Escape From the Prison Planet

[DRIVEN]

Yup. Anything that gets the wheel mounting surface flat against the face plate and centered is legit as far as I'm concerned.

[DRIVEN]

Got back from a week in Puerto Rico last night. Did some paperwork this morning then decided to tackle BroHauler tires. I ordered tires and tubes before I left so they came in while I was gone. In the process of loading it it spouted a massive oil leak at the top of the head somewhere. Made a huge mess.



Once I got it unloaded and racked, I yanked the wheels and attempted to dismount.


All I can say is that I'm really, really glad I bought that tire machine. They would have been damn near impossible to dismount without it. The fronts had tubes, the rears didn't and they were all rusted. The bead breaker even had trouble. I used a wire wheel on my grinder to knock off all the scale that would come loose then gave them a couple coats of paint.



The beads are pretty pitted so sealer might be necessary.
I'm going to let them dry overnight then decide if I'm going to go tubeless or not.



Also, my cones came in for the balancer. I was able to get it to spin without throwing an error code so it looks to be ready to do work.

[DRIVEN]

Got the BroHauler tires all mounted up. Ended up going tubeless and using bead sealer (it's like black rubber cement) on all the sealing surfaces. Holding great so far -- time will tell.

[DRIVEN]

Pretty lame last few days. Been working and chipping away at my basement but mostly sitting on my ass absorbing YouTube ridiculousness. Decided to do a final mow and leaf mulch down in the park.

Did a little chainsaw work down there too. Looks a lot better. Also, great news, my tires are holding air without tubes! I was feeling pretty motivated so I strapped up my driveway grader and was making things nice and tidy...

...when it started spewing oil again. Dammit.
The engine was covered in oil and I couldn't tell where it was coming from.

See that hose on top of the case ^^^ behind the cylinder? That's the vent hose and it had come loose at the airbox intake. So the engine was blowing oil all over itself. I hooked it back up and returned to work.


Result? She's hurt -- bad. I was drowning the airbox and it barely wanted to run. I'll assume massive blowby is the culprit at this point. I may rig up a catch can of some sort for now but it looks like a top end kit is in my future. I'll pencil it in for the spring.

[wayno]

When an engine has blow-by it is very hard to keep seals in it, my 521 work truck engine(the L20b) had massive blow-by at the end, if I ran the engine with the oil filler cap off in a matter of a few minutes the bottom of my hood(hood is up) would get a round oil spot on it, with the oil filler cap on I had seals leaking everywhere, I built an LZ23 for the truck and installed it, I am very happy with that engine, especially after I re-curved the distributor which I should have done when I installed the engine, but I didn't know about that stuff back then.
I could not keep that engine from leaking thru the seals and the valve cover vent was not big enough to release all the blow-by pressure, it was time as I was burning/leaking a gallon of oil a week, but the oil spots on the ground were not really that bad/big which baffled me.

[DRIVEN]

Honestly, I've done no real diag on this thing...that's just my suspicion at this point. I bought this thing pretty cheap but drove a long way just because I thought it was unique and cool. The seller was up front about the brakes, tires, and carb so I mostly knew what I was getting in to.
At first, the engine seemed mechanically solid but it smoked just a bit when first fired up and, honestly, has never really ran great. Not the slightest clue how many hours are on it but it came from a cattle ranch so we can all do the math.
I've got a list started.







Truthfully, it's probably good money after bad. But its been a really handy tool so far. Also, the market for 4wheelers around here is pretty inflated so, in that vein, I'm still money ahead to fix it. Used Polaris Rangers start at $6k around here and go up to almost $20k. I'll stick with my cheap junk.

[jtinluvr]

I had a similar issue with the air box filling with oil on a FJ1200 I used to have. Turns out it was the carbs flooding and filling the crankcase full of a oil/gas mixture, so once I started it, it just pumped the mess into the air box and then all over the back of the engine. Maybe drain a little oil and see if it reeks of gas. Hopefully it’s just a bad needle and seat/stuck float and not in need of a top end. Could also be a bad petcock in conjunction with a bad needle/seat.

[DRIVEN]

Good tip, wish it was that simple. The oil level is right on and I close the petcock when I park it. Unfortunately, it's 30 years old and has an undocumented billion miles on it. I think its probably just time for a refresh. I'm not really complaining, just inconvenienced.

[jtinluvr]

Road draft tube.

[DRIVEN]

Haha, its a possibility. I'll probably rig a self draining catch can for the time being to limp it for the next few months.
I've been collecting parts for it since I brought it home and was hoping to find time for a bit of restoration this winter. Just hadn't planned on an engine rebuild.

[DRIVEN]

Finally put the tire machine and balancer through their paces.


Everything seemed to work fine.

Also, the California Special is done and going home in a couple weeks.

[wayno]

It still has a Owie.

[DRIVEN]

Yup. Got backed into by a forklift at the last storage location. My brother has been saving it for his paintless dent guy.

[wayno]

I thought paintless dent removal was for small dents, that's a rather large dent/Owie.
Just take photos of the other side from now on.

[DRIVEN]

Any size dent if the PDR guy is good. If he was going to paint it right away he'd probably just push it out from the inside and finish it with a little filler. At this point it's going to keep the red paint for a while. Should actually detail out and look pretty decent -- it's just not the original white.
One thing that makes this car a little unique is that it never had the rear spoiler. The California Specials were supposed to have a fiberglass trunk lid with molded spoiler and matching quarter extensions. Should have looked exactly like this white one.

For whatever reason, this car never got those pieces. Built on a Friday maybe?

[DRIVEN]

Been very slowly chipping away at this project because I absolutely don't love any type of home improvement projects. Last coat of paint this morning. Move in tomorrow.

[Laecaon]

Is that the safe?

[DRIVEN]

Safe space

[DRIVEN]

Inherited some take-offs from my dad and decided to mount them up today. The set I took of were dated 2001 and were beyond done.

The set that I put on will probably buy me a few years, considering how little I drive this thing.


While I had it racked, I gave it the annual LOF. I looked it over in regards to putting the Muncie back in and remembered that I'll have to do some shifter linkage surgery. Decided to save that project for another day.

[wayno]

I had to look up what LOF meant concerning a car, lol.