@classicdatsundebate said in Well damn, my throw out bearing is leaking:

I assumed you had a leak. Sucks man.

Same, at least it's obvious where it is coming from now. I was so confused when I couldn't find a fluid trail earlier this week!

@bandit I ended up using a pressure bleeder because I was sick of fighting with it - do recommend!

@mupalup just a shitty alignment done by a shitty shop years ago. Couldn’t get it to line up well with the 6 bolt wheel. Car goes to an alignment shop tomorrow since I’ve just rebuilt the suspension and steering rack, I’ll make sure they fix it.

@bandit I am looking forward to the "after" on the Mustang, but not necessarily the doing. Thankfully, it hasn't fought me much on other work, but I don't think the rear leaf springs have ever been touched, so I expect some fun there.

Great job getting that apart and back together. I remember when I did the Cougar, I gained 1-1.5" from the old worn suspension, and that was with 1" drop springs!

@bandit uhhhh... Oh damn. I did NOT like using the compressor to get them out. It made horrible noises and made me feel like i was gonna die.

@racinbob Yeah sadly. The spring is a couple inches too long to fit enough into the lower control arm to rotate up into place. Some people have done it by using a floor jack and a sledge hammer to force the spring into the arm, but that sounds stupidly dangerous to me.

@mybirdistheword said in I had a Bluetooth coil spring:

@bandit huh, what is it with those springs snapping like that? Was that your drivers side? I guess they are under extra strain from the transition to the flat area. Mine was broken in the exact same way

Yeah this was drivers side too. I studied these spring failures in college as part of a failure analysis class and these springs typically seem to break due to standard use and overload stress causes microcracking which leads to a stress concentration point which accelerates fatigue. Add in insufficient corrosion protection in the mix and boom you've got failure in the rusty areas.

@bandit I greatly appreciate the thought though.

@urambo-tauro I have a new Wix filter ordered which should hopefully fix the leak. I cant imagine the fitting is the issue, but it's worth having a backup in place!

I put Gas Adjusts on my GTO 25 years ago, and thought they were great. I put Excel Gs on my 58 Chevy about 15 years ago because they were cheap, and never liked them. I put Bilsteins on my Caballero about 10 years ago, and have proceeded to put them on every other car I've owned. They aren't available for my 58, but I will be installing a set on my GTO when it gets refreshed next.

We keep clicking because you're keeping us in suspense...ion
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@italia I found this mention about possibly having a problem with the pin that transfers force between the vacuum booster and master cylinder. Going to look into it today and see if evertything is in spec. I should be able to pull the MC a few inches out from the booster since I have new lines. https://techtalk.mpbrakes.com/how-to-series/got-a-soft-pedal-dont-forget-the-booster-pin-to-master-cylinder-gap

@bandit correct tools indeed.

@bandit no way your rears are worse than mine. Rust is so weird.

How are your wheel bearings? All pad and caliper slides clean and lubed? Pad knockback is a thing and can be weird to deal with (and wouldn't happen just sitting there, but going down the road you'd find the pistons not being ready).

@mm54 I was skeptical when I installed it and now I know I should have listened to the voice in the back of my head.

@bandit rear suspension was actually quite easy. Its the front end that sucks ass.

@bandit I had to rent a uhaul last minute this weekend after my Golf blew up at the track (350 miles from home, and I'd driven it there). Only option was a box truck and dolly. $270 for the one way rental plus about a hundred bucks of gas. Holy crap is an empty box truck uncomfortable and scary above 60.

@mark-tucker said in Classic car ownership is exhausting:

@bandit Dead in the driveway when it was running fine just a few minutes ago is awful. I feel your pain; I've been there.

I would take the driveway over a random parking lot an hour from home.

Last October I drove 5+ hours to spend a long weekend at the tail of the dragon with some friends, a fairly regular trip that I have missed the past....too many years. Car drove great out there, was a beast in the twisties, cruised all weekend, drove 4 hours back toward home no problem. Stopped for a quick bathroom break and to grab something to drink, dead battery. Like completely dead....after 4 hours of nonstop driving.

Jumped it to get home (took a while to charge enough to start) and dealt with it later in the week. Turns out the hard driving threw battery acid all over the place and I was quite low, plus now with an out of warranty battery and everything metal the acid touched rusted up nicely.

@bandit said in Scoop there it is!:

You might want to tack something on left to right to pevent the legs from flexing excessively left right.

@bandit oh yea, you’ve got a workhorse with a buttload of potential! Stock truck cams are absurdly mild, with just about any GM performance car cam giving 25-30whp. Aftermarket cams are worth 40-60whp, significantly more with exhaust head work.

Sky is the limit and the starting point is already really good.

@trivet Everything I use or have used is now long discontinued, and development of single DIN radios has completely stagnated because car manufacturers are now integrating their radios in different form factors (as I'm sure you know).

That said, I'm using the Kenwood KIV-901 because of backup camera screen. I don't particularly like it otherwise, and it doesn't have Bluetooth audio streaming nor HD Radio built in. I did actually have both add-on modules but decided it wasn't worth the trouble of finding places to hide them in the cabin.
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I picked up an old XXV-01D that I occasionally poke around with out of sheer nostalgia. I did think about installing a rearview mirror with a screen for the backup camera so I could use the XXV-01D.
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@bandit makes sense!
Although, I do quite like the chop

@Bandit Awesome! Congratulations!!!

@bandit You've made fantastic progress!