Location: San Francisco Bay Area, Calif.
Posts: 2,234
My VIN: 0934
Club(s): (NCDMC) (DCUK)
That's nice, thorough work you two continue to do.
One question. It has to do with the retainer brackets.
At least one bracket's splines look like they got painted.
The original brackets were unpainted. There's very little bar-bracket clearance at the unpainted splines.
Guessing the inside-painted-spline brackets may be hard to slide onto the bars and even harder to pull off of the bars when you want to adjust them.
Does anybody in the community have experience to share on that issue?
March '81, 5-speed, black interior
Posts: 1,645
I think I understand what you are saying. There is no paint on the splines of the torque rod. I did put some silicone based clear grease on the splines. When I painted the plates/brackets I tried to avoid getting paint on the splines. It seemed to slide on and off pretty easy when I test fit it.Originally Posted by Rich
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Location: Stevens Point,WI
Posts: 2,546
My VIN: 6125
Does anyone else have any long term experience with swapping those torsion bar retaining bracket bolts to A2 stainless?
I ask because stainless steel fasteners have considerably less shear strength and fatigue resistance than their grade 8.8 steel counterparts.
I don't know what kind of loads those bolts actually see, and stainless could be totally fine for this application, but when swapping to a lower graded fastener in a critical area like this I'd want to know for sure that they could handle the load and fatigue cycles over time.
Posts: 1,645
Haha I am getting a laugh out of this. I woke up this morning and thought "Hmmm...I wonder what the strength is of those bolts." "I probably should change them to high grade regular bolts,...after all it's not like they are going to get exposed to road salt or anything"
I am going to swap them out.
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Location: Leonardtown, MD
Posts: 9,604
My VIN: 03572
They really don't see shear loads unless they are not tight.
Location: Stevens Point,WI
Posts: 2,546
My VIN: 6125
Funny that you were thinking the same thing. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but I think A2 stainless is about 75% the strength of a SAE grade 8 or metric 8.8 bolt. Might be totally fine in this case which is why I was curious if anyone else has been running SS bolts there. I have swapped out most of the other fasteners on my car to stainless except for suspension bolts and anywhere else that might need the extra strength.
That's a good point as well.
Same concern would apply to the tensile strength going from 8.8 to A2 SS. Assuming they maintain clamp load and don't come loose then fatigue would be less of an issue.
Posts: 1,645
I bought different bolts yesterday and also some 3/8" long S.S. screws.
Does anyone know what size rivets hold these pieces on? I can't seem to find the right size locally.
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Posts: 1,645
Tam is going to her parents for the weekend to watch the Superbowl with her family. So my plan was to have a guy come over today (Saturday). This is a friend of my good friend Tim. This guy knows a lot of stuff about a lot of vehicles and engines. He was a Volvo mechanic in the 80s early 90s. Well, Friday he told me he could "stop in" Friday but was busy this weekend. Bummer.... He did end up stopping in yesterday afternoon (Friday). I introduced him to Tam. He is a super nice guy and knows people all over Maine an New England.
We went out in the shop and I showed him the car. We talked and looked at the engine. He kept pushing the air meter disk down which was kind of bugging me. I hooked up the battery and started the engine. It fired right up and idled.
I got out and we watched the engine run. It wasn't smoking and wasn't idling high.
I said "Well, I guess you scared it!" "It's running pretty good now."
He said something about it running rich. He pushed on the disk on the air meter and the engine would run bad when he did it. He said "See that, it doesn't like me giving it more air"
I said "Wouldn't that actually give it more fuel not more air?" He just looked at me for a few seconds.
I revved the engine a few times and it went into the 2500 RPM idle.
I didn't want to run the engine indoors for too long so I shut it off.
We talked about the fuel distributor, checking the spark plugs, etc.
He is a smart guy but I worry that it has been too long since he worked on K-Jet stuff.
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Posts: 1,645
It what somewhat mild out and now I was intrigued by how well the engine seemed to run with no smoking so I decided to pull the car outside and run the engine again.
I was letting the engine run, checking the coolant hose temps, testing the heater in the car, etc.
It was once again idling high (2k to 3k RPM). It was starting to get dark out and I noticed something red. The exhaust headers and left cat was glowing red.
Just then Tam walked out and saw the same thing. She said "Is that normal?!" I said "Probably not" so I shut it off.
We did some research. Most of what we found was it means the engine running too rich so I am hoping that it is that. It also said it could be running too lean, a timing issue, or restricted exhaust system.
The guy that stopped by said I should pull my plugs, check them, and do a compression test while I have them out just for the heck of it.
I agree, this is something easy to check.
I have too vintage dwell meters but I realized that they are both inductive so I don't think they will work for measuring CO. I have an electrical meter that does dwell but the battery leaked in it so it currently doesn't work.
On top of all this I've had two guys that have years of experience working on Deloreans and specifically Stage 2 Deloreans and they said the timing and CO on a stage 2 can't really be set using the traditional methods.
I own several combustion analyzers for working on boilers and furnaces.
I got thinking that maybe I could use this to measure CO, O2, CO2, etc.
According to an internet search I can.
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Location: CLE/PHX
Posts: 2,613
My VIN: 5646,5080, 5880, 10234, 3639, 2518, 10586, 1538
That converter is toast.
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Dave M vin 03572
