Okay, lots has happened, and I didn't even update on Zilvia because I was so mad....
My motor used to run good. Like, it pulled hard, sounded great, and never stumbled at low rpms. Over the past few months, I noticed a change, so I wanted to check things out and see if it would be an easy fix.
I bought a compression tester, just to make sure things were tip-top. Things WERE tip-top! Compression was 180psi across the board! Unfortunately for me, that's when things STOPPED being tip-top....
The motor wouldn't start back up. I pulled the spark plugs and cleaned them, and the car did eventually come back to life... but not the same way it was. It would sputter BAD any time you blipped the throttle.
I started checking things, and found a bad injector. I replaced it, and tested the TPS. That came up bad, too, so I replaced it with the one from my spare motor. Then the car stopped starting... In fact, the car stopped turning all together.
I ended up replacing the bad injector with an injector with a torn O-ring... So I flooded my motor with gas to the point where the cylinders were hydrolocked with fuel. Epic fail......
I replaced the injector again... I dried out my cylinders, and the car still wouldn't start!
The compression immediately after I spit fuel from the cylinders was low... but it was because the lubrication/oil on the cylinder walls was washed away from the gasoline that flooded my motor. However, the car still wouldn't start...
I cranked the motor a few times, then cleaned the spark plugs... I cycled through that way for a few minutes, but decided it couldn't be fouled plugs.
At this point, I'd replaced a bad injector, the throttle position sensor, and spark plugs/wires and it hadn't changed anything. I'd already tested the MAF, and it was known to be good. The only thing I could think, since I was getting fuel and the compression was good enough, is that it must be spark related. Hooking a timing light to each of the wires proved that it was a distributor issue. I replaced the cap, and that didn't fix things, so I bought a used dist. from a buddy and hooked it up.
Immediate progress, the car started to stumble to life and smoke out the exhaust (presumably all the fuel in the cylinders from not enough spark!!). Finally the car started running, and after a few sputters, it was revving just like normal!!!
I changed the oil (it smelled HORRIBLY of fuel!!), cleaned the spark plugs once more and re-tested all the injectors just in case, and everything is good to go. The car has been running WAY better than before, it's a noticeable difference from what it felt like over the past few months.
Now it's time to fix the issue I had with my tires rubbing in the rear. Because I'm so low with zero camber (silly Wagons!), I'd been hammering the wheel wells out, with good success. However, I still had a little more pounding to go... Before my car broke down, I'd bought a heavier sledge, and it was time to use it... I went to town, nailing down all the little bumps and creases that could cause an issue... to the point that I separated the "sleeved" metal at the top of the arch! When I went to close the door, I laughed because this is exactly what I'd wanted to happen! I ended up having to "flare" my door a little bit to get them to close!
Flared door! Huzzah!
Clearance
A few months ago, I started a few projects with painting that I never got around to finishing. Yesterday, I started finishing them! The first was "blacking out" the window frames. Since wagons have a giant black weatherstrip around the rear cargo windows, as well as a giant chrome "loop" surrounding the side windows, my brother suggested that it would look awesome to paint the window frames black. I did the passenger rear door a while back, but never finished the rest... Yesterday, I painted both sides fully, and it makes the car look longer and lower. I like it a lot. I'll post better pictures later on.
Blacked out
The other project I started was the insides of the doors. When I painted my car red/white, I left the interior alone. Everything was still Pea Green inside. I decided it was finally time to finish things off.
Before:
After:
Today, I decided to finish off the interior by carrying the red/gold around the cargo area, as well as paint my wheel tubs black to clean things up a little.
However, no Zilvian is worth a penny without a good mean in his belly... So I made myself a hearty breakfast. I make a mean omelette, in case you were wondering...
Then I got to painting....
Before:
After:
No, the painting is NOT done, nor will I finish it any time soon... To be completely honest, I love the way it looks now, even though it isn't finished. I need to set some time aside later this year to have someone hammer out the dents in my roof. Then I'll finish the painting on the inside and get a black headliner installed with some sound deadening on the roof. The roof makes a TON of noise, and that's what I'll probably focus on soon, is getting some tar mats up there.
That's it for today, let me know what you think!
Again, the reason I went with gold is because I have a gold shift knob coming in, my steering wheel is gold...ish, and my motor that I'm STILL building is gold. It stands out as a good contrast to the rest of my car, I think!
Plus I'm painting my engine bay white... GASP!!
