Cousin Eddie buys yet another car

759NRNG said:

jonesin' fer a PU yet???? 

Absolutely not. Not even a little bit.

I had my buddy come over and I gave him every single truck part I had, right down to the coffee cans of nuts and bolts. After more than a dozen GM truck builds, I don't ever want to work on another one.

I even moved my SAE tools out of my main toolbox.

I'm truly sorry to hear that.....cuz when i get back from 'bama the '91 is MY focus....to each his own...out

Nice score on that hood! Gotta love the factory color match.

Despite my diligence in repairing leaks, I'm still not finished. I did fix a ton of leaks, but have had a persistent film of oil coming off the firewall side of the block. 

So, today I tore into it.

First leak was somewhat obvious, the VTEC spool valve.

The second, lesser leak was the PCV valve grommet. That was basically just an oily film around it more so than a leak.

The PCV valve on these D16y8 engines is pure misery. It's on the back of the engine underneath the intake manifold. To access it you have to come up from below and remove the oil filter and the intake manifold brace. Much easier said than done.

Regardless, parts not available at my local dealer so I had to order from HondaPartsNow. So, I'm dead in the water till the PCV grommet and spool valve gasket arrive.

Finished the car up to driver status today. Tomorrow it begins commuting duty to the fire station every third day.

I currently have a pile of boxes of suspension pieces for the next phase of work whenever I feel like it. Im going to completely refresh all the bushings, ball joints, shocks, and springs. But for now, the Tacoma sits and I drive this thing for a while.

Nice! It is a clean daily in the way that only you seem to be able to make. Clean looking and also literally clean lol

Those baby RPF1s must weigh practically nothing. I enjoy seeing people with great attention to detail, do mild rehab/restorations like this. I've been doing the same to my daily as well and it's been a fun project. 

MazdaFace said:

Nice! It is a clean daily in the way that only you seem to be able to make. Clean looking and also literally clean lol

Thank you Craig.

JeremyJ said:

Those baby RPF1s must weigh practically nothing. I enjoy seeing people with great attention to detail, do mild rehab/restorations like this. I've been doing the same to my daily as well and it's been a fun project. 

They are pretty light. These are about the best wheels I've ever owned on a project car. 

Is there a thread for your project ?

The essentials for the next phase are showing up.

I must be the only person in the world that enjoys changing bushings and ball joints.

I'm still waiting on 10 more bushings to show up. It will be a few weeks before I get started.

Your idea of routine maintenance/getting a car to daily status makes me sad for my cars lol. Should be a pretty impressive daily. 

I admit that I am quirky that way. Clunks, rattles, and squeaks get under my skin and drastically lower my satisfaction with a car. A day or two of labor should have it riding like Honda intended, with a little bit of added lowz from the Eibachs.

My god this is gorgeous. 

I've been absent for a lot of these updates but just caught up. I really really like it. The RPF1's are a great choice. I wanted those for my daily/project golf but couldn't handle the expense presently. 

Maybe tonight I'll go at the golf with the simple green and paint brush method. 

Today I did a bit of maintenance and added some lowz.

New KYB shocks front and rear and Eibach Pro-Kit springs. I wanted to do the springs and struts early so I could drive it and settle the springs before I do all the suspension bushing replacement. The reason why is that I didn't want to put in expensive new bushings and have them stressed out as the new springs took a set, in turn twisting all the bushings.

Stock front springs compared to Eibach

Stock rear spring compared to Eibach

Doing the swap over.

End result. Eibach claims 1.3 front, 1.5 rear drop. Seems pretty close.

Last small projects for the weekend.

First, removed the remaining bubbled window tint. I have an appointment Tuesday morning to have all new tint put on the car. But I didn't want to pay to have the old stuff removed so I did it myself.

Second, Valerie installed one of those 11 dollar Amazon Prime steering wheel covers to cover up the crappy foam.

Now I have to be a husband and do the Mother's Day stuff.

Looks amazing as always. Did you get a chance to stop by the car show yesterday/today?

Did I miss it or did you change the front lights or refurbish them?  If you refurbished them, would you share your process for getting them looking that good?  Thanks.

MazdaFace said:

Looks amazing as always. Did you get a chance to stop by the car show yesterday/today?

I didn't. I worked at the fire station yesterday, and then today I wanted to get to cranking on this car since it's doing true daily duty, so I want to keep it on the road as much as possible.

3duppiesandadog said:

Did I miss it or did you change the front lights or refurbish them?  If you refurbished them, would you share your process for getting them looking that good?  Thanks.

The lights are new aftermarket from RockAuto. I usually refurbish lights using my DA polisher and some coarse buffing compound, but these lights had little stress cracks in the plastic that wouldn't have ever polished out. 

I took my wife out for dinner in the Hondoo. The springs are settling in nicely. The ProKit springs that I used are Eibach's moderate drop springs rather than the SportLine series which offer a deeper drop. I'm getting old. Moderate is fine with me nowadays.

Obligatory picture with removed window tint and settled in springs. Added quarter window decals really boosted the horsepower too.

A couple of items to update.

First, I took the car to a new upstart tint shop down the street from the fire station. 

And, I've been chasing a rough idle as the AC cycles on and off when sitting at stoplights.

Always arm thyself with high quality supplies to hedge the odds in your favor.

The throttle body was filthy.

The idle air control valve screen had a lot of crud blocking it too.

Cleaned

That long hose that goes from the IACV down to the coolant pipe on the back of the engine was fun.

But, in the end, two more little aging coolant hoses have been laid to rest and the idle seems more solid now.

Last project of the day before I head back to work tomorrow was to do a partial rebuild of the rear suspension.

On the lower arms I decided to just replace the bushings in the OEM arms. I used a brand called Hardrace which are held in high repute with the Hondoo crowd.

I ran each arm through the blast cabinet while they were off.

The part of the rear suspension needing the most attention is the trailing arms bushings. I have new bushings for it but held off on replacing them just yet. If I can find an Integra in the junkyard (should be able to), I'll grab the rear arms off of it to get myself a drum to disc brake swap in the bargain and install the new bushings in the Integra arms in the process.

Today I finished the rear suspension rebuild, most specifically, replaced the trailing arm bushings and toe links.

I found the cool special tool for the trailing arm bushings used on eBay. It looks like the typical deal where someone bought it, used it to change their own bushings, then resold it to recoup their money. Now that I have it, I suspect I'll just keep it for myself. I like owning tools.

The original bushings were thrashed.

The beauty of the tool is that you change the bushings on the car without the hassle of removing the trailing arms entirely. You just have to unbolt the front end and pry them down with a block of wood and prybar.

In reply to Cousin_Eddie :

If you don't mind my asking how was that tint shops eork? Prices reasonable? I really need to get the Mazda done after I get it running again. 

MazdaFace said:

In reply to Cousin_Eddie :

If you don't mind my asking how was that tint shops eork? Prices reasonable? I really need to get the Mazda done after I get it running again. 

I liked the guy. He said he's been slinging tint since the 80s back when Artech tint shops were everywhere. His work is good. He has a computer program and a cutter machine that cuts the tint out real nice and saves razor knife trimming. I paid 140 (cash) but keep in mind, I got the "hey it's a beater, I don't want to pay for that high end ceramic tint" level of job. 

Overall, I'm happy, and I'm a picky shiny happy person.