I had a busy day! From the log: Brrrr. Arctic weather again! Had to use the heat gun to thaw the door enough to open. Before I got too cold I managed to fabricate the missing link for the throttle junk, so now the cruise can be hooked up again. (I'm sure the amplifier is broken, but it'll get its turn.) I also got the chewed-up idle cable threaded back through its adjuster, but still need to come up with an attachment to the linkage.
Jacked up the corner and put in the missing brake pad wear sensor, courtesy of the U-Pull. I got out the MityVac and checked the various (five) vacuum systems for leakage. It appears that the only real leak is the door lock system (which was expected), so that's good. There might be a slow leak in the vacuum tank, it's hard to tell. My fingers got frozen so I came in for breakfast and to put my feet up by the fire. I knew I had to open up the driver's door anyway, so I'll start chasing the vacuum system there next. I then replaced the door check strap and the broken door release handle. Then I made up a new moisture barrier, and started chasing the vacuum lock system. The left side of the car is OK. I'm working through the tees that are under the floor mats, and I'm labeling the vacuum lines as I figure out what they are. I have a sneaking suspicion that the trunk-located stuff is at fault, and the auxiliary fuel tank is definitely in the way. Must it be removed to get at the vacuum tank and the fuel filler lock? Both right-side door lock actuators leak, as does the trunk. I pulled the trunk actuator and found that what is leaking is the little collar around the shaft, the body is sealed from the elements and the main diaphragm is thus well-protected from mechanical damage and oxidation. It does not leak. I'm trying an experiment where I use weatherstrip cement (the good stuff: 3M) to seal the small cracks in the collar. ...The sealing seems to have worked, the pod now holds vacuum. I next moved on to the fuel door lock and removed it (painful!), it looked OK but leaked somehow, so I disassembled it and sealed its diaphragm too. It was rather difficult to get back in. The thing leaked down several times, but I kept pulling it out and looking at it, it looked fine and didn't leak on the MityVac, yet when in place it leaked. The lines, right? Wrong, I capped those and _they_ didn't leak then, yet the entire assembly did. I think the tees are getting stiff, I finally got it together once and it did not leak. The front passenger door lock also leaked, so I opened up the door and removed the element. It looked really grungy, so I supposed its diaphragms were torn. I disassembled the element and tubbed it, scrubbing with a bristle brush. Everything cleaned up nicely, so nicely that I couldn't see anything wrong with any of the four diaphragms. The rubber was still pretty 'live'. A mystery, I put it back together (all clean and warm) and it sealed. Same problem with the lines leaking, though, when it was in place. I tugged on the lines through the door hinge trying to make it worse, theorizing that there was a crack there, but then it stopped leaking altogether and I was unable to get it to leak thereafter. It's a bit of a mystery, but I think that the rubber is actually in pretty good shape (except for the one smoking gun in the trunk) and was just stiff and dirty from disuse so that it didn't quite seal in lots of places. I put the system back together and it worked great! Even the vacuum reservoir seems to be holding. Whether this system will hold vacuum for more than a few hours, though, remains to be seen. I made up a new moisture barrier for the passenger door and reassembled it. I still have to do the driver's door and put back the floor channels. I then went under the hood and cleaned up the vacuum piping, then put it in its final configuration. The MityVac shows no leaking of any of the vacuum consumers, except the key (brown) line when the key is off. (No leaks when it is on.) I started the car and all the vacuum stuff seemed to be working, and the car even shut off immediately with the key. Success! -- Jim
