The All About My 1980 Pontiac LeMans Station Wagon Thread...

[motorhead]

Aligned the car today.  Boy is the stock stuff limited in its adjustability range.  Best I could get was 3.5* caster, -1.25* camber, and 0 toe.  Garbage!

Bled the brakes again... so many bubbles.

Oh, and I would say that the SFCs I built are doing their job stiffening up the car.

[good2win22]

Man I like them wheels!

[nocooler]

That looks pretty rigid for a gbody.

[motorhead]

Man I like them wheels!

I will sell them.

That looks pretty rigid for a gbody.

Being a wagon probably helps a lot.  However, the frame is tied together with the SFCs and the body and frame are tied together through the harness bar/weight jacker setup, and I am sure that the monsterous G-Force crossmember is having an effect too.  But, mostly because it is a long roof car.

[motorhead]

We had a short break in the weather!

So I did a little tuning today and it is going surprisingly well, cold start was good, idle in P/N and Drive was good, putting around the 'hood was good.  Only a few tweaks to the VE table were in order. Hot restart was a little lean so that is probably an OLFA matter.

The steering and suspension feels really tight - but ARGH! - it is rubbing on the fender liners because it doesn't have enough negative camber.  I figure I can fix this with offset shafts shoved in some circle track arms, a stack of shims, and narrower tires (245/45R17 on a 9.5" wheel); or alternatively I can start cutting up my rare LeMans fenderliners (not a fan of that idea).

Appropriately Natasha asked what that was going to cost - I couldn't muster a response and just hung my head in shame.

[motorhead]

Sat down with a coffee and Google to do some thinking about those pesky fenderliners.. .

Felt a lot like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSVMW3jZcg4

What about heat to reshape the plastic? Bingo. It is done all the time in the slammed luxury car world.  An hour later I had gained some much needed space.  I won't know how much until the next time I take it for a boot.

[daveismissing]

If you can't afford a Steinel heat gun HD has a Milwaulkiee / Wagner with LED temps indicators (~$50) that isn't bad.

[motorhead]

Natasha's Mastercraft unit worked well enough, and ironically probably kept me from over doing it being underpowered.  That being said it is good enough to heat up press-fit parts to get them to slide on.

If I really need to keep an eye on temps I bust out my Mastercraft laser temp gun.

[daveismissing]

Mastercraft not being the ski boat but the house brand of CTC. How do we describe Canadian Tire? A combination of Ace hardware and Pep boys or the old Sears automotive and tool sections?
'Course dunno how they would describe Frys to us...

[motorhead]

Crappy Tire is my one tier tool level above Princess Auto.  I am not a Pro, just a Joe.  If I did this sort of thing for real I would buy nicer tools.

[nocooler]

I have a harbor freight heat gun - and it's pretty nice for $13.99 


I wish we had a fry's - there is a microcenter in madison heights (Detroit), it's an interesting place to go. I just wish it was closer.

[TexasT]

We have the frys(actually two within an hour drive) and the microcenter place is up near the second frys. I haven't been in the frys lately. I have bought several refurbished items from them. We used to have a CompUSA that had refurbished stuff but they shut that down and I guess it is the tigerdirect.co m on the interwebz. Brick n mortar is as dead as newspapers from what I can see. I can order stuff, I don't need to have them do it and mark it up for me.

[motorhead]

This thing is safetied, registered and insured.

Now what am I going to do with my time?

[reality]

If it's not broke fix it till it is.

[nocooler]

Time to start on the monte