kishy's 1985 Country Squire

[Lutrova]

I don't know, I thought Martin has been pretty good over the years. I liked The Jerk.

[gadget73]

I was referring to the hair bands honestly.

[slack]

Another vote for the 82 grill from me. I put one of those on my Vic towards it's EOL.

Also, that model is awesome! Did you paint it yourself? .

[sly]

I was referring to the hair bands honestly.

Meh. Pick your Poison.

[kishy]

82 grille is where it's at!

I like how to 82 grille looks. Fits better with what you have going on.

Any more pictures of the family truckster? I understand you did not get to see it again the next day..maybe you has some more from the first showing?

Another vote for the 82 grill from me. I put one of those on my Vic towards it's EOL.

Also, that model is awesome! Did you paint it yourself? .

The model is as it comes from Greenlight. It's a movie car (Terminator II), which happens to have rust very similar to my own. Lucky break.

Moar truckster:



Definitely seems like the 82 grille is staying on this header panel.
Whether this header panel stays on the car, well, that's a different discussion. Pretty likely to stay though. This car has a 'thing' going on and it just works. Kinda.

Pleased to announce the new fuel cap has totally resolved the headache-inducing fuel smell. In fact, the tank sort of pressurizes now and there's a small hiss sometimes when opening the cap...which the old cap has a warning about, but I never experienced.

Something I noted earlier but forgot to mention I fixed: I had installed the head restraint cover backwards on the passenger seat. This is now corrected.

We beat the odometer horse a couple years ago now, but a point in favour of this having not rolled over is that the driver seat is very firm and supportive, not saggy and sad as they tend to get with a lot of seat time.

Yesterday, I put new delrin plugs in the passenger rear window motor. They turned to goo immediately after putting the car back on the road this year. Driver motor has a bad spot it likes to stop in, so that one's getting replaced shortly entirely.



Tonight, I set about trying to resolve a suspension clunk/knock sound, mentioned recently in the thread. After a direction change (R/D or D/R) at next brake application, a loud metallic clank would sometimes happen. My theory became that this was the driver lower control arm shifting on its bolts due to inadequate torque. Inspection found they were indeed not tight, and are now torqued to 110lb-ft. Finding this spec in AllData took detective work as it isn't actually there to be found for a box, but it is for a 98, and since the front lower stuff is unchanged to 02, seemed applicable. Test drive shows noise seems to be resolved.

While looking at the control arm stuff, I poked at the driver cat heat shield trying to wrap my head around the loud rattling noise it makes. The heat shield itself seemed not to be the offender, but rather, a large chunk of something cement-like in between the bottom shield and cat body. This turned out to probably be muffler putty that has broken apart into chunks. The cat has some...um...ventilation, which the previous owner fixed with the putty. It probably worked for a few minutes at least. Anyway, the rattle is now gone, which has dramatically improved the car's overall presence.






Technobabble stuff:
My phone plan incorporates some roaming features that are super useful given how often I'm in the US. It's an excellent plan but with a carrier that has some network shortcomings in Canada, but the roaming features are what drew me to them originally as well as keep me with them now. The phone I received free with 2-year commitment was a Galaxy A50, which is a reasonable midrange phone, but unfortunately it does not support VoLTE roaming, which is a feature now required for me to use roaming voice calls while in the US since the 3G shutdown. I certainly didn't want to spend any money to regain this feature of my existing service, so I set out to find the best phone I could at no expense (to be achieved by re-committing to my same phone plan for another 2 year term).

It came down to the Galaxy A53 or Pixel 6a. I've really liked my work-issued Pixel 4 but find the screen is just a little bit too small for accurate typing (and as you can see, I like my typing, granted I do all of this on a computer generally); on the flipside, I've found the A50 screen has been a little bit too big for one-hand use, so the very slightly bigger A53 wouldn't be better. The Pixel 6a slots in nicely between them, and Pixel devices are known for decent cameras, which is why I've basically only taken car pics on the work phone for the last little while. You've all almost certainly noticed that despite being phone pics, my car pics have great clarity most of the time, and that's because Google knows how to spec out a phone camera. Anyway.

Pixel 6a is now in hand at no additional cost. Great phone, I'm loving it, super fast and responsive, right size. Takes pics about equal to the Pixel 4, so neither an upgrade or downgrade in this respect. Testing its roaming voice functionality this weekend most likely.

Some photo comparisons, lenses of devices cleaned before each:

Friend's Huawei P30 (unsure if Lite or Pro but I'd have a hard time believing it's the Pro) https://i.imgur.com/SKovPxs.jpg

Pixel 4 https://i.imgur.com/knDqO8y.jpg https://i.imgur.com/3hyMRd6.jpg

Pixel 6a https://i.imgur.com/8aKPXj0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/M3Wezkp.jpg

[DerekTheGreat]

Pressurized hiss? Isn't that actually vacuum induced? I thought that's a function of the EVAP system on these and other vehicles. I know all of my GM vehicles do it, and if they didn't I'd be concerned. But I thought that's a function of the system, to slurp out fuel vapors?

[kishy]

Pressurized hiss? Isn't that actually vacuum induced? I thought that's a function of the EVAP system on these and other vehicles. I know all of my GM vehicles do it, and if they didn't I'd be concerned. But I thought that's a function of the system, to slurp out fuel vapors?

I'm not going to claim to be an expert on how evap systems work, but I believe the evap stuff is relatively closed off e.g. no engine vacuum except when some conditions are met to operate the purge valve. On a CFI car, that is a purely mechanical subsystem, as there is no purge solenoid. I'm not sure exactly what conditions make it vent but it's completely vacuum controlled.

My belief is that the tank pressurizes (does not go into actual vacuum, e.g. vacuumed down to atmosphere and then beyond that unless things are not working) due to the formation of fuel vapour and other factors like thermal expansion, such as from the return line providing warm fuel into the tank. If the purge valve has not operated under whatever circumstances make it operate, the filler cap will release some pressure when you open it.

I kind of want to read the emissions manual now.

[gadget73]

it really shouldnt be building pressure. The caps are meant to work as a one-way valve, air in, no fumes out. The fumes go through the vent on top of the tank to the charcoal can. That vent has a check ball or disc or something in it. If its building pressure, I would be not at ll surprised if its stuck or clogged. Don't think you can get to it without dropping the tank, so it becomes one of those ignore until forced to not ignore issues.

the engine sucks the fumes out of the charcoal canister when the valve opens, though offhand I don't know what conditions that happens under. No sensors or anything to actually tell the computer if any of that works. So far as it knows as long as the solenoid circuit is not electrically open, it has to be working because the ECM said to work.

[kishy]

No ECM in the picture at all. 100% vacuum controlled on pre-86.

I am certain that some pressure is normal or the cap wouldn't specifically provide a warning about it. That said, less than 1psi is probably enough to make a hiss in a space that large.

[gadget73]

isn't that valve that opens the evap connected to a solenoid though? I know its a 3 port thing, one to the carbon, one to manifold, and the line that opens it goes someplace. always assumed that was to a solenoid controlled by the ECM.

[kishy]

Eehhhh, probably. Just looked at it briefly.

Vapour line from tank to canister is uninterrupted (does have the little guy on top of the tank and as I recall, I verified that was clear when I had the tank out a few years ago).
Purge line from canister goes to one of the ports of the valve.
Another line of equal size goes out of the valve to the intake manifold below the throttle body.
There is a third line connected to the valve, and it seems to run to the bank of solenoids on the driver side manifold, however I'm not sure which one it is. There are 4 in total, in addition to the ported vacuum switch (which I believe is mainly used for the exhaust flapper thingy).

Operating theory might actually be that the tank doesn't vent into the canister when the engine is running at all, but of course I may be totally off on that. I seem to recall somewhere in my brain that the main time evap is considered a meaningful emissions type is when the vehicle is parked.

[gadget73]

I think its supposed to just vent into the carbon, and at some point the engine sucks air through the carbon to extract the vapor.

[jaywish]

That is correct.

[kishy]

Tonight, 8/30 at 88,200ish km, I tackled a few items.

• I recently attempted to replace the driver side mirror with a previous junkyard pull, but one of the screw heads stripped and I was unable to extract it. Tonight, I drilled out the screw head, extracted the remainder, tapped/chased the hole, and used a junkyard screw to attach the new mirror. It no longer freely flaps in the wind.
• The driver window motor has been intermittently problematic for a while, and has been acting up worse recently. I replaced it with new, ACI part number 83394, which I've had good luck with previously in another car. Proper fitment, fast smooth operation, and lots of wire slack.
• I cut out the backing material of the door card (using factory-provided perforations) in front of the speaker. As a reminder, these are junkyard-harvested door cards from a differently-optioned car. The same will need to be repeated for the passenger side. If I happen upon the proper bezels/grilles to go over top of the speakers, I will install those. These door cards do have the storage pockets in them so fitment of those might get weird.
• I swapped out the visors with recent junkyard pulls.
• Together with the visors, swapped to the newer and much better design of clips to secure the visors.

[DerekTheGreat]

New mirror takes away from the character of the car, but no flappy-flap is nice. Good job on the strip-out extraction. I've been fortunate that I've never stripped out or snapped anything of my own. If I did, jeez, I don't think I'd have the aptitude to try and get it out. Reminds me, I need a thread chaser thingy and some taps & dies. (Been saying that for years..)