New 84 from El Matador!

[Bird-o-Prey]

Well I made it home from the Western Canada meet (that didn't) with my new (ish) 84 Limited wagon i bought from El Matador.  We are still waiting for the Dean & Jared to post the pictures from the meet that never happened.  I started work on it the other day.  Truth of the matter is, the car ran like pooh!  Lots of sputtering and farting etc.  I could also hear the familiar whistling of various vaccum leaks.  Here are the 2 cars together.

This is how the engine bay looked when I started.

Here is one reason why the car ran like pooh.

The carb was gummed up and filthy.  I spent about an hour & 1/2 just cleaning it up inside and out.

The high idle was set at about 2200 rpm and the low idle at 500.  So, I brought the high down to 1100 ish and the low up to 700.  Then began the vacuum-ectomy.  This is before the surgery.
 
This is the pile of crap I took out of the engine and then replaced all the lines with new and sorted out the mess.
 
The 4X4 system was getting vac from the HI / LO idle solenoid switch thingy on the inner passenger fender!  This is what the engine bay looks like after the vac line work.

You will now notice the lack of duct tape holding on the air accordian thingy (that's a technical term!)

This is the engine bay of my daily driver that the new car aspires to.

After ripping out all of the crap and re-plumbing the lines, everything is in working order and the engine has smoothed out considerably.  I think I will have to adjust the float level in the carb along with the fuel mixture and timing to get much more out of it.  I plan to do the TFI upgrade to it since I have all the parts from my curent car that went to HEI.  It looks as if someone has tried to do the ECM Test bypass, but hacked it horribly.  I will have to sort that out as well.  I have not really looked too seriously into the rust issue yet.  I inspected the upper control arm mounts and they seem OK!  I need to degrease the engine and cross member and get under there to have a look.  I will keep you posted as things progress.

Cheers

[Whuntmore]

Actually, I was waiting till you started your post.   I can't rightly start your topic...


Ok, here we go!

first we got Dean kissing goodbye to one of his (many!) eagles:




Now she's loaded up:




Chris looking for extra parts from Dean's Ever-growing parts collection:




Looks like I'm not the only one who likes Rubarb...




Now the tranny is loaded up:




and the final pic of this set, we see the three 'ladies' all lined up:

[El Matador]

That isn't even the best version of that picture.  I originally had way more lower lip protrusion.  Chris' camera was acting up for the first three or four attempts, so finally we got it on Jared's iPhone.  By then I had lost some of my ability to properly convey the emotion. 

I miss that car already, it was a fixture around my place for two years.  I bet the Concord is happy to see it gone since it now gets to be indoors again. 

[Jurjen]

I just love threads like these! Keep up the good work.

[Bird-o-Prey]

I've done a bit of work on it, but not too much yet.  Last week, I pulled the alloy wheels off of it to put them on my other 84 wagon, along with the 2" reciever hitch.  This is how they looked.

I sent them in to have them sandblasted and powder coated and this is the result.

I added some new rubber to the mix .

Then I went to work on the center caps.  I sanded and primed them.

Gave them a coat of white paint.

Then I masked off a 4X4 that is similar to the stock wheel covers.

I gave them a couple of coats of flat black and then a couple of coats of clear coat.

Then I stuck them on the car.


I also got the reciever hitch mounted.  

So, that is what I did over the weekend.  I decided to go with a slightly smaller tire than I had on before.  I was running 215/75/15's, but the new tires are 205/65/15's and I think they look better.  They will porbably be less of a drag on the engine and tranny as well.

Cheers

[maddog]

looking good dude those rims turned out really nice.

[WoodenBirdOfPrey]

I'm in a remarkably similar situation as you.  I have a set of those wheels, and was wondering what they would look like painted dark.  To me the black makes yours look like an aftermarket off-road style rim, i like it.  I'm considering a charcoal/gunmetal color for mine now that I see they look good in a dark color.

Same with the tires, currently I have Wrangler RT/S 215/75's but was thinking about going with a smaller one.  The 215/75's almost look too full for the wheel wells and a narrower tire will probably cut through the snow better anyways.  After that I think the new tires will be a little smaller, I think I'm going with 205/75/15's because that's the smallest General AT/2's available.

[shanebo]

I think those rims turned awesome! It really gives them an aggressive look.

[El Matador]

At the risk of opening myself up to more ribbing, I'm going to trepidatiously revive this thread and inquire as to whether there are any updates to report.

The update on my end is that the space vacated by that Eagle has since been filled by another (the '87 wagon recently rescued from a yard).

[Whuntmore]

One gone, seven gained... er, two more?  I've actually lost count - One goes, then Dean gets one from Edmonton, and then we go to the wreckers, and he gets another one, and then one of the concords goes, and then...

Well, as you can see, his 'fleet' is in a constant state of flux.

We are wondering what Chris is doing with the car - As I can't find any write-up that he's started.  So Chris, if there's any updates, pictures, etc., we'd love to hear/see it.

[Bird-o-Prey]

Sadly, I have not had much time to do anything to the car.  I did figure out that the e-brake is seized, so when the weather drys out a bit more, I will have to rebuild the back brakes.  I don't know yet if the e-brake cable is seized up as well yet.  However, when I replaced my pedal assembly (thanks Dean!!) I also replaced my broken cable.  I had the forthought to buy a second cable at the same time.  Fortuitously, this happened to be the last 2 cables that Lordco had...anywhere in Canada.  I go and visit the car and run it periodically just to let it know I still care!

I may be moving in the near future, so that has consumed my time for the past few months.  Looking at houses and such takes time.

I will post more once I have some free time to get to work on the car.  I have decided to do a straight axle swap on this car and give it a bit of a lift.  any of the parts that come off will be donated to keep my D.D. running as well.

Cheers for now.

[Bird-o-Prey]

That would be great.  Let me know when you make it over here and I will come by and see you.

Cheers!

[Whuntmore]

I know this is an old thread, but if you get the chance, you should update it, and let us know what's happened to the '84.

Since you couldn't find the original topic (this one) and you had started a new topic on the same car, I've merged them together for you.

[Bird-o-Prey]

It has been a while since I posted here, but, her goes.  Sadly the 84 I got from Dean had more problems than I had time or money to deal with.  I managed to strip everything that was useable off of it.  Then I had to send it to the big car lot in the sky.

A sad sight to be sure, however it's sacrifice will keep my other car running for a while longer yet.  I have been having some oil leak issues for the last little while.  I have an aluminum head cover and the bolts holding it down tend to loose over time and this causes oil to leak down the back of the engine.  Common issue.  I had a breather in the back hole of the head cover and it dripped condensed oil vapours from inside the engine all over the head.  Messy.  So I bought a FRAM breather and connected it by rubber hose to a nipple on the underside of my MC2150 there the aircleaner sits.  This dealt with the messy head cover, but, it lead to oil condensing all over the carb.  Equally messy.  So the other day I decided to just plug the thing up.  That had the effect of increasing the static pressure inside the engine, thus forcing the oil to spooge out wherever it could.  Like at the back of the head cover and (oddly enough) from the dipstick tube.  The pressure increased so much, that even though I crimped the tube to hold the dipstick more firmly, oil was spraying backward out of the tube and all over the top of the engine.  Decidedly messy!  So, today I replace my PCV hose with one that has a better seal and thus stopping up a bit of a vacuum leak, as well as adding a hose to the FRAM breather that I directed to the bottom of the engine to allow the extra pressure to vent and hopefully slow down the oil hemorrhaging.  I went through 4 litres of oil in 2 weeks with the increased pressure.  This spring, I intend to replace the head with a 4.0 and I will change the rear main seal and oil pan gasket at the same time.  I really want to clean and paint the engine as well as clean up the engine bay.

I have also had the seats out of the car I bought from Dean recovered and they are almost ready to put in the car.  I need to drill some new holes to make them sit up a bit straighter, then i can mount them.


I also recently welded shut a 4 inch hole in the drivers floor board that had my feet sitting in about 2 inches of water.  It spanned the frame rail and after I welded it shut, I coated it in a rubberized compound inside and out.

I have also fixed the lower hinge on the drivers door.  It shuts better than it did, however, it needs the upper hinge fixed as well.  Does anyone out there have any of the pins and bushing sets that we used to be able to buy at the eagle neat store?  Or, conversely, does anyone know the correct part number for a replacement hinge pin set?  It would be much appreciated. 

Well other than that, there is not much else happening with the car right now.  I will try and be more diligent in my updates. 

Cheers

[TheWraith]

...I have been having some oil leak issues for the last little while....

I hope the problem isn't worn rings.  I'd hate to think you will put the effort, time, and money into a head swap, rear main seal, and pan gasket only to have the same problem with oil and crankcase pressure.

Does your valve cover have an internal baffle?