Well, I just got the front shocks on the car. That was a bit more of a job than I was anticipating. Not a real hard job, other than a stipped nut, one shock tower bolt wanting to spin and not let the nut break free and getting things lined back up for reassembly. Lol, that was really my first time messing with an older unibody car and it was kind of cool to see the simplicity at work in how they designed one part to work off from another. Both shocks where totally shot, so hopefully the overall handling will be much improved and it should help in braking performance too since the wheel should stay in my hand when I spike the brakes. Now off to the rear shocks in the morning and I will be putting a new speedo cable in too. After all that, there is really nothing mechanical that needs major attention, at least that I know of lol.
OK, got impatient and installed the rear shocks and speedo cable tonight too. What a difference some new shocks make. All the old ones where shot, no more springboard action now. Its nice to see how fast, err slow I am going now lol. What size speakers fit in the rear window? Are those the ole 5X7's or 6X9's?
Thanks man. During the installation of the shocks I found that one of the idler arms is shot. I forgot to stop by Napa or Schucks today to see what one will cost though, so tomorrow I will see. I did grind some of the rust off from the d. side rear quarter today and got some primer on it. Its not quite as bad as I thought it might be, but you still hate to see rust anywhere.
check out rockauto.com they have a good online parts catalog that you can use to figure out about what parts are goint to cost you and even get the part numbers to take to the store so you dont have to wait for the parts monkey to look it up.
Frank, thanks for pointing that out. It would be the one and only one on the left side then lol. The other one I guess would be the pitman arm. Get this though, I was at Schucks tonight (just got back from there) and they quoted me $125 just for a repair kit for the idler arm. Can you believe that? It looks like I will just pick up one of nos ones I found on Ebay for $35 shipped.
Sounds like your having fun getting into fixing her up. Feels good to acomplish different projects. You mentioned the brakes. They realy don't have anything to do with the brakes, cept maybe nose dive lol. If the wheel wants to turn when you apply the brakes it may be that they're out of adjustment or something is going on. Are they drums? The drum brakes can be a fuss to get and keep adjusted equally.
On the idler arm. I have only had to replace the bushing before in mine. They show one here... http://www.oreillyauto.com/EW3/HomePage.do
Yeah, with the brakes the front was nose diving really bad and amplifying the front end being a little sloppy from the idler arm being bad. I have also adjusted them up and that has helped with getting the ole drum brake beast stopping better, and having descent shocks has just helped to smooth thing out, even stopping. Thanks for the links, I will surely check them out.
