280 FUN CAR

[plucker]

so have made some progress on the car,  still did not run right, after cleaning the tank,  fuel pressure was sometimes low and was getting worse,   so I put a new ( old ) fuel pump and a new fuel filter,  and added a clear pre-pump filter on the car.  it is running even better. 

got the front calipers re-built.  had to pick thru my pile of caliper pistons to find some that were not too pitted.  question, does anybody sell new pistons ?  I am running out of good ones,   was thinking about having a set made out of 304 stainless.  ( buddy has a machine shop )

started working on the rear brakes.  and the curse of the stuck pistons raised its head.   modified a puller to work on the drums but still not go. need to get some heat on there

 

next I patched up the drivers side floor pan for the short term so my feet dont fall thrugh !

found a great way to get the  tar pad off,  I have read all the forums on using dry ice etc. but that would require me going to buy the stuff,  that was not going to happen,  so I got out the trusty needle scaler.   worked like a charm,  if you get the right angle  on the leading edge, it falls off like  crazy.  

cut out some sheetmetal and pop riveted in place and Voila a temporary floor !

 

 

 

[grannyknot]

Needle scaler, great idea!

[plucker]

progress update : 

finally got the rear drums off, my puller and a propane torch, plus persistence payed off,  they finally came off. the drivers side fell apart in pieces, the shoe linings were no longer connected. and there was about 1/2 cup of debris in the drums...  of course the wheel cylinders were shot.   ordered cheap chinese shoes and wheel cylinders.   got the drivers side assembled . hopefully soon will have a car that is capable of stopping !

The shift lever seemed vaugely attached to something in the gearbox...  that would not do.  took it apart and found no bushings whatsoever on the shift lever.. that would explain it !      went ahead and made a bushing on the lathe. could not find my bronze material so I just made it out of aluminum.    works great ! and near zero cost !    while I was on the lathe,  I  made a cool stainless shift knob to replace the knob-shaped thing that was there.  of curse I forgot to take a picture , next time

 

 

 

 

 

[plucker]

progress update : 

finally got the rear drums off, my puller and a propane torch, plus persistence payed off,  they finally came off. the drivers side fell apart in pieces, the shoe linings were no longer connected. and there was about 1/2 cup of debris in the drums...  of course the wheel cylinders were shot.   ordered cheap chinese shoes and wheel cylinders.   got the drivers side assembled . hopefully soon will have a car that is capable of stopping !

The shift lever seemed vaugely attached to something in the gearbox...  that would not do.  took it apart and found no bushings whatsoever on the shift lever.. that would explain it !      went ahead and made a bushing on the lathe. could not find my bronze material so I just made it out of aluminum.    works great ! and near zero cost !    while I was on the lathe,  I  made a cool stainless shift knob to replace the knob-shaped thing that was there.  of curse I forgot to take a picture , next time

 

 

 

 

 

[grannyknot]

Hey, I tried your air scaler idea, works great, especially in the morning before the shop warms up and the tar is cold.

Thanks

[plucker]

FUEL INJECTION HARNESS RE-BUILD

I have been playing around with the engine trying to get it to run reasonably..  I pulled the injectors to replace them with anothere set I had laying around, unfortunately a few of the fuel injector connectors crumbled to dust as i tried to recconect them..  oh well I guess I needed to fix that anyway.

so I ordered a connector kit from e-bay that had all of the ev-1 style of connectors, including the air meter. picked the style with boots and 8" long pigtails.. that had enough wire to replace the crumbly wires.  stole some heat shrink out of the electrical shop at work and went to town . I think the kit was about $65.00 or so seemed like a good deal.

brought an old roll around cabinet up the the car so i had a surface to work on, taped the harness to the top and marked out the lengths of each connector branch. pulled the boots off and added heat shrink to the pigtails.replaced the boots,  cut the harness wires stripped the ends and soldered the wires together.  you have to make sure the heat shrink is in place before you so the soldering.  with all the branches and splits you really have to pay attention to how you can get the heat shrink on, after you solder on a connector you cannot get the heat shrink on over the connector !

I did not worry about polarity of the connectors except for the thermo-time switch and the throttle switch ( hope I am right ) ,

I did not replace the air meter connector as it was in really good shape. I also eliminated the bullet connectors on the  water temp and thermo-time part of the harness, I figured less connectors mean less problems right ?

might be ready for a test tommorow

 

 

[plucker]

needle scalers rock!  I used it to  remove about 12 lbs of undercoating off of my race car a year or so ago.  temperature makes a ton of difference !

glad it worked out for you

[plucker]

update;

the harness re-build worked out well, got the car running good enough for a test drive....

car ran ok.  brakes are still terrible..  realized the problem is no power boost,   looked thru my pile of parts and found a 7.5" booster.  held vacuum some of the time, but if you touched the output rod, it would leak.  after a bit of investigation the problem was corrosion on the output rod. took it out, polished the corrosion off of the rod, greased it up and no more leaks.  had to really worked to get that rod adjusted to the shop manual specified .380"    had to heat and soak in oil to get it loosened up. 

put it back on the car and now I have too much boost, but I will make a few changes to make that better. 

 

[Zed Head]

4 hours ago, plucker said:

too much boost, but I will make a few changes to make that better. 

Sounds like your reaction disc is no longer in place.

[plucker]

that might be why I had to adjust the push rod about  1/4"  I know there was not one on that booster.  and the symptoms are what everyone talks about,  long travel then too grabby when they do engage !   wil see if that is the issue .  thank you !