Wynona the wagon's resurrection!

[HRH]

Let's see if this works from faceballs! Good to see you Flatcat!! Glad you liked the ride! Damn! I can't get it to work.....hmmm....

Ok, uploaded it to youtube and now fixed the quality issue!!

[flatcat19]

What the hell! Why is that video so grainy?

Note: video was not taken with a potato!



I had quite the smile on my face as soon as we hit that on ramp from Arragon. Good times.

Was good seeing you too, Matt. Things have happened at work that will put me in Spokane a lot more than I have been in the past.
We'll get back together soon and run it around the hills around here.

[HRH]

I'm not sure. Maybe because you sent it to my phone. It only came up as 440kb, oddly enough. You should try sending it to my email. Yay! Maybe a few more rides will inspire you to get the 521 done!

[Laecaon]

Yea, never message videos. Email, or share links. MMS compresses the video.

[HRH]

Fixed the quality issue, see above again. Refresh.

[HRH]

Ok, so I did some oil pressure testing Friday. Also managed to walk into the plate that holds the reservoir for the pneumatic lift portion of the alignment rack. 1/4" steel does not bode well for a forehead and nose.

Prior to that annoyance, I figured out some good information. One when the car gets hot and the fans are on trying to cool it it takes too long to cool when the ambient temperature is above 80°. Consequently when it gets hot the oil pressure drops a bit. I decided to hook up a pressure gauge and run it on the left to get an idea of if the original gauge was accurate. Turns out it's relatively accurate. After testing under full load full hot with electric fans on trying to cool it my 2000 RPM oil PSI was 35 at its lowest point spec is approximately 42.

The good news is the lowest 6,000 RPM oil pressure I got was 57 which is exactly the approximate spec at 6,000. Idle range between 16 and 20 but that is an accelerated idle because my idle is about 900 to 1000 RPM. pardon all the capitalizations and the occasional spelling error I'm using the speech to text and it's not that great.

The other thing I noticed was the temperature will stay just fine on the freeway when there's lots of air moving through but the electric fan switch is at 190° currently. The thermostat is a 170 unit factory. I got another fan switch coming so the fans will turn on at 180°. The other thing that's an issue is the two cheap 12-in fans I bought off Amazon seem to only pull six or 700 each for a total of around 1500 approximately. I should have known better than to buy cheap fans and the way they spool up the sound like they're in fifth gear trying to accelerate very very slow until they reach full speed. EDIT: I just re-checked: apparently it's 1500 per each. Even if they do take a while to spool up, they should cool better than they do. So maybe just the fan switch coming on sooner is all that will be needed. That and spacing the hood up in the rear. We shall see.

The other thing I may do is add an oil cooler because an oil cooler would help in general with the oil temperatures. Even though they're roughly within spec I would still prefer to have cooler oil temperatures than not especially when I'm beating hard on the car.

Between lowering the fan kick on temperature and possibly an oil cooler it should make the engine mostly bulletproof. I would like to be able to confirm cfm. Thinking if I put my air speed meter up to the fans and then a known good expensive one, that should tell the tale.

The other possibility that I just remembered is the cooling system has rust water in it that is still coming out after 3 flushes already. Just did one last week. I don't think it's clogging the radiator since I'm running perfectly going down the interstate. Perhaps the temp switch and better heat dissipation is all I need.








These are the specs from the FSM:

[flatcat19]

Do you have a shroud around your e-fans, or are they just zip tied to the radiator?

[HRH]

They are just zip tied to the core with those ones you get for electric fans. They're offset and cover a pretty large area. But yes, a proper fan shroud would be a good idea. Might have to do that.

On the other hand, the z car has only one small fan and it cools just fine without a fan shroud.

When the temp is cooler it seems to work well. When I was testing it it was probably 60-65 degrees though, not 90. I am curious to yank the thermostat and make sure it's not filled with gunk from all the rust water I've been flushing out. Unfortunately the thermostat is a giant pain because of one bolt for the housing.

And with the air quality at 448 right now, I don't feel like playing with the wagon outside. Too smoky.

[HRH]

Behold, the new axle for the wagon! Ford 8.8 out of a '97 Exploder. 4.10 LSD.

[DRIVEN]

Hellz yeah! Great place to start. Don't be too shocked if the inside is coated with black film. I bought about a dozen of them and they all had that. Easy clean with Brakekleen.

I see the Ubolts. Did you get the Ujoint portion of the driveline as well?

[HRH]

I don't actually need the u-bolts, semi-trailing arms on the Maximas, not leafs. And annoyingly, I forgot to grab the driveshaft yoke. I'll deal with that later though. Might just re-drill the flange to fit the original 910 rear. I'd actually like that for breaking a u-joint yoke is preferable to the trans. Maybe I'll make that the weak link and install a hoop to catch it.

[DRIVEN]

Done yet?

[HRH]

Nope. Axle is sitting on the garage floor. It got cold. I wish it was lighter. I'd drag it down to the basement and work on it. Supposed to freeze tonight and tomorrow. Possibly snow Friday.

[wayno]

It's always going to be something, my go to is the day is not long enough and I don't work near as fast as I used to.

[HRH]

I'll probably take it to work one of these weekends and work on it in a semi-warm shop with lots of space. Then again, I had on the insulated overalls tonight doing the rear brakes on the Subaru. Got that all done, going to have my master tech do the RR wheel bearing tomorrow, because I just don't want to! Need to start working on the z car cylinder head and get that engine put back together before the snow flies and makes it completely annoying. Actually, need to yank the battery and charge it, along with the RX7. Also need to put a cover over that.

[HRH]

Well, time to take the wagon to pull and save. Just don't have any time for her.





























Oh wait, no, it's just a new parts car that followed me home! I'm saving the front fenders and the hatch and a few other bits. Sadly it'll probably get cut up. I'll inspect it more thoroughly in the daylight this weekend. Have to figure out what I want to keep and squirrel away. It DOES have an axleshaft! Perhaps I'll swap it in for giggles. Probably not though, I just need to build that 8.8.

[wayno]

Followed you home, hummmmm, maybe you meant you brought home a stray.

[HRH]

So since I have the head to fix again for the z car I decided to start on the parts wagon. It's amazing for how haphazardly Nissan through these cars together just how much a pain the ass it is to strip fenders off. of course every single bolt on the bottom side is a #2 phillips metal screw which is usually rusty by this stage.

I actually would have kept this car alive if it weren't for the fact that the interior is just roached. Smells like one giant cigarette ashtray. it's a shame because it would have been a pretty nice wagon other than the broken out rear window and both rear quarters dinged.

[HRH]

Got the hatch off and I have a pile of parts ready to be semi washed off tomorrow before I squirrel them away lots of gross pine needle dirt leftovers. Figure I'll take the doors tomorrow the wiper transmission and the few other remaining parts that are good. still have to figure out how I want to get the axle out and where I want to store the extra axle. I really want to do a core support cut and have the front end around for engine mockups and whatnot. Unfortunately that's a bit of an eyesore and I'm sure the wife wouldn't like it unless I kept it in the back and I'm out of space. I might just have to settle for a small cut off the front so I have a spare small portion of core support.

And on top of that I'm trying to social distance from the wife in the same household which means I'm banished to wherever she's not. Got a covid test on Friday. I suspect it to be negative hopefully but if it's not then it's going to be annoying for two weeks. Felt weird after Thanksgiving dinner didn't have a fever but definitely fatigue and coughing although today I feel just fine. We'll see if I can continue to feel better. Hopefully should have the test results back in a day or two I'm hoping by tomorrow but we'll see. if I don't get them back tomorrow I may not be going to work on Monday which is really going to piss me off.

[HRH]