Just got this b3 wagon...

[kinkerstinker]

miss you.

[sin bar]

hey mc tight pants!

got my jackstands back this weekend,
wednesday should be go time with the control arms

sold my front spacers off the car,
and the head i just refinished,
putting a deposit on a motor this weekend, hopefully.
a locally rebuilt nice one with all the wrong fueling on it.

[sin bar]

got one out of two control arms in yesterday,
thought i had a wrong part...
turns out i'm just not very good at control arms.

other one will go in when i have some time,
perhaps tomorrow evening
or afternoon, if work is slow.

while i was under there, i saw that basically the whole suspension is toast.
so tie rods, tie rod ends, ball joints, and at least one axle,
in addition to the suspension i hope to replace with my old coilovers one day.


my poor sad car
oof.

[EuRoGTI86]

[sin bar]

look!
block will be painted, fueling will be dealt with,
and all the special header/cams/intake will probably be sold to fund other stuff.

[son of planrforrobert]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[sin bar]

FINALLY got the damn control arm in with a little persuasion to locate the rear bolt. couple taps with a hammer, then viola, which is slightly larger than a violin.

however, while tightening up the ol' swaybar endlinks, i snapped off the threading with some overzealousness. good thing i have backups, but no backup nuts. Nuts.

picking up the motor this weekend, figuring out where to store it now.
researching everything needed to swap over the digi2 stuff from the motor in it now.


anyone want some autotech cams, header, and euro intake? let's say, 400 ish?

[vr6boyirl]

Nice work on the B3 estate

I am looking for a B3 US spec rear license plate tub for a euro spec if you want to straight swap ?


I believe they are rare over in the USofA


E mail if you are interested

[sin bar]

actually, yes. yes i am.

i'll pm ya

[vr6boyirl]

And back at ya Casey

[sin bar]

things is happening!

paid for the motor, but i'm not going to pick it up until i get back from a work/trip to california in about 11 days or so, but i will immediately strip valuable, easy to reach parts and sell them to fund better parts for the car.

almost have all the registration kinks worked out, so that's nice.
some little details will be coming soon,
and i think i worked out a deal to replace some tired parts with better same parts. woooo!

progress is coming, the passion is back, i'm in it now!

[rabbit83]

I thought I had the only B3 wagon in Georgia!

Looks good, I brought mine out to Denver......

[sin bar]

the motor has landed.

motor swap shall commence forth this coming weekend.

wooooooo

[sin bar]

well, the motor swap was fun.

not really.

filthy old motor out, new motor in, got it 95% running,
but i wired the alternator back funny. wasn't charging right, died driving towards my home.
went back to check the wiring, but i broke the wire terminals off of the old starter. ugh.


took me about twenty hours total to swap the motor, including removing the old motor, swapping over the p.o.'s o2o clutch and flywheel setup (lightened!), swapped the header for a dual downpipe setup, reinstalling the motor, and wiring/coolant hosing it back together. the only hiccup was plugging the injector wiring harness into the coolant sensor housing on the side of the block. fixed that real quick, and it runs like a champ.

to sum up, it's at a shop getting the starter replaced and the alternator wiring figured out (possible bad alternator, not sure. the original alternator was broken into three pieces).

the euro intake and header are off, so that will go up for sale shortly. i'll probably just keep the "fast" cams in the car unless someone wants to swap out the cams for me. i'll take 100 bucks off the price if they do that for me lol.

[steveo27]

[sin bar]

haaayyyyy steven!
WOOOO Bruins (?)


kinda finished mid thought back there.

I need to sort out the rest of this damn car soon. it's rough around the edges.

and my photo host is down. sigh.

i have some mid progress shots, but not much else. it got busy in there.

hoof.

[steveo27]

P H breh. im classy like that.

congratz on the bruins winnin breh

[sin bar]

So the car is running ok, just piling up parts for the suspension and wheel bearing refresh.
It's stored up at my family's mountain house in the rv barn.

Need it good soon, I need to change careers.

[sin bar]

[sin bar]

so, a bit of an update.

the new motor with all of the cams and p&p and such is in, and it runs really well.


my photo host is back up (thanks william!), so i am going through the thread and adding pics here and there.

i've got a few from last weeks work! one new tie rod and two tie rod ends are on (already have to do the other tie rod) realized that pretty much all of the everything needed to be replaced on the car. just about zero maintenance done in several years. so the other day, while i'm laid off and on unemployment. i'm now going through all the maintenance i didn't have time for before, but i've gotten most of the parts together. the rear has always been wobbly, and as it turns out, very loud. while the car was up on the lift for the front stuff (and an oil change! o0Ooo0ooOo), i checked for play in the rear bearings. OOPS. very shaky.
and this:

that is basically a flat wheel. tire is all outta whack, wheel is toast. found a replacement sebring on the cheap (thanks kris!), it's cleaned and painted already.

so i did rear brakes, bearings, and pads, and cleaned up and painted some things while i was in there.

before:


HOT HOT CARRIERS


awful picture of the finished product


it is probably 60 decibels quieter in there than before. i didn't realize just how bad those rear bearings had gotten. and though it's the rear brakes, it's unbelievable how much better braking feel is with just the rears. yowza.

baby steps keep commencing.

hope all is well.

tomorrow,
i begin the fronts.

[sin bar]

got sidelined again and again with the fronts.

so, new ball joints in, still need to do the passenger side tie rod.

front brakes will have to wait, but i did lube the slide pins while i was in there. no clean and paint now, ran out of time.


IMPORTANT QUESTION
the bolt that pinches the upper part of the ball joint.
i broke one.

is this bolt the same as any mk2/mk3 ball joint bolt? my junkyards do not have any passats around, but have plenty of mk2s... holler if you have any idea!

[TehLonz]

is this bolt the same as any mk2/mk3 ball joint bolt? my junkyards do not have any passats around, but have plenty of mk2s... holler if you have any idea!

Should be the same exact thing.

[sin bar]

seems like that is indeed the case, have a couple etka confirmations through other channels.

mk2/mk3/b3 pinch bolts for the spindles should be the same. it appears that vr6 ball joints may be different, but i can't independently confirm this.

andrew, you sent me spindles, i'm pretty sure one of them has a pinch bolt on it.

[TehLonz]

They both should , I think they bolt had ball joints in them. The VR knuckles will probably be different as I remember the balljoints being larger on the VR cars.

[Joel Goodson]

They both should , I think they bolt had ball joints in them. The VR knuckles will probably be different as I remember the balljoints being larger on the VR cars.

^^^^^^^^ That.

[TehLonz]

YAY!

Casey , did you still need that slider kit?

[sin bar]

andrew, remind me of what a slider kit is. brake rebuild stuff?

[sin bar]

[g60manny]

i like what you are doing

[mushroom_curry]

Them brakes look good.

[TehLonz]

too flashy for iphone.

[sin bar]

bumping to try and revive my own interest.

interior is apart getting a heater core and doing all the blend doors and such.
front parts awaitin' transfer in:
discs
pads
bearings/hubs
new passenger axle
vr strut bushings/bearings

then a serious alignment.
i'll have a little help with the bearings and hubs, and will do the discs and pads the same day.
possible trade in the works. we'll see.

edited around for dead links and bad pictures

[steveo27]

bleep bloop

[sin bar]

weirdcats.gif

[TehLonz]