while I'm making the repairs.
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you've had the garage for 4 years?!!! LUCKY!!! I'm still waiting for my turn.. (sometime in the next month, by June i should have pulled off a complete take-over)
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Did you add the tach to your instrument cluster or was is stock? I believe its unusual to find the tach with the square speedometer.
Also, what's that box on the transmission tunnel in front of your shifter? Thanks
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You guys are lucky you have room to work on things your garages! My mom's had our garage taken over since I moved back in...there was barely enough room for my motorcycle! It's a little better now, but not much.
This was 4 years ago when I moved back in.
(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3239/2799273374_ce122b1250_z.jpg)
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I believe the box in front of the shifter is a space heater. Was discussed a little bit in this thread.
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I believe the box in front of the shifter is a space heater. Was discussed a little bit in this thread.
Thanks. If figured the answers to my questions might be in the thread somewhere...
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you've had the garage for 4 years?!!! LUCKY!!! I'm still waiting for my turn.. (sometime in the next month, by June i should have pulled off a complete take-over)
Yes, I'm ashamed it took so long but I suppose at least I got it done. I guess its like the old story about the tortoise and the hare, I may not have a whole lot of drive compared to some people, but I did manage to keep at it and eventually finish the race.
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Did you add the tach to your instrument cluster or was is stock? I believe its unusual to find the tach with the square speedometer.
Also, what's that box on the transmission tunnel in front of your shifter? Thanks
I added the tach to my instrument cluster, it just had the tach/clock delete plate prior to that. As Prafeston said the box in front of the shifter is an interior car warmer.
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Hubby has spent the past few weekends working on getting my engine going. The main problem was the factory throttle linkage doesn't mount on the Clifford intake and hook up to the Holley Carb. Instead of using the Clifford supplied carb to manifold adapter he decided to make his own. Here is the initial design on the milling machine:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1366.jpg)
And here is the finished product:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1411.jpg)
The factory Eagle throttle linkage bolts to this carb plate and after various cuts and welds the throttle and downshift linkages work perfectly on the Holley/Clifford combination:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1418.jpg)
And I'm tickled pink to say we got it running today! :blob1:
The smoke coming from under the hood on first start was incredible but it did eventually burn off and clear out. Ward set the timing and to my surprise the holley carb ran very well out of the box and didn't require any tuning. There's some sort of ticking noise coming from the motor that Ward has to sort out. He doesn't know if its the alternator, water pump, or valve train but will have a look at it another day. It did seem to quiet down as the motor ran so maybe it'll sort itself out. There's also still an issue with the wiring as the motor wouldn't crank from inside the car and the backup lights aren't working so that will wait for another day too.
We took a video of it running unfortunately our video camera is malfunctioning and the sound gets out of sync with the picture partway through, but this will give you an idea anyway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47UNE7oUpsU
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That's good news Priya!
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Thanks Prafeston.
Casper, yes they are all new lifters, valve springs, keepers and retainers.
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Just a thought, did you ( can't think of the correct word ) - prime the lifters ? Not sure if it matters, but I have allways put them in a coffee can of oil, and worked them up and down to get them full of oil before install - does sound like lifters to me too. More like a tick than a knock.
Nice job on that adaptor plate Ward.
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Great to hear you got it running! Awesome work on the carb plate, turned out very nice! :occasion14:
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Gopac,
Prime is a perfect description of what you describe, I've done that in the past, but I always spin the oil pump with a power drill & a home made pre-oiler in place of the distributor. It's easy in the L6 as the dissy housing doesn't go thru an oil gallery. That fills all the galleries, as well as pumping up the lifters etc
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On Ward's behalf, thanks guys!
I don't remember if Ward primed the lifters. Hearing the tick in person it doesn't really sound like a lifter to me, it's a little louder and has more of a ringing sound to it than the lifter ticks I'm familiar with.
Further to the video: You can see the oil pressure gauge in the video but the numbers are not legible. It shows 45 psi at idle.
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Hmmmm , perplexed now -lol.
wouldn't be a rocker arm tapping the underside of the valve cover ? probably impossible but your comment on "ringing" made me think of aluminum.sounds different than steel when tapped.
The only other thought would be something on the ( I forgot if it's an auto or standard ) - flywheel or tourque converter hitting....... I just might have to listen to that video again : )
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exhaust manifold leak ???
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It's an automatic 68AMXGOPAC. I spoke to the hubby about it a few minutes ago, he's pretty sure its a lifter noise although it didn't sound that way to me. He says he did pre-lube the lifters but the motor has sat for 2 years and on an inline 6 there had to be at least one valve open and that would have collapsed the lifter probably after 6 months or less and then it sat like that for all this time. He figures no worries as the noise did lessen significantly from the time it first started until he made the video.
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Cool , hope it works itself out and quiets down.
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I don't know what weight of oil was used Casper, I'll ask hubby tonight. I wasn't paying close attention but would say we ran the motor for aproximately 5 to 10 minutes.
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looks great. very nice build. so what kind of plans do u have when its finished?
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looks great. very nice build. so what kind of plans do u have when its finished?
Thanks Max. First thing, get it washed, take it to some nice scenery and get some more pictures of exterior and interior in the sunshine where I can control angles of the car and picture framing much better than I could in and in front of the garage. This is going to be my winter car but we've decided we're going to keep it licensed all year round and drive it this summer to shake out the bugs. I have my Corvette for my summer car but the Eagle is more practical and comfortable for getting groceries and so on. I'd like to make some trips to friends and relatives places to show it off as well.
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I'm not a big fan of the colors, but that being said I think the work you have done it amazing! Top notch job!! I egged ya cuz color aside (just personal preference) it look amazing!! I look foward to seeing overall finished pics,
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Thanks a lot Standup650. I know the colours aren't for everyone, most people I spoke to about my possible paint schemes said "Don't do it, those weird colours will really hurt the resale value.". That didn't matter to me though, lots of people pay big dollars to get a car to their liking and I figure if it costs me a couple thousand on resale (not that I intend to ever sell) I'm happy to pay that price to have something that appeals strongly to me.
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yea i can agree Priya to the resale. i would much rather have a car that is what i want and not some car that u can go buy off the dealer lot. i think if your building a car build it the way you want it to be. its your car first and foremost not someone else's car.
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I love that you did it your way and I think the colors are really nice together...the only thing I don't really like is the light blue interior.
I would like to know how you went about refinishing/painting the wheels. They look really great!
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Thanks for the support, Max 98059.
Prafeston, even though blue is my favourite colour I didn't really like that light blue interior shade either, I prefer a medium bright "electric blue" like I put on the exterior. For the longest time while I was building it I kept thinking a black interior would be much more desirable but by the time I got to the interior I'd spent all the money I'd budgeted for this car so I hesitated to replace it. When I saw purple carpet was available I decided I'd try combining the light blue interior with purple, and to my surprise it completely changed the way I feel about that light blue. To me the purple contrasts really well with the blue interior and now I definitely prefer the light blue/purple interior over a black one.
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I would like to know how you went about refinishing/painting the wheels. They look really great!
I didn't do the wheels myself. They were pretty tired looking with all the clear coat gone, a lot of oxidation and minor dings. I took them to a shop that specializes in restoring aluminum wheels. They've got a computer controlled lathe, they painted the wheels the electric blue colour I gave them the code for, they mount the tire on the lathe and it removes a few thousandths of an inch of the exterior aluminum to make them look super good and remove the blue from where it doesn't belong and then clearcoat them. I couldn't believe how good they looked finished compared to what they looked like initially.
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They look so good I was curious if it wasn't a professional job...so how much does something like that set you back? More than the cost of the wheels! :)
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On Ward's behalf, thanks guys!
I don't remember if Ward primed the lifters. Hearing the tick in person it doesn't really sound like a lifter to me, it's a little louder and has more of a ringing sound to it than the lifter ticks I'm familiar with.
Further to the video: You can see the oil pressure gauge in the video but the numbers are not legible. It shows 45 psi at idle.
Think of the thin plate between belhouse and engine. This one sometimes touches the flexplate when a little bent. Engine runs terrific!!!
Anjo
Holland
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Think of the thin plate between belhouse and engine. This one sometimes touches the flexplate when a little bent. Engine runs terrific!!!
Anjo
Holland
Right Anjo, it sounded more like something like that to me than a lifter but we'll see. I was really thrilled with how the engine ran too. After the timing was set I let my foot off the gas and it settled down to a much slower idle than I'd seen on other carbureted cars. At first I thought it was too slow but it ran so smooth I couldn't believe it, seemed like a brand new fuel injected motor. We didn't even have to adjust the idle speed on the Holley carb, it was right on out of the box.
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They look so good I was curious if it wasn't a professional job...so how much does something like that set you back? More than the cost of the wheels! :)
Yes, it was Waaayy more than the cost of the wheels. Ward got the wholesale price but I think the retail price for that is around $1000 for four wheels.
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WOW!!! Yeah, that's pricey!!
...but you get what you pay for...they look great!
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Ya always do what you want. its your rig. agian i must say A++ looks great! the eye for the little details is very impressive! i would love to see it in person!
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Ya always do what you want. its your rig. agian i must say A++ looks great! the eye for the little details is very impressive! i would love to see it in person!
Thanks again, Standup650. It's not quite as impressive in person as it is in the pictures, there are a number of minor flaws in it that you can see in person but not in the pictures. I've put probably a dozen or more scratches in it while assembling and trying to maneuver around the car in the very tight quarters of the hoist in the garage but all in all I'm still very happy with how it came out.
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SOMETIMES it just takes a little while for a lifter to get filled back up with oil completely. all 3 of my eagles (one with brand new lifters when i did the 4.0 head swap) always tick a little when first started. no matter how long/short they have sat. the oil pressure pumps them up. what weight of oil are you running? i personally like to run 20/50 royal purple break in oil. it fills the lifters up pretty quick. then after breakin, i run synthetic 10/40 in my eagles with a zink additive. hope your lifter isnt ruined, just needing some time to fill up. how long did you run it?? it should have filled up in about 30 seconds or so.
The oil was 10W-30 Casper.
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The oil was 10W-30 Casper.
[/quote]
Put 15W40, or better, 20W50 in, you will be surprised. Old fashioned engines need thicker oil 'cause tolerancies in the design are much bigger than in newer engines. It even can solve the "ticking problem" although I'll stay with my former suggestion...... ;D
Anjo
Holland
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they also need zinc additive
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I've taken my car to the shop for the oil changes so far...I wonder if they are doing this zinc additive!!
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The simple answer is that if you haven't specifically requested it, no they aren't, it would be an added cost item
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I'm not sure what kind of oil he used, I know it was made for a diesel engine.
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I'm not sure what kind of oil he used, I know it was made for a diesel engine.
i think some of the diesal oil still has zinc
I've taken my car to the shop for the oil changes so far...I wonder if they are doing this zinc additive!!
probaly not.
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on second thought, iirc your in canada. i cant say if they did the same there, but in the U.S. they took the zink out of the oils. you have to get special oil or a zddp additive.
Canada doesn't have it, you can still buy some specialty oils with it in there or buy it as a separate additive.
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Guys, zinc is spelled with a "c", not a "k".
I talked to Ward and he put a special assembly lube on the cam to protect it during fire-up. He said the oil is a series III heavy diesel oil and that is more than enough protection for the cam without the zinc.
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Hey! I used the C!!!
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Hey! I used the C!!!
Way to go, Prafeston!
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I wont risk running mine without zinc. i have done a lot of reading about it and talked to a lot of engine builders and it all points to the same thing. our engines need the additive. one guy i know that builds engines has a 55 gallon drum full of cams just to show his customers what the new oil does. it took him less than a year to fill it.
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I'm convinced...making sure I add the zinc next time I'm due for an oil change!
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I wont risk running mine without zinc. i have done a lot of reading about it and talked to a lot of engine builders and it all points to the same thing. our engines need the additive. one guy i know that builds engines has a 55 gallon drum full of cams just to show his customers what the new oil does. it took him less than a year to fill it.
Could you get him to send me a picture of that drum full of cams?
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On second thought, an engine builder is going to throw out virtually every used cam that comes in if not every one so a picture of a drum full of cams wouldn't be convincing.
My husband has worked as an automotive technician for every year the zinc free oil has been in use, he's seen dozens of cars come through every week, knows several mechanics, neither he nor any of the mechanics he works with have seen a systemic problem with flat tappet cams and zinc free oils. there's been no bulletins from automanufacturers warning to use zinc additives on non-roller motors, there's been no arcticles in the automotive trade publications, no one on the North American online automotive technicians network has mentioned it, the engine rebuilder that did my motor never mentioned it so I'm not buying it.
If you want to debate zinc additives further please start your own comment topic about it.
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WOW! i wasn't trying to be an :censored: i was just trying help people out. believe what you want!
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I wasn't trying to be an :censored: either standup650, its just that I've heard this all before. I'm sorry if I was too harsh.
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No worries...priya just wants her thread to get back on topic...which would be that sweet SX/4 she's got! :)
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Thanks guys! :)
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HI Priya the car is looking great the light blue looks good with the purple better then I thought ....
the tick will eather go away or get louder wait and see .But I think it will go away Little by little
The oil on the market today is better than it has ever been . I love that car and the work you two
are doing on it .......still a huge FAN .....and I mean huge.... keep up the good work......Don
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Thanks Don :)
When I first bought the purple carpet and had the headliner redone in purple I thought it might come out looking pretty strange, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I like it.
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Ward and I headed out to the garage today to further investigate and hopefully fix the ticking noise coming from the motor. Ward pulled off the valve cover and checked all the rocker arms to see if any were loose. None were, but he found one pushrod was rubbing slightly against the hole in the head and after some thought pulled the pair of rocker arms and noticed the one with the rubbing pushrod was worn more on one side than the other where the valve stem rides. He decided to replace that rocker with one with even wear. He checked the torque on all the rocker arms and coudn't find any evidence of a bad lifter or any real problems in the valve train so we put the valve cover back on and started the motor. The tick was still there but seemed less noisey.
Not knowing what to look for next we went and got Ward's stethescope and he spent a few minutes listening to the motor in various places and found the noise was coming from the distributor. After loosening the cap and retightening he found the cap wasn't sitting square on the distributor. Reseated the cap, started the motor, and voila! Ticking noise gone! (I said right off the bat I didn't think it was a valve lifter noise). It turns out all the time we thought the ticking was getting quieter was just our imagination. The motor sure sounds sweet now.
The day wasn't a total success though. After Ward loosened the valve cover bolts I noticed coolant on the ground and sure enough, it was dripping from the back of the motor. Turns out the previous owner had attempted to install the aluminum valve cover and when tapping the holes had cut into the water jacket on one of the holes. As the only workable alternative is to replace the head we put some silicon on the bolt for that hole and if it doesn't hold we'll replace the head then.
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Well, that sure does suck about the water jacket. Hope the silicon fixes the problem so you don't have to replace the whole head.
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What dissy cap are you using? i just fired up wifeys stroker to hear a small tick. she has the big cap however. not tfi'ed yet but close. i was thinking lifters need to fill. it got better but not gone.
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What dissy cap are you using? i just fired up wifeys stroker to hear a small tick. she has the big cap however. not tfi'ed yet but close. i was thinking lifters need to fill. it got better but not gone.
I'm not sure what you mean by big cap. Mine has the coil on top and four spring loaded screws to hold it in place. Its a Delco Remy.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1114.jpg)
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I drove my Eagle today! :blob1:
We picked up a license plate earlier today and then Ward hooked the power brakes to the intake manifold. We had to put a filter in the line because I don't think I plugged the line back when I sandblasted the engine compartment, or at least that's what it looked like in the pictures I took at that time.
The Eagle tach I got turned out to be a dud so I got an 87-91 F150 tach as Vangremlin suggested. I made the modifications and mounted in the Eagle cluster and all we needed to do to get the car on the road was install it when Ward noticed the speedometer cable drive tang broken off in the speedometer. I suppose its just as well as I haven't gotten the car appraised yet and until I do so the license plate insurance will only pay me $800 if the car gets destroyed in an accident. So it'll sit until I can get a speedometer cable.
After that disappointment Ward encouraged me to take the car up and down the back alley so I got in and took it around the block. It may not have been much, but it certainly was a milestone.
In the meantime I have a 79 Spirit AMX grill I'm going to install. I'm going to paint the mesh first as its peeling and then I have to make a couple extra brackets to install it as it has 4 on the top edge compared to the Eagle's two.
After that's done I'll probably slide the instrument cluster in place and get the appraiser out to do what he does.
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That's excellent, congratulations!!! The first drive is certainly the greatest. I'm excited to see some pictures of the finished product in all its glory once it's shined up and ready for the road.
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Thanks Baskinator.
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Smart move on having it appraised, and grats on the mini drive :occasion14: .
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Thanks Shaggimo.
Its covered in a thick layer of dust so I want to wash it as well before getting an appraisal. I figure I'll just move it out of the garage and take a hose and bucket of soap to it. I'm hoping for a warm rainy day to do it as I found when doing my Corvette back there the soapy water dries on qickly in the sun before I get a chance to rinse it off and then the soap doesn't rinse off very well. Also, its dusty back in the back alley so if its windy or cars drive by the car gets dusty again right away. Its supposed to be warm and wet Wednesday so that looks like the day. I thought about driving it to the car wash, but I'm way too nervous to risk smashing it up and then getting only $800 for it.
We currently have it licensed as an antique so it can't be my primary driver. We're going to get a safety inspection and then license it as a regular car so it can be my primary driver and my Corvette my secondary car. We still have to inspect the steering, suspension, and brakes to make sure it'll pass so there may be some work to be done yet. I know it needs strut rod bushings and we have those waiting to go in. Other than that so far it seems to brake and steer nicely so maybe I'll get lucky and all it will need is the strut rod bushings.
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Yea I wouldn't drive it to the carwash. I would also be afraid of someone hiting it. I don't know if they have the same laws as washington down there. But up here the insurance company has to pay for all the new parts. Did you keep all the reciepts for the apraisal.
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Yes Max, I kept most, if not all of the receipts, with the exception of the used parts I bought from other Eagle nest members. Even so, I estimate I've got $6-8000 in receipts and likely a lot closer to the 8 than the 6. We have insurance run by the provincial government here and sometimes they aren't always truthful about what the law says they can and cannot do, but I know they have a database of what used cars sell for and if a car is damaged they compare the cost of damages to the typical selling price of that used car. So from what I got from the insurance agent they say the typical selling price of a used 81 Eagle is $800 so that's what they offer you if your car has more than $799 damage to it. I have sued them twice in the past over this and won but I wouldn't want to depend on succeeding again, that was a long time ago and perhaps the law has changed since then.
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i am sorry thats just wrong. every person who has restored a car has alot more money in to it then any plain jane used car out there!! thats just my feelings.
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Priya, I've watched this thread since Day One...June 1, 2008. As you near completion I'm in awe of how far it's come.
Congratulations! :occasion14: :eagle:
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i am sorry thats just wrong. every person who has restored a car has alot more money in to it then any plain jane used car out there!! thats just my feelings.
Yes, they're pretty sleazy when they can get away with it.
Priya, I've watched this thread since Day One...June 1, 2008. As you near completion I'm in awe of how far it's come.
Congratulations! :occasion14: :eagle:
Thanks for sticking with me all this time eaglebeek, nice to have someone here from the beginning. Its been slow going, but I kept at it. :)
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Several of us have been with you all the way and we still are. Keep on keepin' on. You are an inspiration to us. I am really looking forward to pictures from that first long Eagle trip.
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Congrats on your first drive! What a great feeling to get behind the wheel and drive the car after all the work and love you've put into the car! Enjoy it!
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Priya,
Your input and the info from your thread is what inspired me to buy my Eagle in Nebraska a couple of years ago. I remember you commenting that it was so rust free that it was worth the $2500 asking price just in the savings in rust repair. On that comment, I pulled the trigger and went for it. Not once have I been sorry for it!
Can we count on you and the hubby making it to Cordova this year and bring your SX4? If you have the time, I'm sure we can all come together to help you with the dime!
Keep it in mind. After all your hard work, it will be great for you to show it off.
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Several of us have been with you all the way and we still are. Keep on keepin' on. You are an inspiration to us. I am really looking forward to pictures from that first long Eagle trip.
Thanks a lot Jim, I should have realized that there are many like you who've watched this from the start and given me so much encouragment and support that really helped keep me going until I could get this done. I couldn't have done this without the Eagle nest.
Congrats on your first drive! What a great feeling to get behind the wheel and drive the car after all the work and love you've put into the car! Enjoy it!
Thanks Vangremlin. It felt pretty weird to actually be driving the car rather than just looking at it stationary and tinkering away on it - like "I can't believe I'm actually driving this thing!".
Priya,
Your input and the info from your thread is what inspired me to buy my Eagle in Nebraska a couple of years ago. I remember you commenting that it was so rust free that it was worth the $2500 asking price just in the savings in rust repair. On that comment, I pulled the trigger and went for it. Not once have I been sorry for it!
Can we count on you and the hubby making it to Cordova this year and bring your SX4? If you have the time, I'm sure we can all come together to help you with the dime!
Keep it in mind. After all your hard work, it will be great for you to show it off.
That's really nice to hear Rohnk, I'm glad you decided to pull the trigger and buy a sound eagle, there aren't that many left and as you can see from this project its way more expensive and time consuming to make rust repairs than it is to buy a solid body at a fair price to begin with.
I'll talk to the hubby about Cordova, some funding would make a difference but I'm not sure about this year as we want to put some significant miles on the eagle locally to make sure we shake out any bugs before we take it on a long trip. I'm a pretty shy person in reality as well so groups of people make me a little nervous.
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My SX/4 just got appraised at $18,000. Its now officially the most valuable car I've ever owned. It even appraised for more than my 79 Corvette which is in great original condition. At least now I can get it insured for something closer to what has actually gone into the car.
:blob1:
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WOW!!! That's impressive! I guess it helps that you saved all your receipts. I wonder how much mine would be appraised for. I'm driving TQ with just liability. They wouldn't even let me do full coverage because of how old it was. I should probably have it appraised though. How much did it cost you to have it appraised?
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It was $169, more than I was expecting but I think its well worth it. Your's is in great original condition, I'd certainly get it appraised, you don't want to total it off and then get nothing for it.
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I can't wait to get it on the road either, but we're kind of strapped for cash right now so it might have to wait a bit until we can pay for the insurance. Also, I tried to put in a universal speedometer cable yesterday and it slid into the sheath farther than I thought it should so I might have cut it too short and will need to get another one. I'm going to go out later today and check it.
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$169 is a bargain for the added protection, and 18k :o Awesome! Maybe the vette should be the winter comuter ::) lol. Your hard work has definitely paid off, congrats :occasion14:.
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Maybe the vette should be the winter comuter
LOL, I thought the same thing when I got the appraisal back, now I'm having second thoughts about this being my winter car.
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I took the SX/4 for its first real drive a few days ago. To my dismay the speedometer is ticking as I drive and the needle jumping so I've got to take the instrument cluster out yet again, its already been in and out several times and to my further dismay I noticed one of those times I scratched the steering column and my carefully painted "brushed aluminum" insert on the instrument cluster. The car ran super nice until I got into the parking lot at the dentists office and then it started idling rough and stalling in drive. 45 minutes later I got in and drove to my husband's work to show it to his boss. It ran perfectly there and back home, so I'm scratching my head about that one. Same thing when I went back to the dentist yesterday.
We took it to my husband's work and he put it up on the hoist to check the front end and do a wheel alignment. He replaced the strut rod bushings and got most of the readings in spec except one which he couldn't improve upon for reasons he explained to me but went in one ear and out the other. I know he pointed out the camber cam bushings were partially seized up or something and I don't think he's been able to find replacements new yet but he's pretty sure he can make replacments on his lathe and milling machine. The rear springs are sagging so that affected how much he was able to do on the alignment.
So, I'll be replacing the rear springs soon. Although the car handles nicely on the highway when making turns around town the wheel turns lightly then gets stiff and then turns lightly and so on. Its kind of disconcerting because you're not sure you're turning as fast as necessary, or maybe too fast depending on how you compensate. We discussed it and Ward says we should just replace every steering piece (bushings, tie rods, ball joints, etc.) rather than him trying to track down which piece(s) are causing the binding. We don't have a cost for all these parts yet, we may order them today, but I'm getting kind of anxious as I watch the funds I set aside to modify my Corvette dwindle significantly.
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I would concur with Casper on the cable.Unless the connection at either end isn't seated in all the way.
Priya , I forgot if you are in the US or Canada ?? ( I should know this right ) lol
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with the speedo cable, alot of times when they bounce and tick, its the cable itself having some sort of drag on it. look all along the cable housing for any sharp kinks, or a clamp that may be to tight. good luck with that. great to hear its driving now. i bet it turned lots of heads!
I pulled the cluster yesterday and had a closer look at the cable. The universal cable I put in has a drive end that you stake on with the "tool" they include. It didn't work particularly well and the speedometer drive end is tilted to one side and also does a bit of a zig zag (because I think I hit it too hard with the staking tool) so I'm pretty sure that's why its ticking, the drive part of the cable core is crooked and it binds on every turn.
Yes, the Eagle turns a lot of heads. We had it behind the garage yesterday so we could install a heater on the roof and a couple of young guys came down the alley, slammed on the brakes and exclaimed "Wow! Nice!" They asked "What kind of car is that?" and I said "AMC Eagle". The driver said "Oh, that's a chrysler then.". I said "Well, chrysler now, but they were a seperate company back then.". He replied "Oh, well, its the same thing then, its a Chrysler, I could tell because it looks just like one of those Daytonas or Lasers."
I would concur with Casper on the cable.Unless the connection at either end isn't seated in all the way.
Priya , I forgot if you are in the US or Canada ?? ( I should know this right ) lol
I also think the universal cable may have been slightly too long, I'm not sure if that contributed to the binding but I made sure the replacement was the same length as the original. Ward's going to make some sort of staking tool on the lathe so we can get the drive end of the new cable on straight. He says the one they include with the cable is crap and its common that the drive end ends up on crooked.
I'm in Canada in the prairie provinces.
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I "should" of rememebred because I shipped you a part , and I "could" of just looked at your sig.
You know I think I have a brand new cluster in KPH or whatever it's called with 0 miles.
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I "should" of rememebred because I shipped you a part , and I "could" of just looked at your sig.
You know I think I have a brand new cluster in KPH or whatever it's called with 0 miles.
Cool! Could you send me a picture of it, front and back?
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Hubby finished making the tool to crimp on the drive to the universal speedometer cable, its quite the piece of work. On the upper left is the universal speedometer drive shaft and the staking/crimping "tool" that comes with it and which worked poorly for me. The blocks of steel are the two halfs of the advanced tool. It took Ward a couple of hours on the lathe to make.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1420-1.jpg)
Here's how the advanced tool looks assembled:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1421-1.jpg)
The universal speedometer drive shaft fits in between the two halves and hopefully one smack of the hammer will put it on straight. I'm leaving this one for hubby to do, lol.
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That is some nice work !!Hats of to the Ward.
I have a few lathes in the shop that I use occasionally, and a bridgeport milling machine that still isn't set up yet.
I will send you a pic of the cluster - not even sure why I bought it - except it was available ::)
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Priya, MORE PICTURES!? Pleeeeeeeeease? full interior, exterior, motor, ect?
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Priya, MORE PICTURES!? Pleeeeeeeeease? full interior, exterior, motor, ect?
I've got some exterior pictures, but I've been waiting to get some interior pictures before I post them.
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or a video of her finished...
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or a video of her finished...
That would require washing it again and I'm lazy and it keeps raining every few days and getting it muddy again.
I'll see what I can do.
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Here are the additional pictures I promised. I had hoped to do a little better but they didn't come out too bad so I thought I'd post them anyway. I wanted to wait for a slightly overcast day to take pictures of the interior so that it would be evenly and brightly lit without the sharp shadows a sunny day would show. I had a couple of days like that but I was feeling too frazzled to clean the interior so I waited until today when it was supposed to be partially cloudy. It wasn't but after the sun dipped behind some trees I thought the lighting might be okay so I gave it a whirl:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1662.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1664.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1667.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1669.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1679.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1678.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1677.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1675.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1673.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1670.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1669.jpg)
For the exterior pictures I wanted a sunny day with a nice background. These would have been better if behind me had been a blank wall or empty sky as the trees behind me created undesirable reflections in the paint but once again they aren't too terribly bad:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1467.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1461.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1473.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1481.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1478.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1475.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1477.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1466.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1467.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1458.jpg)
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1483.jpg)
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Thanks for posting those, I've been wanting to see it in it's full glory for a while now.
If you're ever out driving, and you see either someone in a beat-up beige eagle wagon, or a dark bronze Subaru Legacy honking at you like crazy, that's me.
We got thru Sask. once in a while, just so you know.
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Thanks for posting those, I've been wanting to see it in it's full glory for a while now.
If you're ever out driving, and you see either someone in a beat-up beige eagle wagon, or a dark bronze Subaru Legacy honking at you like crazy, that's me.
We got thru Sask. once in a while, just so you know.
I'll keep an eye out for you. ;)
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That thing looks great Priya. Don't be ashamed to show it in any and all lighting/background conditions!
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Stellar :occasion14:
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That thing looks great Priya. Don't be ashamed to show it in any and all lighting/background conditions!
Thanks Prafeston. I actually studied this picture of yours to figure out how to do mine because I thought you took one of the best Eagle pictures I've seen.
(http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy46/Prafeston/IMG_1580.jpg)
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Stellar :occasion14:
Thanks Shaggimo. I'm surprised by how much attention it gets. When I was taking the pictures there was a lot of people walking by and they were saying "Wow, nice car", "She's beautiful!". "Is it for sale?", "What kind of car is that?" and so on. A couple of guys speaking a language I didn't recognize walked up to it and were all "Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz" and then they carefully looked over the interior and exterior. The other day I was returning home and some guy followed me and pulled up behind me when I got to the house and asked if he could take pictures, said he had a number of 79/80 Spirits including an AMX and asked me all about it. Another day I glanced outside and saw someone walking by pull out a camera and start taking pictures. I'm just thrilled to pieces having this thing running and being able to drive it, it feels sooooo good! I actually like it more than my Corvette and unlike with the Corvette I feel great pride in having done it myself rather than having simply bought it this way.
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Awesome Priya! Glad you liked my photos. I really liked some of the ones I took of ol' TQ. I do photography as a hobby so I kind of pride myself in my photographs.
This is still one of my favorites!
(http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy46/Prafeston/20120412_184217.jpg)
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Thanks pryia looks awesome
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Thank you, Hawk258.
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hummanahummanahummanahummana..wow! Looks great! You must be one proud mama of that baby bird.
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hummanahummanahummanahummana..wow! Looks great! You must be one proud mama of that baby bird.
Yes, I'm so very proud of having finally accomplished this. Words can't describe how tickled pink I am to be driving this now. I'm just so totally thrilled every time I take it anywhere, it feels like it was made just for me and in a way it was. I've never owned a new car but I think owning this must be how it feels to buy a new car.
;D
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I sat down and read this whole thing from post one yesterday. So impressed! Did you learn any lessons from this that you'll apply to future projects? Have any advice for us newbies getting started on our own projects?
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I sat down and read this whole thing from post one yesterday. So impressed! Did you learn any lessons from this that you'll apply to future projects? Have any advice for us newbies getting started on our own projects?
Thanks unpossible. One of the lessons I learned was the same one I learn every project but keep seeming to forget - its always worse than it looks so when you're contemplating starting a project keep that in mind. Initially I thought I had a couple of small holes in the rocker to fix but once I got started testing with a scratch awl and got the interior out I saw most of the inner and outer rockers gone and when hubby encouraged me to replace them entirely I was pretty reluctant to committ to that. If I had it to do over again I'd have replaced even more sheet metal than I did because for example on the passenger side I kept part of the original outer and inner rocker and after replacing portions of those panels I sandblasted the remaining original panel and found a number of pinholes I welded up, then more sandblasting and more holes to weld and so on. I eventually got them all, but it would have been better to just replace that entire panel. Often portions of the outside of a panel surrounding a rusty area look pretty good and may even still be covered in paint but the interior surface has deep rust pits and what appears good should be replaced. Even though it may look good plan on replacing a bigger area than you think you need to. Test with a sharp object like a scractch awl, place it in various places over the suspect area and tap lightly to see if it goes through - it will not go through solid sheet metal but it may also be the case that there are a number of areas where the panel is pretty thin and you won't hit them with the pointy object and you'll think its good when it would be better to replace it (that's what happend to me on the passenger side rocker panel). If you can see or feel the backside of the panel and the panel isn't reasonably smooth (even if there is a light coating of rust) replace it anyway.
The other thing I learned, is that despite how long it takes you don't want to rush it. The body work on the car I did prior to this came out flawlessly but on this one there are numerous minor imperfections in the paint that can be seen if one looks for them. After I had done all the bodywork I was doing the final prep for paint and we arranged with a co-worker of Wards to paint it on a particular weekend. I felt rushed to get it ready and didn't spend the time I should have to make sure the final surface was perfectly smooth and it showed up in the finished product. It looks good if you don't look too closely at it, but if you scrutinize the car to see how good the paint job was you can notice a lot of minor flaws. If I had to do it all over again I'd have ensured I got another 2 to 3 weeks to do the final surface prep and make sure it was as good as possible.
Although there is a lot of work to repairing rust if you have the right attitude you can stick with it and get it done. I'm not the most highly motivated person in the world, I'm prone to depression and often easily discouraged but I managed to see it through by keeping this in mind - once you've realistically appraised the project and decided you are committed to completing all the work you estimate it will take stop thinking about what the whole job entails. Instead focus on short term goals and ignore the rest. When you go out to work on the car think "My goal is to remove this old rusty panel and prep the surface for a replacement and that will be an accomplishment". When you're done that think "My goal is to form a replacement panel (buy already made if you can) and that will be an accomplishment." and then "My goal is to weld in this new panel and that's all I'm thinking about accomplishing at this time" and so on. Don't think about the entire amount of work you have in front of you as it can seem overwhelming if you do. Just remind yourself that if you keep accomplishing small goals on a regular basis you will get it all done. A lot of days I really didn't want to go out to the garage and work on the car, it was raining, or cold, or I just felt down but I told myself "Let's go out and at least do a little bit, even if its only 1/2 hour and then I'll still be making progress even if its slow." and that's what I did.
Even though I don't have a job I found the most I could consistently manage with my depression prone low motivated self was typically about 12 to 15 hours a week although there were times I put in much longer hours such as when I was doing the final prep for paint I put in a few 40 hour weeks. A motivated person with a full time job can do this sort of restoration weekends and evenings and do it in the same number of months I took or less. I know some people on the Eagle nest with full time jobs have done so and I can't tell you how impressed I am with that. For me that wouldn't have been possible, when I worked full time it was all I could do to handle that and any thing other than relaxation on evenings and weekends was out of the question. You have to decide how big the project is and how much time you can consistently put in over the long haul to complete the project. If you commit to a large project be determined to work on it on a regular basis even if you don't spend much time on it and at some point you will complete it. I just kept telling myself "If I keep at it it'll get done, if I keep at it it'll get done" and it did.
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wow :hello2: looking good
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Thanks, Eagleneer :)
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Love what you did to your Eagle.. Made feel inferior and envious..
But as a bonus gives me something to strive for..
SpreadEagle
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If I can do it, anyone can Spreadeagle. Good luck on your project.
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I sat down and read this whole thing from post one yesterday. So impressed! Did you learn any lessons from this that you'll apply to future projects? Have any advice for us newbies getting started on our own projects?
Thanks unpossible. One of the lessons I learned was the same one I learn every project but keep seeming to forget - its always worse than it looks so when you're contemplating starting a project keep that in mind. Initially I thought I had a couple of small holes in the rocker to fix but once I got started testing with a scratch awl and got the interior out I saw most of the inner and outer rockers gone and when hubby encouraged me to replace them entirely I was pretty reluctant to committ to that. If I had it to do over again I'd have replaced even more sheet metal than I did because for example on the passenger side I kept part of the original outer and inner rocker and after replacing portions of those panels I sandblasted the remaining original panel and found a number of pinholes I welded up, then more sandblasting and more holes to weld and so on. I eventually got them all, but it would have been better to just replace that entire panel. Often portions of the outside of a panel surrounding a rusty area look pretty good and may even still be covered in paint but the interior surface has deep rust pits and what appears good should be replaced. Even though it may look good plan on replacing a bigger area than you think you need to. Test with a sharp object like a scractch awl, place it in various places over the suspect area and tap lightly to see if it goes through - it will not go through solid sheet metal but it may also be the case that there are a number of areas where the panel is pretty thin and you won't hit them with the pointy object and you'll think its good when it would be better to replace it (that's what happend to me on the passenger side rocker panel). If you can see or feel the backside of the panel and the panel isn't reasonably smooth (even if there is a light coating of rust) replace it anyway.
The other thing I learned, is that despite how long it takes you don't want to rush it. The body work on the car I did prior to this came out flawlessly but on this one there are numerous minor imperfections in the paint that can be seen if one looks for them. After I had done all the bodywork I was doing the final prep for paint and we arranged with a co-worker of Wards to paint it on a particular weekend. I felt rushed to get it ready and didn't spend the time I should have to make sure the final surface was perfectly smooth and it showed up in the finished product. It looks good if you don't look too closely at it, but if you scrutinize the car to see how good the paint job was you can notice a lot of minor flaws. If I had to do it all over again I'd have ensured I got another 2 to 3 weeks to do the final surface prep and make sure it was as good as possible.
Although there is a lot of work to repairing rust if you have the right attitude you can stick with it and get it done. I'm not the most highly motivated person in the world, I'm prone to depression and often easily discouraged but I managed to see it through by keeping this in mind - once you've realistically appraised the project and decided you are committed to completing all the work you estimate it will take stop thinking about what the whole job entails. Instead focus on short term goals and ignore the rest. When you go out to work on the car think "My goal is to remove this old rusty panel and prep the surface for a replacement and that will be an accomplishment". When you're done that think "My goal is to form a replacement panel (buy already made if you can) and that will be an accomplishment." and then "My goal is to weld in this new panel and that's all I'm thinking about accomplishing at this time" and so on. Don't think about the entire amount of work you have in front of you as it can seem overwhelming if you do. Just remind yourself that if you keep accomplishing small goals on a regular basis you will get it all done. A lot of days I really didn't want to go out to the garage and work on the car, it was raining, or cold, or I just felt down but I told myself "Let's go out and at least do a little bit, even if its only 1/2 hour and then I'll still be making progress even if its slow." and that's what I did.
Even though I don't have a job I found the most I could consistently manage with my depression prone low motivated self was typically about 12 to 15 hours a week although there were times I put in much longer hours such as when I was doing the final prep for paint I put in a few 40 hour weeks. A motivated person with a full time job can do this sort of restoration weekends and evenings and do it in the same number of months I took or less. I know some people on the Eagle nest with full time jobs have done so and I can't tell you how impressed I am with that. For me that wouldn't have been possible, when I worked full time it was all I could do to handle that and any thing other than relaxation on evenings and weekends was out of the question. You have to decide how big the project is and how much time you can consistently put in over the long haul to complete the project. If you commit to a large project be determined to work on it on a regular basis even if you don't spend much time on it and at some point you will complete it. I just kept telling myself "If I keep at it it'll get done, if I keep at it it'll get done" and it did.
That's a lot like my motto...only mine goes more like this ..."I think I can, I think I can, .....whoops". But eventually I know it will get done also. Your car looks great!
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Thanks Isoar.
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:hello2: WOW Priya!!!! you really did a fantastic job! absolutely beautiful!! you have inspired me to continue on mine and really make it like i want it... not just halfarsed.
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Glad to hear it Mojobean. Thanks for the compliment :)
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Yea I got a few projects an even after they are on the road there is always something to fix or you want to change bout it they are never ending. But one thing you use them as daily driver no car payments an no technology like the new ones to deal with an you know what has been replaced an how to work on it since most places don't now of days they just know modern vehicles not the old ones.
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Right Kalve - Ive got about $1200 worth of parts to be installed in the SX/4 yet and it needs new rear leaf springs but unfortunately I'm broke now.
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I paid $700 for mine an hauling it home bout $1,000 before I got started on it an probably now bout $1,500-$2,000 in it at a guess without adding everything up.
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Its two weeks shy of a year that I've had my Eagle on the road and I've got about 1070 kilometers on it or about 640 miles - I sure feel like I don't get to drive it enough. After adjusting the choke, idle mixture and the idle speed settings on both primary and secondary throttle plates I've got it running pretty nicely for most driving conditions but it hesitates on sudden moderate acceleration, tends to stall in winter when cold and just comming off idle, and pulls unevenly at full throttle when at operating temperature.. I decided today was a good time to make the changes to the Holley 390 cfm carb that the maker of the intake (Clifford) recommends for a six cylinder engine of up to 260 cubic inches. This consists of a larger accelerator pump discharge nozzel (from .025 to .031), a power valve that comes on sooner (from opening at 6.5 inches of mercury to opening 8.5 inches of mercury), and slightly smaller main jets (from #51 to #48). When I pulled the primary float bowl off to do this I was very surprised to find:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1915.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF1915.jpg.html)
Yes, that's about 1/4 inch of rusty sediment on the bottom of the metering plate, think that might have something to do with the uneven acceleration at full throttle? And that's with a fuel filter before the fuel pump and one after the fuel pump. That's what a car sitting for a dozen or so years with a few gallons of fuel in the tank will get you, even after flushing it to try to clean it out. Hopefully cleaning out the carb and making the other changes will fix the drivability issues.
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I'm actually really surprised you didn't use TBI on your car. It has top notch attention to detail throughout the car, it would be a very appropriate investment to get the TBI kit for it. You have already made your Eagle appear better than it did when it was brand new, priya, so I hope you're able to get it to run better than a brand new car too!
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For the most part I really wasn't looking to improve the driving experience, I was very happy with the way my first carbureted Eagle ran and that's why I decided not to make major changes to it and stuck with carburetion. My goal with this build was to duplicate what my previous eagle had and to hopefully gain slight improvements in gas mileage and power. My previous experience with a Holley carburetor was great so it was the obvious choice for this build. I really am no good at electrical and electronics systems and had a budget so I never considered fuel injection for this car. Other than the occaisional hesitation upon acceleration I was very pleased with the way the car was running prior to the changes I made yesterday. In most driving situations it ran beautifully and idled perfectly in drive at a stoplight purring like a kitten.
I took it out today to test out the changes I made and initial results were good - ran smoothly, idled nicely with an occaisional chug and the hesitation at sudden moderate acceleration was gone. I took it out on the highway and did a number of zero to 60 full throttle runs and it accelerated smoothly and strong. Upon returning from the highway the idle was noticeably worsened and now it'll idle smoothly for 10 seconds or so and then get rough and stall. I'm not sure if I sucked more crap into it from the tank with the full throttle runs, or when I had it apart I loosened up some of the dirt that was in it and it worked its way into blocking some passage or something. I'm tempted to take the carb off and go entirely through it but on the other hand if piles of crap are still coming out of the gas tank that might be a waste of time. With the acceleration problems resolved now I just need to re-establish the great idle I had up until today.
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So, hubby volunteered to look at the Eagle tonight. We went out and fired it up and while it was idling rough he opened the idle mixture screws he said not even 1/4 turn and the idle smoothed right out and now its idling like a top in drive with the brake on. Previously I had the idle mixture screws opened only 3/4 turn on one and about 5/8 turn on the other. Hopefully it continues running like this, but I'll see over the next few weeks.
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Well, the Eagle went into storage for the summer yesterday. :'(
I told hubby I wanted my Corvette going and we can't afford to have both cars licensed at the same time so I won't be driving my Eagle again until fall. I'm having seperation anxiety already. I only got to put about 10 city miles on it since the carb changes/adjustments but it did run beautifully - wish I could have given it more of a testing than that, but what are you going to do? I took it to a car club's A&W cruise night to show it off and although the club members mostly ignored me (perhaps they felt I was intruding) the people that did look at it liked it a lot. Ward figured it appealed to women in particular. I was hoping to take it to an open show and shine on June 22nd, but maybe I can convince hubby to pull it out of storage and put a one day permit on it for that.
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HI Priya I am caught up to your last post .I would like to know what you did to the car this summer. do you have the car out now.
We have frizzing rain and snow hear today in west MI .please up date . A FAN.....don
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Hi Don,
I am driving the car now. Prior to that I made some adjustments to the 390 holley as the intake manufacturer Clifford recommended for a vehicle with up to 260 cubic inches and it eliminated a tendency for the car to bog or stall when the gas pedal was pressed on quickly. At that time I noticed a lot of rust/sludge in the carb and cleaned it out. Its been running really sweet since then but when I had it out on Friday I noticed a bit of a bog back in it until it warmed up. I'm suspecting its collecting more rust/sludge from the fuel tank because the car sat for 15 years. It would have been nice if I could have gotten a new tank for it but I'll just have to keep cleaning it out until it stops. I've got two fuel filters on it but this really fine stuff is still slipping through.
The brakes were causing some trouble with them working normally while comming to a stop and then the pedal suddenly would start sinking to the floorboards. The car would stop but it was pretty disconcerting. We got a new master cylinder for it and went to install it Saturday but discovered it was leaking when we were bench bleeding it. So, waiting for another new master cylinder to come in. The rear axle was also quite noisy and my husband suspected a bad differential. We removed the differential plug and he found water in the differential and the fluid low so now we're looking for a replacement with 3.07 gears.
Despite all that I'm absolutely thrilled with the car, it does a lot better on gas than my Corvette and is pretty spunky for a 80's six cylinder. I get lots of thumbs up when I'm driving it and there's always someone wanting to ask me about it.
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... and another thumbs up from this direction.
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Thanks for the update Priya! Glad to hear you are still around and still working on making the SX/4 one of the coolest ones out there! Hope everything gets sorted out and you are back on the road in no time! Keep updating and more pics as always! :)
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:occasion14: Wondered if you were coming back
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Priya, it's good to see you posting on here. And I'm pleased to read you're driving your Eagle and enjoying it. :eagle:
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Thanks everyone.
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it´s always nice to see your project result again and again . and wellcome back priya
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good to see you on here priya.
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HI thank you for the update .I am glad to see that you are still working on and improving on work already done .the car looks great I wish silver looked that good .silver is in line for some paint has to wait for my grandson to fit it in . off subject again I am good at that ......a fan don
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Good luck with Silver Teneagle.
Thanks Eagler and Maddog.
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Hi Priya,.. Let us know when you find the cause of your fading brakes. I'm having a similar problem with mine, One morning my pedal just hit the floor so I checked for low fluid, but it was still full. So I decided the master cylinder must be the culprit and changed it. That solved nothing, so since I can't find any leaks, fluid or vacuum, I'm thinking possibly the booster. I keep thinking I must be missing somthing. If you or anyone else have any ideas, I would appreciate the help. Thanks
.
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Isoar, we replaced the master cylinder, my husband was sure this was the problem. The previous brake fade was intermittent and I've only driven the car once since the master cylinder was replaced so although the brakes worked properly on that drive I suppose that doesn't prove it is fixed. I'll ask Ward about your brakes later.
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Sounds like air in the system somewhere. Did you bench bleed the master cylinder? And the rest of the system after you installed the MC?
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Hi Priya,.. Let us know when you find the cause of your fading brakes. I'm having a similar problem with mine, One morning my pedal just hit the floor so I checked for low fluid, but it was still full. So I decided the master cylinder must be the culprit and changed it. That solved nothing, so since I can't find any leaks, fluid or vacuum, I'm thinking possibly the booster. I keep thinking I must be missing somthing. If you or anyone else have any ideas, I would appreciate the help. Thanks
.
Isoar, here's what my husband said:
I have never seen a booster cause a pedal to go to the floor
with no brakes. They will fail and cause no power boost, or
self apply and lock the brakes up.
The master cylinder that was installed - was it used or new?
More importantly, was it bench bled before installing? The master cylinder in an Eagle sits with quite a "nose up"
attitude in the car, if it was not propery bench bled before
installation there will be air in the master cylinder bore that
will not bleed out. Best of luck.
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Sounds like air in the system somewhere. Did you bench bleed the master cylinder? And the rest of the system after you installed the MC?
I did bleed the master cylinder, but I still believe this is the problem. I was unable to bleed the rest of the system as I was never able to achieve pedal pressure. I will remove the MC and bleed it again. Thanks.
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Isoar, here's what my husband said:
I have never seen a booster cause a pedal to go to the floor
with no brakes. They will fail and cause no power boost, or
self apply and lock the brakes up.
The master cylinder that was installed - was it used or new?
More importantly, was it bench bled before installing? The master cylinder in an Eagle sits with quite a "nose up"
attitude in the car, if it was not propery bench bled before
installation there will be air in the master cylinder bore that
will not bleed out. Best of luck.
Priya, makes sense to me about the booster and yes the MC was a new one. I feel like I must not have gotten it bled completely or correctly. Tomorrow I will remove it again and see if I can do a better job. Thanks to you and your husband.
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The issue of a master allowing the system to drop can also mean the rear brakes fell apart or one of the 3 hoses has turned into a balloon.
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HI Priya was just wondering how you were doing and how the car was coming along you said you were having trouble with the carb ,brakes and rear end .I under stand the brakes are fixed and I thought if the rear end wasn't fixed you weren't driving the car . So fill me in on what is going with the EAGLE ...I passed on the rear end joke OK A fan don
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Hi teneagle. I'm doing well. I haven't looked at the carb or rearend but I'm still driving the car. I'm a little nervous about driving it with the rearend so noisy but I only take short trips in the city so I should be okay. The car idles a little rough until the motor warms up and then runs nicely. I'm thinking there is likely dirt in the carb but the rough idle when cold might have something to do with the car being in a heated garage and then when I take it out into the cold the carb gets confused between the somewhat warm motor and the suddenly drastically colder air outside. Its not enough of an issue that I'm going to take the carb off at this time and pull it apart to see how much dirt is in it. If the car sits for an hour or two outside in the cold when I'm on my trip there doesn't seem to be this issue with rough idle as it warms up.
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HI Priya It sounds like your on the right track with the carb .I have never had any luck with that kind of carb And .the rear end the trouble I have had with rear ends .I had a ax4 that I parted it had a good rear .the front rear was gone I was going to keep it but that's another story ... You have to find the right ratio on the ring and pinion .... good lock finding a rear end ..Is the sx4 rear the same as the wagon or not don't know about that .........don
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I've had good luck with Holley carbs so that's why I got this one. I'm pretty sure the rearend is the same on all of the eagles.
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All of your Eagles, Priya? Or all Eagles? The 2.35's are kind of in a world of their own in some ways, while the rest of them have different ring/pinion gear combo's. Check our parts manuals to see where the differences are at. If I do come out Seattle way when the American Convertible goes up for sale I will have to stop by and see all of our Seattle folks.
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I didn't mean to suggest that all the rearends in Eagles are identical, I know there's a wide array of gear ratios available. What I was saying was that to my knowledge the physical dimensions and attachment points are the same on the rear ends in all eagles but of course I defer to those with more knowledge.
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OK -- I bet Capt Spilane is the expert in that area. Yes, AFAIK, attachment points and outside physical dimensions are the same within model lines (30 vs. 50). All were AMC 15 (Dana 35) rear ends.
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HI Priya and I E the reason I ask about the 30 verses 50 is because I have a wagon rear .but if they are different and it wont fete so much for that ....some time you hit it lucky on the ring and pinion ratio . that's why I Sade good luck with that ....there are so many things that I would like to ask but you don't know yet what is wrong with the rear end ..I hope you will let me know when you find out I hope its not real bad ......a fan don.....
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Don, we're planning on replacing it when we get the money together. Hubby figures because of the water in the case the ring and pinion and bearings need to be replaced. He talked about getting new pieces and putting them in and figured that'd be pretty pricey so he wants to buy a used rear when we can afford it.
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All AMC Eagle rear axles are identical and interchangeable. Even the right axleshaft from an SX4 can be swapped with the left axleshaft on a wagon.
Doug, you're thinking about FRONT axles being different castings for 2.35 gear ratio. The rear axles are all the same center casting and carriers as each other and also Jeep XJ Dana 35 axles.
As I understand it, the front axles are all the same and accept any gear ratio from 2.35 to 3.54 as long as they are not the infamous oddball casting. The oddball casting was used with 2.35 ratio only, and only from 1982 to maybe 1988. The change occurred around the time the disconnect was added, and initially the oddball casting was only disconnect axles for the year or two you could choose either. I don't know if they did away with the oddball casting in later years after the disconnect was removed again. If you have 2.73 or higher gears in your Eagle you can put any ratio, including 2.35, into both the front and back regardless of year. If you have a 1981 or older Eagle you can do it too even if you had 2.35 gears in the past.
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Thanks. captspillane , for clarifying that for me and others. So it sounds like my '82 probably has the oddball front diff.
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HI captspillane thank you for the info yes this helps .....don
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HI Priya I can understand when we can afford it ...all the Pisces would be kind of pricey .and you don't know were the water is coming in at....... later a fan don
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The car orginally had a trailer hitch on it. Hubby speculates that it the car had been used to launch a boat and backed into a lake. I seem to vaguely recall the owner I bought it from saying he towed a boat with it. Anyway according to Ward that is a common way water gets into rear differentials.
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If it helps, depending what ratio you want, look at the Jeep Cherokees. I put an 8.25 with 3.08 ratio in my wagon, but the earlier XJs often ran lower ratios like 3.55 and 3.73. Quite a few 4 cyls even had 4.10s. The Dana 35 (same oval rear cover as the Eagle) will bolt directly in with only the shock mounts needing to be swapped.
The higher ratio diffs aren't popular with the Jeep guys and the one piece axle shafts are a nice upgrade.
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Yes, I'd definitely be interested in a rear end from a Jeep - I didn't know they fit. It'd be a lot easier to find a rearend locally if it came from a Jeep rather than an Eagle. There's supposed to be an axle letter code on the Eagle differentials but we couldn't find one although we only checked the front diff. The tag on it said:
3251265
307 43-14
It seems likely that the bottom numbers represent a 3.07 ratio with 43 teeth on the ring gear and 14 teeth on the pinion gear so that's what we're basing it on. We spun the driveshaft and counted wheel revolutions and Ward estimated a 3.1 rear gear so we're pretty confident it is a 3.07 ratio. I assume 3.08 rear diff out of a Jeep would be close enough to not cause problems?
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Towing Eagles usually had 3.07's.
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Towing Eagles usually had 3.07's.
Yes, it was confusing for me to see that tag on the front differential because according to the Eagle technical service manual (if I read it right) an automatic Eagle with a 258 should have either a 2.72 or 3.31 ratio and there was no 3.07 ratio available in '81. This is what the manual said:
Axle letter code
standard dif twin grip diff ratio
EE FF 3.54
F T 3.08
G S 3.31
H U 2.73
J 2.37
K V 2.53
Trans model 49 State Calif High altitude
Eagle 258 SR4 2.73 2.73 3.08 Man
998 2.72 2.73 3.31 Auto
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3.07 = 3.08 depending how the number is rounded. '80 had 3.07 commonly and that's what my front diff is from. XJs with 4.0L and 5 speed are 3.07 from the factory. D35 uses almost everything the same as the Eagle, including the Ubolts. When I put the 8.25 in mine I had custom ones for the D44 in my truck on hand as well as spring plates from a Dana 60 that lined up nicely. I had to add a leaf anyways so longer Ubolts were needed.
Note that Comanche diffs aren't a bolt in, although they are the same width, etc. You need to weld in spring pads on top of the MJ diff for the Eagle 1 1/2"closer to the backing plate than they are in the Jeep. They also have no shock mounts on the tubes. Same with YJs. If you find a 5 speed MJ with Dana 44 rear, it may be 3.08 but 90% of XJ ones are 3.55.
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I spoke to Ward about it and he said in Saskatchewan its not legal to weld shockmounts, etc. on a rear end housing so he doesn't want to do it.
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Just hop on over to Alberta get the welding done. Oh and if the you the last one to leave Saskatchewan, don't forget to shut the lights off.
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Another way is a plate that bolts between the springs and axle.
Saskatchewan Motor Vehicle code says you can't weld on the springs. It says nothing about axle tubes and shock mounts because that's how they do them from the factory.
Suspension system
21(1)
The suspension system of the vehicle shall:
(a) in the case of a two axle vehicle, distribute the weight of the vehicle and
its load so that no more than 75% of the total weight is carried on one axle;
(b) not have broken or welded leaf or coil springs;
(c) not have loose, bent, cracked, broken or disconnected U-bolts, centre
bolts, mounting shackles, stabilizers, radius rods or equalizers; and
(d) have a bump pad or other secondary device that prevents the frame or
body from contacting the tire or wheel in the event of failure of any component
of the primary suspension system.
(2)
In the case of a type A-1 vehicle, the suspension system shall:
(a) prevent any part of the vehicle other than the tires from contacting the
ground when one tire is flat;
(b) have spring shackles that are not longer than those specified by the
vehicle manufacturer; and
(c) have at least one functional damping device or shock absorber for each wheel.
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HI I have learned so much from this thread ...A wise person ones told me if you go a day with out leaning something its a wasted day ......Well yesterday wasn't wasted ...........don
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Monkeyjoe, the problem is not where the welding is done, its that its not being done by the factory. We can weld as well as most people so if it was okay we'd just do it here.
Carnuck, I'll send that to my husband and see what he says. I also asked why it was okay for the factory to weld them and not us. He said that the factory has the proper jigs to make sure they're welded in the right spots, welding rod that they know is compatible, and a lot of it has to do with newer cars as their rear axle housings are heat treated and if you weld on them you ruin the heat treating. He said if you try to re-heat treat it after the welding then the thing warps and you have to re-machine it but you can't re-machine it because its already been machined once..
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I spoke to Ward and he says on Monday he's going to dig through the relevent documentation at work and copy the applicable sections of the code because he knows there's more to it than what Carnuck has posted. He says he's been through this several times before and has had lengthy discussions with Saskatchewan Government Insurance on this issue to establish what the rules are and has failed a number of safety inspections on vehicles with axle housings that have been welded on.
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I misunderstood you earlier, I figured it was a welding shop that was refusing to weld for you.
I know, down here some shops will not cut out a Catalytic Converter, even if the state does not do emissions testing.
yes, now I remember why I moved out of Canada. That whole "Nanny State" thing. It gets to the point you cant look left or right without breaking some kind of law. That's no way to live.
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Ward got his Saskatchewan safety inspection manual. Section 1 powertrain, subsection 7 says:
Front/rear spindles/axles
Visually and audibly inspect:
a) condition
b) seals
c) wheel bearings
Reject if:
a) - bent, welded
b) - missing, leaking, installed incorrectly
C) - play exceeds manufacturer's specifications, excessive noise
Ward says this manual is the 2006 version and prior to the previous revision (2002 or 2004ish) it would have been okay to weld on the axle but thats no longer allowed.
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Definition of Axle I believe they are talking about he actual axle shaft, not the tube.
the condition of the spindle is no easier to inspect than the condition of the Axle shaft. You may have the loop hole here. It did not say the axle tube. I can see not accepting a welded axle, if the weld fails, the wheel, wheel hub and remainder of the axle could fly off the vehicle. The shaft is treated for hardness, not the tube.
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Ward says he's been back and forth with SGI on this a number of times to clarify and axle includes axle housing.
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Definition of Axle I believe they are talking about he actual axle shaft, not the tube.
the condition of the spindle is no easier to inspect than the condition of the Axle shaft. You may have the loop hole here. It did not say the axle tube. I can see not accepting a welded axle, if the weld fails, the wheel, wheel hub and remainder of the axle could fly off the vehicle. The shaft is treated for hardness, not the tube.
Exactly. The housing is not the axle itself. Check with 4 wheel drive shops in your area. Extra shocks, axle swaps, etc are done all the time. The 2 piece M15 axle shafts are far more unsafe than a shock mount welded to a housing.
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Ward says he's been back and forth with SGI on this a number of times to clarify and axle includes axle housing.
Then he was dealing with some bumblecrat who is NOT an engineer. They weld extra brackets on axles for the government's own vehicles for mounting plows, overload springs, etc. Welding on a fwd rear axle housing is understandably bad because it is considered part of the suspension. Ask him to check the specifications on live axles. Semi-trailer axles are welded on all the time as well. It just has to be done by a Transport Canada certified welder.
Welding on a shock mount won't warp an axle unless you use excessive amounts in a short period of time.
Does he feel the same way about the mounts on the car for shocks? Because the other option is make the car accept the XJ shocks by putting new mounts on it.
There's yet another option: Bolt on shock mounts
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I'm not going to argue with him by proxy. He pays the bills, he makes the rules.
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If I can remember,
I think the old jeeps (1970-1983)ish used a u-bolt "plate" that had a shock mount as part of the plate. So the u-bolt wraps around the axle and into the plate that either sits under or over the springs depending on the configuration. so the shock mount is bolted to the spring pack.
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If I can remember,
I think the old jeeps (1970-1983)ish used a u-bolt "plate" that had a shock mount as part of the plate. So the u-bolt wraps around the axle and into the plate that either sits under or over the springs depending on the configuration. so the shock mount is bolted to the spring pack.
If he doesn't want to save money and possibly your life in the long run, I guess that's up to you guys.
I would NOT tow heavy loads with the M15 rear axle. There was even a recall of some that never got done due to the passenger's side axle nut being over tightened at the factory (twice what the spec was) and the hubs suddenly snapping off. I had it happen on my previous '83 wagon when a truck hit me in a parking lot. I went to leave the lot and my tire came off hub and all before I got 100 feet!
As for the shock plate, that's what I was talking about when I said bolt in mount. Comanches have them and that's what I planned to use on my 8.25 axle before I found out the pattern was wider.
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We don't do any towing with the eagle, and safety is precisely why he won't consider putting in a Jeep rear end. I appreciate the suggestion, but its just not on. If you two want to argue it further please contact SGI directly and take it up with them.
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That happened to about 40% of those cars. It really didn't help AMCs fading image.
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Can you two please start your own thread if you want to talk about this.
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..........HI priya hope you are surviving this cold cold cold wither it is baaaaad here I have a one ton cheve and the drift in front of it is above the hood and about 15 foot long we have had white outs for the last two days cant go any where ..And silver is behind the truck cant get either one out .and the snow blower is brock ..the drive shaft bolt striped ...Its all ways something ....and I don't have a heated shop .stay worm ..........don
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We've had it easy Teneagle. Its been a little above or a little below freezing the past couple of weeks which is much milder than normal. Its supposed to get quite a bit colder tomorrow (back to normal January temperatures). Sorry to hear you're snowed in and your snowblower is broke. i used to live on an acreage with about a 1/8th mile driveway and it often blew in pretty bad. I'd have to shovel up to about 100 feet of the driveway it'd take me 3 or 4 days and often I'd be part way done and it'd blow in again. On the south side of the driveway I'd have a snowbank over six foot tall late into the winter, it was a real bear.
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............HI I know what you mean ..Its only 100 foot from my house to the road and its been drifted shut for two days now and its another 200 foot out to the barn and you cant even walk out there ...my wife is 5.1 and all you can see of her is her head .....the snow is that deep ...re stay worm....................don
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Priya, how about a set of aluminum centercaps for your wheels? I just got the first set completed, and can have more made; as many as are needed.
see pictures here:
http://forums.amcevolution.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1864
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Yes, I'd like that Morten. My husband has started making a set for me but he's gotten stalled on them and I'm still waiting. Do you have a pictue of them you can post here, I'm not a member of AMCevolution.
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If you don't mind I'd like to see a set also.
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You have to be signed in to view? They look great!
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Send me an email and I'll send pix. mbusklein at gmail dot com
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HI the caps are nice ..Can you make some caps for other stiles of wheels ...like the 1999 jeep turbine wheels
like I have for my 83 eagle ...don ;
;D ;D ;D ;D
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HI did you get my P M and what do you thank ......don
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I'm sure they can be made, but I don't have a sample to go from. Not sure how those look.
The ones for the Eagle 5 spokes will have to sell for $500 per set. Not sure if there are enough people willing to spend that much. I have to make 7 sets to get the price down to $500/set.
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HI you are right about that I could not pay that ....thank you .......don
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I'm sure they can be made, but I don't have a sample to go from. Not sure how those look.
The ones for the Eagle 5 spokes will have to sell for $500 per set. Not sure if there are enough people willing to spend that much. I have to make 7 sets to get the price down to $500/set.
Wowzers! Yeah, don't count on finding 7 people to pay $500 bucks for caps. Is it material cost or labor that's so expensive?
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Mostly it's the labor.
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:amc: :amc:
HAY Priya no hear from you in a long time ....I was just wondering how things were going after this long winter ....and if you found what you were looking for ....I keep going through the picts of that beautiful car of yours cant weight to get started on mine .....Talk to me girl ,,,,I am in a good mood .............don
:amc: :amc:
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Hi Don,
Things are going well. All the snow melted, but its snowing today. I'm trying to get a few paint scratches touched up before I put the car away for the summer. I'm driving it another month and then it swaps places with the Corvette. Hubby's got the garage taken up with his truck now, he's putting a new motor in it and putting port fuel injection on a 4 barrel manifold, megasquirt computer, coil on plug ignition, a pre-oiling system where he can pump oil through the motor before he starts it, and so on. Still haven't taken the holley off to see if its full of rust sludge again but its been running pretty well other than a brief bit of rough idle when the motor is partially warm.
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HI Priya Its good to hear every thing is doing well ..I looked at the weather map to see what kind of weather you were getting ....snow yesterday and snow today to ....I don't know if that snow is getting to the ground or not .....
That is a large undertaking ward is taking on ....But if he couldn't do it he would not have started it that is what
I would like to do to silver....I don't like carburetors at all ....Injection is the way to go and the pre-oiling system
is good for cold weather ....the coil-over plug system is the way to go ....he is going to have a crank sensor
some where that is interesting ....you have the wheels turning now ....I don't know how that rust-slug gets in
the carb I have two filters on mine and it still gets in there .....Ask Ward if he would let me know how that comes out....................don
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The snow is hitting the ground but it'll be gone today or tomorrow as its warming up again. Ward's got a milling machine and he milled teeth in the 360's harmonic balancer to provide a crank sensor. I've got two filters on my eagle as well, apparently the rust sludge particles are fine enough to get through both. Although they're not blocked I'm going to try changing both filters anyway and see if that helps.
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HI Priya thank you for the info on the sensor ..he had to do some math to know how to space the groves ...
I bet that tuck some time to set it all up .. on the filters .I have an old tractor 1945 A C --C model the gas
filter is the one with the glass bole on the bottom .the gas comes in the top and has to go through a
stone like filter before it goes to the carb ..most of the fine sediment is trapped in the glass bole I
am going to get one and put it on silver and see how that works we will see ....
coil over plug system that has to be nice ..............don
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I added an armrest/cupholder to my SX/4. I started with the console shown below. I don't remember who I bought it from but he made a perfect cut where the black line is and I used the rear portion to fashion my cupholder/armrest
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/console.png) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/console.png.html)
Started by making the cup itself out of fiberglass:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2285.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2285.jpg.html)
I cut the hole in the front part of the console and laid fiberglass cloth on the inside of it. I used a flat tip on a soldering gun to melt the cloth partially into the plastic. I then cut small chips of ABS from a broken grill and melted them in acetone overnight. With the plastic/acetone mix about the consistancy of maple syrup I spread it thinly over the cloth melted to the plastic to make a more solid attachment. Then another layer of cloth melted in with the soldering gun and more ABS dissolved in acetone to completely cover it and so on. You have to put the mix on in thin layers or the surface hardens before the stuff underneath does and you get bubbles in it as the acetone underneath trys to evaporate through the hardened surface.
aa(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2284.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2284.jpg.html)
After I had 3 or 4 layers of fiberglass cloth bonded to the underside of the ABS plastic I made cuts through the cloth covering the hole so I could use fiberglass resin to bond the cup I made into the console. I slipped the cup through from the top, positioned it and put resin on the loose cloth laying on the cup being careful to keep the resin off the ABS surface of the console as fiberglass does not stick well to ABS. After the cup was bonded in place I filled the underside of the cupholder area with short strand fiberglass. In order to bond the short strand fiberglass to the entire underneath area the last layer of fiberglass cloth I put on was only partially embedded in the ABS with the soldering gun so that the underside of the cloth was sticking to the ABS but the top of the cloth was still clean so the fiberglass could stick to it as seen in the third picture in this post.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2286.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2286.jpg.html)
I got the console to the point where you see it below and was just going to paint it and my husband said that's mickey mouse, you need to build up the console to be even with the top of the cup. So, I got a can of expanding foam insulation to build up the area around the cup planning to fiberglass overtop but the fiberglass dissolved the hardened foam so it was on to plan B. Plan B was to use expanding foam for autobody use which is put in A Pillars and so on of new cars to stiffen them and provide sound deadening. The autobody expanding foam was almost $100 for a small tube! The fiberglass didn't dissolve that so it was full speed ahead.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2287.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2287.jpg.html)
I built walls out of cardboard and taped them to the console to contain the expanding foam and it worked well enough:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2288.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2288.jpg.html)
I used a serated knife to rough in the shape of the foam and then sanded it to finalize the shape:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2292.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2292.jpg.html)
I then cut fiberglass cloth to cover both the plastic and foam part of the cupholder. On the lower plastic part I again used the soldering gun to partially melt the cloth into the plastic and then dissolved bits of ABS plastic in acetone and put thin layers of that over the lower part of the cupholder as you can see in grey in the picture below. I then put fiberglass resin on the cloth covering the upper foam area (green) once again being careful to keep the resin off the ABS and the ABS off the resin. Several layers of fiberglass cloth took a very long time. Then I sanded down the cup holder area to make it level and a few more times had to build up fiberglass resin and ABS after sanding as I'd sanded down to the cloth and still had low areas.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2293.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2293.jpg.html)
I had a lot of trouble with the acetone creating bubbles after layering on the liquid ABS. I poked holes in them with a pin, pushed them down, sanded again, more liquid ABS and so on. It took a very long time to get an even covering of ABS. Eventually I got it painted. The console was apparently not out of an Eagle so I had to shave the bottom part of the console to make it fit the Eagle trans tunnel.
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2295.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2295.jpg.html)
I had a local upholstery shop redo the foam armrest in a purple fabric and here is the final result:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF2369.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF2369.jpg.html)
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Nice job. I also have a console from a Spirit that I plan to install. Mine has the gage pack, which is also going in. And, since the floorboards are slightly different between the Eagle and the Spirit, I will have to cut part of the bottom edge off. Mine is already re-upholstered; ready for install. I just have to remove the seats and maybe carpet so I can see how much to shave off. I hadn't thought of the cupholder idea. Though with my manual shifter, there might not be room. Maybe someone else has a good idea of where to put a cup holder.
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Morten, I'm pretty sure you could put a cupholder in the same place I did and it wouldn't interfere with your manual trans. With mine in place if I pull the trans into 1st there is still plenty of clearence between the shifter and cupholder.
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Nice work Priya! And thanks for the detailed write up.
I have a question for you, I just picked up an Eagle shifter console from the junkyard, it has the cubby hole instead of the gauges. Anyways, the outer portion of it is broken in two, one break at the top and one break in the front. They are clean breaks and I think I can put it back together. How would you recommend putting it back together? I was thinking maybe epoxy in the breaks themselves and then fiberglass and resin behind the cracks, but in your write up you said fiberglass doesn't bond well with the ABS plastic, which I'm assuming the shifter console is made of. Thanks.
Oh, and thanks for the compliment on the perfect cut ;)
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Nice work Priya! And thanks for the detailed write up.
I have a question for you, I just picked up an Eagle shifter console from the junkyard, it has the cubby hole instead of the gauges. Anyways, the outer portion of it is broken in two, one break at the top and one break in the front. They are clean breaks and I think I can put it back together. How would you recommend putting it back together? I was thinking maybe epoxy in the breaks themselves and then fiberglass and resin behind the cracks, but in your write up you said fiberglass doesn't bond well with the ABS plastic, which I'm assuming the shifter console is made of. Thanks.
Oh, and thanks for the compliment on the perfect cut ;)
I wouldn't use a glue. I've done this type of repair where I embed fiberglass cloth in the ABS many times and its quite strong.
If they are clean breaks what I recommend is to first clean the backside of the repair of any dirt, oil, or paint. Then wet the broken ends in acetone and push them together and hold until they bond. This will initially be a weak bond and if you let the acetone drip on the front of your console it will leave noticeable marks where it runs on the painted surface. Perhaps dip a q-tip in acetone to keep the dripping to a minimum and put a piece of masking tape on the front side of the break to minimize soak through. Alternatively perhaps skip this step if you are very concerned about keeping the exterior surface looking as is. If you're painting afterwards you don't need to worry about dripping acetone on the exterior surface of your piece..
Next, cut a piece of fiberglass cloth to cover the backside of the break. You can use a heat gun with a flat tip to partially sink the fiberglass cloth into the ABS. Alternatively if you repeatedly wet the fiberglass cloth with acetone and rub the cloth into the ABS you can eventually sink the cloth partway into the ABS as well. Find a piece of broken ABS you can use for glue. Remove any paint on it (I used lacqer thinner and paper towels). Get a small jar with a lid that you can get your fingers into the bottom of. Break off small pieces of your scrap ABS (I use two pliers to make larger pieces and then a side cutter to make them smaller) put them in the jar, add acetone to cover, put the lid on and let sit overnight. You can put use bigger pieces of ABS if you want, it just takes longer to melt in the acetone. In the morning stir your acetone/abs solution and make sure it is evenly dissolved. If its too runny leave the lid off for 15 minute intervals and check its consistency. If its too firm add some more acetone. You want it about the consistancy of maple syrup. I recommend using nitril gloves to do this part. I've done it with bare hands but the hardened ABS is pretty tough to peel off your fingers, especially if you have done it a few times although you can eventually wash it off with acetone if you keep at it. but this is also hard on the skin. I place just one finger of the nitrile glove on my forefinger, pull it tight and bunch up the rest of the glove in your hand. Dip a bit of the acetone/abs mixture on your forefinger and smear a thin layer on the fiberglass cloth of your repair. Give it an hour or more to solidify. If bubbles appear in the abs shortly after you put it on, poke them with a needle and push them flat (this is a sign that your layer is too thick). Add layers of ABS/acetone solution until you can no longer see the fiberglass cloth. Then take another layer of fiberglass cloth and imbed it overtop the first one using either a flat tip soldering gun or repeatedly rubbing it with acetone. Take some more ABS dissolveed in acetone and add think layers again until you can no longer see the fiberglass cloth. Once done, try cutting off any excess cloth and ABS with a utility knife, of if its too think sand it back with 80 or 120 grit sandpaper, smooth with 220.
Only a couple of layers of cloth embedded in ABS on the back of your crack will likely be strong enough. If its a high stress area maybe add a third layer of fiberglass cloth and ABS covering.
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Thank you so much for the detailed instructions!! I'll let everyone know how it turns out.
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Thank you so much for the detailed instructions!! I'll let everyone know how it turns out.
No problem. If you use the heatgun method, keep an eye on it and make sure its not bending your console as well as melting the fiberglass cloth into the ABS. My heatgun on one occasion stopped producing enough heat to easily melt the fiberglass cloth into the ABS and I pressed quite hard to get it to work better and it bent in about a 3 inch diameter area of the armrest (the rightmost side of the grey area you see in picture #8). I ended up trying to fill up the depressed area with ABS and was quite annoyed with myself.
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WooHoo! I'm glad to see all my photobucket pictures are back. I don't know when that happened but I gather Photobucket decided charging everyone for their service wasn't working out. :)
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I wanted to update my Eagle project with the latest changes I've made but Photobucket says I've already got 69 more pictures than the free account allows so unfortunately I can't post the pictures I took. I'm putting in a very large high efficiency fuel filter from a Cat diesel with 2 micron filter capacity. The reason for this is there's a lot of rust sediment in my gas tank and new tanks are not available. This rust sediment has been clogging my 390 Holley carburetor something fierce as you can see from this earlier picture:
(http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk14/priyalynn/DSCF1915.jpg) (http://s276.photobucket.com/user/priyalynn/media/DSCF1915.jpg.html)
Ordinary automotive filters have 30-50 micron filtering capacity and that's been allowing all manner of crap from the tank to get through the filter. Hopefully this new filter is going to solve the problem which causes a rough idle which is a major annoyance to me on a new engine. Sorry I can't show you the photos of the installation I made.
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Hi Priya!
Good to hear from you again!
You can also attach photos to the message, there is a button right below the box where you type in your message to "+ Attachments and other options." Would like to see the setup you've come up with and hopefully it works for you!
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Hi Priya!
Good to hear from you again!
You can also attach photos to the message, there is a button right below the box where you type in your message to "+ Attachments and other options." Would like to see the setup you've come up with and hopefully it works for you!
Thanks Vangremlin, I'll have at it soon.
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Since I got the car done I haven't put a whole lot of miles on it, you can see the odometer since rebuild is just under 5,000 km.
Here's the filter and a base for it my husband made out of a chunk of aluminum. We were going to initially put it on the strut tower but it was pretty tight there so we moved the starter solenoid and other wiring from its factory position to make space for the filter and housing.
Here's the picture of it after my husband made the fuel lines and we moved the electrical to the strut tower. After several dumps of gas down the carb it finally filled the filter and started - no leaks!
I've also finally started on fixing the rear spoiler. It was damaged a couple of years back when I backed into Ward's Truck. I've got the damage fixed and its ready for someone to paint it for me.
Is there anyway to intersperse my pictures with my text?
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Hey priya, do you happen to go to the Saskatoon cruise night in August? I am not in Saskatoon but I try to go every year. I have not seen your car there. I plan on going this August too, I really look forward to the event. Not sure if I will bring my 86 wagon to it or not yet, we'll see how much progress I make.
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Hey priya, do you happen to go to the Saskatoon cruise night in August? I am not in Saskatoon but I try to go every year. I have not seen your car there. I plan on going this August too, I really look forward to the event. Not sure if I will bring my 86 wagon to it or not yet, we'll see how much progress I make.
You know, I have not gone, except I think but one year I was there for a bit parked at the A&W on 8th street maybe around 2016. Nowadays I have the Eagle put away in a tiny car box until the fall when I swap the Eagle the Eagle into the garage and the Corvette into the tiny car box. The way we've been doing it I won't be making it to the August cruise night any time soon. Sorry about that.
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OK. Wicked cool car by the way.
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OK. Wicked cool car by the way.
Thanks. If you ever make it into the city during the winter and want to have a look you can come by. email me at [email protected] if you do.
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I thought I had my spoiler all fixed after the previous repairs but I found cracks on the side of it:
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And here it is after paint and back on the car:
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It was a bit of a challenge getting the nuts and washer back on the spoiler. My workaround was to put a circle of butyl on both the nut and washer, then put them in the socket so they stay will I push them up into place and turn them on:
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I pulled the spark plugs after 7k kilometers, they looked pretty grim for the amount of time they've been in there. Hopefully the new ultra fine filter will keep the carburetor operating properly. I have yet to drive the car since making these changes, last time I took it out it was steering erratically as it needs a power steering box. The transmission pan is leaking pretty badly too but we don't have the funds to fix that stuff at this time.
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One other thing I took on was to drill holes in the interior panel covering the hatch area so I can undo the hatch from inside the car if the popper should fail.
This way a socket can fit on the nuts holding on the post for the latch:
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The last thing I did on the Eagle was to touch up the paint on the inside of the hatch as a few rust spots had begun to show through, when I originally sprayed the inside of the hatch the paint was much too thin around the latch area.. I didn't have the original paint I used on the interior so I ended up with a semi-gloss that wasn't too far out as you can see in the after pictures:
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... I'm putting in a very large high efficiency fuel filter from a Cat diesel with 2 micron filter capacity. The reason for this is there's a lot of rust sediment in my gas tank and new tanks are not available. ...
Keep an eye open for a fibreglass gas tank on parts cars.
Also, to save your tank before it's too far gone, consider pulling it and treating it.
- Washed out with a detergent like Dawn, fully rinsed, then some Evapo-rust inside, spending some time in different orientations to get rust off of all internal surfaces.
- Then you can make the call on if you put a layer of fibreglass in places on the outside, or give it a layer all over, just because. I'd be tempted to use epoxy resin.
- Plus, to prevent future rust inside, there are coatings for inside gas tanks. I had access to them from a friend who rebuilt airplanes. I guess they thought that having an engine quiet due to a rusted tank would be a bad thing.
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Keep an eye open for a fibreglass gas tank on parts cars.
Also, to save your tank before it's too far gone, consider pulling it and treating it.
- Washed out with a detergent like Dawn, fully rinsed, then some Evapo-rust inside, spending some time in different orientations to get rust off of all internal surfaces.
- Then you can make the call on if you put a layer of fibreglass in places on the outside, or give it a layer all over, just because. I'd be tempted to use epoxy resin.
- Plus, to prevent future rust inside, there are coatings for inside gas tanks. I had access to them from a friend who rebuilt airplanes. I guess they thought that having an engine quiet due to a rusted tank would be a bad thing.
"fiberglass gas tank"? What cars would have a fiberglass gas tank?
Thanks for the suggestions Canoe, I don't know why we didn't try something like that when we were putting the car together. The husband wasn't warm to the idea of putting a coating inside the tank although I don't recall why.
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"fiberglass gas tank"? What cars would have a fiberglass gas tank?
...
The husband wasn't warm to the idea of putting a coating inside the tank although I don't recall why.
The fibreglass gas tank was on one of the Eagle parts-cars I got. It was a wagon too. Aftermarket replacement. Perfect fit to the stock size, straps, fill pipe & gasket, etc.. Seller made sure I knew about it so I'd grab it before scrapping the vehicle once I'd removed what I wanted. Needed a ground wire to the fuel level sender. I moved it to my '81 with its 119. I'm sure I kept that tank when the '81 went to scrap, but I don't recall where I stashed it. Think it's in my storage locker.
You don't want to guess when you put something inside the tank, as that may dissolve and go to the engine as gunk, or in solution and precipitate in the carb, etc.. You want something that is intended for, and rated for, gasoline, ethanol and steel tanks. Due to the ethanol in fuel, and the can's & sealer's age, I wouldn't use the old can of sealer I have from the aviation friend back in the 90's. Consider modern fuel additives too. Verifying it's good for your intended usage is NOT done by the online seller saying "sure it is!" Who makes it, what's the installation prep & procedure, and what's the warranty. Google turns some up, but you'd have to do your research. I'd want to find out what was in the liner, so I could look for products that failed that used those.
As to if you should line it after you de-rust it, look to the vehicle restoration enthusiasts, where they're dealing with various degrees of rust, and possibly cracking, etc.. Simply pulling it and doing the de-rusting may be enough. If it hasn't lost much thickness to rust inside (I've no idea how to gauge that), I'd consider brushing or rolling some epoxy resin on the outside for rust proofing (may or may not be cheaper than DIY epoxy primer, or having a shop give it a flash coat of epoxy primer the next time they're shooting that), then a top coat of something like Waxoyl Hardwax.
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priya's Eagle is an SX/4 and not one of the 50 series cars like the wagons and sedans that most of us have. And so unfortunately it has a different fuel tank. The only way to get a new fuel tank for her car that I know of would be to have someone make a new one and that's not going to be cheap.
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Obviously a 30 series, but given someone was making aftermarket fibreglass tanks for the 50 series, someone could have done the same for the 30 series. So keep an eye out on parts cars.
And the scarcity and the cost of getting a new one custom made, is the reason why refurbish the current rusting gas tank before it needs patching or structural support.
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http://amceaglesden.com/guide/Cherokee_gas_tank_retrofit
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http://amceaglesden.com/guide/Cherokee_gas_tank_retrofit
This is a good how-to, but they installed the Cherokee tank in a wagon, not an SX/4. Would be nice if there was a good replacement for the stock tank!
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AMClives has one for, I believe, the Concord variants. Not sure if it would fit the SX/4