TURTLE POWER!!!

[Will]

I used to work at a store that sold old model cars, and we'd use pine-sol to strip paint off of the old cars without hurting the plastic. It's gentle enough to not hurt ancient styrene.

 

Nice to know it can help me avoid brain-melting carb cleaner too.

[Eagle_Adam]

look good, sounds like the turtle will be joining us for canby then? 

[MicroMachinery]

Maaaaaaaybe :)

[MicroMachinery]

That didn't take long.

This little jerk was to blame.. well, kinda. With the dual points dizzy, it was kicking in the advanced points at wide open throttle, while running on the retarded set at all other times. Since I'd set the base timing high, when the advanced set kicked in, it was over advancing to the point that the engine would run poorly. The solution was simple:

Pretty hokey, but it will work for the time being, until I can swap in an EI distributor.. or something..

With that taken care of, it was time to get her hot then get dirty ;)

It was actually really clean inside the valve cover, which always entitles the PO's to a genuine "Thank you!". Grabbed a 17mm, 14mm, and 2 feeler gauges(I don't like to switch back and forth between the .010 and .012), and it was on. Not one valve lash clearance was correct(The exhausts were all loose, and the intakes were all tight.) Reassembled and ran. Purred like I've never heard. Now that she was behaving a little better, it was time to reward her with a slice of open road.

 

Fun stuff :)

[I'm BLUE]

That's interesting ! I've never had a working knowledge of dual-points distributors :blush:

* The more you know gif inserted here*

 

That last oic... captured the lines of the TURTLE with those wheels and tail-lights finishing it off proper .. well executed Micro ! ... :ninja: :sneaky: ...  :cool:

[Laecaon]

Nice rolled down windows!

[Eagle_Adam]

Great shot man!!!

[MicroMachinery]

I got into the 610 the other day and I didn't hear her pulse.. I looked down at the clock and it wasn't moving. Wasn't sure if the clock gave up the ghost or not, so I reached behind to make sure all the wires were attached. My hand brushed a wire and I heard ticking momentarily.. had to be a bad connection. I got down on the floor and looked up behind to see the power wire dangling.. on the end of it was the terminal from the back of the cluster still attached :( I'd have to deal with this another day.

Another day came, and I was able to pull the cluster. The female spade terminal from the back had broken off clean, though I'm still not sure why.

Had I been born with 3 hands, I probably could have soldered the 2 pieces back together. But alas, being given only 2, I had to make due with what I had. After a couple attempts using clamps and other devices, I decided to go a different route.

Quick and dirty: took a small section of wire and soldered the end into the rivet hole. Crimped a new female spade on and we were back in business. Tick-tick-tick..

[I'm BLUE]

Nice find and solution Micro !

[Eagle_Adam]

its always the small things..... 

[MicroMachinery]

Indeed it is. Speaking of small things, got a couple little details done on the coupe this evening.

First off, I was missing the trim that goes along the drivers side of the rear window.

I pulled a white one from my parts coupe. Though the wrong color, as well as old and run-down, it's better than nothing. In time, if I can't find a nice brown one, I'll just paint or dye this one.

Next thing that had been on my mind, is that on the 73's, there is a clip that you can remove your detachable shoulder strap from your seatbelt and hang it in. My passenger side had one, but the drivers side did not. Again, thank you parts-car.

Neat, huh? B)

For some time now, I haven't been able to install the trim that surrounds the door latch handle, for need of a new door lock stud. Without it, the knob for the lock just falls off, so I'm faced with looking at this all the time:

:sick:

(close-up of the broken stud)

I had considered pulling the passenger side door card off to deal with a broken door lock mechanism, but I figured that I'd rather not mess with it. Upon seeing this while sitting in the back seat, I decided that the job was already half done.

The only thing actually holding the door card on was the arm rest, 1 push-in clip, and the top that hooks onto the door. Easy enough with the window crank and arm rest removed. With the door card off, it was time to get down.

3 small screws and 2 push-in style clips removed later, I had the old, broken mechanism off. It's too bad that I couldn't just remove the stud and put another in, as the handle itself is in very nice shape. Too bad.

A pic of the old one before the cleaning. Nice, UNbroken, gnarled stud.

After cleaning it up, I applied some grease to all the moving pieces and slapped her on.

Those pictures are terrible, but oh well. (Since it's not very detailed, they're just pics of the greased pieces)

At this time, I also greased the window regulator and tracks. They were all dry.

With the door trim and lock knob I snagged from the parts car, I completed the transfer:

Eye-sore, no more!

Speaking of eye-sores, I spent the remaining minutes of my time at the shop cleaning off the remnants of the stickers and adhesive at the bottom of the passenger door that you see in the pic above. No pics of it removed, but I'm sure you can use your imagination for that :)

[I'm BLUE]

 AWWWWWWW YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH

 

.... now I want some de-attachable hanging shoulder strap type clip's for my Z's belts :lol:  :cool: ... didn't even realize they existed !

Cool door lock knobs..

[Draynor]

Awesome  :thumbup: 

Man I love the 610 interior panels!

[jrock4224]

hmmmmmm i must say i missed this thread and im sorry i did ......thats a beast there....love the green

[DatMo]

awesome car man. 

keep the good shit up!

[MicroMachinery]

Since I liked the EI upgrade on my 76' so much, I decided to put on on the 73'. I had found one in a wrecking yard, which looked like a newly remanufactured unit, so I decided this was going to go in. I grabbed it off the shelf and noticed movement. On closer examination, it appeared that the shaft had no play, but it was the reluctor ring that was moving. I'd never taken one apart, so I figured now would be a good learning experience.. besides, I had to if I wanted to save the thing.

Here's what I started with.

With 3 screws removed, as well as the trigger on the shaft, the reluctor ring lifted right off. I was then able to unscrew the matchbox(2 screws) and remove the entire assembly. Easy peasy.

The vacuum advance came out with 2 screws.

In this pic, you can see where the reluctor ring mounting plate is secured by 2 rivets(1 rivet is visible, the other is partially blocked from view by the center shaft). These were what worked loose somehow (they were probably never tight to begin with, which may have been why the truck this was in was in the yard to begin with). Kind of a bad design if you ask me; screws would make it much more serviceable. Anyhow, the two screws along the outside of this series of plates that sit 180 degrees from one another were removed, and the whole conglomeration lifted right out, leaving just the centrifugal weights.

At this point, I was able to clean out the body, as well as the other pieces. The rotating parts I was able to grease, and with a super glue compound I had handy(Called "Q-Bond", I highly recommend trying it out), I secured the rivets in place.

Reassembly was the opposite of disassembly, but a little easier, as corrosion was removed from some spots and dielectric grease was applied to some spots.

 

Time to replace this guy...

 

 

Now, I'd be lying if I said that from here on out it was just a drop in and wire up situation, because it wasn't. The way the body of this dizzy was setup(came out of an 80' 720), the matchbox was on the backside, facing the exhaust manifold. I don't like this, but have seen other people run it that way and they said they didn't have issue, but I just didn't like the idea of it. I had another matchbox dizzy with me that had a different body on it, so I ended up dropping that one in and running it instead. LOL. Not a total loss, I guess; I'm no longer afraid to tamper with the internals of a matchbox dizzy :)

 

So far, I've got a waaaay smoother idle, quicker startups, and I've gotten about 2mpg better. Once again, one of the easiest, best upgrades you can do for an L series, in my opinion(Don't forget to change your coil to an EI coil as well, boys and girls ;) )

[bonvo]

did you leave the stock mechanical advance springs? i want to get a few different ones and experiment with the advance curve

[I'm BLUE]

Good work bro.

 

I've been meaning to pull apart and replace the pickup unit as well as the bushing's in my 79' zx matchbox spare.

 

I haven't dove into a distributor like you have myself yet , so it's nice to see this post.

 

Q-bond... *Adds to try list*

[MicroMachinery]

did you leave the stock mechanical advance springs? i want to get a few different ones and experiment with the advance curve

 

Yeah, I didn't disturb those, just cleaned em and sprayed some lubricant in there to keep em from rusting. Keep us posted on your findings.

 

Good work bro.

 

I've been meaning to pull apart and replace the pickup unit as well as the bushing's in my 79' zx matchbox spare.

 

I haven't dove into a distributor like you have myself yet , so it's nice to see this post.

 

Q-bond... *Adds to try list*

 

Thanks man. Yeah, there's really nothing to it, just a few screws and no real surprises(I hate when I stumble onto those); I didn't really know what to expect. Q-Bond is some pretty tough stuff.. comes with the glue(which by itself is crazy strong.. don't get any on ya), and then a few different powders that can be used for joining pieces or filling in cracks. It sets up SUPER fast, like, within seconds, and once it's set up, it's for keeps. Nice for little cracked/broken trim pieces or situations like this where you need something to never move again :lol:

[I'm BLUE]

Thanks man. Yeah, there's really nothing to it, just a few screws and no real surprises(I hate when I stumble onto those); I didn't really know what to expect. Q-Bond is some pretty tough stuff.. comes with the glue(which by itself is crazy strong.. don't get any on ya), and then a few different powders that can be used for joining pieces or filling in cracks. It sets up SUPER fast, like, within seconds, and once it's set up, it's for keeps. Nice for little cracked/broken trim pieces or situations like this where you need something to never move again :lol:

 

:lol: ... :sneaky: ...

That's great to know !!

Q-bond looks cool (shiney pictures off Amazon)  and I'll have try that for sure.

.... sets up in seconds .... errrrrrrr .... that poses a challenge considering my sausage like fingers .. errr crap ... :lol:

Cool cool Micro ... keep on keeping on !

 

Just so you know.... everytime I see "TURTLE POWER !!!" some dudes voice semi-yells it in my head ....

I think from when I watched the cartoons as a kid :rofl: (DTP pulls hands away from keyboard)

[MicroMachinery]

Got some fun new items from CoilOVerKid(Great transaction, by the way)...

I don't do a great deal of hardcore rallying in my 73', so these were more for aesthetics.

I like the way that they contrast with the X and Y axis of the factory sport coupe grille when mounted diagonally. I had considered putting on a second set, but I actually opted for just the one set... less is more.

 

While I was messing with the front end, I found it would be a great time to deal with a little boo-boo that had been bugging me since I got the car..

Why I hadn't dealt with this thing long ago is beside me, every time I saw it, it irked me.

With a little force from the inside of the fender with my palm, I was able to pop it back out. It didn't come out completely(there are still some uneven spots around the edges of where the dent was before), but it looks MUCH better than it did before, and to see what's left, you have to look at an angle. Good enough for an already imperfect fender, for now.

[bonvo]

now push out the other dent above the wheel well 

[MicroMachinery]

I wish it was pushable.. the creases in the metal around it would need to be worked out with a hammer and dolly(which really isn't a priority for me right now). With the cancer at the bottom of the fender, I'm thinking the easier solution would just to be to replace it with a solid one. That would be awesome if it were as easy as just popping it back out.

[Guest_kamakazi620]

I spy a accord with first gen crx wheels, those are rare wheels worth $400 a set in poor condition

[bonvo]

i wanna say thank you micro you inspired me to do work today