Im out in Walla Walla right now, I'll be moving to Vancouver in about a week! For now I'll be leaving the two Volvos at my shop in Walla Walla, I'll bring my 242 out in a few months once I'm settled in. Its so close to being finished, I need a final push over the finish line. I'd love to check out your 242 some time, it would be all the motivation I need
Right on man. I moved down here from Seattle in 98 and have zero regrets. Hit me up anytime always happy to help out a fellow enthusiast and I dig your car.
Well, managed to get a fair bit of work done on the **** box.
Pulled the transmission out on Thursday night after work, actually dropped the transmission off of the tranny jack and onto myself. Foolish mistake, didnt put a ratchet strap on it and the jack slid out the front and trans landed on my arm pinning me down till I could wiggle out from under it and get it slid out from under the car. It leaked fluid everywhere including soaking me in some random Mobile 1 fluid.
For such a small car it has a little tunnel in it. Trans is a tight fit.
Clutch and pressure plate were hammered.
Flywheel wasnt great, took some roloc discs to it and got it cleaned up as much as I could. got a little grip to the surface.
Asher came over Friday night after work and we got to it, Installed new Pilot bearing, Centerforce Clutch and Pressure plate and slammed the trans back in before dinner.
With that out of the way we moved on to replacing the carrier bearing rubber that was trashed.
It took us longer to deal with that than it did to put the clutch and transmission in.
Once we figured out how it goes together and comes apart it wasnt bad. The splines in the slip got very tight though, took me a few hours to clean it up to go back together but its tighter than I would like it to be.
Aftermath of Thursday and Friday late nights.
Saturday morning I drained the fluids from the trans refilled it with Mobile 1 synthetic ATF and got the Clutch hydraulics bled.
I modified the lower endlinks for the front sway bar and got that all bolted in and functional as well.
Drained the oil, attempted to fix a leak at the oil cooler/ oil filter but it had been leaking so long it looks like it needs all new seals and hoses, those will be here tomorrow so I can tackle that then.
New oil filter, new oil and lets see if it moves. Success!!!
Little adjustment of the pedal but we are mobile.
First test drive around clutch works, doesnt slip. Car definately needs more gear for the t56 as well as it has some bad shakes under load, acceleration and decel are different.
My Nephew and his girlfriend were down and everyone wanted to go for the test drive. We did a few laps around my neighborhood and there are a few of those big like 4' long speedbumps we hit them about 35 and jumped the car more than a few times. 4 grownups fit comfortably in the car and they were laughing the entire time we were in it. It slides good, jumps good and already has people dying laughing.
Its a riot to drive aside from the shake.
All that done before lunch time =)
Back at it this afternoon and decided to see if I could tackle some better torque arms as the stock ones allow no pinion adjustment and are super soft squishy bushings.
Only thing I didnt have was a couple of the bushings and the sleeves but Baxters had them. GM leaf spring bushings and sleeves =)
Start.
All welded up and ready for some paint. I am not in love with the threaded end but I dont see these things taking a huge amount of load as they share the load and will mostly see a push pull loads.
Painted up, bushings installed (Energy Suspension Poly Bushings and sleeves) Larger end is 3" width, small end is 2" width. Assembled them with some copper antiseize and a jamb nut.
Upper got extended about 3/4" to get the angle back and have a starting point.
Its much much better but still shakes on hard acceleration. I think I need to work on transmission height and carrier bearing and get things all in line then mess with pinion angle.
Ill keep dinking with it the next few days and hope that it can be a driver relatively soon, seems like it will be dumb fun.
Sean