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"Built Dam Strong!"

17 November 2013

Omnibus Project Lazarus Update

 First up: Rear drums!

I started getting a crappy pedal and some brake fluid on the rear passenger rim. I opened up the drum and this is what I found:
 Yeah . . . Not so good.

Even worse, the hardline was frozen to the wheel cylinder. So, what's a guy to do? Bend up some new lines. Brilliant. =(

I really don't like bending brake lines. It's always a pain and mine never come out as nicely as I think they should. Oh well. As long as it works, right? I was also fortunate that a neighbor of mine had some spare line and a double flare kit. You do double flare your brake lines, don't you? (Shame on you if you don't.)

I was having issues not being able to form the flare correctly with the hand kit:

So, I figured I could employ my then newly acquired 20T HF press. I used the clamp and the anvil that normally gets screwed onto the yoke to complete the flare:

The CRX rear lines are 4.75mm, just in case you were wondering:

Completed double flare and one of the salvaged old fittings:

 Pic of the massive arbor plates I still haven't cleaned up but are still perfectly useful:


Necessary tools:

 Crappy pic, but, you can see that the flare is much more centered:


Came out a bit crooked:


But after some tweaking, it fit really well with the new fitting:
 Random cat pic!

I added a rubber grommet to keep the radiator from flopping about and also wearing the tab off:

The alternator bearings decided to get really bad, so I replaced it:

Then the dizzy took a dump that lead to a whole bunch of issues with ignition timing. I thought I had gotten the cam timing incorrect, and had to get clever with holding cams in place. This worked surprisingly well:


I checked out an engine for a guy I know and when we pulled the head off, something was "slightly" off: 

I also need a new gas cap:

The ignition timing is still off, but it is at least drivable. I'll deal with it for now.