| Date | Odometer | |
| July 1, 2006 (Saturday) |
N/A | Disassembled, cleaned, and rebuilt first SU carburettor. |
| July 2, 2006 (Sunday) |
N/A |
Disassembled, cleaned, and rebuilt second SU carburettor. The second time always takes less time than the first! Got car running beautifully again, worked on tuning. Missing a choke retainer cable on the front carb.
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| July 4, 2006 (Tuesday) |
N/A |
Yesterday I mainly worked on the 123GT wiring panel (fuse box and 3 relays), which was in pretty neglected shape. Got the horn working with a switch
to the interior, as I'm going to wait for the disassembly to run the steering column wire. They put a really loud horn in these things! On about the third toot, the horn relay died though so I'm going to replace that. I think I'll hide new solid state relays inside the existing covers so it still looks original. Shouldn't be much more work to get the fog light relays working, but I'm going to rebuild all three relays at once first. Today I plan to do some more tuning and replace my heater hoses & upper rad hose, and put in a missing bottom radiator bushing. I think I'll have now replaced every rubber hose in the engine compartment!
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| July 8, 2006 (Friday) |
N/A | Drive car to San Jose for friend's party. Didn't get accurate mileage figure for the way down because I used a lot of gas tuning and on the roadside jet replacement issue, but I got 26 mpg on the way back! Will fill in more later. |
| July 16, 2006 (Sunday) |
N/A |
Planned to bleed brake system and replace flex hoses with stainless steel braided hoses. However, sheared off a frozen brake bleeder screw instead
on left rear drum, the piston also seemed to have a leak onto the retaining screw below. Took entire brake drum apart for cleaning. Going to replace
brake piston and some installation hardware. Discovered crack in brake piston near top, that was possibly causing fluid leak. Cleaned everything in preparation for reassembly.
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| July 17, 2006 (Monday) |
N/A |
Bought two new brake pistons from Volpar, as both seemed to have fluid leaks, and on the advice of the owner there.
|
| July 18, 2006 (Tuesday) |
N/A |
Reassembled left rear brake assembly tonight. Found that the best way to get emergency brake cable onto lever was with small pair of vice grips on the
cable end, and use door panel removal tool to press back spring, while holding lever upright with feet/toes. Felt seals on both left and right wheels between shim and wheel bearing were missing. Will likely ultimately replace both wheel bearings, but will repack them with grease for now, as it's a fine job to do separately. Shim between backing plate and axle on left side was also missing, but two shims present on right side. Going to assume this wasn't done for any logical reason, and equalize the shims. After reassembling the left brake assembly (not completely mounted yet), disassembled and cleaned the right side. Took a lot less time, but the brake hose end connection was completely seized at the piston, and ended up shearing it! Took right assembly apart and cleaned it. So much faster for the second time around!
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| July 19, 2006 (Wednesday) |
N/A |
Bought two new felt seals and one right brake line from Volpar, used and in excellent condition.
|
| July 20, 2006 (Thursday) |
N/A |
Assembled the right rear brake assembly tonight, stuffed wheel bearings with grease, installed both brake assemblies. Removed and replaced rear flexible
brake hose. Adjusted brakes (shoes seem almost brand new, so backed off a lot on the adjusters.) Installed new right rear brake line. Mounted
drums, drove in wedges.
Parking brakes are working great. Going to replace front brake hoses (one of them was spongy looking, which started this project) next and fill/bleed system.
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| July 22, 2006 (Saturday) |
N/A |
 My steering wheel arrived from Germany this morning! I bought it for the horn button only to make mine complete, so will be selling it on eBay sometime, perhaps with the Volvo horn button from another steering wheel that I have. The seller said that it came off a Volvo 142, but all the pictures I have found of the 142 GT use a plastic horn button and steering wheel. So far my therories are (a) that this came from an early (perhaps unoffical) 142 GT, (b) that this came from a late (1969/1970) 123 GT, which were sold in Switzerland and possibly some other countries, or (c) that this was available from the Volvo dealer as an accessory. The wheel is entirely metal and better constructed than my original 123GT wheel, as there is no plastic to crack (though I will fill and restore mine since it's the original). There are no markings or part numbers on it, and it is large diameter, same as the regular Amazon and 123 GT wheels. If anyone can positively identify this wheel as original / accessory I'd appreciate it. Replaced front brake line hoses with stainless steel lines. Bled brakes with the Motive Products Pressure Bleeder, which works great. The front bleeder screws on my car are like none other that I have ever seen. They are not the "Speed Bleeder" or regular type, there is a triangular end on a spring attached to the screw itself, that I think is supposed to work as a prehistoric speed bleeder, but doesn't seem to, even after I cleaned up the rust and gunk on the springs. Because I have the power bleeder, I am going to replace these with the regular type bleeder screws, but for now, I just unscrewed them almost all the way while connected to a drain hose, in using the power bleeder. If I didn't have the pressure bleeder, the "speed bleeder" screws look like a good invention, but I like to see what's coming out the brake line, and it's quite useful for flushing out brake systems with air when doing major work. By the way, I have the "universal adapter" 1101 for the pressure bleeder, and this works great on my single-circuit Volvo brakes, Volvo clutch cylinder, and dual-circuit Subaru brakes. It did not fit on my friend's Mercedes 300D because of a clearance issue though, I'm sure the Euro car adapter would though. Mine is available from the company directly, and from IPD under the Subaru products list only. Nowhere else on the net did anyone say this would work with single circuit Amazon brakes, so I think I'm the first! I noticed today that the clutch fluid had completely leaked out of the slave cylinder; I knew it was leaking, had admittedly not checked it in a couple weeks as I didn't realize it was that bad! I decided it was much better to just fix it, so I left my car in the garage again, not having driven it for a week now, boo hoo! |
| July 23, 2006 (Sunday) |
N/A |
Bled out the remaining clutch fluid using some new brake fluid to get as much of the old dirty stuff (see below) out as possible. Took out the bad
clutch slave cylinder.
Tested the windshield water pump from my dad. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and upon disassembly, the plastic mounting for the DC motor's rotor was quite thrashed, and one of the motor brushes was also cracked. I'm sure I'll be able to find a good used one, I'll just need to test it first. Took out the driver's door panel to work on a locking issue. Occasionally, the door won't open from the outside when it is unlocked. The gremlin disappeared as soon as I got the panel off, as the door opening is working OK. I think I'll take out the door handle to troubleshoot. This kind of picky stuff really makes me want to disassemble and restore the whole car to get everything right, but I do want to take it on a longer trip this summer before starting the teardown, and a door than locks and opens is a necessity. I also soldered wires and installed a new horn button onto the dash as the old horn button wasn't a momentary contact one but rather a toggle switch; it was just the only switch that I had at the time, as it was the leftover overdrive switch from when I put in the proper overdrive lever. As I pilfered the toggle switch last weekend to fix the auto club's parts cleaner, I needed a new horn button. So, the toggle switch made its way (a) from overdrive to (b) horn switch, to (c) industrial parts cleaner!
I also tried to repair the horn relay, but found that one of the contacts was irreversibly corroded and breaking off. So I cleaned up one of the unused fog light relays and switched it instead. The horn is now tooting anew. Last, but certainly not least, I placed in the "Volvo GT" horn button (can't use it for the horn yet, as the steering column wiring is missing; I am waiting until I disassemble the car, since running the steering column wire is a pain). It looks really good (see below), it will make the interior of the car really complete when everything else is fixed up.
|
| July 24, 2006 (Monday) |
N/A |
In a couple hours this evening, I installed and bled the new clutch slave cylinder and associated replacement parts (shaft, shaft dust boot and clip,
transmission dust boot.) Kept the original bolts and replaced lock washers. Filled and bled clutch system with DOT4 fluid using pressure bleeder. The clutch is now so easy and smooth to operate that I thought at first the system was not yet bled, but it was in fact engaging the clutch perfectly!
|
| July 25, 2006 (Tuesday) |
N/A |
Spent an hour and a half working on the left front door. Disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled the door handle and lock, but still isn't working right.
Going to disassemble it again this weekend and perhaps use parts from a spare I have. I did adjust the door striker so that the door is totally firm
when closed, so one successful item of progress tonight!
|
| July 28, 2006 (Friday) |
N/A |
Disassembled left front door lock, and determined that (a) return spring was not bent enough to catch rotating part of lock tumbler - allowing lock
cylinder to rotate too freely, and that (b) the cam that presses out to open the door was worn down, preventing lock pull from being pushed up/down. Fixed (a) by re-bending spring tabs, and (b) by grinding down rotating end after lock canister and external flaring in equal amounts to make like new, albeit with a little less clearance to push the door open. Works perfectly, and much more satisfying and cheaper than buying new lock tumblers. |
| July 29, 2006 (Saturday) |
N/A |
Installed new brake bleeder screws and bled system again, now refilling with DOT 4 fluid. In conjunction with the power bleeder, I pressed the brake
pedal several times between bleeding each wheel, which seemed to help get old fluid and any excess bubbles out of the system. Also reassembled door hardware and adjusted hood latch so that hood doesn't bounce up and down on bumps.
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