My Hoopty

[Dr_Snooz]

I remember this car!







It looks soooo much better after a bath. There are a number of flaws, of course, like the trim that returns to grey no matter what I do. But on the whole, not a bad little car.

I had the rear brakes maxed out on the prop valve, and that imparted a vague squishy sensation at the pedal. I backed off a turn and it all feels really good now.

Also, I figured out my flare fitting problem.

[Oldblueaccord]

Motor oil on the black trim makes it look like new...no joking.

[Dr_Snooz]

Until it rains?

[Honda#1]

Lookin' good there. Keep it up!

[Honda#1]

I gotta try that out! I absolutely want my black bumpers to not look gray. When the trim isn't faded it really makes the car look well-kept and more like new. Kind of like show ready.

[Dr_Snooz]

I've had a chance to drive a few days now and I am beyond impressed with the new prop valve. I'm almost glad the old one crapped out because it forced me to think outside the box and use this one. The pedal engagement is consistent and precise. The whole system feels tied together in a way it never did before. It's not right to call it a braking system now. It's more like a magic force that stops the car. All four wheels engage at exactly the same time. The modulation is linear and predictable. The feeling of confidence is amazing. I was somewhat disappointed with my rear disc swap before; now it's everything I'd hoped it would be, and more. You simply cannot find braking like this anymore.

I turned on the AC yesterday to see what would happen and to my astonishment, it blew COLD!!! I know I was experimenting with BBQ gas when I parked it and there's really good chance it's charged with propane. All I know is that it blew COLD!! So either it's propane, or overcharged with 134. I'll rock it and see what happens.

If anyone cares, the BBQ gas seems to work quite well with older AC systems using expansion valves, like ours. Newer systems using orifice tubes are not so great. The orifice tubes freeze the evaporator, which stops the air flow. Then you have to turn off the AC and let it defrost. I bet changing orifice sizes would work a lot better though.

Saturday is smog check day. Wish me luck.

[Oldblueaccord]

I gotta try one of those for my Scout the rears always locked up I never was able to get rid of it and made it worse with no top.

[Dr_Snooz]

Car passed smog and I'm LEGAL again!! Washed the car again today and did a little polishing to bring the shine back.

[Oldblueaccord]

Car passed smog and I'm LEGAL again!! Washed the car again today and did a little polishing to bring the shine back.

Well alright! thats great!

[Dr_Snooz]

I've run three tanks of gas through it now with MPGs between 26 and 30. That's while running the AC.

[B0CKS]

I've had a chance to drive a few days now and I am beyond impressed with the new prop valve. I'm almost glad the old one crapped out because it forced me to think outside the box and use this one. The pedal engagement is consistent and precise. The whole system feels tied together in a way it never did before. It's not right to call it a braking system now. It's more like a magic force that stops the car. All four wheels engage at exactly the same time. The modulation is linear and predictable. The feeling of confidence is amazing. I was somewhat disappointed with my rear disc swap before; now it's everything I'd hoped it would be, and more. You simply cannot find braking like this anymore.

Aw c'mon! Don't tempt me like that! I juust finished installing my OEM valve for my swap. The last thing I need is another idea for what to do my car, and it sounds like a must have! Congrats man!

[Dr_Snooz]

Heh heh. Don't worry. There's very little I'd change about this car. It's the perfect long-commute bomber. Good mileage, small, easy to maneuver through traffic, heaps of fun. But when you can't get parts, you gotta figure something out. I promise I'll only tell you about the awesome stuff.

[Shane86]

Car passed smog and I'm LEGAL again!! Washed the car again today and did a little polishing to bring the shine back.

Excellent nice work

[Dr_Snooz]

31.2 MPG last tank. With AC. I also have a couple mile climb up a good grade on one end.

[Dr_Snooz]

Got some of these today.



I'm tired of always dealing with wobbly brakes, so I'm trying ceramic pads.

[Dr_Snooz]

Rear bumper after the Bon Ami trick (https://www.3geez.com/forum/restorat...ml#post1207896)



The old plastic smell in the interior is fading as I drive with the windows open. It still needs a good steam cleaning, which will happen some day soon. I abandoned the polishing and put several coats of wax on instead, which has yielded nice results. It's so hot here though that it's hard to keep it from streaking.

[2ndGenGuy]

Looks good man! Glad to see the old girl is still around!

The only way to permanently repair the moldings is to paint them. I painted the moldings orange on my race car with just some Duplicolor, and it has held up to the weather for a couple of years now. I painted the trim on my 2g about 10 years ago, and it looks as good as the NOS moldings I put on the car at the same time. It's all about the prep work and making sure there are no oils and shit left on the plastic. Once you start putting that restoration stuff on them, or any shiny stuff, it gets harder to get a good prep. Any little residue or oil or crap will make it flake right off.

[Dr_Snooz]

You're the third person to point to the dressing compounds, which makes sense. I guess it begs the question of how to get good prep if dressings have been used? Soak my stuff in acetone, then throw out what's left of it the next day?

Update on the brakes: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT USE THESE BRAKES!!!!!! They are DANGEROUS!!! They heat up and fade under moderate braking conditions. There is a long downhill that I take daily. The OE pads never faded on this hill. The truck brakes have never faded on this hill, even when pulling trailers, but these brakes fade. Suddenly and without warning the brakes turn seriously mushy. Worse, the cementite problem I was having is doubly worse with these, if that's even possible. I made a panic stop on the freeway today and I thought the front end of the car was going to fly apart.

No. No. No. NO!! The OE pads are going back on tomorrow and these death pads are going back.

[2ndGenGuy]

That's a good question about the prep. I'm not really sure. I'd have to guess and say give that stuff a few weeks to a month until the trim looks faded again. Maybe wash them a couple of times with soapy water. Then scuff them up with some scotch brite and clean with wax and grease. I think that's all I did on the race car. I did find a few spots where I clearly didn't get the surface clean, mostly in the groove where it's a bit harder to clean. But I didn't spend too much time on it, since it's a beater race car.

Did you change anything else at the same time you did the brakes? Seems weird that they could be that bad. What fluid are you running?

[Dr_Snooz]

You know, I think we're getting confused on the paint issue. There are a few different trim/parts on the car that are showing deterioration. What's of most concern to me are the hard plastic hubcaps, the rubberized trim (turning white) and the steel window trims fading and flaking. Like I said before, I prepped the steel window trims to exact spec and that stuff is faded and flaking off now. Prep won't stop fading and whatever goop I slathered on the steel trim wouldn't matter, because it would come off with even a mild solvent. So no one will convince me that prep would make a bit of difference there. On the hard plastic hubcaps, I over-prepped, frankly. I sanded and soaped multiple times because I wasn't going to let my prep be blamed for another failure. Rattle paint always fails, and everyone always blames the prep work. There again, the paint is coming off in big chips. You can blame that on goop and I can't really argue. There might be a bigger issue though, as it looks to me like the plastic underneath might be disintegrating. So again, prep was immaterial. I wouldn't paint the rubberized trim because if I can't get rattle paint to stick to prepped steel, how will it ever hold to flexy rubber? I did dye the rubberized stuff and like everything else, that lasted until the first rain.

At any rate, you guys can rattle paint if you want, but I'm done with it. Any steel on this car is getting powder coated. The Bon Ami has worked spectacularly on the bump strips, so that only leaves the hubcaps. The solution there is to swap them out with a set of BBS rims. LOL

I don't know what happened with those other brake pads. The OE pads are back on now and I haven't had any further difficulty. As I was reassembling everything, I noticed how much slop is in my brakes though. They're still the original calipers from '89 to the best of my knowledge. They've been in service nearly 30 years. I've never done anything with them, and they're pretty wiggly now. Sadly, I can't get NEW calipers, so there doesn't seem to be much point in replacing them now. That goes against the new 'no reman parts' rule I seem to have adopted.

I'm thinking about this instead. https://wilwood.com/BrakeKits/BrakeK...ord&option=SEI

[2ndGenGuy]

You're right. If the plastic or rubber itself is flaking off and deteriorating, there's no prep in the world that will fix that. It will keep deteriorating. Your only option really is to replace it.

The trunk panels in the interior my 1g have been in the sun for so long that you can literally drag your fingernails across it and peel off layers of plastic. The paint will still stick to the plastic, but it's the plastic itself that if flaking off and failing. I sanded those panels down and painted them with an HVLP gun, even used adhesion promoter and paint designed for plastics. It still all flaked off in big chunks.

There's nothing wrong with doing the dress stuff either. If it looks good, you can keep using it. The only thing is, you mentioned it only lasted a few weeks. I used to dress my trim every time I washed the car, and it looked great. I just thought you were looking for something that would fix them permanently.

Also with the calipers, what about just buying new sliders? You could even rebuild them yourself, it's a lot easier than it seems, you can even get a little hone and hone out the brake cylinders.

[Oldblueaccord]

Got some of these today.



I'm tired of always dealing with wobbly brakes, so I'm trying ceramic pads.

DId you bed in the brakes? Performance pads you need to transfer materiel to the rotor for them to work. you cant just slap them in and go like the old days.

I still like EBC over all for performance aftermarket,Raybestos for box stock.

[Dr_Snooz]

The trunk panels in the interior my 1g have been in the sun for so long that you can literally drag your fingernails across it and peel off layers of plastic.

That's what's happening with my hubcaps. They're flaking away. I use the goop to try to keep things moisturized so it doesn't get to that point. I mean, once these plastic pretty bits are gone, they're gone for good because we can't get them new anymore. I'm not the first owner of the car, so a lot of damage happened before me. I'm doing what I can to preserve and restore it.

The only thing is, you mentioned it only lasted a few weeks. I just thought you were looking for something that would fix them permanently.

Yes, it only lasts a few weeks, and yes, I'm looking for something more permanent. If you look at the pics, my bump strips and back bumper were white. Not faded. Not grey. Bright white. It took a lot of goop to get them to a dark mottled gray and the goop would wash off with the first rain and they'd be white again. It was just horribly ugly and ate at my brain to know they weren't perfect. So yeah, I'm looking for a permanent restoration that I can smear goop on and preserve.

Also with the calipers, what about just buying new sliders? You could even rebuild them yourself, it's a lot easier than it seems, you can even get a little hone and hone out the brake cylinders.

I've tried replacing guide pins before, which did nothing. The guide pins are only half the story though. You have to get the guide pin sleeves too. The sleeves don't always help either if the caliper seats are wallowed out, which I have encountered on the Suburban. Even so, the parts are cheap enough from Rock Auto, so maybe I will try rebuilding them.

Still, I can't get good pads and what I can get keeps dwindling. That's why I'm trying to move away from the OE stuff to reliable aftermarket suppliers who won't do that. Hopefully. But yeah, pins and sleeves are a lot cheaper than aftermarket calipers, so I'll probably rebuild.

I'm using the cheapest DOT 3 fluid, BTW.

DId you bed in the brakes?

I didn't bed the brakes per se, but I got them nice and hot on the downhill near home (so hot they faded), then let them cool down in the driveway overnight. So yeah, they definitely got bedded. The next day was when the real fun began. I've gotten the truck brakes so hot coming down the hill that they smell up the yard when I park. They've never faded though. With the old pads back on, I'm coming down same as always with no fade, and no wobbling so far. Maybe the trick is to distribute a nice thick layer of ceramic pad material onto the rotors before installing the OE pads!

[Dr_Snooz]

I changed my mind about the BBQ gas. It's been over 100 degrees every day here for more than 2 weeks and propane is not up to the job. It works fine at 80 degrees, but at 107 it fails badly. Yesterday I did the AC test described in the manual with an ambient temp of 104, humidity of 22, and got vent temps of 92 degrees. I drained out the propane and replaced it with 134 and got vent temps of 60 under the same conditions. That's a big difference. If you were really committed to using propane, then Duracool might be worth experimenting with, but that's a lot of hassle for no real savings. So my experiments with bbq gas are over.

Since I put the old pads back on, the brakes have been glassy smooth. It has me perplexed because they should be wobbling vigorously by now. My hypothesis is that the abrasiveness of the ceramic pads scoured all the cementite off the rotors and left me with glassy smooth brakes. As it came off, however, the cementite would have been especially lumpy and pronounced, thus leading to the terrifying pad feel I experienced. That's my hypothesis anyway. I think it's worth keeping the pads around to scour the rotors in the future.

[Dr_Snooz]

After a couple months of chasing a suspension issue, I finally figured out that I had a bad tire. It started as a pull to one side. Then sounded like a bad wheel bearing. Then started vibrating. I got it changed and things are nice and smooth again. Oddly, I could only find a couple off-brand tires in my size. Nobody makes my size anymore. It might be time to make good on buying some rims for the car so I can get non-Chinese tires. Enkei makes a set of light rims that I could put some BFGs on.