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I wish that I could be like the cool kids

Pay the best welder you will find in your area and be happy. Don't do it the typical tb-style (bondo and ziptie)

Amen! Pay a pro to weld in the needed items.... and consider installation of the late 2 series ABS, which works quite well.

Congrats to another Engineer.... I walked in 1983 and the education has served me quite well all these years!
 
Okay so I've gotten a quote from a shop to do the work... It's a lot of $$$$$. I talked to some guys at work and one of them is going to take a look at it this week to see what we can do about straightening it out ourselves. It feels like a more doable job than I originally was anticipating.

Thank you for your input!

I'm putting on a little show for Volvos and Saabs next month, so I've been focusing my car attention to my wagon and getting it presentable. Stay tuned for a new thread dedicated to that one.
 
Glad to see you're up and fixing it!

If you need any parts, feel free to shoot and I'll see if I have it or can conjure it up.
 
Hello 2020. I'm planning to get deep into bringing the ol' girl back up to snuff before summer (hopefully before IPD). I've done some hammering and gotten the worst of the crunchies out. Now it's a matter of tracking down all the fasteners and making sure the replacements body parts parts can get lined up nicely. Then it's time for them to get painted and to get a new radiator and an E-fan setup.

Thanks for the supports :)
 
After some more smashing and pushing I've gotten some panels to bolt back in. It's going pretty well, however, the driver's side replacement fender holes still don't quite line up. I think I might be able to massage a few millimeters with a hammer though. I also cut out the rusted battery tray.
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I spent time today with a laser level and several jacks to see if there was any deeper damage than just in the front fender area.
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I was able to verify that there's no variance between the height of the mounting bolts for the trailing arms, and the housings that mount the control arms.
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Hoping to get the body fitment stuff finished up real soon so that I can get on to the next phase of the process!
 
I need to update this more often...
It's been a unique year! I lucked into a parts car in March for super cheap. It contributed parts to both this car and other 242 (which has turned into a Gambler 500 car, thread coming soon-ish on that). The plan has been to take the best of the three cars and put them on this one.

I was out of work for the month of April and was able to get a lot car work done.
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I got the front end mostly fitted together.
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I found out I had two complete sets of turn signals! Between the accident and the two crappy parts cars, I didn't think I had enough.... but I did. It's great.
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I was a happy boi hearing this thing running nicely with a new radiator and having it all together.
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I Pulled a good, unbroken steering column. It was a battle...
Here's the old and broken column. This break was from some PO's accident. This car's ben put through the ringer.
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This is the first time it looked like a complete car in 2 years. Feels good.
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Post-Gambler side-by-side shot
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There's a consirable amount of rust I'm having a friend take care of. He's going to be blasting the fenders and cross members, doing any rust repair/body work needed on them and throwing some paint on. Part of me feels bad for not doing it all on my own, but on the other hand, I'm ready to just drive the car again. Maybe I'll to all the work next time.... maybe
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I have a concern. The 244 I pulled the upper and lower crossmembers from had a quad-round front end, but I'm putting a single-rounds front end on it. It looks like I'm going to have some issues with holes for securing the headlight trim pieces. Can I just drill a couple holes and call it good?
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More updates coming real soon.
 
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My friend has also taken care of some welding and rust repair on the body of the car...
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The replacement part
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Got a new battery tray welded in as well.
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I've set myself a goal of being able to drive the car again by the end of 2020, or early in January 2021. I just placed a big order with IPD for a new head gasket, head studs, timing belt (with the seals kits), and water pump. I figured since there's so much room in the engine bay right now, I might as well do this stuff, right??

After reaching the "drivable" milestone, I plan to drive this heck outta this thing for a while.
There's a leak somewhere in the power steering system, so I'll be investigating that while the car is ripped apart.
The next projects with it are to overhaul the suspension and braking. Then it'll be on to power upgrades. I'd like to do some interior improvements as well.
But I'm mostly just ready to enjoy driving it again. Thanks for reading, ya'll
 
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Do it, no worries
 
Hey everybody!
I had the car back together, in the same color, AND driving all at the same time for all of a few weeks!

Then I ran into a no-start issue that has persisted for the last year........ :skullbones:

Other life priorities have been in the way, but I'm getting to the point where motivation to work on this, and my schedule, and the weather look like they'll soon be cooperating (I don't have a covered area to work). I'm hoping to solve the no-start issue this spring and, again, be able to drive her around. I realize I say that a lot on this thread. :unsure: The cycle with this car has been the following; motivation, work, drive, issue arises, park, wait (1+ years), and motivation again. Then the whole cycle repeats itself.
So here I am, brimming with motivation to run this thing through the gears and hear that little redblock sing its endearing little song. I still hope to utilize it as a (somewhat) reliable daily driver, which brings me back to the current predicament...

It first seemed like an ignition issue, so without much of any troubleshooting, I ordered a new ignition coil. When that didn't work, I surmised that it could be a fuel delivery issue. I tested that theory and discovered that the old fuel pump wasn't powering up. I replaced it with one I pulled from a JY 245. I threw in a new fuel filter also and was getting sufficient gas to the fuel rail. Still no start. Okay, let's actually dive into troubleshooting.

When checking the spark, it looked like a pretty weak spark (reddish-colored instead of blue-white) even with the new coil, spark plugs, dizzy cap, and rotor (maybe wires too? I don't remember, it's been a while). From what I've read, it looks like that could indicate a bad hall sender unit. The sourcing and replacement of one seems like a pretty intense project that could be bipassed by just replacing the whole distributor.
Does anyone have experience with this? After I reached this potential solution, I put the whole project on the backburner for a while.

After talking to a few people and reading other's threads, it seems like my issue could just be a bad wire buried somewhere in these wonderful biodegradable harnesses. I've run into this issue in the past where the starter would turn and turn without any sputtering or ignition taking place. In those cases, I found a wire here or there that had fallen out of a connector or a corrosion issue. I guess I've been trying to avoid a deeper dive into checking all of my connectors and hoping that replacing a magical component will make the car 'go' again.

Regardless, I'm getting a strong itch to drive this car and spend time wrenchin'!
 
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