Dan's 66 VG30E Roadster

[DanR]

Everything has been smooth sailing, put quite a few hundred miles on it. Then my herculean strength finger tip caused this to chip off. I wasn't even cranking the window, which I don't even use the knob knowing they're brittle. Where's the glue!

[peter]

That is the nicest at these knobs with a little bit of glue and some polishing they look brand new.
I drilled them out at the backside and make new screwthread in it.

[DanR]

Sorry if I don't have anything exciting to share, this is becoming more of a diary about my car than an interesting thread.

Went to pop the hood the other day to measure my clutch hydraulic hose, heard a sound and the hood didn't move. Cable still retracted so I could tell it didn't break, took it for a drive down the street and the hood popped. This led to the conclusion that the spring on the hood was stuck, so I hit it with some grease spray and it's as good as... working? It was dry and had the usual hint of rust to be expected. Added a second cable and have it sitting inside one of the random grommet holes in my firewall.



On a side note I found out I can drive in traffic in second gear and not stall, even when slowing to a crawl with my foot on the brake. It just wants to keep going.

[DanR]

Pushed the car out to get new tires and do some grease maintenance.

Are these the OEM coated brake lines we are warned about rusting away? My camera lied that it was in focus so pardon the blur.

[spl310]

Yup, those be the evil ones. Get a blade and cut that plastic crap off of them. Prepare to see rust.

[DanR]

Thanks for the quick reply, I was able to remove the offending plastic. While I did start with using a blade, I stopped to avoid gouges and it would have taken me over an hour and several expletives. I grabbed my cheap soldering iron and melted it while peeling it away in less than 5 minutes.

Luckily there was very little rust on this mostly Arizona driven and garage kept car. You can see the difference in the coated and non-coated lines.


What was left of the offending part

[spl310]

Excellent! Glad to hear it!

[DanR]

Got new tires today and went to put the wheels back on the front and found some fun. When putting the shank lugs back on, I for the life of me could not get it started on the threads. Looking closer I have one hub with most likely metric studs(possibly later hub?), the other three with 7/16ths. Now the real issue here is the previous owner had 1/2 inch lug nuts on there that I am not putting back on as it scares me.

Time to figure out the proper threads on these studs as I have no issue with mismatched studs, but to have the wrong nuts???

[DanR]

Fixed that problem with new 12mm 1.25 metric lug nuts, somehow the old 1/2" ones never cross threaded or marred the studs.

The metric shank lug nuts I used are Cragar brand part number KN2131 from summit racing, but they come with oval and offset washers, I reused my old ones.
.800 shank length
.684 shank diamater
1.770 nut length
13/16 wrench size

[DanR]

Went out and removed and cleaned the kick plates(as best I could by hand) and replaced the rusted countersink screws with panhead stainless. Over the years the more worn holes have gone from #6 to #8 sizes. When I went to cover the car back up I noticed one of my new tires went flat. Put air back in and the bead wasn't sealing, back to pepboys to get that resolved.

[DanR]

Car was low on gas when parked last fall, and from starting it over the winter it was extremely low. So low that I backed out of the "shed" and it stalled out. I had to park it here until I got a gallon of premium back home. Gas attendant asked what lawnmower takes premium.

Replacing my 20 year old tires up front makes quite the difference in driving feel.

Now to figure out why my front left wheel clicks when driving and is speed dependent and isn't the brakes.

[spl310]

Check how tight the lug nuts are.

[DanR]

Check how tight the lug nuts are.

Thanks for the tip, your help is always appreciated, but I had already checked today since the front wheels were off since last driven. I was hoping it was that simple, I'll figure it out tomorrow and follow up.

[spl310]

Did you pull the wheel off? There could be trash between the wheel and hub. The next area of concern is that a brake tube is contacting the wheel.

[DanR]

It could be the brake tube, I wonder if it's the wheel weights stuck on the inside of the wheel.