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"Silver Bullet" Restore/Update/Repair/Upgrade thread
Meet the Silver Bullet:
I'm going to start with a little back story on this thing. My father-in-law bought him used with maybe 30k miles in 1996. It was his daily driver and used as a workhorse carrying gardening supplies and tools. He named it. My wife tells me after he took a long drive (and probably a few beers) he came in and with a crap-eating grin declared it the Silver Bullet. A legacy was born.
He kept it for 9 years before selling it to my brother-in-law (his step-son). He drove the hell out of it. It began taking on water in the rain and eventually it quit running. Not being one to fix things up and lacking mechanical knowledge, he eventually handed it down to me in 2010. It was certainly convenient, considering that I had bought my mother-in-law's red Festiva after a front end wreck a few months earlier.
When I first traced it down to being a fuel pump issue I was not exactly thrilled at having to drop a gas tank. 2010 was the year of fuel pumps for me. I dropped 6 gas tanks, 1 of them twice. Since the car was kind of nasty and filled with trash, I started cleaning it out. I flipped up the seat so I could pull out the rear carpet to hang it out to dry. That's when I spotted a bump in the carpet. Could it be?... You know it already. Floor plate for the fuel pump. I fell in love.
I swapped in the fuel pump from the junk car. Started up right away. I took my first drive and found out I had a locked up brake caliper. And so the repairs began. One new caliper, front pads, rear shoes, spark plugs, wires, cap, rotor, fuel filter, oil change. New brake master cylinder a few months later. Fresh set of rear wheel bearings next. Almost lost a wheel when one of the cheap-o bearings seized to the spindle. Had to swap one from the junk car. That brings us to today. I have just recently rolled over 200k miles.
I started this afternoon on a gas tank swap from the junk car. I'm tired of leaking fuel whenever I have more than half a tank. I figured that since I had the carpet halfway out already I'd go ahead and pull it to get a good look at my floorboard holes. I've been in enough trouble for soaking my wife's pants splashing through puddles as it is. Lots of rain recently. This is what I found:
I got one too.
I've also got some rust along the driver side edge due to a massive rust hole in front of the rear tire.
The right side started in on it too.
Looks like I've got some body work to do.
I'm going to start with a little back story on this thing. My father-in-law bought him used with maybe 30k miles in 1996. It was his daily driver and used as a workhorse carrying gardening supplies and tools. He named it. My wife tells me after he took a long drive (and probably a few beers) he came in and with a crap-eating grin declared it the Silver Bullet. A legacy was born.
He kept it for 9 years before selling it to my brother-in-law (his step-son). He drove the hell out of it. It began taking on water in the rain and eventually it quit running. Not being one to fix things up and lacking mechanical knowledge, he eventually handed it down to me in 2010. It was certainly convenient, considering that I had bought my mother-in-law's red Festiva after a front end wreck a few months earlier.
When I first traced it down to being a fuel pump issue I was not exactly thrilled at having to drop a gas tank. 2010 was the year of fuel pumps for me. I dropped 6 gas tanks, 1 of them twice. Since the car was kind of nasty and filled with trash, I started cleaning it out. I flipped up the seat so I could pull out the rear carpet to hang it out to dry. That's when I spotted a bump in the carpet. Could it be?... You know it already. Floor plate for the fuel pump. I fell in love.
I swapped in the fuel pump from the junk car. Started up right away. I took my first drive and found out I had a locked up brake caliper. And so the repairs began. One new caliper, front pads, rear shoes, spark plugs, wires, cap, rotor, fuel filter, oil change. New brake master cylinder a few months later. Fresh set of rear wheel bearings next. Almost lost a wheel when one of the cheap-o bearings seized to the spindle. Had to swap one from the junk car. That brings us to today. I have just recently rolled over 200k miles.
I started this afternoon on a gas tank swap from the junk car. I'm tired of leaking fuel whenever I have more than half a tank. I figured that since I had the carpet halfway out already I'd go ahead and pull it to get a good look at my floorboard holes. I've been in enough trouble for soaking my wife's pants splashing through puddles as it is. Lots of rain recently. This is what I found:
I got one too.
I've also got some rust along the driver side edge due to a massive rust hole in front of the rear tire.
The right side started in on it too.
Looks like I've got some body work to do.
fftheair:
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