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Mar 20, 2012 11:44:46 GMT
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Good news mate! I remeber these being everywhere when I first got my license, these and the 626 have both disappeared from the roads. It's great that you are keeping this one on the road! I don't remember ever seeing many around - but then again I'm only 22! 70's stylin'  I had a quote for lowering the rear, one extra leaf and a drop of 1.5 inches, which is pretty similar in height to filling the boot up with some curse word^. The reset springs are $350 if the springs are taken off the car first, but I'm worried I'll loose some load carrying capacity.. If it can't carry a load it's not much use as a wagon! (and I hit my head on the boot when it's too low) Other than that I've been racking up the km. Up to 6000km on the engine and it feels better than ever. I fixed up some water leaks and I've got the front carpet back in, and I'm enjoying the relative peace and quiet! |
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Mar 20, 2012 22:25:34 GMT
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Yeah there used to be a few around our way (Hunter Valley NSW), not heaps of wagons to be honest, mainly the 2 and 4 door hatch backs. Mat of mine had a 2 door with a 12a turbo in it which was absolutely lethal!
And I'm only 27, so lets not get carried away with the age thing! Ha ha
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Clement
Europe
ambitious but rubbish
Posts: 2,095
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Mar 20, 2012 22:56:59 GMT
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Sure, it's not low enough for the aggressive stance, but then it's a cool little estate car, to me it doesn't need lowering. Of course that's just my opinion but every car doesn't have to look like a drift/race car  |
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Mar 29, 2012 11:07:55 GMT
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Yeah there used to be a few around our way (Hunter Valley NSW), not heaps of wagons to be honest, mainly the 2 and 4 door hatch backs. Mat of mine had a 2 door with a 12a turbo in it which was absolutely lethal! And I'm only 27, so lets not get carried away with the age thing! Ha ha Yeah I can't imagine one with a 12a turbo.. The suspension is sometimes not happy with the speed of mine, let alone one with 3-4 times as much power! Sure, it's not low enough for the aggressive stance, but then it's a cool little estate car, to me it doesn't need lowering. Of course that's just my opinion but every car doesn't have to look like a drift/race car Yeah that's true. And if it was lowered I couldn't carry stuff in the boot all the time either. I finally did a job I'd been meaning to do for ages... First up I got some offcut pieces of guttering...  Gave it a bit of a bash to flatten one side and drilled some holes and bolted it on...  I think it turned out alright. I need to trim the bracket back a bit next and trim the sides of the lip a bit better. Not bad for $5 though...  The lip came from the back of a BF 323 like this one. It is exactly the right width. It is foam with a rubbery coating   Mazda Yo  I went for a bit of a drive, no squeaks or rattles.  Vertigo?  So dirty  Scrapes the grass a little   |
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Enter... The BIG BEAVER! Circa 1980. Just need an air hose and it's as good as mine! I've been inspired by the DIY on this forum so I thought I'd give painting a go..  The roof has started to get bubbles under the paint from scratches and general life living outside near the beach so I'm going to give it a go respraying the top. I've sanded back most of the spots to give them a dose of rust treatment/magic potion. If this all goes well I might give some other panels a bit of love too.  I had the fun job of scraping the underseal off over the long weekend. It wasn't too bad actually, the worst bit was under the front passenger carpet next to the exhaust pipe where it had gone soft. The rest chipped off pretty easy. I found a few spots were water had been sitting and surface rust had come up, so it was good to clean it all up. I got out 2-3kg as well!  I've started to rattle can the floor with chassis black, which always seems to give a good finish. It is all covered by the carpet/will hide missing carpet, so you shouldn't notice anyway... |
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Apr 11, 2012 11:49:28 GMT
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I went looking for an air hose yesterday. The airline fitting on both the gun and compressor are a smaller size than the standard ones. The first shop had never seen this size before, but could sell a new fitting for each end and a normal size hose, which would be about $60.. The second shop just so happened to have a replacement hose kit for the following product, which fits my compressor for just $25 (The same as the red hose here - a size smaller than the standard black)  I connected up the new hose and she is all sweet. I didn't really know how it was supposed to work at first...  It was spraying air out even though I had the trigger closed. I worked out it was supposed to do that, which is how the paint gets finely dispersed. The air comes out the tiny holes and the paint comes out through the middle  Here are some progress photos on the floor. During stripping and before paint..  Halfway through  Getting there!  New favorite tool.. Got it free last week! It rips through the paint  I started to spray fill the roof  And had some time while the paint was drying to fit a mirror  Should clean these sometime  Looks better, still not amazing. There is a car show I want to go to on the weekend, so the roof will get a temporary coat of yellow to see it through while I investigate paint for the spray gun  The pair of rims I dropped off for repair should be done tomorrow too.. |
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Apr 12, 2012 13:10:37 GMT
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Got my rims back. This is the worst one before, it looked alot worse than this in person too  And after. It cost twice as much to get them painted as well, so I'll do it myself later. (Paint got a bit melted from the TIG I'm guessing)  I fitted the mirrors while the roof was getting yellowed. Also put the interior back in and cleaned it up as I went.  Fender mirrors were quite useless on the quick blast around town. I think they need cleaning or adjusting or maybe a better quality mirror... |
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So the plan today was to get the roof smoothed back and give it a wash before a car show tomorrow. I decided to take the scenic route home when I got a quiet whiring noise about 5 min from home. I revved it accelerating just near home and it started ticking  It was a pretty slow tick, at idle maybe every 2 seconds. I thought it must have been a valve or something. I pulled off the valve cover to check what was going on - the timing chain guide had worked itself loose. Looked like such a pain to tighten up both bolts without taking off the timing cover. It looked like the tensioner was still in place. That could explain the noise?   As I spun the engine over by hand I noticed this! Thankful for double row timing chains!  Ive got another chain somewhere, just a bit of a pain to pull the engine out again! I'm very lucky it happened today near home, and not tomorrow halfway up a mountain pass (and I haven't renewed my roadside assistance) |
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Apr 16, 2012 23:06:32 GMT
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Ok so Sunday: Order gaskets. Monday: Pull out engine. Find loose bolt in the sump, and a missing bolt on the chain guide. Hmmmm. It's just above the timing chain. The cam sprocket is leaning on the top of the two guides in this picture. It's the far side that had the missing bolt, and it would drop straight into the chain/bottom sprocket. A massive coincidence that the link that happened to break was the different colored one with the timing mark on it!  I forgot to leave the water pump bolted on so I need a new water pump gasket, and the intake manifold has been leaking coolant again so another one of those is needed too. Said bolt  Loose guide - Upside down. The other bolt was hanging by a few threads..  (Sorry for dodgy photos - need to charge the camera) |
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Thursday 19th Got some bits today. Head, sump and timing cover gaskets. I borrowed a torque wrench from a mate and I picked up a high mount brake light for the back. I also thought I got some yellow T-10 bulbs for the parkers, but I think they turned out to be amber  Might have time Friday night/Saturday morning to get stuck into it. I had a bit of time Friday afternoon to clean off all the crud from the old gaskets. Then Saturday morning I put on the new(er) timing chain and lined up all the timing marks. The hope was to get the timing cover bolted on and possibly the head. I decided to do the bolts on the timing chain guide up a bit tighter this time so that they wouldn't fall out. Bottom bolt went on fine. Top one kept turning when I tightened it up, I figured I must have ruined the thread. I went to undo it, and the head of the bolt came off but the rest didnt (Grade 6 bolt too) I think the bolt had bottomed out in the end of the thread. After my lousy attempt at removing it I gave up for the day and ended up borrowing a tap set. If I get time tomorrow I'll try to get the old thread back, or bore it up to the next size. Then timing cover, head and sump on. One positive thing is that the big end bearing are still rock solid, so I've had good oil pressure High mount brake light installed. Well stuck on with the double sided tape. Need to wire it up.  Workplace cleanliness is essential  I cranked out the tap set. I couldn't get the original thread back (6x1.0) so I bored it up to 8x1.25, which is the next common size up. It was pretty easy, just gotta be patient.  Kinda like this. Only more in focus. I had to shorten the bolt to fit, and I ran it through the other tap to clean up the thread. It all bolted up fine!  Timing chain back on  And now I've got the timing cover on. I'm attempting to tidy up the wiring a bit using conduit  I need some brake cleaner, gasket paper and electrical tape and a few hours in the shed... Wednesday 25th I got the head back on  Two foes reunite  Sump got all gooped up  So today I pulled the engine down and was putting on the flywheel and clutch. It was 90nm to tighten the flywheel to the crank, and the engine section didnt have a torque for the clutch pressure plate. I think I used too many torques...  I crapped myself at this stage. Most of the bolt was still in the flywheel and it was late in the afternoon on a public holiday. So I had another flywheel, but it was for a 4 speed. I pulled it out and they were different. Different offset to the crank and 4 speed looked a bit smaller diameter. I had both flywheels off at this stage, thinking of a place to extract this bolt so I can bolt it all up. A moment of desperation provided a good thought...how about I try unwinding it by hand? It wasn't actually in tight, it came straight out! :mrgreen: (torque setting of 27nm was under "clutch", not "engine" btw)  Engine in. This was the first time I've left the gearbox in the car while putting in an engine. Normally I pull out both and allign the gearbox and engine on the ground. First attempt didn't work, the clutch wasn't aligned properly. I had the 4 speed lying on the ground nearby and I kept thinking if only I could remove the input shaft to use to line up the clutch. Then I remembered that I could just use the whole gearbox to line it up :rolleyes: only took me 6 months to work that one out!  Not much to do now, just radiator, intake manifold, oil and water and connect a few wires. Hopefully smooth sailing from now on! Friday 27th Got the rest of the engine bolted up It started up and was smokey and seemed to have a misfire Hooked up the timing light, only flashes 3 then misses one Also timing chain seems alot tighter than before. Old one had some slop to it, but this one is pretty tight. I don't know how to make it the right setting? |
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Had some time yesterday morning before work (who gets up early on Monday mornings?) to try and sort out why it wasn't running very well. I pulled out the spark plugs to see if that was the problem, it sounded like it was only running on 3 cylinders. Sure enough when I got them out, number 3 was wet and a bit dirtier so I swapped it for a different one. It now runs pretty smooth, except for the leaky gasket between the exhaust manifold and down pipe, which has again reminded me to get a louder exhaust! Hopefully the video works.. I though the smokeyness was probably due to me having the engine upside down and filling the exhaust manifold with oil. After the video, it wasn't smoking very much at all, and it was sitting on idle nicely. I took it for a quick spin around the block on monday night to warm it up to set timing etc. Had a few drops of oil/liquid on the ground when i got back and it was smokey. It seems to have oil seeping out of the bottom of the exhaust manifold where it connects to the down pipe. I'm pretty sure the head gasket isn't sealed properly. Hmm now when have I seen this before... Further investigationing to come! |
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I took a day off to try and sort out the engine... A least it was a nice day!  I wiped up all the excess oil to try and pinpoint leaks. I took it around the blocks to warm it up, then reset the timing and the valves. Timing was a bit off and it drove much better after it was fixed. It didn't seem to have any smoke coming out the back, and it didn't seem to be leaking oil at all from the front. I retightened the head bolts too, and it would seem to be fine at the moment!  So I had a bit of time to paint up the fixed rim. Not perfect, but much better than before.  And I had a quick go at some mini rims I have stashed away for a future project  |
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May 22, 2012 11:22:51 GMT
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Car has been running pretty well, I've done an oil and filter change. I think the timing chain is a bit loose as the engine seems to be a bit rattley recently. It's quiet under power, but it gets noisy when going down hills/coasting with no power on. Oil pressure is very good, 20psi at idle and up to 60 when revved.. I purchased $102.50 of mystery item off eBay on Friday. This picture will serve as the "before" with the after to come in a week or two.  I finally cleaned up the shed so there is enough room for my nice car (not the 323). Hung up some of the many hubcaps I've been collecting  |
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So I bought two new tyres. 195/50R15.  None of this new age "stretch" (also kinda hard with 6 inch rims)  As much as I like the black mesh rims, I like these gold ones so much more. The black wheels tended to look a bit lost under the guards and a bit small. These ones look spot on. Before   After   |
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The car has been running really well the last few weeks. So well infact the daily has been in the garage for three weeks, and when some parts turned up 2 1/2 hours away I thought "why not?". In preparation for the trip I thought I'd change the water for coolant (water is recommended when putting a new head gasket in) and see if I could work out the rattle in the engine. I was pretty sure it was the timing chain not being tight enough, as it was only noisy at idle and and when coasting in gear. I pulled out the radiator out to access the timing chain guide adjusters and I borrowed a small socket set to fit through the timing cover. At least the socket fit through the adjusting ports on the spare timing covers I had out. Apparently the timing cover in the car has smaller holes compared to the spare ones :  :  The timing chain was tight anyway. The oil pump chain was another story..There is no adjustment or tensioner so it just must be stretched and in need of replacement. So I put it all back together and drove off the next morning. Although the temp looks good in this picture, it has never ever been this high before. Turns out there must have been some air in the system, but I had the rest of the coolant bottle in the boot, just incase. At least I know the temperature gauge works! (and I'm so awesome I can drive and take photos)  So a slow and steady 350km later and I was back home  My passenger on the way home  The bit I was most interested in is the electronic dizzy. I've got to work out the wiring and then I'll put in on the current engine. The engine is a D5, which was the final 323 rwd engine. It is a stroked version of the UC which I've currently got, so it is 1.5L.  And tucked away for another day...  |
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Jun 22, 2012 11:31:53 GMT
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Centrecaps... Fixed. They don't fall off now!  And looking good  |
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About three weeks ago whenever I turned a right corner, the brake fluid level sensor would flash as the fluid moved away to the left hand side. It happened more frequently till it just stayed on untill I filled it up at the reservoir. Didn't seem too much of a deal because I'd done 10,000km or so. Last week the same thing happened, but it was alot quicker to go from sometimes on to always on. I filled it up again. The car had been in the shed being checked out since Tuesday and I started it up this afternoon and the brake light was on again. Fluid level at MIN so where is all my fluid?  Maybe it is here?  And all around here and in the guards too. I couldnt get the drums off to have a look inside, they seem to be ceased.  I'm guessing the brake cylinder has crapped itself, which might not be surprising given its most probably the original one.  Bash bash bash with a hammer and the drum finally gave in. Might need a new set of brake pads too... And it's about time I invested in a brake pipe spanner Yuck!  See all the fluid on the ground!  I ordered some new cylinders and some brake pads. Also dropped off gold rims for straightening.. |
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Jul 12, 2012 13:01:03 GMT
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The second pair of wheels finished getting rolled straight so I got some tyres today  The wheel cylinders came in. Apparently there were none left and they made some more, so these still had fresh paint on them  I've put in both cylinders but the shoes haven't come in yet. There were no shoes at the manufacturer or any of the suppliers so they've made a fresh batch... They might be here tomorrow  |
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Jul 14, 2012 16:34:14 GMT
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Ok so new shoes turned up Friday and I picked them up this morning.  New cylinder first  Then on go the shoes held on with the anti rattle clips  My favorite part...the springs  The secret is to hold the shoes as tight together as possible, I used a tie down strap and squeezed the cylinder in. It brings the spring much closer and it's so easy to get the spring on  Bottom one is a breeze  Then the drums go on and bleed the air out. These one person bleeders work well  Wheels!  The battery needed a little jump and we were back in business.  Finally got the four gold rims sorted  I don't seem to mind the height so much on these rims - maybe because they fill the guards a bit nicer  Had quite a large grin for the rest of the afternoon zooming around |
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It was a pretty slow tick, at idle maybe every 2 seconds. I thought it must have been a valve or something. I pulled off the valve cover to check what was going on - the timing chain guide had worked itself loose. Looked like such a pain to tighten up both bolts without taking off the timing cover. It looked like the tensioner was still in place. That could explain the noise?
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