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I have read all your posts in this thread. I find your whole attitude mildly amusing, and the DMV shenanigans interesting, even if they don't apply to me.
So, what I'm saying is keep it up.
Originally Posted by Gee Emm
Seconded.
Hah, thanks guys
Here's a quick one... I decided this steering wheel was beyond gross and got tired of it literally crumbling in my hands so I started looking into options to replace it.
I then came to the conclusion that everyone is insane and there's just no way I'm spending that much on LITERALLY ANY steering wheel that fits this car and is currently available. I started exploring other options.
Enter, the DIY $9 steering wheel "leather" wrap kit:
You can get these on eBay, Amazon, etc. This one is branded BELINOUS and the size is M2. Either I ordered the grey one by mistake or it was cheaper than the black one, but regardless, it was $9 and came with a million feet of cord, 3 needles and didn't smell like death. What it did do however was feel like a gross *** slick grey Chevy Silverado steering wheel, and that's just not acceptable. The good news is that the backside of "real leather" feels almost exactly like suede, so I installed it in reverse!
It stretched around the wheel quite nicely so I decided to get my arts & crafts on. I chose something called the "baseball stitch" but as I've never done this before, it came out a bit uneven. I spent about an hour doing this while streaming some nonsense in the background on the TV.
The results are not perfect, mainly because I have no idea what I'm doing but I figured for $9 how bad could it be? Now I can say I wrapped a steering wheel and as it turns out, not only is it functional its actually quite nice!
This is like, some sort of opulence in this car. The backside of the "leather" is grippy and soft and I'm sure it'll be just peachy. I cannot WAIT to ruin this **** with vehicle grime and french fry grease
As a wise man once said, when all you have is a hammer...
I put a set of these in the NB and absolutely love them, so as the NA was missing eyeballs this seemed like a logical solution. $25 on eBay and a little time in the lathe and I was good to go. As with most things, it took me an hour to do the first one then banged out the other three in about 30 minutes. Indicating the damn things was a waste of time as the body isn't concentric to the outside rim, but they all came out in the end. 70mm OD seems to be just about perfect for both the tombstone and the dash vents
Drove the car around a bunch this weekend, still seems to be doing just fine. Following along with "not being actively repulsed by the car" I had to do something about the heat on the transmission tunnel because its pretty bad with the hardtop on the car.
I started by busting out the aluminum HVAC tape and sealing up all the random holes in the tunnel. It's shocking how those things just kind of ...appear over the years. Looking around the garage for something to use as insulation and I found a great big roll of Reflectix left over from another project
This stuff is cheap and effective and I already had it, so no trips to the Home Depot required! I sliced off a big chunk and tossed it in to see where it would land. Turns out I eyefucked that pretty good and its a fairly solid fit.
I added some cutouts for various things and it fits surprisingly well.
Too keep the inside of the car from looking like an alien space hooker from a bad 80s Scifi movie and acting like a solar oven, it needs some carpet. I happened to have one of these guys in the garage as well, so it was pressed into service.
It says "TRAFFIC MASTER" right on it so clearly its automotive rated Also, I don't know what "Gel" is but I hope its temperature stable
Laid it out in the sun to get softy, then went to work doing some more custom fitting on the Reflectix
Pocket for the e-brake was a challenge. Lots and lots of aluminum HVAC tape to hold that together.
Then slap the carpet on top and good to go!
Had I been thinking with my brain I would have installed the e-brake handle AND THEN just cut a slit for it to poke though the carpet, but instead I cut a dirty great hole in the carpet like I was going to make a pocket again. Stupid brain. Duct taped a scrap on the back and it should be fine.
Banged the seats back in and she looks like a car again! Tidy!
Test drive shows immediate improvement as far as trans tunnel goes. I might end up buying another one of these chunks of carpet and doing something for the package tray. Either way. GREAT SUCCESS!
Test drive shows immediate improvement as far as trans tunnel goes. I might end up buying another one of these chunks of carpet and doing something for the package tray. Either way. GREAT SUCCESS!
Now all you need to do is keeping looking around your garage for an old sweater to reupholster the driver's seat
Bah, that cover may go on that seat but its not going in this car. I bought that seat skin from the dealer probably 8-10 years ago, back when my NB was still nice and I was doing my best to keep it stock. I've definitely slipped from that a bit, but I still have the parts should I ever want to put it back to stock. Which is the only reason I still have my stock NB seat
In 15 years after California bans gasoline and I give up on cars I'll sell the cover on m.net for bank, just you wait. #investmentgoals
Clutch fluid looks and smells suspicious so I decided to pump it out and refill with fresh fluid
And then I did it again, and again... after 3 pump and refills and some work with a q-tip its finally clean.
This is what came out of just the clutch reservoir:
This jar was empty and clean when I started. All that muck was in the bottom of the reservoir. lol
When I say I pumped and refilled I'm not talking about pushing fluid through the slave, I quite literally sucked this all out of the clutch master then refilled it from the top. I wanted it clean before I did anything else, no reason to push all this garbage through the system. I ran out of the Autozone DOT4 I was using to flush and its now full of ATE Type200 of unknown provenance. I'm sure it'll be fine.
Where is my weekly friday morning reading, you're late
Hah! I am, I fully admit it.
The car has been sitting in my driveway like this for the better part of a week as I really tweaked something in my lower back. Leaning and twisting has been a real nightmare so I've kinda opted out of car shenanigans. I was working on pulling the spindles so I could replace the LBJs
I picked up a pair of the fancy Bauer ELBJs for good measure.
The other reason for pulling it all apart was to replace the UBJ and TRE boots. The ball joints themselves feel fine but the boots have all disintegrated. According to the internets the UBJ and TRE share the same Energy Suspension 9.13103G Polyurethane Tie Rod End Boot so I ordered them up. I really wish I had ordered the 9.13103R so I could ball hard with the red boots, but you live and learn. You get a 2 pack for under a $5 spot from the usual scumbags at Summit/Speedway/Jegs orr... you can pay $10-$12 EACH for rubber ones from somewhere like FM. I'm not interested in spending $40+ on boots so ES Poly is clearly the way to go for me. We'll see if they actually fit once my back chills the **** out.
But of course, now I need another OTRE. Because I can't have nice things apparently.
I realize the hammer in frame will seem counter to this statement, but I didn't hit that with the hammer so I'm not entirely sure what happened here. For now I may throw the fresh boot on it and see if I can sendit with the ugga-dugga gun and get the taper to lock, then worry about it later when my new OTRE comes in.
The hotness for my rear suspension arrived as well
I picked up these modified NB top hats from another member here on the forum. They may not be as pretty as the Maruhrauhuarhaurhruahurahhraurhauahruharurahuarhua uhruahrhaurahuruharhuarhurauhrarhuahruaurharuha ones but holy damn are they functional. The Energy Suspension 9.6103R Coil Spring Isolators just baaaarely stretch over the locator "lip" in the center so no glue is required AND there is absolutely no question that they will keep the spring centered.
Damn, not even seamless DOM, car is probably gonna explode. The welds are a bit aggressive but the spatter should help keep the isolators in place
I'll need to pay REALLY close attention on re-assembly of the rears to make sure that the top of the shock body DOES NOT contact the "lip" that holds the isolator and spring in place, and that the threaded sleeve on the shock body DOES NOT contact the "lip" on full compression. A longer threaded aluminum sleeve and an insufficient bump stop could cause that "lip" to crash into the sleeve and rip the lock ring right off the shock body. This can be easily tested by putting the car on jack stands, re-assembling the suspension without the spring and then using a jack to fully compress the suspension under the weight of the car. In reality you should do this whenever you do suspension modifications but I'm pretty sure almost nobody bothers. I'll probably try it once without the spring and again without the bump stop as a "worse case scenario" just to see what I'm dealing with. Clearly there will be a bump stop in there but I want to see how close it gets. If I end up with contact on the threaded shock sleeve I can always cut those down, but if "lip" in the hat contacts the shock body I may need to take more drastic measures. So long as these are concentric to the outside diameter of the shock and the inside diameter of the spring they should be perfect for my needs
So just as soon as my back will allow I'll get it put back together and back on its wheels. If I don't push it too hard today I suspect I'll be good to go for some actual progress this weekend.
How old are those yellow jackstands? I'm fairly sure they're the same ones as my dad had and gave to me
Haha! Good spot, those are 90s vintage from the FLAPS, maaaaaybe Harbor Freight. Those are the first jack stands I ever bought so I could work on my first car.
Production date appears to be November 27th 1997 which jives with my memory. These stands are definitely older than some of the members here, to say these things "have seen some ****" over the years would be an understatement. Haven't killed me yet!
I have stands that look identical, but they are Craftsman brand. Dad bought them sometime in the 1970's.
What I'd really like to get back is my grandfather's steel ramps. He had the 1950s-1960s equivalent of Rhino Ramps except they were made out of stamped 1/4" or 3/8" steel with internal reinforcement bars. The things were SERIOUS beef. He used to pull his '73 F250 WITH cabover camper up on them from time to time. I vividly remember not being able to move them as a small child, and I inherited them after he passed. I loaned them to a friend and he never gave them back
They just don't make them like they used to!
Speaking of, I have 4 jackstands to return as part of the Harbor Freight recall, lol
10-09-2020, 05:08 PM
Also, I don't know what "Gel" is but I hope its temperature stable
