News: Putting FUN and FRIENDLINESS, FIRST into owning and learning about AMC small bodied cars, primarily Eagles, Spirits and Concords as well as vehicles built in AMC's Mexican subsidiary, VAM.

The AMC Eaglepedia can now be accessed using the buttons found below  This is a comprehensive ever growing archive of information, tips, diagrams, manuals, etc. for the AMC Eagle and other small bodied AMC cars. 

Also a button is now available for our Face Book Group page.


Welcome to the AMC Eagles Nest.  A new site under "old" management -- so welcome to your new home for everything related to AMC Eagles, Spirits and Concords along with opportunities to interact with other AMC'ers.  This site will soon be evolving to look different than it has and we will be incorporating new features we hope you will find useful, entertaining and expand your AMC horizons.

You can now promote your topics at your favorite social media site by clicking on the appropriate icon (top upper right of the page) while viewing the topic you wish to promote.


  • March 28, 2024, 08:05:12 AM

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Recent Posts

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1
Project Cars / Re: My First Car - 86 Wagon
« Last post by 89 MJ on Yesterday at 07:37:16 PM »
That is a pretty good looking wagon, the Comanche ain't bad either. :rotfl:
Thank you!
2
Project Cars / Re: My First Car - 86 Wagon
« Last post by maddog on Yesterday at 07:22:06 PM »
That is a pretty good looking wagon, the Comanche ain't bad either. :rotfl:
3
Off topic / Re: Retaining and Gaining Members and Moderation Help
« Last post by 89 MJ on Yesterday at 05:26:43 PM »
Much to my annoyance, forums are flaunted as a dying breed. Why talk about things in a public space which others can view when you have more niche (and arguably more likely to disappear) chat groups and boards like Facebook or Discord, the latter having been occasionally advertised as the replacement to forums. The big thing is that neither Facebook or Discord is regularly and automatically archived because external services like the Wayback Machine cannot see beyond the login screen. Forums such as this on the other hand, even after this site closes and shuts down, most of it still remains in the Wayback machine.

I saw somewhat of the same coming from my experience with top-end computer workstations from the 90's. Silicon Graphics Computer Systems had a sizable and knowledgeable community. By the end of the 2000's the community shrank and the moderator pool began to basically be one custodian. Everyone who maintained the hardware had moved on, there was no new contributions to third-party solutions and the equipment itself was pretty much worthless. Eventually the site was too high maintenance to keep running for how little traffic it saw that wasn't spam and shutdown. Silicon Graphics hardware would not ramp up again in value and form a new hobbyist community for nearly a decade later. It's been sustaining itself quite well since then.
Eagles seem to of been at this point for the last decade. They require agonizingly large amounts of regular maintenance, the parts vendors are slowly ending production of some specialty components and because most communities don't yet see 80's station wagons as collectible (you should of seen how :censored: the local Corvette community was when my province started offering 30-year Collector's Plates to first gen Dodge Caravans in 2014) there's very little momentum in the community right now.
Thankfully while this site has it's bugs and formatting error's, it's still here.


Us Eagle owners are super lucky to still have this place for sure!
4
Off topic / Re: Retaining and Gaining Members and Moderation Help
« Last post by MIPS on Yesterday at 05:10:05 PM »
Much to my annoyance, forums are flaunted as a dying breed. Why talk about things in a public space which others can view when you have more niche (and arguably more likely to disappear) chat groups and boards like Facebook or Discord, the latter having been occasionally advertised as the replacement to forums. The big thing is that neither Facebook or Discord is regularly and automatically archived because external services like the Wayback Machine cannot see beyond the login screen. Forums such as this on the other hand, even after this site closes and shuts down, most of it still remains in the Wayback machine.

I saw somewhat of the same coming from my experience with top-end computer workstations from the 90's. Silicon Graphics Computer Systems had a sizable and knowledgeable community. By the end of the 2000's the community shrank and the moderator pool began to basically be one custodian. Everyone who maintained the hardware had moved on, there was no new contributions to third-party solutions and the equipment itself was pretty much worthless. Eventually the site was too high maintenance to keep running for how little traffic it saw that wasn't spam and shutdown. Silicon Graphics hardware would not ramp up again in value and form a new hobbyist community for nearly a decade later. It's been sustaining itself quite well since then.
Eagles seem to of been at this point for the last decade. They require agonizingly large amounts of regular maintenance, the parts vendors are slowly ending production of some specialty components and because most communities don't yet see 80's station wagons as collectible (you should of seen how :censored: the local Corvette community was when my province started offering 30-year Collector's Plates to first gen Dodge Caravans in 2014) there's very little momentum in the community right now.
Thankfully while this site has it's bugs and formatting error's, it's still here.
5
Project Cars / My First Car - 86 Wagon
« Last post by 89 MJ on Yesterday at 04:25:02 PM »
Up to now, my build thread for this car can be found on Comanche Club. Both threads will be updated from here on out. The build thread is linked below:

https://comancheclub.com/topic/66355-1986-amc-eagle/#comments

If you don't want to read through 8 pages of me turning a bunch of Comanche guys into Eagle guys, I'll give a brief summary with what has happened on this car.

2016: I acquire this car at the age of 12. It needed an engine. It was originally an AL car.

2017: I put in engine in it and sold it in early 2018 to buy my Jeep Comanche (pictured with the Eagle in a couple of shots). It moved from WI to PA.

2020: I got in touch with the owner and said if he ever was going to sell it, I would like a chance to buy it back, or at least know where it went. I wanted to know what was going on with my first car.

2021: I get a call from the owner. He was ready to move on from it and offered it back to me. It came back later that year loaded up with a bunch of parts to install. I installed the Gronk performance carb, DUI distributor, new fuel tank, and built some ball joint spacers to I could clear the 225/75R15s. The car is driven with a Christmas tree on the roof for the month of December

2022: The car gets a transmission rebuild in the month of February. The car hauled stuff to my graduation party in May. In July, it went to the Kenosha Homecoming show along with my Comanche. Here I made two new AMC friends, one of which I later got some interior pieces from. Not much else happened because I started my first year of school in AZ.

2023: The windshield in the car had been leaking water for years, I knew there was some floor rust, and I wanted to change the carpet. I replaced the floors, carpet, and windshield all in one go. I also swapped in a Chrysler 8.25 from an XJ and regeared the front axle to match. The new gears are 3.55s. I returned to college. Over winter break, I moved the driver seat backwards 2" to give me more legroom. I helped a friend move stuff around their property earlier in the summer.
6
Off topic / Easter Jeep Safari Concepts. What would you like to see produced?
« Last post by 89 MJ on Yesterday at 03:32:39 PM »
I feel like the last few years of EJS concept vehicles have been lacking. For the most part, they seem like production vehicles with bolt ons. My favorite one is the Willys Dispatcher because it seems to be the one that is truest to what Jeeps were about 20+ years ago.

1st: 2016 Short Cut Concept
2nd: 2024 EJS Concepts
3rd: Wagoneer Vacationeer
4th: Wrangler Low Down
5th: Gladiator Rubicon High Top
6th: Willys Dispatcher

I would really like to see a production version of something like the 2016 Short Cut concept. For a daily driver for me (and probably lots of people), there is not much reason for more than two seats. I'd love to see a Wrangler that's even shorter than the current two door and comes extremely basic. I'm talking like a radio, doors, a top, cruise control, air conditioning and a back seat are options. Just give me a small Jeep, a 4 cylinder, 6 speed stick, and a Dana 44 in the rear at a reasonable price (no reason something like this should be more than $20,000) and I'd be happy. What would other people like to see Jeep put into production?


 
7
Off topic / Re: Retaining and Gaining Members and Moderation Help
« Last post by 89 MJ on Yesterday at 03:29:38 PM »
Thanks for reaching out.  Maybe let the administrators chat and see how we can best use your offer to help.  Thanks again.
Sounds good. These forums are too valuable to be at risk of losing in the future. In the mean time, I will probably be making some posts just to try to spark some activity.

I think the biggest problem is that Eagles are in this rough spot where they are a touch too new for the AMC purists and classic car people where anything after the Pacer is dead to them and the Eagle being a lot of Jeep bits overlaps with the 4x4 forums where if the car has not rusted itself back into the earth it's been modified, driven, beat up and at this point is a barely safe husk of a unibody.
I'll call out Junkyard Digs because he's had at least three at this point. One while still drivable he took out for fun until the transmission fried and he threw a rod, which to me and a few other videos makes me think the current generation still see Eagles as somewhat disposable in comparison to Boomers and K-cars where if Red-Green didn't hack them all up, the rest met their demise in demo derby's.
Adding to that there's just not a lot of them left. I have not seen one in a junkyard for six years (with almost all my spare parts coming from backyard graves) and the Pacific Northwest gifting to us it's lack of winter salt means there should technically be more left here than anywhere else on the planet.
I agree, but I also don't agree. Eagles were produced in similar numbers to Jeep Comanches (I'm a member on the Comanche forum too, which has a much larger number of forum "regulars"), many of which had a similar fate to our Eagles. In my experience, my beater Eagle gets more compliments than my restored Comanche. In general, I would also say that the current generation seems to appreciate them. I'm 20 with an Eagle, I have one friend who is also 20 and would like to own an Eagle, and another friend who is in his mid-upper 20s and is actively searching for an Eagle.
There most certainly are not a lot left, like you said, but I have seen roughly as many Comanches (roughly 180,000 produced) as I have Eagles (roughly 190,000 produced) since I've been driving. I have seen an Eagle in an junkyard, but not a Comanche.

I do agree that they are too new for AMC purists and classic car people, but we are starting to see a price increase in both Eagles and Comanches because people that are my parents' age remember them growing up. Yet with popularity increasing, forum use seems to be decreasing. Part of this could be because people don't work on their own stuff anymore, but I've found that forums are a much more knowledgeable and helpful than Facebook groups are.
8
Off topic / Re: Retaining and Gaining Members and Moderation Help
« Last post by MIPS on Yesterday at 12:56:40 PM »
I think the biggest problem is that Eagles are in this rough spot where they are a touch too new for the AMC purists and classic car people where anything after the Pacer is dead to them and the Eagle being a lot of Jeep bits overlaps with the 4x4 forums where if the car has not rusted itself back into the earth it's been modified, driven, beat up and at this point is a barely safe husk of a unibody.
I'll call out Junkyard Digs because he's had at least three at this point. One while still drivable he took out for fun until the transmission fried and he threw a rod, which to me and a few other videos makes me think the current generation still see Eagles as somewhat disposable in comparison to Boomers and K-cars where if Red-Green didn't hack them all up, the rest met their demise in demo derby's.
Adding to that there's just not a lot of them left. I have not seen one in a junkyard for six years (with almost all my spare parts coming from backyard graves) and the Pacific Northwest gifting to us it's lack of winter salt means there should technically be more left here than anywhere else on the planet.
9
Fuel Systems. / Re: SolVac for all Eagles?
« Last post by MIPS on Yesterday at 12:27:33 PM »
Up against the firewall around the diagnostic connector and the wiper motor is there a 4-pin Packard 56 connector just hanging there?
The vacuum side of the Sol-vac provided additional idle RPM over the solenoid kick for things like hot starting and raising the ported vacuum high enough for the canister purge valve to open. I suspect someone deleted the vacuum portion to delete hoses and modified in just a solenoid so that you still had idle kick for the AC/lights/defroster.
10
General Mechanical / Re: Transfer Cases and Axles
« Last post by vangremlin on Yesterday at 11:27:05 AM »
Thanks for the offer to help.  I know I struggle with understanding all the options available - especially when is it time to switch to a different transfer case because your viscous coupler is shot!
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