My '85 MGM, "Maisa"

[gadget73]

I bet with a little creative fabricobbling you can come up with something to clamp that heater in place. Maybe a tab mounted to something else to give a longer screw something to hold on to. It doesn't need to be anything amazingly stout, just needs to keep the thing from rotating or falling out. Depending on exactly how much space is available behind where that thing mounts, maybe carefully drill through the inside of the heater mount area, use a couple of small screws to attach a tab to the back side of the mount and have that tab stick out the side where you can secure the heater. Just have to make sure the screws and metal bit won't interfere with anything in the high idle mechanism.

If you won't drive it in the cold and don't care about this, just use a piece of wire to hold the high idle cam out of the way. If you want a bit of a hacky in-between, you can wire up a switch to manually control the throttle kicker and get an idle speed bump for cold start use.

[Arquemann]

It's not the heater coil element housing whatever that broke, it's the housing for the fast idle pull off.
Rear half (intact) has the vacuum nipple and the front half which from the shaft comes from is the one broken.
The screws just had to clamp the two sides together with the diaphragm sealing in between.

Sooner or later I'll get around to it. Kinda weird that the throttle kicker and fast idle are completely different entities which do exactly the same thing.

[gadget73]

One is for cold starts, the other is to compensate for the extra load of the AC compressor. Why they didn't just have the ECM control the throttle kicker based off the coolant temp sensor, I don't know. Maybe its a holdover from the earlier EEC-III setup that may not have had enough processor power or outputs to make that work.

[Arquemann]

So I "unexpectedly" tackled a job, that in hindsight, I could have timed a bit better. The leaky trunk.
After the new seal it's really just the passenger rear corner:

The driver side doesn't look that much better, but it doesn't leak, I ended up cleaning it too.

I also found water in the back of both taillights, not inside them.

Someone has tried to seal the seal to the taillights with silicone.

The taillights are a bit of a PITA, long studs attach them to the body, but the long trim piece below the lights needs to be slid out sideways. Best way is to remove the nuts from the center section, so you can get the studs completely out before sliding off the trim. OR just remove the whole rear light section, a dozen 11mm / 7/16" bolts and the light sockets.


Rust, not really that bad, but the metal is very pitted.

After a bit of cleanup:

Rust-proofing primer and white paint (unfortunately the primer happened to be brown, though it won't be visible after all is back together)

Probably the worst driveway paint job many of you've ever seen, I'd be inclined to agree, but the metal is very pitted so the runs won't make it that much worse.
Most of it will be covered by the taillights anyways, and the rest visible only when the trunk is open. Also I can't/won't use bondo. Didn't get any overspray though

I wasn't going to do both sides, but after looking at the rust in the corner and seeing the water in the taillight, off came the driver side too.



My idea was to let the paint dry overnight and then squirt unnecessary amounts of silicone and body sealer in every hole. It was supposed to start raining tomorrow evening. As I putting things back together, came the dark clouds. I realised I need to seal things somehow, so I decided to tape every hole with duct tape.
As I was perfecting my techique of cutting duct tape without scissors, sleet and snow started coming down. According to the forecast, it'll rain every day for the next 7 days...
If the duct tape won't last, I'll throw a tarp over the back of the car.

[gadget73]

Just don't seal things in such a way that its going to trap water and force it in the light socket hole. Originally those had some sort of gooey rubber stuff on the washers that go under the nuts. Butyl I think, its like black bubblegum.

[TecNickal]

Just don't seal things in such a way that its going to trap water and force it in the light socket hole. Originally those had some sort of gooey rubber stuff on the washers that go under the nuts. Butyl I think, its like black bubblegum.

Correct, they used butyl. I used a tiny bead of 3M drip check on each bolt hole on my 1990 to stop trunk leaks. Bone dry ever since.

[Arquemann]

Yeah the nut/washer combos had the remains of some sort of rubbery pads. Most just crumbled when loosening the nuts.
Someone previous has siliconed the rubber seals to the taillight housings, though that doesn't seem to have worked that well. The seals are surprisingly soft still, but they seem collapsed.

Still kinda open on how do I seal all the nuts/studs, maybe I'll check if I can find thick rubber washers or the sorts. A non-stick silicone or something similar to what was there originally would be ideal.

[87gtVIC]

Nice maintenance work.

[sly]

I usually replace the butyl with ultrablack rtv because I keep a tube on hand. It's very effective.

[Arquemann]

Distributor came in today, TFI module should be here in a day or two.

I do have to say that the Cardone reman distributor definitely met my expectations on remanufactured parts. It's dirty and the casing has signs of wear here and there, that's all fine though.
But the poor packaging wasn't really acceptable...

I'm pretty sure this was caused by the part bonking around in the box.
The bolt hole is quite mushed in, but it is definitely fixable.

Can't be arsed to send stuff back to the States so I'll fix it, I do want the new'ish stuff that the distributor has inside.

[87gtVIC]

Arggg. Not fun when things are packaged for shipping poorly.

[jaywish]

BTW Is Maisa a girls name or?

[Arquemann]

BTW Is Maisa a girls name or?

Yup, a somewhat common finnish name. No real story behind it, out for a beer with a few friends, it just popped in my mind. Maisa Mercury works out pretty well. I haven't named any other vehicles.

[Arquemann]

Got a brief break in the cold, hail and sleet and since it was around +7°C, I decided to go and seal the body seams.
I'll do whole taillight and rear assembly with better time and weather later.

Looks mint in the middle where I smoothed it with my finger, driver side went okay, and on the passenger side I sneezed.

As I mentioned in another thread, I got all the parts for the ignition now and I'll get to it asap.

[TecNickal]

Now you're making me want to take my taillights off my 89 to see how things look back there. Its not a salted car, but who knows...

[Arquemann]

It's back together now.
Ended up lining all the sealing points with some Sikaflex, laid a bead on every single washer/nut, 20 of them or so.
Mainly around the holes for the bulb sockets and on the rubber seals since those go around two holes.
Maybe my taillights wont have pools in them anymore.

I removed most of the old butyl on the studs, so the lights can be lined up better. Corner pieces line up better than before and the lights and center senction are slightly less crooked.

I think the seam sealer in the body seams did work well, the crapstain in the corner was drier today, I did the seam sealer last evening.

Pic for proof lol

[Arquemann]

Now you're making me want to take my taillights off my 89 to see how things look back there. Its not a salted car, but who knows...

Yeah my car is (most likely) from inland Florida, only visible rust is the trunk corner now fixed and the door bottoms, which are mostly surface rust with the paint peeling. Rear axle is covered in fine surfrace rust and everything else underneath is either good with paint or in similar fine surface rust, all brackets and fiddly bits are good.

I don't know if you'll see much since you have a colony park.

[Arquemann]

Well well well, if it isn't me, the one who jumps right into doing things and realizing they don't fit halfway there.

New on the left (with the old collar) and the old in the engine.
I did tap the mushed bolthole in the new distributor and the collar screws on fine.

I think I need a rotor that looks like this:


And of course the US-parts store is closed saturday and sunday...

EDIT: The RA listing shows the correct type of distributor, with the stub on the top, greaaat.

[Tiggie]

I have seen those rotors and always wondered why they were listed for our applications. Guess that distributor answers my question. No idea if it will work since I have never seen one.

On the rear axle rust, at least some of these if not all came out of the factory with bare rear ends. Just like humans haha. But I guess it saved a penny and they didn’t paint the assembly. My 90 is pretty clean underneath but the axle is very rusty.

[gadget73]

oh the stupid rotor. I have no idea what is up with that, but it appears randomly 84-85. The distributors seem to be functionally identical, just one uses that goofy 2 screw rotor instead of the more common slip fit one.