To help get my mind off the disaster with my snapped water pump bolts I spent several nights moving onto the next tasks - cleaning the VOD, new stainless fuel lines (coated in a gorgeous transparent red), new silicone spark plug leads, spark plugs, injectors, rotor, distributor, Dave's solid state fan control and fan fail relays, replaced the asbestos heat shield with the new stainless one, etc…
This ended up being a great approach as during this time I calmed down about the snapped bolts and simply made the decision I next needed to remove the back of my D to get access to drill the buggers out...
Take your time drilling out those bolts. I had one break and drilled it out without removing the back end. With the back end removed it should help your back and go quicker. Mine took about 6 hours to drill and clean out the treads.
Noticed my new muffler was hanging a little crooked, so I loosened up the clamp and brackets and adjusted it.
Started installing my subwoofer. Was supposed to be easy - I pre-ran all the wires when I did the stereo months ago. It was not to be. The amp didn't fit where I planned it to go, so the wires had to be re-routed. Which required the whole interior to come back out. Then I realized the amp install kit I bought months ago has ring terminals that are too small to fit my battery cut-off switch and an inline fuse that's rated much higher than my amp calls for. Got discouraged and gave up for the night. Back to the car audio shop tomorrow.
Jon
1981 DMC-12 #02100. July 1981. 5-speed, black, grooved w/flap. restoration log, March 2011 to present
full and detailed photo restoration log
My wife and kids let me start early this night and, with the help of a mate, spent until 2am removing the back end and removing the snapped bolts. One of them finally gave with the help of the extra access combined and vicegrips, but the other was a nightmare that turned into an even bigger nightmare at one point that took a few hours to sort. End result was we finally got both bolts out and then reinstalled the rear end.
(got to see my frame is only four ahead of my VIN)
After another round of 2:30am finishes I finally got the pump secure and hooked up, refitted intake, fuel mixture unit, hooked up all the new stainless braided hoses to the distributor, throttle remounted, cold start valve reinstalled, and reconnected a crapload of stuff back up.
Got some desperately needed sleep and then tackled the pipe of agony first thing the next morning - thankfully it did not live up to its name for me, got it in third time no worries!
Made some changes to the air induction system during reassembly. I noticed the air inlet box inside the rear right pontoon did not align properly with the elbow that feeds it into the engine bay. No amount of force would correct that so I simply eliminated the elbow and put the feed directly onto the inlet box (as you can see in the montage below it now gets 100% of the flow). I then removed the entire heating splitoff crap and replaced it with a K&N direct feed, plus upgraded to a K&N filter.
And for some "modernisation" I used the stainless sill lettering that I originally purchased for the doors (but didn't use due to instead installing backlit lettering) to replace the sticker on the air filter assembly. Very rapt with how that came up!
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Dave M vin 03572
Originally Posted by DMCflux
