Cage, part something or other

I shanghaied Eric into helping me bleed the van brakes last night. There was a lot of air in the line where I replaced the rear brake cylinder. The pedal is firm now. Now on to the real work.

Ed joined us last night. He'll hold the moniker of new guy for a while or until he recruits some other work mates to join us. We were able to get the plates in for the front down bars and the actual front down bars. Eric really loved the front down bars. How do I know? Well, he spent so much time grinding and cutting on them to get them just right, that's how I know! I feel like we've accomplished a lot with the main hoop, roof loop and fronts in. From there, I expect it will go pretty quick to get the rest in. I'm thinking 3 more work sessions to finish the cage, then a Saturday with the big welder to make it stay.

Now I'm off to research backstay installation. Needs to be at a 45 degree angle, but I want to get the attachment points right.

Plus there should be a package arriving in the mail soon!

Another side project

I had to replace the brakes on the 2001 Honda Odyssey because they were getting squeaky. I put the van on jack stands, pulled the tires and started pulling the front rotors off.

I wonder why they were so squeaky?

 

Not only that, but the caliper guide pin for the passenger side was frozen. The rubber sleeve on the inside was destroyed and made it difficult to extract. I've sourced one locally and should have it back together before lunch.

And the rear passenger brake cylinder for the shoes is leaking. That's getting replaced too.

The third and final piece to the brake madness is the motvie power bleeder I have does not have a good attachment for the master cylinder, so I'll be bleeding these the old fashioned way.

On the plus side, the $10 headlight lens cleaner kit I got from Harbor Freight worked great in cleaning up the lights.

More cage

Eric stopped by and helped me get the roof loop cut and tacked in. It was a short session. Next week we're going to move to Thursdays for the foreseeable future. Work will continue on the cage with the front down bars going in next, then the back down bars and the door bars. Then we'll get the big welder (queue Ed) and get it finished. Seems like a little bit of work, but we're slow, so I'm predicting a December finish.

Sketchy carb is here!

I received the sketchy weber from CA. And it is as sketchy as you would expect for $30 shipped. The throttle action is a little sticky from its rusty “character”. The choke is hardwired open. I have no idea about the bowl, as there is no sight glass. It’s a 32/34 DFT and not a 32/36. I haven’t been able to find any good documentation on it yet. I’ll try pulling it apart and checking the bowl condition and then just hooking the thing up to see how it does.

More of the same...

The work we did last night was prep work. We cut out the dash for the front down bars, cleaned the floors and started cutting the plates. It was a short night for us, maybe 90 minutes of work. It looks like we’ll put this cage in with a hand cutoff tool, wire brush drill attachment and small welder! Actually, I have a car friend at work that has a nice 230V mig welder he’ll let me borrow when it’s time to melt the cage.

Still no word on the sketchy weber…

Carb and Welding

The evening started with a nice drizzle and power outage. Lights were out for about 30 minutes. After that we got to serious work.

We pulled the carb off and checked the float and float needle. It looked good, but we made some adjustments to the position to allow more gas into the bowl before the float cut it off. We were able to get the car running, but after we ran through the gas in the bowl, it wouldn’t refill. Same damn problem we’ve been having since the rebuild. I have no idea what’s wrong, but I’m done messing with this carb. I did find a used weber on the Celica forums for $30. I’ll need an adapter plate, filter and maybe linkage. But it’s Lemony!

We got the plates welded in after working on the carb and wrapped up right around 9pm. I did the welding. It’s not pretty, but it’s in there.

Brakes done!

The new rotors are on. The pads are in. The shoes are changed. The sensors connected. Now I need to bleed them. Some fresh Dot 4 Super Blue will finish the brake refresh.

And then I need to fix this.

Front right axle

To look like this.

Front left axle

I replaced the front right cv joint boot because it was torn. I had a heck of a time getting the axle shaft back in. Looks like I didn't finish the job. Oh well, gotta pull the whole thing out and try again.