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Duder's Beige Brick - ARUNDL - 1981 242 DL +B230FT

Weird how something as simple as a valve cover gasket could need that much trial & error! Glad to hear you converged on the black Permatex. Sounds like we all thought along the same lines there.
 
I'm going through and re-hosting all the old pics through Flickr. So tedious. First post is done. Eff you, Photobucket!
 
I found some old pics from when we first brought this car home in 2009. These bring back some memories and make me think about how much I've done, and what's left to do. It has come a long way in that time and I'm enjoying it now more than ever.

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Did an oil change today and finally installed the ipd 25mm front bar I've had laying around forever. Fun stuff! It was a transformative experience.
 
Bringing this back from pg 21 as I dropped by for a reminder of what year this car is. Currently tweaking some of its old parts to function on my car.

What's new?
 
Bringing this back from pg 21 as I dropped by for a reminder of what year this car is. Currently tweaking some of its old parts to function on my car.

What's new?

Hey Harry! Glad to hear the k-jet system will be getting some use...I never had any issues with it once I replaced both fuel pumps and got proper fuel supply up to the engine.

My beige car is acting as a semi-DD at the moment. Usually I drive it a few times per week. Got a free Buick Roadmaster wagon recently so that's been getting the brunt of hard miles giving the 242 a break ;-)

Pretty soon I'll be doing some deferred jobs from the engine swap, getting the car prepped for the Davis show in April. Off the top of my head:

  • Reinstall rear window louvers with a proper mounting kit
  • Spruce up the rear seat / hat shelf area
  • Get the tach working
  • Re-do the center exhaust hanger with a rubber mount to reduce droning
  • Install the complete '93 AC system I have sitting here for it
  • Swap to RX-7 brakes
  • Build up coilovers and install
  • Might get some adapters and finally run the lightweight 6-spoke wheels finally
  • Fashion some kind of lower half for the 940T airbox
  • Clean up small rusty areas under taillights
  • Install rear bumper trim
  • Re-buff & polish
  • Reinstall badges
  • Finally finish the door cards - strip off old black paint and re-do with SEM brown
  • Install a rear modesty panel to cover the fugly muffler

Will be fun to take this thing into the next stage of its existence.
 
My Hawks are noisy as well. They dust up like it's going out of style to boot.

Pls do keep us updated.
 
Well after about a year and half of driving this thing around after the B230FT swap, all the little unfinished things are starting to bug me. There was a lot that I left hanging for the next phase of the project. My wife had to borrow the car a few days ago and ended up stopping on the freeway because she thought it was going thermonuclear - the temp gauge isn't matched to the sender in the head, so "normal hot" looks like "OMG overheating" on the old 1981 gauge. The e-fan comes on just as the needle gets up to the bottom of the red zone. Anyway I'm going to fix that finally, get the tach working, pull the dash to do HVAC, and a bunch of other stuff. Mostly listed back on the last page from February :roll:

Started with two small projects today. There were several embarrassing vacuum/boost leaks from caps disintegrating and blowing off the unused ports in the intake manifold. I was running some cheap rubber vacuum caps, which worked well at first but didn't survive the rigors of Redblock duty. Zipties didn't help much.

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I had some little heat shrink caps left over from another project. Two of the small smooth ones worked fine on the smaller ports.

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This bigger guy was needed for one of the open throttle body ports. It has a spiral of heat shrink bonded inside that shrinks lengthwise and contracts the diameter quite significantly. This type of cap also has some glue inside that melts as you heat it up and sticks the cap on pretty well.

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Boring little job but I like fixing stuff like this and knowing that it's right now.

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While I had the heat gun out, I decided to finally try the old bumper blackening trick for myself. These skinny bumpers were from the junkyard and are nowhere near perfect. Lots of gouges. They were also getting quite gray. Much better now after a quick clean and waving the heat gun around for about 30 minutes. I can live with these now.

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What is the benefit to capping off/deleting the charcoal canister thing?

None that I know of. I simply haven't hooked it back up yet since the engine swap. Probably will do so in the future. It's just for fuel vapor recovery. It's still there and connected to the tank.
 
I used to snag the 1/8npt pipe plugs off n/a intake manifolds at the junkyard. I don't like rubber caps either.
 
I used to snag the 1/8npt pipe plugs off n/a intake manifolds at the junkyard. I don't like rubber caps either.

I'll do pipe plugs if these caps don't hold.

Your junkyard story reminds me of how I would grab the little 1/2" hose clamps off of W123 and W126 Mercedes diesels in the yards. Seemed like an endless supply of them and the hose clamps were the best. Supply of those cars has almost all dried up now though, just like 240s.
 

Any chance you have more of those slick dizzy mount coil brackets? A template? I’d like to see one in stainless ��.
Edit
Came to this thread via the wasted spark thread and read page 19 after after I made this post. I see you have a plan to make em, maybe a complete install kit. Pretty please! Soon!
 
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- the temp gauge isn't matched to the sender in the head, so "normal hot" looks like "OMG overheating" on the old 1981 gauge. The e-fan comes on just as the needle gets up to the bottom of the red zone.

I adjusted this on mine -- was as simple as adding a small resistor to the wire coming from the sender. Ya'll probably already know that, but just in case. Wish I could remember what resistance I ended up settling on....but that info is long gone.
 
Any chance you have more of those slick dizzy mount coil brackets? A template? I?d like to see one in stainless ��.
Edit
Came to this thread via the wasted spark thread and read page 19 after after I made this post. I see you have a plan to make em, maybe a complete install kit. Pretty please! Soon!

Neat install - I've not seen that location for the wasted spark coil before. I wonder if the coil would suffer being that close to the block and heat? I suppose no more than perched on a bracket above the cam cover, I imagine temperatures in those two positions are pretty similar. I've assembled all the parts for a wasted spark installation, perhaps I'll think about putting it here rather than on top of the cam cover where I was going to...

Nice car OP - I have a similarish project, similar in that it's also a B230FK swapped 80's 240 on Hydras...

Cheers
 
Any chance you have more of those slick dizzy mount coil brackets? A template? I?d like to see one in stainless ��.
Edit
Came to this thread via the wasted spark thread and read page 19 after after I made this post. I see you have a plan to make em, maybe a complete install kit. Pretty please! Soon!

Good to hear feedback and know there is interest. I will get back on this project and post updates in the main wasted spark thread and on my website. It's a simple little thing, I just need to take measurements from my prototype and work out manufacturing. Any particular reason you're interested in stainless? The bracket ends up being quite hidden by the coil pack itself. I was planning on painted and/or zinc plated mild steel.

I adjusted this on mine -- was as simple as adding a small resistor to the wire coming from the sender. Ya'll probably already know that, but just in case. Wish I could remember what resistance I ended up settling on....but that info is long gone.

Well it's good to hear that a simple mod is all it needs - thanks!

Neat install - I've not seen that location for the wasted spark coil before. I wonder if the coil would suffer being that close to the block and heat? I suppose no more than perched on a bracket above the cam cover, I imagine temperatures in those two positions are pretty similar. I've assembled all the parts for a wasted spark installation, perhaps I'll think about putting it here rather than on top of the cam cover where I was going to...

Nice car OP - I have a similarish project, similar in that it's also a B230FK swapped 80's 240 on Hydras...

Cheers

I've been running the coil there for almost 2 years with no issues whatsoever. The stock LH2.4 distributor lives there on 240s, and the internal electronics don't seem to have heat related failures on those. It's a nice open spot once you ditch the distributor, and lets you use stock 240 wire routing (albeit with modified terminals).

Cool that you have a similar 240. Those Hydras have been on there for 10 years and won't seem to go away no matter how hard I stare at them! :doh:
 
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