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White 83 242 Commuter

The AEM 320 is fairly quiet. I have been impressed with them.

The main pump, its either bosch or nothing really. The aftermarket ones are loud as hell.
 
SquareD said:
Airtex is crap, so is spectra. On something as important as fuel pumps, go Bosch or Rock Auto also shows Delphi is available. I assume a Delphi would be decent. A lot of people go aftermarket, someone should chime in on aftermarket options; don't have any personal experience with that though.
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Damn. I never worked directly with Airtex when I worked at Parker, but we used them as an OE supplier designing diesel fuel filters and smart pump systems. So I recognized the name and thought they were a good brand.

Bosch has let me down big time with vintage VW parts lately. They used to be only made in Germany, and then started moving things to Mexico.. and now lots of Bosch stuff is Chinese. I put a set of points in my bus a few years back and it wouldn't run. It only ran after I pulled the points back out and cleaned all the oil off of them with brake cleaner. Came to find out that was a common problem with them.

I don't know anything about Delphi.
 
slammed145 said:
Damn. I never worked directly with Airtex when I worked at Parker, but we used them as an OE supplier designing diesel fuel filters and smart pump systems. So I recognized the name and thought they were a good brand.

Bosch has let me down big time with vintage VW parts lately. They used to be only made in Germany, and then started moving things to Mexico.. and now lots of Bosch stuff is Chinese. I put a set of points in my bus a few years back and it wouldn't run. It only ran after I pulled the points back out and cleaned all the oil off of them with brake cleaner. Came to find out that was a common problem with them.

I don't know anything about Delphi.
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Yep, Bosch used to be some of the best parts you could buy. Now buying Bosch is becoming more and more of a crapshoot. It sucks.
 
slammed145 said:
In other news, I went to the junkyard and bought myself some wagon springs. I've been wanting to raise the back of the car a bit, and it felt sort of mushy over bumps, so I thought wagon springs might give me just the right amount of extra spring rate. I also bought a new set of struts and shocks, so it made sense to do it all at once. But I was wrong! Upon cutting them to length and putting them on the car, it feels like total crap driving at freeway speeds. It's very twitchy now, won't stay in the lane, and it bounces a bit too much. It was such a dramatic change that I suspect they might be wagon overload springs. But they didn't have the couple of extra tight coils like I'm used to seeing on overload springs, so I don't know. These came off a '93 Classic 245:


Wagon spring (with one coil cut) on the left, my Sedan springs (with one coil cut) on the right.
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The undercoating says OE spring to me.

:e-shrug:
 
Redwood Chair said:
The undercoating says OE spring to me.

:e-shrug:
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Yeah, good point. They seemed OE to me when I pulled them, but holy crap what a difference! I didn't expect that.
Maybe I'll lop another coil or so off of them and see if the ride height (the rake reduced the caster quite a bit, i guess.) caused the twitchiness.
 
slammed145 said:
Yeah, good point. They seemed OE to me when I pulled them, but holy crap what a difference! I didn't expect that.
Maybe I'll lop another coil or so off of them and see if the ride height (the rake reduced the caster quite a bit, i guess.) caused the twitchiness.
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:nod:

Rake or poking the offset will both make it twitchy as a cat's tail, combine them and I can't imagine...
 
Redwood Chair said:
:nod:

Rake or poking the offset will both make it twitchy as a cat's tail, combine them and I can't imagine...
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The offset is the same front and rear (17x8 ET20 no spacers or adapters), but it did have some significant Joe Dirt rake going on. I knew that losing some of that that caster angle can make a big difference, but this was shocking. Especially driving over hwy17! It felt worse than it used to when I had 1" of toe-out. LOL
 
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Not sure I'd go all crazy on the fuel pump I bought the bosch from IPD for the gold car, and it's been fine.

100281 - Main Fuel Pump

fullsize_19092.jpg
 
Ordered a new pair of pumps, and hopefully the FLAPS will accept these Airtex pumps back. I installed the main one, so I may be stuck with that one, but the in-tank wasn't installed. I just can't stand the noise! I ordered the Bosch main pump from IPD (thanks for the heads-up, Ken!), and their in-tank upgrade pump. I'm hoping this will help with my goofy surging idle issue that comes and goes, and with the very occasional stalling when coming to a stop. Fingers crossed. If not, I will complete the swap to LH2.2

I also ordered a bunch of other parts, (shocks and struts, timing belt, diff and trans oil, rear muffler...)to get the car ready for the Coastal Range Rally in February: http://www.drivingwhileawesome.com/rally/


Also, I got a great pic from the DWA guys at their last cars and coffee event:



One of these things is not like the others..


Lately, I've been driving it to work and loving it. My commute is about 30 miles each way over highway 17, a twisty mountain pass through the redwoods. It's fantastic.

Parts updates/maintenance soon to come..
 
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Nice. I remember Hwy 17 from my days running between Berkeley and Santa Cruz - fun road indeed.

The swap from LH2.0 to LH2.2 is pretty simple if you have the parts, which should still be easy to find. I converted my old '83 242 DL before I sold it to Alex Buchka (and before he ripped it all out for a 6-cyl whiteblock swap ;-p)

I wrote up a how-to with some background here: http://www.dailyturismo.com/2013/06/dtpc-efi-system-upgrade-all-systems-are.html
 
Duder said:
Nice. I remember Hwy 17 from my days running between Berkeley and Santa Cruz - fun road indeed.

The swap from LH2.0 to LH2.2 is pretty simple if you have the parts, which should still be easy to find. I converted my old '83 242 DL before I sold it to Alex Buchka (and before he ripped it all out for a 6-cyl whiteblock swap ;-p)

I wrote up a how-to with some background here: http://www.dailyturismo.com/2013/06/dtpc-efi-system-upgrade-all-systems-are.html
Click to expand...


Nice!! Thanks for the link.
 
slammed145 said:
Lately, I've been driving it to work and loving it. My commute is about 30 miles each way over highway 17, a twisty mountain pass through the redwoods. It's fantastic.
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Duder said:
Nice. I remember Hwy 17 from my days running between Berkeley and Santa Cruz - fun road indeed.
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They used to have illegal races on that road. I may or may not have participated a time or two.
Dead man's turn still there?
 
I haven't updated this thread in a little while. I've been somewhat busy, doing a bunch of little maintenance items and daily driving the car most days, except for when the weather has been crazy. For those of you not in the area, we've been getting pummeled with rain, and are currently already at 400+% of our annual rainfall. And since I commute over a mountain pass to get to work, I've been driving through mudslides, roads that have washed out, fallen trees, and lots of flooding. So on the days when it's been bad, I have left the 242 at home. But it's been an excellent commuter otherwise.

I tried to rebuild my brakes, but the calipers were too corroded:



So I put some other good used vented calipers and rotors on my car instead, and found out exactly where they contacted the Style5 wheels:




After a little grinding, maybe 1/16" of material in the deepest spot, it is good to go:




Added some stainless lines to the front while I was in there, since they only cost a few bucks more than good OEM rubber lines:




New master cylinder:




New shocks and struts, and replaced my worn strut mounts will low mile good used OEM units, since even the brand new OEM ones are crap now:

 
Also threw some new fuel pumps in there, and returned the Airtex junk:






I replaced the in-tank pump with the IPD upgrade pump, new sock filter, new clamps, and a new hose.. the old sock was totally gone!

The new upgrade (I think it's a 740 turbo pump?) pump is a little longer, so the metal pickup tube had to be trimmed. The car idles smoother and starts better now. The main pump was replaced with a nice, quiet, smooth OEM Bosch pump. Power didn't change, it's still dangerously slow.


And then I had to put the AC compressor back on. It literally fell off, because all the bolts holding it into the AC bracket came loose and fell out. Strangely enough, the power steering still worked, it just squealed the belt occasionally. It was a week of driving before I realized anything was wrong.



Took the opportunity to put all new accessory belts, and accessory bushings on the engine. New Meyle on the left, old cheapo urethane on the right:



And I also threw a new OEM air filter on there, to replace the K&N Junk:



Other than all of that crap, just been out driving it!




Oh yeah, I also removed the fog lights. The LED headlights put out enough light, and I never liked how the dangledick fog lights looked under the front bumper. I do want to slam the front end now, though.
 
BillyMaysHere said:
how long it take u to rebuild the calipers? Been wanting to do this for awhile and most (fairly competent) people claim its not bad at all.
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I didn't rebuild them. I couldn't get the pistons out, because I think these calipers were left out in the weather. I ended up just sticking some used ones from my 88 parts car on there instead. I was saving them for my '75 project, but whatever.

I have a nice TRW rebuild kit for you, if you want it!
 
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