Progress Thread Let's try this again...

General karthief said:

Without more info like pics it would be hard to say. The pilot bearing could have gone bad then galled up the input shaft, wrong bearing, wrong input shaft (I think the 4cyl T5 has a different input shaft size) only guessing here.
Does the clutch chatter when you start out in first?

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No, the clutch seems pretty smooth.

Just got the car back, and I don't know what they did, but the car drives a lot nicer now. The bite point in the clutch is a lot more forgiving and it's easier to let it out smoothly without the car jerking. Would a new shaft bearing do that even if it's too big to fit? Is it possible they put in the wrong clutch? They also replaced the horns and a sway bar bushing that was missing.

Since I hopefully have some time before the clutch goes and I replace the transmission, I’m looking into a new set of tires, since the ones on the car are a little cracked in places and the front-rears don’t match. I’ve looked around at stock-size tires, and it seems like there’s only a few available.

The most original looking is the BFG T/A, but they don’t seem to be a performance tire and although I generally like white lettering on tires, I’m not sure they would look good on my car. What do you guys use?

Mstng93SSP said:

The comp T/A is a performance tire. I personally would not put a white lettered tire on my car....ever. That is a personal choice you will have to make. I like Bridgestone tires personally. I have also used Achilles tires off Amazon (very inexpensive) and they were fine.

Chris

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I like Bridgestone as well, I have them on my daily and they’ve been great. I just don’t think they make a tire in the size I’m looking for.

Right now, the car has Nankangs up front and old Dunlops in the rear. I like the “race car” look of the white letters, but I don’t think they fit the character of this car, and I’ve heard they are an absolute nightmare to keep clean.

Mstng93SSP said:

What size rims do you have currently?

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The tires are all 225/60R15, so the rims would be 15”. I know my options are slim without getting different rims.

We still have an oil leak somewhere.

It's about the same rate, if not a little faster, and it's dripping from the same spot (back of engine).

I can think of two scenarios for why this is happening:

1. The leak is coming from somewhere higher in the engine (probably a valve cover gasket) and dripping down to the back of the engine. This is the best case scenario.
2. When I last took the car into the shop for this, I asked the owner about it and he said that sometimes the rubber of the rear main seal can wear a groove in the crankshaft over time, and at that point the seal will leak regardless of whether or not it's replaced.

If scenario number 2 is my problem, then I'm probably going to need a new crankshaft, right? The engine was supposedly rebuilt about 30,000 miles ago, although I don't know by whom and how much they did. The oil pressure gauge is sometimes reading higher than usual (at about the "A" in "NORMAL,"), but the temperature is ok according to the gauge. I did notice a dried coolant leak coming from the radiator cap. I'm not sure how old it is or how much was lost.

The engine seems to be running ok. I hear a faint metallic sound but I'm not sure if it's coming from the engine or from the exhaust. It goes away after awhile. The oil level is still at the max line. I'll take a video of the engine running and driving so you guys can see/hear it.

darkfader said:

Yep. I just read the entire thread and couldn’t agree more. You paid a premium price for a project car.

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Yeah, I've had that sneaking suspicion. To be fair, the seal leak could have been from my oil change, either from overfilling it or from using synthetic rather than conventional oil, but the other things--the negative ground not being hooked up, the transmission being toast, the various little wiring things--kind of make me feel a little suspicious. His wife also had cancer, so it's possible he wanted to get this thing out the door ASAP so he could worry about that.

I really don't think he's the kind of guy who would risk his professional reputation trying to screw people over, a lot of people I've talked to about the car have heard of him including the guys at the restoration shop, and they all had good things to say about him. I think if I contact him about it he'd be willing to look at the car and maybe throw a T5 my way for cheap. He already said he'd sell me a clutch. The transmission seems to be the biggest problem with the car. Aside from the input shaft, there's always been a lot of gear whine as well which I'm not sure is normal with these cars.

I took a video of it driving, so as soon as I can edit it so you guys don't have to watch 15 minutes of me trying to figure out where to put the stupid camera, I'll post it and attach a link.

Mstng93SSP said:

Gear whine is not normal. Oil changes have zero effect on rear main seals. At this point do you really know you have a rear main seal problem again or is something else leaking? Good guy or not, he took advantage of you. Back when you had the first car, and all the rust issues I believe I told you to be patient when looking for another car. I'm not trying to beat you up over this, but moving forward please listen to us old guys. I honestly wish I lived near you, I would come fix all your car's problems...for free.

Chris

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Hawaii's not that far from Chicago, hop on a plane and you're here in less than a day!

In all seriousness though, I understand what you're saying and I really appreciate you saying it. Even though I'm a car enthusiast, it seems I still have a lot to learn about both cars and people. I think this car was on track to be a true 7000 dollar piece, but once the guy started getting payments and we had a contract, I think his attention to detail may have slipped a bit.

So I contacted the seller about the transmission, and he agreed with the shop in saying that I should wait until the clutch goes to do anything, but he said that since the transmission shifts fine, I should just get the input shaft replaced instead of the whole unit. He said he’d be willing to do it for cheaper than what the shop would charge me.

I also asked the guy and the shop about the leak, and they both recommended trying stop-leak before doing anything expensive. I picked up some Lucas Oil, topped off whatever was lost due to the leak (less than a quart so far, I checked it cold and I’m waiting for the engine to cool off to check it again).

I took the car around the neighborhood to get the engine up to temperature and allow the oil to circulate, and when I came back I noticed a squeaking noise that I’m pretty sure is the distributor. I had noticed a bit of a rubbing noise at the same frequency as this squeak before, so I don’t think the oil caused this.

Coincidentally, I thought the timing was a bit slow because I noticed an intermittent misfire at higher rpms and the idle surges a little bit. I checked the timing with a light after the drive I mentioned above, and with the light set at 0 degrees, the mark is right on the pointer. That would indicate that the mark isn’t on 0, but on whatever degree the engine builder set it to, right? If so, is there a way I could determine the degree without taking the heads off and measuring top dead center? I don’t see any degree markings on the balancer.

Is it possible that what I thought was a bad timing setup is actually just a bad distributor? Can I drive the car safely with it squeaking?

I’ll post links below to videos of both the squeak as well as the driving video I said I’d post awhile back. I’m sorry if these are all stupid questions.

Squeaky distributor:
View: https://youtu.be/QNsSNTpQluM



Driving:
View: https://youtu.be/8I5IskIGBfE