new suspension ideas

[scrapz253]

its the metalcast purple. got it at autozone for $9. well worth it while it was apart. i have teal wire loom coming and a gold catch can too. so ill post pics late next week after its all here. but yeah, she is coming along nicely.

[scrapz253]

put in the new air cleaner, plug wires and cap yesterday. they sent me the wrong rotor so i just sanded my old one. car is running much smoother. almost like new. just everybody else have a slight almost miss sound during idle? cant seem to get it to go away. But went and played off road for a bit again with my friend and his sr5 tacoma. he and i were very impressed with the car. i have decided to go ahead and just lift the car. i will be starting that venture though in a couple months. next on the list is the clutch and cv axles. it has a bad grinding/ shaking/ popping when accelerating and turning at the same time.. that is the cv axles right? doesnt do it will only turning or accelerating in a straight line. only while doing both.

[Petros]

sounds like the cv axles. Beware the remanufactured axles, most are junk out of the box, if you can find a suppier of new ones go with those. You can double check the condition of your CV axles by reaching up and trying to rotate them forward and aft while in the car, if there is any rotational play the joints is worn and on its way out. If the boots are torn it is also a good indication they got full of grit and are grinding it self apart, and also should be replaced (a boot kit costs half as much as a replacement axle, hardly worth it since the joint is likely already damaged)

[scrapz253]

the boots look great, but ill check for play when it warms up a bit outside. if it has no play, can it be remedied by packing them full of grease? they grind pretty bad and make the whole car shake... or is it beyond the point of greasing? lol. thanks. i can get a set of new ones from amazon for ?130 about the same price as the reman ones.

[Petros]

there is nothing in the car that could make it act like that, it is almost certainly the cv axles. it means they have already worn and are now in the process of grinding themselves apart. Fresh grease does not help, it is too late for that. It is only a matter of time before they fail completely and throw and axle, which could do other damage. I once drive a set to see how long they would go, over a year and they become so intolerable I had to change the.

[scrapz253]

thanks for the help. it was nice talking to you today. like I said I'm new to this platform and distributors in general. so it was nice to actually talk to somebody experienced on this car. put the 14 and nobby tires on tonight. I'll test drive in the morning but I'm sure it won't help my cv situation. lol. I'll post pics tomorrow.

[scrapz253]

ride quality is night and day. and surprisingly got rid of a lot of the popping when turning and accelerating. must have been out of round or out of balance wheels...

[dlb]

what size of tires did you go with?

generally speaking, out of round tires will causes bumping and clunking all the time, while out of balance wheels will cause it at highway speeds. i'd still suspect CV axles if you've still got clunking on turning + acceleration. btw, does it happen when only turning one direction or both?

regarding the miss at idle, it could be lots of things. plugs, wires, cap, and rotor are a good place to start so good thing you already did those. next i would check the timing. next i would pull the hoses from the vac advance unit on the bottom of the distributor and suck on them to make sure they aren't broken. you should not be able to suck air through. if you can, a diaphragm is ruptured and the unit should be replaced. disconnect and plug the affected lines until you can replace the unit. if the upper diaphragm is ruptured, it will cause a vacuum leak at idle, which would definitely cause a slight miss at idle. do not get the hoses for the advance unit mixed up, as each port functions slightly differently.

[Petros]

it was not so much a miss at idle, but rather a roughness. Presuming everything is operating properly, some of this can not be eliminated on a car with a gear driven distributor and a carburetor. There is always a certain amount of lash or clearnace in the gears of the distributor, you can see the effects of that when you set the timing. The timing mark is not quite steady but jumps around a small amount with an occasional one noticeably out of place. this is caused by the gear lash in the cam/distributor shaft gears. This is why all modern cars have gone distributor-less with a crank fired sensor. A lot of the emissions are cause by this occasional stray spark off the mark, going solid state and controlling the timing and advance electronically improves power, efficiency as well as reduce emissions, which is a good thing.

And the other source of this roughness is the idle jet on the carb, it works by dribbling fuel down the side of the barrel right at the throttle plate level. So there is not the proper mixing and atomizing of the fuel as there would be when it is fed though the main jet and down the venturi as there is during driving at any speed above idle.

It is just the nature of the carb, and one of the reason they were eliminated in favor of fuel injections, better control of the mixture and emissions (which is also a good thing).

[dlb]

Presuming everything is operating properly, some of this can not be eliminated on a car with a gear driven distributor and a carburetor.

on a new-to-me 25+ yr old car, i don't presume everything is operating properly until i check it.

[scrapz253]

well seems to run okay-ish at idle. much better than when i got it. put in some pathfinder springs today and removed the sway bar. those springs much up perfectly with the airshocks i bought. but now one of them has sprung a leak...ugh. and yes popping when turning and accelerating in either direction. but it is hardly noticeable with these new tires. so it can wait till after the clutch and lift in the front. I forgot what tire size it was. but it not as big as everybody normally goes. but i got a killer deal on them through some trades.

[Petros]

you told me on the phone today you got 185/65 x 14 tires and wheels, should fit no problem. the rolling dia is actually about the same as the stock skinny and flexy 13" steel wheels and tires, but you should notice much more crisp steering if you have decent tires at that size.

[scrapz253]

they are about an inich bigger in diameter and yes, handle much much better. just went and tested off-road and i love it.

[scrapz253]

this is on a hill above some vineyards. roughly 1000ft climb

[Petros]

looking good. since it appears your fender lips have rusted out maybe you can find some after market fender flares that are about the right size and cut out the old and install some rad looking fender flairs. I have been wanting to do this but my Tercels body is in too good a condition to want to cut into them up like that.

all of the fun things I keep thinking I want to try if I only had a rust bucket beater to play with....