Oh.

Nevermind then.

 

well... I am insured now. So that's something. and full coverage only costs me an extra $25 a month having 3 cars insured. Granted I did drop my jetta down to liability because its not worth the deductible anymore. but a pish a posh.

So tonight I need to finish adjusting ride height. I need to drop passenger front 1/2" and drivers front 1/4" and I will be level on all four corners.

I noticed an interesting thing with the PBM coils: You can drop the rear 3 times as low as you can the front having usable suspension travel. anymore then what I have set and the front LCA's will be slanted upwards. they are borderline horizontal now.

This could be due to the fact that my factory wheels are smaller then what most people are running with coilovers (17" 18" wheels). This could change once I finally get some 17" so I will leave it as food for thought for now.

Other then that, I have a small pool of PS fluid sitting on my belly pan, not sure if It was from when I spilled some, or I have a tiny leak. I'll figure that out as well.

 

Pictures to follow, need to had to my desk for that though. But here's a vid:

Back on the road.:

 

Congrats, it's nice to see the car in a natural setting instead of the garage.
(I supposed it could be argued that the garage IS a rotary's natural habitat but we can have that discussion later).

Problems with brakes?
Replace booster and MC with Subie parts and be done.

 

Go on....

And thank you, It has been some time.

EDIT: You know, I am surprised you did not question my flux capacitor in the boot. I had my pony tank along because I was not sure how the tires were going to hold up, and wanted spare air in case.

 

The booster and 1 1/16" MC from a Subaru Legacy are direct drop in to a FC and work great with the stock calipers and prop valve.

 

Does that perform better then a factory booster and MC? I was rather impressed with the brakes on my 4 lug base in heel toe conditions, I can not imagine going to bigger brakes (when working properly) would feel worse.

Mearly curious to peddle feel etc.

 

Pedal feel is great- firm but not touchy.

My theory is that the development team for the FC preferred a longer travel, "soft" pedal and that's what we got.
The Subaru's double diaphragm booster and larger MC fix that issue.

 

Interesting. I kinda like having that "soft" portion before it grabs when entering a corner on my base. hot entrance, brake......starts to grab, heel toe, heel toe. and exit on throttle. It just has such a zombie easy feel on my other car. I am convinced my booster is toast.

Ok, next food for thought, since we are discussing performance. Power steering. I am borderline ready to rip it out. I know everything that is wrong with it the PO did, but the fixing of it, is causing me a lot of headache. It is very loose feeling, and that damn beep....... beep....... beep..... ****, I can hear it in my sleep.

I have a perfectly good manual setup sitting next to this thing in the garage.... But I want to maintain originality to a point. Unless performance to cost out-ways the first.

 

I've swapped both my S5s to manual and don't regret it for a second.

How can you talk about "originality" when you're considering bigger wheels and tires?

 

hush you!!

 

 

Just unplug the box under the steering column. Best day of my life!

 

I read about a blue plug, 2 wires. I looked at it, and it indeed goes to a speaker. I unplugged it, and it still beeps. Are you talking about the box that's roughly half the size of an ecu with multiple wires running into it?

 

Brass box, directly under the steering column. ~21 pin connector. Stick your head under there with the "BEEP" happening. You'll find it quick. Remove the plug and beeping should stop.

If you have A.A.S, I imagine this will disable it. I have a manual rack in mine and therefore no longer require it to control my non-existent power steering.

 

starting to track down the power steering issues.... yeah, I want to at least feel it before I decide to kill it off for good. I have driven my manual rack to hell and back and do love the feel, but I get curious about things... and well, I want to see what it feels like in working order. This of course is assuming the rack leak that I will be figuring out tomorrow is not expensive to fix. In which case, I will be rebuilding the manual rack and it will have a new home in the GXL.

But here is the start of things:

 

Quite the cliffhanger ending this time.

What was in the cup and why did he want us to see it?

 

thought it was common knowledge in my videos that whenever the cup is shown, whiskey is being consumed. It has made an appearance... at least 3? 4? times now.

at any rate, I am a lush and partake in the simpler things in life after work when working on my cars. Fuel pump just came in to make the red car go vroom vroom again. As much as I need and want to sell it, a part of me is going to miss it. It is the perfect parts car, and I know for a fact once it is gone, I will need something from it.

That and I am starting to get sentimental from all the good times I have had with it.

 

I've broken a few of my speedo cables here and there. Are you SURE its clipped on the back of the cluster. Mine occasionally falls out after I've messed around with the cluster, but I can finally tell my speed correctly.
Make sure you clip it back in to the plastic clip next to the fuel filter, that way it wont constantly be pulled on.

 

Yep, Need to check that as well. Everything is suspect as the PO had the drive train out of the car at one point. Its either pulled out of the cluster or broken at the transmission.

 

Productive evening in the garage. As we all suspected, speedometer cable was indeed popped off the back of the cluster, so fixed that which should fix my PS computers hissy fit.

Also found the PS leak. Yet again another case of one of the things I didn't touch but the PO did. One of the banjo bolts is loose but it is the one in between all the other ones. And no combination of sockets nor wrench nor pliers in my tool box can get on it enough or have enough room to move to get it tight enough. So, I get to take the lines back off the rack and drain/refill the system.

Started addressing the booster, and realized I have been approaching this all wrong. I just need to build up pressure by pressing the brakes, hold them and start the car. If the pedal doesn't move we found our huckleberry .

However, is that check valve mandatory for operation in the hose that goes from booster to hard pipe on the bulkhead? It is functioning as it should, but I would like to replace the rubber hose.

 

A check valve is necessary but not specifically the internal one like the FC.
Any old one-way valve will work.

 

well, booster is bad, and removed. I know I could check the J-yard but I just got a check from my mortgage company for $300 from extra tax money they escrow-ed on me. SCORES! So I want to buy new. Brakes and fuel are the 2 things I refuse to do wrong or hap hazardly.

When I look up boosters online at various parts stores and rock auto they list "normal suspension (assuming base model) and hard suspension (assuming gxl/turbo). There is however an average of $40 to $60 price difference here. And I hate playing parts shop markup games.

Anybody know anything about that?

 

I could check my yard and probably pull a Legacy booster/MC for a quite reasonable price if you're interested.
Since you are newly wealthy, there would be a brutal markup, naturally.

I know nothing of the nuances of the stock system, having ditched it years ago.

 

I measured the booster. For the record, GXL/turbo have the 9 1/2" diaphragm Booster (Hard suspension). Placed the order for it this morning. Should be in tomorrow. I do not think I need to replace my MC. It seemed to perform as it should minus the boosted assist. $87 with core, not terrible, not great, but not terrible.

I do appreciate the offer though.

I am wondering if my mity vac can be used to bench bleed it now though? I will research this scenario this morning over coffee.
------------------

Red car:

ho hum. I have the new fuel pump and the belt I need to make it run again, but I have had zero motivation to work on either of these cars in the last few days. My personal goal is to have them both back on the ground and running by the end of the upcoming weekend.

I still wish I could keep it, but I have nowhere to store it and I can promise my DD is going back in the heated garage this winter.