[GT4LIFE]

She is running great! I haven’t fully pushed the clutch yet, but it feels solid. I has been below freezing all week, and I drive my red turbo that has all seasond on it. The Yokahamas are not for freezing weather.

I do need to move the mount for the e brake back so the swing of the e-brake cable is longer. Right now when it gets below freezing the e-brake is not releasing. This probably because the actual pull is so short with where I have it mounted (less then ½″).

The next things on the list for the car:

Most immediately; get the idle to drop a little bit (most likely Idle Valve or cold start vale, but I wanted to polish up the throttle body.
LSD; spare tranny rebuild
Paint
Get the headers ceramic coated
Internal distributor rebuild (I’ll rebuild my spare and switch it out)
Solder up the Mega Squirt II for full sequential
Purchase COPs
Crankwheel trigger wheel; crank wheel sensor

[GT4LIFE]

This weekend I need to get several things done:

I have to rebuild the distributor; first on the list has it is puking up oil over my transmission and sensor wires. I have two rebuild kits on hand. I’m surprised that the actual running of the distributor has been greatly effected by the oil leak. I guess it goes out the bottom of the cap. Either way I’m at my own limit of not fixing this.

It is past time to move the e-brake back several inches to give the pull arm a longer swing. It actually is part of the reason it lock up on a sub freezing day. One of the mornings that it froze I must of thought I got it to unlock when in truth it must not have fully released. That caused the rotor on the rear right to super heat and get a fracture. I ordered up a rear disc replacement that is on the way. I also ordered up a new right rear control arm that I know was not fully straight on the ends. I’ll check everything else since I was getting vibrations back there. I think mostly from the cracked rotor but I’ll go through everything.

New stereo install. A Kenwood KDC-x705 single DIN. The old one will go in the red car.

I picked up some new sway bar bushings and brackets with zerk grease fittings. I also bought sets for the red turbo.

I’m going to pull the wideband and re-install not in the pillar but else where away from electronics. I also need to check to see why my boost gauge light is intermediate. I’m sure it is the flimsy wiring harness in the back of the actual gauge.

I’m positive I won’t get to half of this, but hopefully have her back up and running my next Friday. I have an extra two days off beginning of the next week.

[GT4LIFE]

Will I got the distributor back together and something has gone awry. I took pictures but forgot to mark the reluctor wheel before pressing it off. There was a Y symbol on one side and a two similar surface difference on the inside shaft side of the reluctor wheel. I was fairly certain the Y symbol is out, but the reluctor wheel was probably the other mark. It also could be the end cam alignment notches as those could be backward. I’ll take a look and pull the distributor from my white gt and hopefully sort it out tomorrow. Rebuilding the distributor is not fun. It is a pain to drive the dowel out, and I didn’t really have specific directions since the write up I was using was for a Metro and that is not the same inside. If I get it working I will do a write up since that inside seal will fail for all of us probably soon.

[GT4LIFE]

I got it back together working. I’m just going to post things that I need to remember before doing a better write up.

Mark the line on two pin cam distributor end even with the distributor body and take a reference photo inside the distributor with the cap and rotor off without turning it. The two must go back on the same way. They can be reversed and you will be out 180 degrees.

I used a leather old glove folded in half on top of a vice that I set about ¾″ apart and braced the end the two pin distributor end. I pre-heated the end of the distributor shaft with the flame hitting the end vertically (make sure everything inside is already removed). Best to probably soak with P-B blaster the night before. If your re-using your outer o-ring make sure you remove first. The dowel did not move at all until I pre-heated. I used a 10 lbs hammer and a short punch to get it started. I’m sure there is a better set up to hold the part but it worked. Once I got it started I switched to a longer punch. I measured with calipers and didn’t see any difference in diameter of the dowel, but I would recommend punching it out and pressing it in the same direction. To get the dowel back in I used the vice and only hand to use the punch the the last mm or so to fully seat it.

The Y symbol does go out on the reluctor timing wheel. This means it is facing the under side of the cap. After removing rotor carefully mark on the shaft of the distributor even with the flat end and mark both sides where this line is drawn on the reluctor timing wheel. Take a picture straight on for reference. The reluctor wheel can be pressed off, and will need to be pressed off in order to replace the bearing. After removing the dowel pin and distributor end two pin end, the cam timing sensor, alignment plate, and two bearing hold down screws the whole distributor shaft with seal, bearing, and reluctor wheel will slide out by hand force. I have a small bearing pulling set that the two halves fit nicely around the back of the reluctor wheel (flat side to flat side). Mark the bottom side of the reluctor wheel and the bottom side of the shaft; make sure your top marks are still clear. Use a press and the reluctor wheel slides off the shaft. Don’t pinch your bearing or clamp the shaft when tightening the bearing puller. With the reluctor wheel off you can use a 12 mm deep socket to press the bearing inner race surface off. 12 mm deep socket will work to press the new bearing back on. The bearing and the reluctor wheel come off the thinner side of the distributor shaft toward the cap.

Make sure you align carefully the reluctor wheel using your mark and use the same 12 mm deep socket to press it back on. Check your reference photo for sanity.

Clean down the shaft where the seal will go and polish. Clean down the distributor body and lightly lube the seal surface and inside of new seal. The seal will slide in with hand force and sit flush with the outer surface inside the distributor body.

[GT4LIFE]

EC-80WU Wilwood MC-4 Brake Cables - Black Housing

I’m fixing my rear Wilwood emergency brake install on the inside. I have to move the cable adjuster bracket away from the emergency brake and move the cable union block as far out as it will go. This will increase the physical pull distance of the emergency brake and increase leverage. I already cleaned up the ferrules one of the cables where it had stuck to the black cable housing. The other ferrule had popped out of the cable adjuster and I had to debur the end of the cable adjuster so the ferrule would fit back inside it. The trick will be to only move the cable adjuster bracket far enough back where it does contact the cable union block and align properly when the emergency brake arm is off fully down and further back.



Lokar really did a bad job on making the Wilwood MC4 emergency brake kit. Nothing was machined right. I have to find time to contact the person that called me back at Lokar about the problems with this kit. The cable adjuster was drilled 1/64″ off not allowing the ferrule to slide into it. On the other end backing plate fitting was 1/64″ too large where I had to lathe it down. Even the 5/16″ clevis pin was drilled wrong where the alignment of cable was not correct.



When I took the set screws out of course the cable was all fubar. I ordered up some ⅛ 316 high brightness stainless steel 1 × 19 cable marine grade. Some how I messed up the Amazon order or the company set me the wrong one they set me 7 × 19 which I think would have problems sliding inside the black cable housing. I’m also going to dry some Blaster Insdustrial Graphite Dry Powder Lubricant on the cable itself. (-300 to 800 degree f) This will hopefully protect it from sticking when below freezing. The shorter physical pull distance of the emergency brake cable was making the adjustment on the MC4 Wilwood Emergency brake caliper very sensitive. I had only a couple milimeters of tuning adjustment where it would not work or it would not release. The adjustment will hopefully solve that giving me more like an inch of adjustment.

I also was worried that the MC4 calipers are sticking closed (not releasing) when cold. Hard to say if this was the cable or the calipers or both. Either way without finding any literature on what to use on these calipers I put a few drops of PAG oil in the piston ports that are on either side of the caliper. When I opened them there was no oil that comes out. It is a dry system (mechanical cable only). PAG oil was rated down to - 40 and is used on metal to metal moving parts and protects against corrosion. Other oils didn’t have quite the range. Some info out there does match with other info on this. I saw some thicker oils don’t actually lower viscosity until much lower temperature, but then I saw that thin synthetic oils have a much lower temperature range. Therefore, the other option might just be a 0w 30 full synthetic or 50w 30.

[GT4LIFE]

I got the left rear all squared away. I managed to use the original cable for that side. The new length of the emergency brake pull is 100 times better. I added a little synthetic oil to the caliper ( just four drops in each port). I double checked the bearing and torque on all the bolts.

Tomorrow, I’m going to replace the right rear control arm. I’ll swap in the poly bushing first and also put the new Energy Suspension seat in for the spring.

I got the right rear control arm in I found that the original White Line poly bushing I used for the rear hub was not a great fit (W81457) . The new recommend bushing for it listed on the White Line site is W61463. The fit is way better and it comes with a 10 mm crush tube not a 12 mm crush tube. The bolt that goes through is a 10 mm. Now I need to replace the rear left hub bushing. There was two in the kit. I have to remove the hub, and chisel or press out the stock sleeve. This is way easier also since before I had to either make or grind down the stock sleeve to work with the bushing.

I also got the rear sway bar bushing with the grease fitting to work (9.5155). Some modification required, but the 17.5 mm bushing works way better then the 19 mm one I had on it. It is also a larger bushing, and a thicker bracket.

[GT4LIFE]

Both sides on the rear are back together. New hub poly bushings, and greasable sway bar poly bushings are in. I just need to vacuum the interior, put the carpet back in, vacuum the carpet, and put the seats back in. Of course test drive.

Upon swapping out the left rear bushing I could see how much distortion was put into the control arm in comparison to the new control arm. I had to tap in place an appropriate sized socket to straighten out the control arm to fit the new hub. The new control arm fits the new bushing used nice and snug. I believe most of the distortion to the rear control arm was due to the following issue with the old listed Whiteline Pan Hard Poly Bushing ( I listed the kit number above (W81457), but there is different numbers on the bushings themselves)

1. The overall bushing length is shorter then a new O.E.M bushing.
2. The crush tube is not long enough either.
3. The crush tube was a 12 mm and the bolt that goes through is a 10 mm.
4. The bushing diameter was too small, and a sleeve had to be made or the O.E.M. sleeve had to be ground down to fit. The original Whiteline bushing only had a 27.7 mm outside diameter.

The new bushing from Whiteline W61463 solves all these problems. It has the right outside diameter (30.5mm). This is the diameter with the inner steel sleeve removed from the hub. It use a 10 mm crush tube with the right length. It does use two different lengths bushing that are easy to press in by hand and two different sleeve (flange) thicknesses of 11mm and 7 mm. The only thing that might be a concern is that the O.E.M. bushing in the hub has no sleeve on the front side but has a sleeve on the rear side. This is why I put the thicker sleeve to the rear, and the thinner to the front.

[blueturbofly]

I remember whiteline didnt want to sell me bushings for my metro- because it was a metro, not a swift. same car, different options.
I did the rear lca bushings in whiteline, along with aluminum rods on the rear- removed the stock stamped steel ones- handles a lot better on the rear. no more '‘rear steer’' when cornering hard.

lots of great work so far. it never ends.

[GT4LIFE]

I remember whiteline didnt want to sell me bushings for my metro- because it was a metro, not a swift. same car, different options.
I did the rear lca bushings in whiteline, along with aluminum rods on the rear- removed the stock stamped steel ones- handles a lot better on the rear. no more '‘rear steer’' when cornering hard.

lots of great work so far. it never ends.

Thanks. I’m replacing my rear heim joint tie rods with poly bushing ones from Speedway Motors. I did have to buy the right crush tubes to get them to 12 mm instead of ½″. I also bought the correct sized solid bolts for the inside to get rid of the adjustment bolt. There is plenty of adjustment on the left and right hand thread rods to set toe and no need to have one more place where the alignment can go out of whack. The heim joints have worked and I haven’t seen any wear marks on the wheels, but they do squeak/pop sometimes, and I had to put grease boots on them which is annoying to deal with. I have the new solid bushing ones put together waiting to go on during spring break where I can schedule an alignment after install.

[GT4LIFE]

Next up:

Replace thermostat with high flow 195 degree.
See if any difference to idle for the cold air valve (quick idle valve)
If not switch cold air valve with white GT
See if any difference to idle.
If not block that mother f*##ker off.

Remove wideband and install in different location with separate 3 amp power and ground run to engine. Check to see if it works. If it doesn’t work I will replace it with an Autometer wideband gauge. I will put another o2 bung in down pipe up by radiator.

Fix boost gauge light; probably just the plug that popped out. I want to put the boost gauge in the middle and then put a two sensor Autometer Gauge below. I would add both water temperature and oil temperature.

During spring break I will pull off the wastegate flange of exhaust manifold and plane it flat. I’m also planning on tap the 8mm x 1.25 holes to 10mm x 1.5. That should solve the problem of the one bolt backing out.