I got this '85 wagon in the fall of '09 for a song. The fixing has started already and have been quite busy and this is the first time I have had to post about it. I have an '81 concord DL 4 door that will be donating lots of stuff to this project. The trans on the concord burnt out last month so it will not move anyways. At least now I do not feel as bad using the concord as a parts car. Had it for many years and it was a wedding present.
Was having trouble with starting/running and replaced the entire fuel system from the tank to the carb only to find out that the gas was being stolen and that was the reason for the stalling and no starts. Ordered a locking gas cap and it does not fit so I only keep 5L of gas in there for now.
When I got it there was no brakes, pedal to the floor. I fabricated a new hard brake line from the firewall fitting to the rear hose. That's as far as I got with the brakes so I could at least test drive the car. The two other hard lines going to the wheel cylinders will soon follow as well as the rear hose. The rear brakes look ok otherwise. Fronts work but the rotors are a bit thin, at least they are cheap compared to the concord ones, $40 each vs $95 each. I will have the three hoses made at a local hydraulic shop for $20 each. All the ones for sale at parts houses are $60 each and they are old stock that will soon crack, the rear is not available here.
Picked up some silver steel Jeep wheels from a '94 grand and they are at Winnipeg Wheel Works getting refinished, pick them up on Monday. Got 17 one piece chrome lug nuts and a set of 4 lock nuts from American Eagle Wheels. These sets come with one extra regular nut. The tires are Uniroyal Laredo LT215/75/15 RWL. These will be coming from my Safari AWD van and were bought in Sept 09. They seem a bit small for a 215 and threw the spedo out on the Safari, I was not impressed. Will be buying new tires for the safari on Monday.
Fabricated some full outer rocker panel skins from 22g double sided galvanized. If these work out as planned I will have to fab some more sets for sale purposes since there seems to be no source for these anywhere.
Charged up the a/c with redtek and it blows real cold. Today the temp was 33c with high humidity and went into the running car for a while for a smoke break, what a relief, did not want to leave the car but the gas was getting low. Turns out that the old man never used the a/c ever since new and it was empty from the rebuilt engine swap 1700km ago. Ashtrays are spotless. I used the lighter for the first time ever to see if it worked. The ashtrays will never be used.
All the trim pieces including the roof rack were off already when I got the car. I have been trying to figure out how the rack attaches. The holes on the roof seem to be plugged by corks?
Had an idiot moment when the trans dipstick broke off and pulled the spare from the concord only to leave it on the air cleaner and loose it during the test drive.
Pictures will follow soon.
Topic: It's a go on the '85 wagon project (AUG2010) (Read 30952 times)