Captain Obvious

Haha!! Glad to help! And just so you know that I'm not making this stuff up and do actually I live it with you... Here's my most recent expedition to frustration land. Dipstick from my kid's car. Snapped off in the block: Used a jigsaw blade in an exacto knife handle to cut a slot in it. An angled center punch to collapse it on itself a little, and an ezout to grab it and pull it out. See the remaining little stub of the SOB in the lower right: And here's the final result: You are not alone.

Maybe I'm underestimating the flexibility of the stuff, but I give it about zero chance of success trying to use just the door panel clips to retain that shape. And I'm not sure relief kerfs would do it either. The word "snap" comes to mind. Followed by the word "$^!#!".

I believe the flush trim bit is the cutting tool you put in your woodworking router to shape edges on stuff. As in: "Rough cut to shape with a saw and then use a flush trim bit in a router to cut the edges to final shape."

When the simple mundane five minute job turns into hours and hours of misery and frustration. Been there. Done that. When you spend two hours trying to pull the wheel speed sensor out of it's rusty hole in the suspension and still snap it off in the process. When it takes an hour to get the crushed, mangled, and screwdriver speared remains of an oil filter off the block. When it takes two days just to get a frikin dipstick tube out of the block because it cracks off at the bottom. When it takes a week to change your thermostat because the bolts snap off. You are not alone.

How would you handle the bend near the bottom? Flat is easy, but have you bent/formed/contoured Masonite? Sounds like you've got some experience working with the stuff? Soak it and dry it in a press? Maybe a little heat?

Wow. Good luck to him! That's got to be a rare bird for the person who just has to have the real thing. Seems to me that I could pretty much "convert" my 77 glass to 69/70 JDM glass with a scraper blade and some acetone...

Well there's no guarantee that those alignment nubbies will line up with your replacement suction chamber, but certainly TRY them first before you remove them. You might get lucky and have a temporary local relaxation of Murphy's Law. Doesn't hurt to try first. When you think about the geometry, you really need to be very close. You're trying to stick a 95 thousandths diameter pin into a 100 thousandths diameter hole and (in a perfect world) have it not contact anywhere around the perimeter. They couldn't hold the necessary tolerances at the factory, so they resorted to characterizing every carb instead by fixturing them and using "cast in place" alignment pins instead. And if you do cut the alignment pins off, remember that you're going to have to realign those suction chambers each and every time you ever take them off again in the future. (Same goes for you Cliff!)

Earlier you said that you have a 3 pot. (I'm assuming that means you have three screws holding the suction chamber to the carb body?) I've not messed with those personally and am wondering... Does that version have the little epoxy alignment nubbies sticking up into suction chamber to align the chamber to the body? If that's the case, then there's no guarantee that a replacement suction chamber will align correctly onto your existing body. It's a surmountable issue, but something to watch out for.

Despite the simplicity of the carbs design, they are actually precision instruments with some very precise dimensions in a couple spots. I'm not completely sure what part you dropped, but if you dropped the dome or the piston on the floor and bent either piece, then I think you're in the market for replacement parts. The clearance fit between those two parts is crucial and if it's not right, it will affect mixture ratio. If you're sanding parts to get the piston to rise and fall smoothly after dropping something, then the whole "constant velocity" part of your CV carb could be thrown off.

Wrong. The correct response is "He's a desperate man". I'm disappointed you weren't all over that... I though you had my back!

Haha! That was my first thought as well. Actually I think he's hiding in Honduras.

Lars, Just wanted to say thank you for your web site (www.carpartsmanual.com). I'm sure I'm not the only one around here that uses it often and would miss it if were gone.

You, my friend, got issues...

Flannel, blue jeans Herman Survivors, wallet with a chain. I was a stud and so were my wrist bands. At least that's how I remember it.

Woah, woah, woah now... You're talking about just the clothes, right? Nobody wearing them. I just want to make that perfectly clear before this thread takes an ugly (and I mean uuuugg-ly) turn.

It's not temperature hot. It's a chemical burn. That stuff (like many other paint removers) is methylene chloride. Nasty stuff. Be glad you didn't get it in your eyes with that wire wheel on the drill.

Well that's extra special scary then. I don't know why pumping didn't work, but I'm just glad you got out of the whole ordeal with nothing more serious than a good adrenaline rush!

Man... Maybe I should start building engines. I'm not skilled in the art, but at this point, I think even I could do better than some of the other folks who are getting paid for it!

Wow. That's a real brown pants kind of moment. I believe the theory on the dual braking system is that you WILL (or can) still have braking on the other side of the system, but here's the thing... You have to bottom out the proportioning and/or warning switch mechanism first. And you may have to pump the brakes (maybe more than once?) in order to make that happen. In other words, you have to fill up all of the hydraulic space behind the floating piston and force that piston all the way towards the failed side of the system before you can build pressure in the working side of the system. And that won't happen on the first push, but might happen on the second quick pump? And that's all assuming you're cognitive enough to even pump the brakes... If I were in your position, I wouldn't be thinking that, I would be thinking "where am I gonna land this beast without hurting anything".

I've been keeping an eye on the progress here for places where I might be able to add value, but I just don't know where to start. Non stock connections buried down inside the harnesses? Smoke coming from the harness in the interior? Then the smoke stops and no problem was found? Questionable fusible links? I just don't know where to put a stake in the ground to get troubleshooting started. The only documentation I have is from the manuals, and the early manuals can be a little light on info. I'm really sorry, but If your car doesn't match the manuals, I just don't know how to communicate troubleshooting info. Maybe some pics would help?

I nabbed this pic off the internets a few years ago. It's one of the Z car parts vendors five lug conversion axle mod. Unfortunately I don't remember which vendor it was from, but I'm sure someone here will recognize it. I had thought that they added material for just one lug, but looking at it again now, it appears they actually added material for TWO of the new hole locations: Of course, the best option would be to use the completely new stub axles supplied by one of the other vendors (who's name I can't come up with either), but I know they're pricey.

(As you found out) as long as you have good connections, soldering isn't necessary. I used tinned stranded wires of a gauge that fit snug into the female contacts. Probably the same gauge you used... I ran like that for about a year before I rebuilt the entire harness to make those (and other) changes permanent.

I've seen a couple pics of 5 lug re-drills and they added metal for the fifth hole because it was too close to the edge. Are you planning to add material, and if so, how?

Cool. Glad it was that obvious. Simple problems are a welcome change to the complex and intermittent. Cliff, Thanks for the genealogy for "scalded dog".

I know post-edits can cause problems, but I think this was a case where I think it was necessary. I've gone back and tried to fix my incorrect info on how the 77 brake warning relay works so as to not cause confusion in the future.