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Fast Orange 1976 245 fix-up

Hootbot

Member
Joined
May 3, 2009
Location
Saskatchewan, Canada
I fell for this car as soon as I saw it despite the horrible condition, as someone with three project cars and three motorcycles I really don't need this but just couldn't stop myself from making it a daily driver.


The previous owner called this car "fast orange" despite it being a b21f with Kjet
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I've already fixed a number of issues but I didn't take any photos.

I should have taken before photos of the filthy condition, I cleaned all kinds of moss and crap off the outside and did an initial clean of the interior which made it tolerable but it still needs a lot of cleaning.

I drove the car to work my Saturday shift the day after I bought it and messed around with it during my breaks (I'm a heavy truck mechanic and it was just me and my apprentice there)

I fixed a few obvious vacuum leaks and it actually seems to run really well, the engine doesn't leak or burn oil and sounds good mechanically. It does have a bad repair on the downpipe that's causing an exhaust leak.

The rear bumper was smashed in from the PO backing into a tree, pulled the shock back out with the forklift which actually worked great, you can't even tell.

I diagnosed and fixed whatever electrical items I had time for, fixed a bunch of interior/dash lights mostly burnt out bulbs and bad grounds. Fortunately I have a spare cluster to harvest bulbs from.

Took a look at the non-working clock but sadly it's dead ~ anyone want to sell me an early clock? I used to have one but I sold it to another forum member! lol

The original m46 shift knob is missing and someone has glued the knob off a 4 speed car on the gear shift, they've moved the od button to a spare demist switch in the dash. To no surprise this isn't working at all.

Rear wiper has no power from the switch to the back, same with the demist which is actually unplugged anyway.

The tachometer isn't working but I can't get the spring clips pressed down to remove the cluster I'm not sure what tool I should use any suggestions? I've tried a screw driver and a putty knife so far.
 
Interesting. California emissions (at least originally) on a non-turbo Cdn spec car that was built before 1985. Anyway, I've usually just reached up behind the cluster on the early cars, found where the clips were, and depressed them while pushing it out toward the wheel. It's fiddly, but will come loose.

-J
 
Interesting. California emissions (at least originally) on a non-turbo Cdn spec car that was built before 1985. Anyway, I've usually just reached up behind the cluster on the early cars, found where the clips were, and depressed them while pushing it out toward the wheel. It's fiddly, but will come loose.

-J

I was told the car came from California at some point which would explain that as well as the MPH speedo, the tailgate is from a different car (it's blue inside) that was made in Halifax hence the sticker.
 
Sweet wagon, cool colour. I think it could be a 1978 though.

The door sticker does say 76, the car has been substantially messed with at some point by someone wanting to repaint it so the doors and fenders are off a later car, it has the wrong mirrors and wrong side trim. It did come with the correct fender badges and tail gates badges in the glove box.
 
Alright these two failed items have been replaced solving the incredibly bad overheating issue.

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Also last week the window winder completely broke so that was a bummer, ended up just robbing the entire thing out of a spare door I had.

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I also replaced the blown 1976 rear shocks and totally ruined gas struts for the tailgate

I have new front shocks too but that's a bit of a bigger job.

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this also stopped the tail gate from loudly rattling at all times which was a huge bonus.

I also replaced all the ignition parts but no pics of that.

I'm glad I buy every green book I come across regardless of whether I own the car since this guy has been a big help.

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Fixed the tachometer and overdrive the other day, both were simple fixes. The spare demist switch in the dash actually does turn on the overdrive however I would very much like to put the correct shift knob back on if anyone has one.

I'm sorry this thread has been a boring list of basic repairs so far If anyone has suggestions of things I should do or things they would like to see I'm open to suggestions.

I did do one "mod"

swapping out the old style valve cover with the purposeless vacuum pump for a later valve cover I already had.

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This will get more interesting when I get to the main issue which is the huge amount of body work the car needs.

I have two minor questions as well.

One: Where the hell do I get a rear wiper for this thing? I've tried three and none fit correctly.

I've forgotten the second one... Oh well. haha
 
This isn’t boring, great progress you’re making. I can always appreciate seeing someone bring life back into these beasts. Keep it up!

It’s too bad those earlier valve covers have the vacuum pump cut out. I really like the style of it.
 
End of the year update!

So it's been a few months, no I haven't crushed it or sold it for parts. I've actually been dailying it when it isn't broken.

I've performed many repairs and had many break downs, I took pictures of some things but not of others. Sorry about that.



September exhaust fail, got tired of the fumes from this fun grandpa repair of the downpipe.

I couldn't find a new downpipe for a 1976 model so I just ordered one for a 1984 and later or whatever cut it down and welded it to the original system which is is decent shape.


A few weeks later one of the dryrotted ****ty tires the car came with let go in an extreme body roll freeway on ramp situation. I decided this was a great opportunity to make the car look more presentable. I had corona wheels on my old 244 in HS and always wish I could be one of the cool kids.

So I blasted and resprayed these baby's in some Sherwin-Williams dimension light silver single stage.


I even had all four center caps.



Wow that POS just got a lot sexier, mounted some Pirelli p6 tires on them to make it seem ever more like a factory turbo kinda sorta.

Despite this newfound beauty the winter cold had set in and it became apparent the car had a terrible cold starting issue, it would start then die, start then die.

I figured this may be the case as some previous owner has installed a pushbutton switch in the steering column ruining the plastic cover (thanks) I was told this switch was to be pressed to start the engine.



Here is the mess removed from the car.

So some brief investigation determined that this switch has been spliced into the power supply side of the cold start injector and ran from a hot lead in the fusebox.

Some further investigating found that the injector was not firing when the starter was cranking because there was an open circuit from the thermal time switch to the injector, fixed that and it was once again working as it should.

Unfortunately the car still started poorly and had to be kept running when cold with the throttle.

I decided to removed this thing:

and attempt to clean it up, I had read some information talking about how the regulator could become clogged over time because of fine mesh particulate screen inside it.



yikes.



well I cleaned it up as best I could and blew compressed air through the screens to remove any debris.

Once reinstalled to my surprise the car now cold started great and didn't need any help at all.



I also fixed a large power steering leak which was coming from the crimp join on this hose, I couldn't find a replacement so I had the end re-crimped locally with a new hose.

Moving on there were at least a few weeks of trouble free motoring before the brake failure warning light was fully illuminating every time you stopped and the brake pedal was going almost to the floor.

So yeah I don't have any pictures of this but I had to replace most of the braking system... Fun fun, new master cylinder along with new pads and new rear brake calipers as they were both seized, I also replaced the parking brakes while I was doing this since that also didn't work at all.

whew got that out of the way...

Oh wait no the starter **** the bed a week later and I had to replace the starter with a new one I also replaced all the wiring for the starter and battery with new because it looked like **** and was covered in orange electrical tape.

I also fixed the license plate light rear wiper and side markers somewhere along the way...

Alright moving on to more fun stuff.



IPD lowering springs were on sale woooo.

I also installed a reproduction hood release cable from IPD which broke on the second pull! 0/5 stars would not buy again. (I was able to modify the crimp on the end to be much more robust) also adjusted the hood fit so it didn't look so awful.



Also replaced most of the rubber bushings at the rear along with the front struts

car had a newer but blown KYB on the drivers side and a leaking and ruined mid 1980s looking Monroe on the passenger side for... better balance.

Nevertheless this made a huge difference to the way the car drove and handled, just the changing of the springs made the car ride and drive 1000x better than before.

While we're at it I installed all the missing badges on the car



along with a fresh set of factory mudflaps (had to paint the white myself)



Unfortunately the rear mudflap mounts were totally missing so I had to whistle some up myself.



welded them onto the car and bolted up the mudflaps.




Just before leaving on my xmas holidays in the car I changed the diff and trans oil since the trip is a few hundred miles long, while I was under there I replaced



this ruined transmission mount



and this busted reverse light switch so I now have working backup lights.

Unfortunately the car did not work well on the trip.

even though it test drove fine on the free way once on the highway it was clear replacing the saggy trans mount was a bad choice and the transmission or I think maybe even the yoke is hitting the trans tunnel I'm not sure why that would be but I have not investigated.

The more pressing issue is the stuttering the car began to develop.

I initially thought this could be the overdrive acting up but it was definitely an engine issue when it died on the side of the road, the car restarted and I was able to keep going but it persisted and grew worse and worse as the trip went on, the car stutters if you try and cruise on the highway at 65mph if you persist in driving at 65 it will buck and backfire out the exhaust and eventually die. you can cycle the key and drive for awhile but it starts doing it again. I thought this could be a fuel starvation concern like a clogged filter but the problem paradoxically goes away if you drive over 3500rpm in whatever gear on the highway I was able to drive home without issue but I was doing almost 90mph!

I think the issue may be ignition related since it reminds me of the way a car behaves if you get moisture in the distributer cap. The engine will stop and then just start running again.
 
Looks good. I love that colour. Probably because my parents had a hundred of them in the colour in the 80's.

Jordan
 
Busy man! Looks terrific.

Those mudflap mounts look great. I need to do that. Any tips on positioning them?

I actually measured their position on my 144 and copied that.


Sorry the thread has been dead for so long, the car is still going strong despite going through multiple ****ty remanufactured starter motors.

I'm currently ass-deep doing the paint and body work on my 1969 dodge d100.

I would love to turbo this old thing but I'm a bit confused by the endless options for doing this, I've seen a few complete b230fts for sale locally but it's a kjet car with a good running b21f in it, I'm torn on what to do about fuelling and which engine to use. It seems silly to trying and retrofit LH 2.whatever into this old thing but the options for megasquirt also seem endless.
 
Get turbo engine.

Buy Microsquirt

Done.

It is the easiest swap into an older car. Easier than swapping in all the FI stuff from a later car. Far fewer wiring. Would need a tune though.

Jordan
 
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