blue 71' wagon

[RONSLYCHUK]

Great work! Congrats on the first drive. It might be a good idea to get the rebuild kit for the carb.

[Legoman27]

I did go through and try to rebuild the carb when I first got the car, but that's been 5+ years ago now.a second attempt couldn't hurt at least
would likely be the cheapest option

[gooned]

Great to see it on the road!

Carbs can be frustrating but really are just time to get happy, if you have patience.

[defdes]

Great job on an ambitious project. Satisfying to get it out on the road. After 24 years in service, my 2 door is ready for its second go around this was inspirational.

[Legoman27]

Last couple weeks have been real busy, but I've been trying to do a bit here, a bit there

Picked up a rotary polisher& have been working on cleaning up my overzealous use of spray paint
before


After


Picked up a repro gas cap
for the price its fine, but not sure I'd recommend it



new tail lenses as well
should be able to have reverse lights again
plan is to use VHT "nite shades" red to paint to the right color, but I'd like to find a similar amber paint for the turn signals


wanted the side markers to flash with the blinkers, so i picked up some dual-pole sockets to put in



doing some research I figured out that this jumper I removed previously was intended to go to a headlight relay
it doesnt match the Bosch 5 pin relay that seems like the typical retrofit nowadays




Best I can figure, it should take one of these 6 pin relays - from Isuzus, Hondas & Nissans i'd guess in the early 80's?
I've got one on order so we'll see what happens when it gets here


cant find the springs for the headlights so I've got some new ones on the way as well
regardless, I don't plan to use or trust 54 year old headlight wiring more than the bare minimum


Last big thing that's been done is a distributor rebuild


fully cleaned & new grease applied
tried my hand at re-curving the distributor



Seems to run better than before - It's at least harder to kill at idle
Trying to time the distributor was fun, near impossible to see the timing marks past everything in the way



I need to do another compression test
maybe heat cycles have freed up the rings on the cylinder with low compression?
a man can dream right?

[RONSLYCHUK]

Good progress. Does the carb seem to be working now?

[Legoman27]

hard to say, seems to be running better in general
Fiddled with the carb adjustments a little

Most of the difference is probably in setting the timing closer to correct
just glad to be making progress

I've got a not great amount of blowby though, so not sure this motor has a ton of life in it anyway
this is after one loop around the block

[Legoman27]

Working on a few things

Discovered that my steering lock was useless -
1. it would only lock when turning right
2. the entire column would rotate when the lock was engaged

Turned out the slot where the lock engaged was completely worn out


and the three screws holding the column in place were all broken


After replacing the screws and welding up the wear in the lock slot, everything seems to be working correctly


Up next was getting the headlights working
Low beams came on with the dash switch, but the parking lights turned off


Turned out to be a combo of two things
1. It turns out I have the wrong fuse box,
so 12v was being sent to the headlight circuits at all times
Realized this thanks to this thread
viewtopic.php?t=33032

My fuse box:


What I need

Note the separate bus bar in the top left for the lights

Currently looking for the correct fuse box, but in the meantime this should handle things
- depinned L & R headlight circuit & used some inline fuse blocks to recreate that functionality


not super thrilled about the flimsy amazon bullet connector carrying all the power for both headlight circuits, but it works for now

2. someone snipped this jumper wire at some point
- likely when the lighting circuits had a meltdown


After fixing that jumper & opening the switch to clean all the connections


and another 20 mins of wondering why it still didn't work, I remembered to plug the relay back in, then the lights worked pretty well


I probably should still go through and clean all the connections a second time, just to make sure I've got the best chance of not melting down
Started to pull everything apart for a steering / front suspension refresh



I foresee new strut tops in my near future


though I've already got some 280zx struts, so I may go ahead and lower the front of the car sooner than I'd anticipated

[Legoman27]

​A few updates, but nothing huge
Suspension bits have all been painted and are back in the car with new bushings



Passenger inner tie rods seem hard to find for some reason
ordered a second drivers inner by mistake and found this
L to R
Moog / 555 drivers inner
Mevotech drivers inner
old passenger inner that was on the car

I'm inclined to believe that the Moog /555 part is correct, though I'm confused how the casting would have ended up marked L but curve the other way



The steering box is the main thing holding me up at this point
The cage for one of the input shaft bearings has completely come apart

wear on the gears doesn't seem to bad otherwise


I've got some bearings on order that might work
if not, I'lll reach out to redheadsteeringgears.com and see if they have a set they can part with
​

[Legoman27]

so the new bearings I got are almost match
the new bearing / cage (VTAA19Z-4) are the same as the old ones (VTAA19Z-3)
the balls measure the the same at ~7.13mm

The only difference seems to be the overall thickness of the race, and they look like you could have them ground to thickness if needed
-4 is 12mm -3 is 9.5mm


box is back in the car and seems to be working just fine - new bearing / cage in the old race


~$120 into a rebuild seems pretty good to me