Mickeyduck's machines

[lasersooby]

Good luck with the work on the wastegate springs and enjoy the Sunday event as well.
Take care, stay safe & chat soon.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year mate, enjoy the break

[mickeyduck]

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year mate, enjoy the break

You too! Likewise to all who've helped me with suggestions etc over the years, and all the other good folk who make this Club so cool. Cheers.

[mickeyduck]

How often you clean the engine bay Charlie. Looks clean as mate

Ha ha. Here's how it looks after the trip to Mike P's caravan at Pakiri yesterday. We all did the required 30kmh on the metal road that runs from the main road to the caravan park and I even suggested we leave a 30 second gap so we'd not eat each other's dust. But a fair few inconsiderate idiots whizzed past the other way at speed, drowning us in dust. Dicks.

Ah well I guess the old beastie's going to get a wash today eh?

On another note, I was happy with the ride yesterday, the tyres never hit the guards despite some fairly meaty bumps and the thing cornered just fine.

On the way home we stopped at Ivan's for a bit and tried his 17 inch rims on my SW but sure enough they didn't fit over the front calipers. So I'll have to stick with the 18 inch rims and supercar-spec (and priced) tyres. Oh well. They do work well, gotta give 'em that.

[lasersooby]

Looking good mate, it’s always refreshing cruising in a clean car that performs and puts a big smile on the face

[mickeyduck]

...a clean car...

Yep, that's better:

[lasersooby]

That is seriously better

[mickeyduck]

Spent a chunk of the first week of my holidays re-roofing the garage. Kinda needed it. Every time a bird landed on the roof to demolish a snail rust had rained down from on high. Not cool... Here's what it looked like after I removed the ridge cap.

Here's how it looks now.

Not done a roof before. Was an interesting experience and took slightly longer than expected (anything does, first time around, don't it?) but it worked out sweet in the end.

Anyway the AW and the SW will be a bit happier now that the rust won't be landing on 'em.

Had some great weather while doing the job. Mostly fine and hot but then along came the high smoke from the Oz fires. Yesterday mid-arvo was like some crazy sunset...

Today I finished fitting a new starter motor to the SW. Decided to go with an OEX after-market job from Repco in the end as I figured seeing as they offer a 3 year warranty and I drive the car b.a. compared to a daily, it should last as long as the car itself most likely. If anything goes wrong with it I'd imagine it'll be the tinned bits might try to rust. We'll see. Took longer to do the job than expected as I decided to tidy up some wiring, hoses etc (as you do). But it's in there now and cranks over really fast, starts her up quick as.

Out with the old...

And in with the new.

Still need to suss out that wastegate valve but we'll get there.

Next mission will either be AW engine mounts or AW rear suspension.

Meanwhile the GT4 is getting a top-side repaint and the 86's windows will get tinted on Friday. And Isaac's just ordered 4 of the last 6 Toyo T1R in the country for his AW, in 215/45-15 which will give him tons of grip and stopping power on his 8 inch rims. I'm kinda jealous cos guess what? Toyo don't make T1R anymore. End of a beautiful thing. And damned bad news for SW owners wanting decent tyres at a fair price. Get this: we have an n.a. auto SW hack for a learner-mobile, with 15 inch rims. It runs 205/50-15 and 225/50-15. No longer available from any manufacturer as far as I can tell unless you want to run road-legal track-day semis like R888R, AD08R, DZ039 or RE71R. Well it might only be a tired old n.a. auto but if I tired it like that it'd not need slow down for any corners that's for sure!

[mknz]

Had some great weather while doing the job. Mostly fine and hot but then along came the high smoke from the Oz fires. Yesterday mid-arvo was like some crazy sunset...

Sky here is fine thanks

[85AW20v]

Here's how I got my bearings out although it was the drive flanges that were the real issue. You might still find the same.....
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=11885&p=106052&hil ... ly#p106052

[mickeyduck]

Thanks for the link (I'd forgotten about that one!) but I think I'll leave the bearing replacement to someone with a press Simon. I'd hate to do a boo-boo and naff a hub.

A bit of background info: 2 years ago I was on a run half way to Raglan and the AW started making a doonk doonk doonk noise from the left rear. Limped home, it turned out to be the rear wheel bearing. I tightened it up and the noise went away. For 2 years. It came back again yesterday during a test run. Same noise as 2 years ago:

https://youtu.be/cYmoMQnBaBU



viewtopic.php?p=136890#p136890

Yesterday I tightened the left rear hub nut again and the noise went away and was replaced by a faint whirr.
I bought a replacement set of rear wheel bearings when it happened last time and it seems it's now time to fit them.
Thank goodness it's not CV's.
Anyway it's time to remove the hubs and find a shop that can swap in the new bearings.

While I'm at it I'll overhaul the suspension. It'll need a wheel alignment and it also needs 2 new tyres.

[mknz]

....I tightened it up and the noise went away. For 2 years. It came back again yesterday during a test run....

Anyway it's time to remove the hubs and find a shop that can swap in the new bearings.

I didn't think that run was that long ago

It's far from you, but Manukau auto and tyre centre are good people that'll do it. Really, any place with a hydraulic press can do it, it's just that some places don't want to. Sorry, I don't know any closer to you.

[mickeyduck]

Well it was time for the old AW to get some attention so I scored some new KYB shocks and rebuilt the suspension. I've dialled in a weeny bit more camber than standard too cos I keep chewing the outer edge off the tyres due to the way I take corners without slowing.

The old adjustable shocks were an interesting thing. They are painted in pearl white and look to have been made by KYB for Bridgestone tyre co perhaps as some kind of co promo thing with Potenza tyres? The "B" on them, and the "Potenza" label are undoubtedly Bridgestone tyre co's thing.

New shocks are simply non-adjustable KYB inserts.
Note: if your AW is pre-facelift / non SC you'll need the other part numbers, not these. I know the rear are different anyway.

As always, pulling the struts apart and putting them back together meant I had to come up with ways to do things without any SST's (special service tools). I found that if I assembled them with all components lined up correctly I could then pull down on the top-hat to keep the top of the shock locked into its keyed pozzie in the top-hat and crank up the top nylock nut. Cos you don't really want to grab the shock's piston with grips for fear of scratching it, unless right up near the top, above the section that disappears into the shock body when fully loaded. Which is where the springs get too tight to get grips in there anyway ha ha. And you don't want to do up the top nylock nut if the piston isn't seated in the top-hat's key / slot. Not unless you want problems later anyway. Got there in the end.

Anyway now that it's all back together I'll be pulling the back end to bits again tomorrow.
Need to rip the axle carriers out and strip the hubs so I can take them in to Joel's favourite mechanic so he can fit the new bearings to them.

Very much looking forward to having nice shocks (all 4 were rather sad) and fresh wheel bearings.

Oh yeah: tonight I managed to resurrect my massive SCA 3000kg trolley jack. Notes to self for later:
Left valve is check valve (2 ball bearings, controls pump).
Right valve is safety valve (cone, was 1.5 turns out from fully seated).
Culprit was the release valve (single ball bearing under handle end).
Cautionary lesson: never tighten the thing up much when going to use it. The release valve thread can strip or its castings lose bits of steel, causing the valve not to seal, thereby rendering the jack inoperable. And if your jack won't go down slowly but crash-lands your car it's because you over-tightened the thing. I just bought a new large Torrin jack and have found I need to make like a pixie when tightening it to avoid this issue.

[85AW20v]

Looks like the front and rear are the same Charlie - from your photos of the boxes anyway.....

[mickeyduck]

Whoops, good spotting Simon. Fixed.

[mickeyduck]

Wheel bearings...

OK so in 2017 on the way to Raglan, the left rear wheel bearing started making a horrible noise. I haven't done a lot in the AW since then, it's been parked in the shed most of the time for the last 2 years while I focussed on resurrecting the SW.

Phoned around the other day to suss a place to press on the new wheel bearings. Toyota estimated 2 hours and between $280 and $360 to do the job. That's with me taking the axle carriers to them. Seemed a bit steep, I figured maybe 15 minutes' work a side, call it 30 minutes a side tops. So if it was a total of an hour that'd be $144 at their rates. And they couldn't look at it until the middle of next week...

Several other places never even got back to me.

I got it done for $80.

The first thing I noticed when removing the axle was that the dust shield was utterly munted due to some muppet dropping it on the workshop floor. That likely would have let a heap of dirt and stone-chip powder in there to attack the oil seal. Here's a pic of it after I had spent a while trying to straighten it out...

Having discovered it could be drifted off the axle I decided to look under the house and found a much better one on a spare axle. I removed it from the spare axle (which had a non-E51 gearbox end on it, being off an '89 n.a. auto) cleaned it up a bit and fitted it to my AW's axle.

Straight but showing signs of damp storage under the house:

Cleaned up as best I could and fitted to my AW's axle:

Here's the axle carriers and the new bearings ready to take to the shop:

This is how the naffed one looked closer up. Real gritty crap in there instead of good looking grease:

I got a call later in the day from the mechanic to say the hub itself was stuffed. He said the wheel bearing should have been replaced a lot earlier instead of being driven on. Fair comment. Though I hardly drove the thing after it made that racket 2 years ago. Even the testing station fellas commented it hadn't even done 100km since the last WOF. Anyway, the hub was certainly toast!

Another rummage under the house and I found one to replace it. Grease in the bearing still looked good and yellow and the thing spun without any grittiness at all. Smooth as. Nice. So I took it to the shop and they used that hub in the AW's axle carrier (so the wheel alignment would not alter).

Got the refurbished hubs / axle carriers home and refitted them. Sorted. Yet another thing that will not be an issue for another 20 years or so.

Seeing as I had finally fitted a rear sway bar to that AW I decided it was prudent to replace the half-shot links with new ones. Couldn't find any correct parts anywhere so in the end I settled for some chunky DIY cut-em-to-length jobs.

So... AW now has lovely new waft-along shocks and feels like a limo while handling like a lowered AW11.

And I just fitted the OEM steering wheel to see if it's any better or not. Had a much smaller Wildcat wheel on there since owning the car (used it on ever AW I've had). Wheel see...

Dug a distributor o-ring refurb kit out of the parts stash. That'll be a thing to do soon as the dizzy is really spewing oil onto the exhaust (typical bloody AW11 SC dizzy!)

Need to buy 2 new tyres for it and am annoyed I missed Bridgestone's buy one get one half price deal on Potenzas. WOF is due end of Feb. Two tyres are almost shot.

The AW also has a wee bit of rust to cut out above the windscreen. And two patches of sunburnt clear coat to fix.

Other than that it's a pretty AWesome little car.

Dunno if we'll make the run to the lighthouse next Sunday though. AW needs 2 tyres. 86 does as well (higher priority as it's the daily). As does the SW (last on the list as it's a 'mare to drive in traffic with that twin plate gorilla clutch). We'll see...

Back to work tomorrow. had one fun drive (to Pakiri) first weekend of my 4 week "holiday". Didn't get a run in today as I had hoped, despite the immensely brilliant weather. Didn't even make it to the Old Skool meet at Smales Farm. Too busy fixing the lounge roof instead.

Old houses, like old cars. Spot one thing needs doing, leads to ten other things...

Time behind the wheel is what I'm in it for. Hmmm...

Just as well the AW is so insanely good to drive. Just as well the SW is so insanely quick. That's the only reason I still have 'em.

Oh yeah: a mate of Isaac's came over yesterday with what used to be MattAW11's old AW. It's had carb fitted and he was saying he had scored a blacktop to throw in there as the carbs were sucking tons of gas and running rough and low on power. The car had been in to a Weber tuning specialist 3 times and no improvement.

I showed him my old Colortune plug and carb vacuum balancing gauge, and explained that a carburettored motor could easily be as grunty as an injected one. Case in point the Chev Corvette race car our panel beater just bought with its huge Edelbrock carb.

Spent a bit of time yesterday sussing his motor out and it was clear to me that the carb was tuned pretty well. There were small variations but the spark plugs were basically a nice light tan colour, indicating a good mixture. Not black and sooty. Not white and too lean. Just right.

The ignition timing was quite another story. The ECU had been replaced by some wee baby ECU designed to manage just the ignition timing. The manual for it said to set the ignition timing at 15 degrees and the baby ECU would advance the timing by a total of 17 degrees throughout the rev range. But it was evident that the ignition timing had been set at TDC, so the thing was running from about 1 degree up to 18 degrees instead of from 16 degrees up to about 33 degrees.

I showed him the guff in the BGB and set the dizzy up static as per the BGB instructions. Which I know from running a SC motor with an over-boost pulley, makes for perfect timing even if you have no timing pointer to go by. Sure enough the thing ran way better.

It was idling too high though (1200 rpm) but a bit of a tweak with the return spring on the carbs sorted that too. In fact the carbs were tuned so well that after I adjusted the ignition timing we could get it to idle smoothly as low as 600 rpm. That's real good cos it's only 2/3 the speed of factory idle with correct ECU and fuel injection!

Sounded real good with the carbs. Me, I'd be looking to fit some more interesting cams, cos then you could really leverage the ready tunability of carbs without worrying about an ECU. Especially if you could find and fit a CDI (capacitor discharge ignition) distributor like I fitted to my KE70 Corolla way back to replace the points. And likewise with my old HR Holden (Commodore CDI replaced HR points). No ECU with CDI. Just simple vacuum and / or mechanical advance. CDI, extractors, cams and carbs... Tune it by ear, by the colour of the plugs and by feel. Easy peasy. That's the kind of AW motor I want one day. Early Formula Atlantic style. That would be so much fun in an AW...!

http://www.aeu86.org/forum/Thread-nzae8 ... -Project-2