TylerW
Well-Known Member
Hey guys:
Back at the first of the year I loaned a friend who is an older person (65) my '73 Valiant to keep at his place and drive since I was too loaded up on vehicles and wasn't driving that one but maybe 50 miles a month.
He's a car guy who does not abuse vehicles, so this story isn't going to be about a now-destroyed A-body, but rather about how a rarely-driven car holds up under daily usage.
This is the bare-bones Valiant I swapped to an automatic a year ago. It's also a PA car and very rusty under the paint and bondo and chicken wire. My bud has put nearly 6k on since January, so not a lot of miles but they have been eventful.
The first thing that happened was that the ECU died. Next, the original radio or speaker quit. Then, there was a complaint that the heater wasn't very hot. The wiper linkage fell apart. The tailpipe hanger broke itself out of the rusted frame rail.
Things were ok for a while, then suddenly the brakes went totally out. Well, what actually happened is the rear drums started making noise and it as discovered that they were too thin to be turned. In the process of fixing the brakes, the master cylinder failed.
After going through all the brakes, they worked again, but now the brakelights had stopped working. Further inspection revealed that the brakelights, 4-ways, dome light and lighter were all non-op.
As you all know, all of those operate from one fuse. The fuse looked good, but testing with a meter revealed that it had blown under the metal cap on one end where it couldn't be seen. But why did it blow? More meter work showed a total short to ground on the "outlet" side of the fuse. I poked around and noticed the lighter was pushed all the way in. I pulled the lighter out, the ground condition went away. Put it back in, the circuit is grounded. I put tape on the lighter itself so it cannot be inserted, popped in a new fuse and all is well. My friend "doesn't remember doing that".
Next issue that cropped up along with the brake job was that the low beam headlights went out. My friend said he messed around with it and then got lows but no highs. Got the meter again and started following power until it stopped. Headlight switch, good, Power in and out of the dimmer switch. Power at both both wires on the inside part of the bulkhead connector.
Go around to the firewall side of the connector and wiggle the wires while the lights are on, and sure enough the lights flash. Then, even better, one wires breaks completely off from corrosion. I end up having the bypass the bulkhead connector by running two wires through unused ports in the connector body and directly connecting the wires on either side. Works fine now.
I noticed when I started stripping the headlight wire on the engine side that it had corrosion down the length of it under the sheath as far as I kept trimming back(about 6"), so that tells me it was running hot or some other condition affected it.
Past that, it was time for an oil change, and we noticed the spark plug tubes are leaking, there's either a blown manifold gasket or cracked manifold. and it's also smoking from the valve seals.
The junkyard 904 I put in is working great, and the Holley 1945 carb I rebuilt and swapped on in place of that 1920 is working just fine.
I'll update this as time goes on.
Back at the first of the year I loaned a friend who is an older person (65) my '73 Valiant to keep at his place and drive since I was too loaded up on vehicles and wasn't driving that one but maybe 50 miles a month.
He's a car guy who does not abuse vehicles, so this story isn't going to be about a now-destroyed A-body, but rather about how a rarely-driven car holds up under daily usage.
This is the bare-bones Valiant I swapped to an automatic a year ago. It's also a PA car and very rusty under the paint and bondo and chicken wire. My bud has put nearly 6k on since January, so not a lot of miles but they have been eventful.
The first thing that happened was that the ECU died. Next, the original radio or speaker quit. Then, there was a complaint that the heater wasn't very hot. The wiper linkage fell apart. The tailpipe hanger broke itself out of the rusted frame rail.
Things were ok for a while, then suddenly the brakes went totally out. Well, what actually happened is the rear drums started making noise and it as discovered that they were too thin to be turned. In the process of fixing the brakes, the master cylinder failed.
After going through all the brakes, they worked again, but now the brakelights had stopped working. Further inspection revealed that the brakelights, 4-ways, dome light and lighter were all non-op.
As you all know, all of those operate from one fuse. The fuse looked good, but testing with a meter revealed that it had blown under the metal cap on one end where it couldn't be seen. But why did it blow? More meter work showed a total short to ground on the "outlet" side of the fuse. I poked around and noticed the lighter was pushed all the way in. I pulled the lighter out, the ground condition went away. Put it back in, the circuit is grounded. I put tape on the lighter itself so it cannot be inserted, popped in a new fuse and all is well. My friend "doesn't remember doing that".
Next issue that cropped up along with the brake job was that the low beam headlights went out. My friend said he messed around with it and then got lows but no highs. Got the meter again and started following power until it stopped. Headlight switch, good, Power in and out of the dimmer switch. Power at both both wires on the inside part of the bulkhead connector.
Go around to the firewall side of the connector and wiggle the wires while the lights are on, and sure enough the lights flash. Then, even better, one wires breaks completely off from corrosion. I end up having the bypass the bulkhead connector by running two wires through unused ports in the connector body and directly connecting the wires on either side. Works fine now.
I noticed when I started stripping the headlight wire on the engine side that it had corrosion down the length of it under the sheath as far as I kept trimming back(about 6"), so that tells me it was running hot or some other condition affected it.
Past that, it was time for an oil change, and we noticed the spark plug tubes are leaking, there's either a blown manifold gasket or cracked manifold. and it's also smoking from the valve seals.
The junkyard 904 I put in is working great, and the Holley 1945 carb I rebuilt and swapped on in place of that 1920 is working just fine.
I'll update this as time goes on.
