Giantpune's 73 mach 1 project thread

[giantpune]

WOW, nice job! That’s a bunch of work, interested in finding out what the alignment guy says when he gets it on the rack.
Btw, what brand are your rims?

The alignment guy was very impressed with the whole kit. Everything was very easy to adjust and get dialed in.

And my Initial driveway alignment wasn't too bad. I had the camber on both wheels in the green. Using the strut rod lengths from the instructions, my left side caster was also in the green. My car has been wrecked and banged up on the right front corner, so the caster on the right was out. He had to lengthen the strut rod by about 0.25"

The toe, I had just eyeballed both wheels in.

My current wheels are part number LW50-60854A. I believe thats scott drake. The wheels in the first pictures at the top of this thread are from AFS. 17x9 up front and 17x10.5 in the back. They needed spacers to fit.

 

[Billw69]

Thanks and again, nice job!

 

[Steve McMahan]

I’m pulling my worn pitman arm, and the sucker is stuck on the splines. I’m using a 1/2 18” long breaker bar and it’s so tight I cannot tighten it anymore. I don’t have a torch but do have a small butane torch. I’ve done all the rust zappers and penetration products with no luck. Any ideas?

 

[Steve McMahan]

I don’t see anything wrong with the setup, but who knows.

 

[giantpune]

View attachment 62611
I don’t see anything wrong with the setup, but who knows.

I used an impact gun on mine. Grease up the threads on the pitman arm puller and zap it with the tooth rattler. I'm sure somewhere in the safety instructions they say not to do that, but I didn't read the instructions.

I suppose you could try a fork on an air hammer but that would be prying against the body of your steering gear which could damage it.

I have heard of guys cutting them off, too. Use a cutoff wheel on a die grinder to cut most of the way through the ring on the pitman arm, but not so deep you start cutting the shaft of the steering gear. The more you cut the pitman arm, the weaker it gets till it falls off.

 

[Steve McMahan]

Got it, the impact did the job. Thank you for the help.

 

[mrgmhale]

Giantpune beat me to the punch re: using an impact wrench. Sometimes instructions just need to be ignored, heh heh. He shows a nice set of electric impact wrenches. We have a 1/2" drive Milwaukee electric impact wrench also. There is not anything I have been unable to loosen with it yet. One of the best power tools I have ever had, and "back in the day" (late 60s through early 80s) I have had a lot of nice power tools. A bit pricy, but well worth it.

 

[giantpune]

Sometime within the past month I blew out the exhaust gasket. There was a tick tick tick sound under the hood. When I put my hand around the back of the header, I could feel hot air blasting out.

I finally got around to ordering a new set of bolts and gaskets. I replaced the passenger side. Driver's side is still good, so I didn't even bother to mess with it. That ticking sound is gone and it only cost me a few bucks and an hour or so of time.

 

[giantpune]

I had one of those "welp, crap" moments the other day. I cranked the motor up and was letting it warm up a bit and revving it in the driveway to keep the neighbors on their toes. Then clunk, rattle rattle, thud. I shut it off and started looking under the hood to see what broke.

I found the balancer and crank pulley just laying there down on the sway bar. The balancer bolt is still in the crank where it belongs. As far as I can tell, the idiot who installed it back around 2005 (me) put the bolt on, but not the washer. Its just been holding on by friction since then. Oops. Either that, or the center of the balancer broke out. Either way, its 20yr old and getting replaced.

I've been window shopping for parts lately for this car. Starting to plan the next big sprint for working on it. My body guy should be free in a few months so there could be a bunch of sheet metal and paint getting ordered. And I'm starting to think about how I want to upgrade this drivetrain. Nothing is set in stone yet, besides I'b about to order up my new balancer, bolt, and this time make sure it has a washer.

 

[tony-muscle]

I had one of those "welp, crap" moments the other day. I cranked the motor up and was letting it warm up a bit and revving it in the driveway to keep the neighbors on their toes. Then clunk, rattle rattle, thud. I shut it off and started looking under the hood to see what broke.

I found the balancer and crank pulley just laying there down on the sway bar. The balancer bolt is still in the crank where it belongs. As far as I can tell, the idiot who installed it back around 2005 (me) put the bolt on, but not the washer. Its just been holding on by friction since then. Oops. Either that, or the center of the balancer broke out. Either way, its 20yr old and getting replaced.

I've been window shopping for parts lately for this car. Starting to plan the next big sprint for working on it. My body guy should be free in a few months so there could be a bunch of sheet metal and paint getting ordered. And I'm starting to think about how I want to upgrade this drivetrain. Nothing is set in stone yet, besides I'b about to order up my new balancer, bolt, and this time make sure it has a washer.

Luckily nothing worst happened. My bolts came loose after I installed mine but I caught it before it came apart. At one of the AutoX events one of the guys told me he could hear a tak-tak from the front of the car. When I checked I saw the bolts had started to loosen up and it was just a matter of time. I retightened and I was good. I added threadlocker afterwards.