Remembering what it was like..

I

it_mike

True Classic
to have an X

Picked up my 86 exxy last Friday in Lakeland, FL. Drove it to Bradenton, Gainesville, and then home to the Charlotte area. The next day the clutch slave cylinder fails.

Since I haven't yet found a local shop, I take it to a local tranny shop I use for everything else (not allowed to work on vehicles at the place I rent if fluids are involved). Matt overnights a replacement cylinder to us and they install it, but can't figure out how to bleed the system. They'd allowed the piston to seat all the way back, blocking the bleeder, and didn't know what an oil can was...

They referred me to a old guy who works on weird cars, i.e. Rolls, Willys, E-Types, etc. :cool: While I did 90% of the work myself, he was fun to be around and only charged me for the fluid.

Wanted to get the tires balanced due to vibration at speed, but my primary tire center won't touch them due to age. Her current tires were made in 1999.

In the interest of finding what else I needed, I took her over to the local Midas to look at the brakes/struts...
  1. The tires are deformed. Flat spots, etc.
  2. The front struts are dead
  3. RR caliper is frozen

I also still need to do the relays, BWM, and find the short arcing in the fuse panel.

I'm still sourcing tires and struts. I've ordered replacement rear calipers and 'big foot' strut towers. I'd forgotten what a challenge it can be to get basic parts for these babies.:shock:
 
Our regular vendors have already provided a clutch slave, doublers, and calipers, and if you have the part number, KYB struts are all over the internet, so not sure about the "challenge" of getting most parts. Sure there is unobtanium, but many of our vendors have bent over backwards to cure that:

1. Mark Plaia's strut top bushings and doublers as commissioned and sold by Chris Obert at FiatPlus

2. Bob Grasch's aluminum radiators, now sold by Matt at MWB

3. Henk Marten's many trips to Italy to unearth forgotten OEM parts as well as the many better-than-OEM repro items he's commissioned

4. Matt at MWB has repro'd several sorely needed items such as stainless coolant tanks and fuel tanks, plus some nice to haves like the fiberglass body items and his latest, late model front bumper filler strips

Sure, you can't stroll into the local O'AdvancePepZone store and get too many hard parts, but in some cases you wouldn't want to even if you could...case in point would be the slave and the calipers. If available from the Big Boys, those parts have probably been lounging on shelves for years if not decades, seals drying out and bores rusting all the while. Best to get stuff like that from specialty vendors whose stock turns over.

If you could rebuild the car from a catalog or get everything you needed at the corner store, you'd see yourself coming and going like the interchangeable Camaro/Nova/Mustang guys in the local muscle car club. Where's the fun in that?:)
 
I'd consider tires a "basic part" and currently hard to source in our standard sizes.

I suppose I've been spoiled as a "Jeepster" with dozens of local sources. Now everything (including key blanks) takes days to get. There are also parts that we may never see again, i.e. interior lights, OE-matching fabrics, and other parts unique to the exxy. I'm not knocking it, just remembering from my previous x's.
 
There's no question about it, good tires are one of the more problematic items!

You can still get higher profile "rim protectors" pretty easy though. But then, not a lot of fun in those rim protectors:(
 
Slave cylinder

In the original slave cylinders the piston had an open area in the rear that let fluid enter the cylinder so bleeding wasn't a problem. In these aftermarket cylinders the rear of the piston is solid and fluid can't get around it if the piston is all the way back in the cylinder making it difficult to bleed. You may be able to remove the rear hose and blow compressed air into the slave cylinder to move the piston away from the rear of the cylinder. What I do is remove the piston from the cylinder and cut a grove in the rear of the piston so fluid is allowed to get into the cylinder and the problem is gone forever. I then vacuum bleed the system but be sure to put Teflon tape on the thread of the bleed screw so air isn't pulled around the threads or you can use a speed bleeder instead of the teflon tape. You will probably still need to vacuum bleed the system either way as the line goes up and down making bleeding with the pedal somewhat problematic. I can bleed the clutch in under 5 minutes. Around 15 minutes for the brakes since there are 4 bleeding points.

Charlie
 
We got it clear and reverse bled it in about 3 minutes.

(Clean trigger-style oil can attached to the bleed valve, pushing all the air back to the reservior)
 
it_mike said:
t
They referred me to a old guy who works on weird cars, i.e. Rolls, Willys, E-Types, etc. :cool: While I did 90% of the work myself, he was fun to be around and only charged me for the fluid.
Click to expand...

Meeting and hanging out with these old guys is a lot of the fun... They show up at the strangest moments when you need them the most. My goal in life is to grow up to be one of them :)
 
Now that you mention "old guys".......!

EricH said:
....Meeting and hanging out with these old guys is a lot of the fun... They show up at the strangest moments when you need them the most. My goal in life is to grow up to be one of them...
Click to expand...

..I haven't seen any posts from Mike M (MM) for quite a while - I hope he is still "with us"!! :confuse2:

cheers, Ian - NZ
 
This is too funny

After gloating as to how easy it is to bleed the clutch and brakes, I did the same job today after changing both master cylinders. After over a quart of fluid and 2 hours trying to bleed the clutch failure raised it ugly head. After wondering why I never had this trouble before I took a step back and finally realized that I always do this in a level garage floor. This time I was in the driveway with the back end much lower that the front. That put the slave bleed screw lower than the slave cylinder I was trying to bleed. I unbolted the slave, rotated it around so the bleed screw was at 12:00 O'clock high. One more shot at bleeding, a ton of air came out instantly and 5 minutes later it was done.
Just when you have a good system down pat something will always screws it up. I'm too old for this

Charlie
 
YA IAN

At this age it's a wonder I can remember anything. Then again I think my memory is pretty good because I don't remember forgetting anything.

Charlie
 
Welcome to the Dark Side again, Mike... Just remember...

CHECK HERE FIRST before you even change the oil!

And I am SERIOUS.

The folks here are highly responsive with more facts and experience than fiction and opinions!(except for oil and spark plugs... HA!)

As for tires... yep, getting scarce and many folks push back from our Far East Manufacturing Arm but ya gotta understand something...

The US Tire Manufacturing is going OVERSEAS and then importing them DUTY-FREE back to the States... and the FOREIGN Manufacturers are coming here and building tires because of the HIGH DUTY FEES!

Don't believe me... look for yourself. My Michelins were made in Turkey and my new set here in the US. My Goodyears are made in China and so are my Achilles. My Mickey Thompson Radials are the only American Tire made in America that I can find lately. Even my last set of Sumitumo's were made in China and I have a set of Pro-Meter tires made in Indonesia.

I run a staggered tire on my car with 205/60x13's in the rear and 175/60x13's in the front for 1) appearance 2) a 300+ RPM drop when cruising, 3) width for better traction, especially up front for braking and turning.

The STANDARD SIZE replacement tires that 99% of the folks use here and love, and are reasonably priced are 185/60x13's all around. Sumitumo's were the brand of choice but they are gone.

Enter the Achillies, Federal's and Toyo's... from Tireseasy.com...

http://www.tires-easy.com/cgi-bin/r...yre_for=&rsmFahrzeugart=ALL&suchen=View+Tires

$36 bucks to $183 apiece... the Federals have had mixed reviews from us as well as Nexen's... The Toyo's are fantastic with a wear rating of about 40... and so far, the few of us that have purchased Achilles are quite amazed how much we like them. Took all the vibration out of my car! No long term studies yet.

Hopefully this helps... looking forward to seeing and hearing more!
 
Mike submerges quite a bit only to pop up...

when you need him. Just like Eric was saying...

Usually its a WOMEN though, or something even worse! HA!
 
Most cetainly Rob... especially with the schools and...

"professionals with tenure"... I'm surprised they learn anything except to toss away the values some (hopefully most) of us try to impress on them.

So far, I have a 66.7% batting average with mine... Although there have been a few "walks" and "strike-outs" along the way even with these two. I prefer to remember the "home runs" as well as the "runs batted in". One opted out and quit the game in 2006.

Gone are the "Dedicated Professionals of Yesteryear" for the most part. Home schooling and the like may teach the academics but I cannot see HOW they can teach kids to interact, and get along... but then again, as this world turns, they may never have to...

I guess I could run out of pixels on this topic... But I must say this as well: There are some real dedicated and wonderful people out there with the patience of Job... usually teaching those with disabilities. I've had the PLEASURE of working with them and being on both sides of the fence.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top