t_andrews

Thanks for the information nissanman and beandip, I'm not setup to do any welding so I would have to have someone else do that part. As for the channel piece does it have a common name? I was looking on Zedd's page and I didn't see anything that sounded like what this is. I think it might be easier as beandip suggested to replace the piece as a whole since I think the rust has gotten wedged in between the two pieces and I don't think I can save the captive nuts for the hood bracket since rust has gotten in behind them. Looks like this would involve removing the spot welds and removing the channel piece so I can get to the inner flat piece behind it and cut and patch the rest of the rot there and put in a new channel piece on top. The other method would be less expensive if I could fab the parts myself but I don't have the workspace/experience required.

So I have some rust on the forward hood ledge and reinforcing piece from the hood mounting brackets back to about 7in past the front cross member. Has anyone had any experience with repairing rust in this area? from what I know it does not seem a common (although not impossible) area to have rot in it and I'm trying to get some ideas what it is going to take to repair it. Pretty much the entire area enclosed by the hood ledge reinforcing piece from the hood brackets to the cross member is paper thin and rusted through both pieces from the inside (drain was probably plugged). In the last attachment I have drawn the outline (in red) of the extent of the rust on the reinforcing piece that appears to be spot welded to the inner hood ledge which is rusted through in the area outlined in blue. I'm a little concerned that there could be structural issues here but I'm not sure. The passenger's side has the same issue but isn't past the front cross member (yet) Any knowledge is much appreciated -A

I have the same vacume cylinder on the left hand side of the picture. My car is a california model (1978) with the factory a/c and manual trans. The small vacuum hose goes to a set of solenoids on the passenger side that seem to be hooked up to the a/c system. Im just guessing but I think that the vacuume cylinder in question activates and increases the throttle slightly when the a/c is turned on, since this load at idle causes the engine to drop RPM considerably. On my car however the arm of the vacuume cylinder has been adjusted beyond the range of the throttle linkage so it has to effect that I am aware of. Hope this helps. t_andrews

Alan, 8508 on brake didn't see anything on the clutch, however I have not taken it off. so no bingo yet... Im curious, what do these numbers stand for? Factory batch? I don't see any correlation to the model years in others... Interesting nonetheless.