The SX/4 money pit

[Smitty]

Time for another update.  The money pit still has a wander when taking it down the road.  Guess I have to figure out what parts I have not changed in the suspension and look them over.  New steering box, new pitman arm, new idler arm, ball joints etc.  I did manage to finally get the tailpipe on it yesterday.  I have had in on and off a number of times but could never get it to hang right.  Think I finally got it squared away with a shorter hanger on the muffler.  Cleaned up the connections for the fog lights and those work.  Only one side needed a new bulb so now I have a spare. 

I had replaced the pinion seal but have been having a heck of a time getting the fill plug out, but it is out now and the rear diff took almost a quart of fluid so I feel better about test drives now.  Guess I had better check the front one now that I think about it.  Spent some time looking over all that needs to be done to pull the carpet out.  Hopefully next weekend I will have the interior back together.  I may change out the new airshocks for coil overs that I have.  Just don't like the feel or the rear with the air shocks pumped up - too harsh even when lowering the pressure down to 20lbs.

Are there any tricks to getting the tach to work?  Mine is plugged in at the dash and barely moves off 0.  I have another one but would really like to make sure the signal is getting through before I tear the dash out.  Guess I have to get the TSM out and see what they have to say   I pulled out the 4wd switch and there is a definite leak on the 2wd side that goes away when in 4wd.  So, until I find another switch, it stays in 4wd (even tho the 4wd does not engage)

The engine seems to run pretty well with some intermittent lifter noise that seems to be getting better the more I run it.  Now I need to plumb in the vacuum line for the EGR and fine tune the carb and timing.  I am going to change the oil and filter  now that it has an hour or two on it so that any gunk that was flushed out does not clog things up.

Oh yeah,  still have to put in the new pass door handle so Skeezix can get in

[IowaEagle]

Whew - made me tired just reading it.

[Gil-SX4]

Have you change the torsion bars bushings?
I replace the ones in my AMC Eagle SX/4 with some energy syspension polyurathane ones made for the late 1970's Ford Pick/Up truck 4X4.

[Smitty]

I have new strut rod bushings along with most of the other front end parts.  I did put a gauge on it last night and found the front tires to be quite low on air so before it goes out next time  I will add pressure.  Last night I worked on the interior and got the pass seat out but have one stubborn nut on the driver side seat.  I did find some rot in the pass rocker under the carpet so I need to cut that out and weld in new sheet metal before the new carpet goes down.  looking at the padding for the carpet make me believe that the car came with the extra quiet insulation package.  There is extra material under the rear seat and under the normal horsehair mats..

Couple of finds:  While replacing the outside handle on the pass door I noticed a cable laying in the bottom of the door.  Turns out it is for the remote mirror.  The control works but apparently this is a replacement door and they just left the cable laying inside the door instead of routing it into the cabin.  Where does this go on the dash?  I will need the mounting bezel so if anyone has a spare let me know.  The other find is that the wiring is there for a front door speaker but there is no speaker.  There isn't a speaker grill in the door panel but I thought the speaker might just have been under the carpet.  Guess I wll head to Radio Shack and see what they have.

I also found that the tach is not getting a feed from the coil so I plan on running a new wire to the tach and hope that fixes the problem. 

Tonights plan is to measure the speaker sizes and see if there is one in the drivers door or in the rear too.  I will get that seat out too!!  Then I can assess cutting and welding repairs before the new carpet goes in.  The stuff in there sure is dry rotted even though it looks pretty good except in the driver heel area. 

My garage seems to be bigger these days too.  All the new parts boxes and exhaust parts are now on the car rather than stacked on benches etc so I have more room to work.  Now, if only I had the time to get working on the 69 Ambo the garage could be free of cars and get a real cleaning

[Gil-SX4]

I dont think the mirror cable is any good since if I remember correct the mirror and the cable are one part.

[jim]

You remember correctly.  I have experimented with repairing the cable to mirror connection, without any success.  I haven't tried solder yet.  maybe someday, but that is a long time off.  I don't know if it can be soldered without damaging the mirror.

However, this could be an added mirror with the cable attached, and just not run into the interior.

There are some pictures on the site in which you can see the location.

I may have a bezel, but it may take me a couple of days to look for it.

[Smitty]

The cable is connected to the mirror and it all works.  They just never ran the control joytick into the dash of the car.  So, If I can find the correct parts to anchor it to the dash it will all work just fine.

[jim]

As I said, I may have one.  I will try to remember to look in one of my boxes tonight (no, I don't have a whole car in boxes, Gil).

[Smitty]

Just came in from a few hours of working on the car.  I got the damaged fender off but did not put the new one on.  I found a small rust hole under the liner so I will patch that another day and then put it all back together.  I also finally got the carpet out.  Yucky, dusty and moldy!  Besides the rust in the inner rocker I found the other day the floor pan looks factory new.  I am going to spend a few hours cleaning and freshening things up before I install the new carpet.  Every little piece in the interior is getting a detailing so it will look nice and smell nice.  I will also add some extra insulation to cut down on road noise. 

I have to swing by lowes sometime this week and get a new cutter wheel so I can cut out the rust in the rocker before I patch it.  I will try to POR15 everything inside the rocker I can get at to to hold off any further cancer as long as I can.  That is about it for now.  I took some pics and will probably do a short write up on the carpet install when it is all done.  Snowing pretty good here now so Skeezix and I are going for a walk to enjoy it.

[IowaEagle]

Soon Smitty will have an '07 AMC Eagle. 

[Gil-SX4]

Every thing you fix is a step closer to haveing it finish.

[Smitty]

This is what I found on the pass side inner rocker, Of course it started on the underside and worked its way in.  Time to cut and weld. The rest of the floorpan looks like the day it was made.



This is with the driver fender off.  Think I will clean this up before all the parts go back on.  Have a rust hole the size of a quarter to fix where a bolt rusted through.  You can see the spot in the pic.  About six inches from the bottom of driver foot well, just above the brown spot.  The only real issue is that the fuse box and wiring is on the other side so all that has to come off the firewall before I can cut and weld.

[IowaEagle]

Thanks for the pix.  I probably need to do the same.  Suppose its about time to order the new rockers.

[Smitty]

Who makes them?  Wasn't there someone on the Nest who was going to do that?

[IowaEagle]

Show Car Body Parts makes the outers.  We have a link to them down in the Links Section.  In the Body Parts category IIRC.  They are for the two doors but I think they can be modified for the 4 doors.  I even think I saw JC Whitney having some, but I may be mistaken there.