eurotrash

I measured the distance between the end of the rod bolts when at TDC, with a straight edge on #2/3 down to #4. I got 84mm.

Welp, figuring I found the actual path of entry to the head.. The fuel pump location is opened up and I imagine that he had a plate that bolted up and the connections to the outside passed through it. Can’t attach a photo for some reason.

The cam being smooth between lobes has me a little curious. The “2” stamping as well. I thought factory 264 cams were rough “as cast” between the lobes. … and isn’t that block clearance a necessity for a 2.2 build?!

Had some time with the motor this morning. There’s a lot more going on here than what first glance revealed…

Got her out for Karie’s bday and dang it! It grabbed again… may just have to order new shoes for it and eliminate that possibility

My nephew bought an e21 a while back and what was under the valve cover was .. freakish! Today they have the motor out for resealing and we found that the head work and Engine internals are interesting as well. I had hit up the e21 legion in fb a while back and learned that the motor was from a 2002 and that the owner/builder was an avid racer in the Eugene Oregon area. The motor saw several induction variations from side drafts to injection with turbo, etc. etc.. and finally I guess he did a stealth wet-nitrous/side draft set up as a cheat in his auto cross efforts, with a small tank under the dash.. Someone later bought the tapped out 2002 and it was rusted beyond repair. The motor got pulled and sold to the owner of the E21 and then the car later ended up somewhere like Wisconsin, and then in the Cincinnati area where we found it… sans the nice BBS wheels the car reportedly had when it left Oregon. For now the plan is to get it cleaned up, add a NO2 tank and the parts to get the wet side functioning. Tricky because all of the plumbing passes through the crank case vent in the highly modified early NK valve cover.. Discuss!

Welp. I couldn’t get the issue to resurface during the drive. Seems it may be gone?!?

I have the spring pointing outward in the hand brake side, where it could bind with the lever. But again, you don’t have to hit the brakes AT ALL, to make the issue happen. Just the action of rolling produces the shift and bind. I have filed the friction material ends to a 45* angle and swapped the drums side to side. I will take a drive and report back. IMG_2164.mov

So, after acquiring my wife’s ‘73, I had found that the rear brakes weren’t even close to being adjusted properly. They were in fact probably not doing much of anything that all. And the wheel cylinders were leaking something fierce. I proceeded to adjust the brakes to the proper “whisper” distance and then installed new wheel cylinders. And in doing so, I discovered why the shoes were set so far off the drum.. the car randomly has the driver rear grab and lock up the wheel! No pedal involved, but something just causes it to grab. .. put the car in reverse and the brake pops free and is fine until it randomly grabs again. Might be 10ft, might be 10 miles. its a bit baffling, as I have had the system completely apart, cleaned and lubricated the hand brake lever on the rear shoes, etc. I can’t figure it out. The lever was tight, but not like, stuck. Nor was it floppy loose. Short of hammering on the rivets to make them super loose, to be sure there is no binding and that they are 100% able to be pulled in by the spring system, I don’t know what’s left or why anything can just randomly shift. The hand brake was 12 clicks before engagement, and now I have taken it completely out of play by removing the nuts. maybe the drum is warped…?

didn’t open it up yet. I was kinda surprised by the fact that it didn’t have a retaining screw. Then my wife Karie rang the dinner bell.

hm. I’ll check that out.

master is out. There’s a pool in the booster. Wetness on the back of the MC. Looks to be ATE, 23mm.. interestingly, no retaining screw to remove in the body..?

First glance.. no gasket no O ring. lots of sandy looking crud. discoloration. On the unpainted end of the MC (not fresh looking steel) And what looks to be fluid in the bottom of the booster. A wire probe with some towel on the end rendered a wet towel bit and the sniff test says yes, it’s brake fluid.

Hello all. I just read through the comments. Ty I am about to open it up and see what I can see, starting at the MC/booster junction to look for a bad push rod, bad seal at the MC mount, or a fluid leak inside the booster. I have a Tii MC rebuild kit coming from blunt. The lines, hoses and MC are supposed to all be new, and they look to be. in my research, here and elsewhere, an RPM dip and rebound would be normal due to air/fuel mix changing when the booster borrows vacuum. But if it’s extreme or stalls the motor, then look to the booster having a leak. The Tii behavior here is a 2-300 dip, and if held for several seconds and pop the pedal free it rebounds and revs to near 1500 rpm briefly and falls back to normal idle.. it’s the fact that the pedal has no resistance until 2/3rds through, and spongy when it does, that has me thinking a MC bad circuit.

That connects to the air box.

Appears it could be a vacuum leak or bad booster, but the fact that the travel is so drastic before there is any resistance points to a failed circuit. And I guess that the extended travel is more vacuum than The system expects to see and thus causing the drastic fluctuations in RPM as the fueling leans and richens. Update: the hose and check valve are good. I also noticed that if I pump the pedal rapidly while it’s running, the RPMs increase by 2-300 and stay there until I stop. That is deemed normal. See videos. Slight difference when off, the pedal firms up higher, but still at half or more of the travel. No difference when the parking brake is applied whether running or not.. It’s a spongy long pedal until the back half of the stroke and firms up about an inch off the floor when running. Rpm drop when pressing hard and the rpm’s drastically rebound (above idle speed) when I release the brakes quickly. .. the more I touch this car the less I want to touch this car. 😅 IMG_1477.mov IMG_1478.mov IMG_1479.mov

This car came to me almost 3 months ago and I got consumed with fuel delivery, cold start and finding a local alternator rebuilder, which never happened.. They are all gone. Turns out an original Bosch I had in my garage tested good so I installed that while we figure out what to do for a fresh unit. I’m now left with the brake problem and I don’t really remember what I went through in the testing procedures previously. I am waiting on wheel bearing seals for the front to come in today, then I will reinstall the hubs and the sway bar. (The wheel bearings were bad because the castle nut left waaaay too loose so the alignment shop couldn’t do anything for the car when I got new tires put on it to eliminate the 195/70r14 balloons that his builder used. (The more I touch this car the less I want to touch this car) Anyway, once it’s back together, and with the car running, I will pull the parking brake and see if I still have the same symptoms at the pedal. Maybe that will isolate a bad cup seal in the MC.

Thanks Jim. 1. assumed good. that’s bad, I know. But if that was the issue, wouldn’t the brakes be very hard to actuate when they do hit? Like, you would have to stand on the pedal to get any grip, right? 2. assumed good. That’s bad, I know. but it is all new parts. 3. what are the symptoms of such a thing? The pedals are parallel, and the pivot arm sits nicely on the brake light switch, so that all appears proper. I’ll investigate, but it all looks fine.

Bleeders face up. So the calipers are indeed mounted properly.

So I am undoing a ton of bad work on a ‘72. it came to me blowing smoke on warm up, 1” of throttle travel, and brakes that don’t hit until the pedal is near the floor, wipers that park in the middle of the windshield and several other issues, hidden and not so hidden. problems resolved thus far: 1. horribly adjusted WUR 2. block mounted throttle linkage pivot deleted and longer rod ran straight to the injection pump. 3. Cold start wiring reversed on the TTS and CSV. Bad CS relay. 4. Center brake bleeder snapped off on BOTH sides. 5, reused wheel front bearing and seals (seal frames bent to L, two colors of grease in the hub) 6. 195/70/14 tires on e30 weaves with flat (not hub centric)0 10mm spacers and stock lugs so they don’t rub the strut. 7. Dead alternator and cooked plug. 8. loose front wheel bearing castle nuts and bad bearings. With more to come I am sure, but all of the above have been addressed and now I am on to the brake issue. The brake pedal doesn’t hit until past halfway through its travel. I have adjusted the rear brakes and bled the crap out the system, no luck. Took it to a service center and had them bleed it with their higher tech equipment and they said there was no air in the system. I am left with the possibility that the “restorer” installed a standard 2002 brake master cylinder with the smaller bore, but the owner doesn’t believe that this could possibly have happened nor does he believe it could cause the issue. Also, TII MCs are hens teeth these days. I know from experience, with my one Volvo BBK and rear disc conversion, that a tii MC resolved my long brake pedal issue. So I am here to get opinion from the hive mind that I am in the right path. I suppose that the residual pressure valve could be bad, but you can’t even pump the pedal up to get better feel. I am going to get numbers off the MC today to try and confirm. Am I crazy, or is this a great realization and quite.possibly the cause?

Heard. Thanks Toby. <hic>

Hey all. I am helping a local youngster with a bad head gasket and carb swap on his e21. it occurred to me that maybe while the head is off I could maybe lap the valves. I’m at home, sucking down a fine Stout, no where near a head, and I have been struck with a nagging question .. I won’t make it through the night so I’m just gonna ask here. is it possible to lap valves without removing the rocker shafts? Will the rockers shift over enough to pop the spring off and give the valves a once over? tia

I do. but. Then I also read Paul W’s discovery regarding his tii cover bump being off by a few degrees and decided to rebuild cv joints instead.

This is what I have with the cone height, before making any changes. . Not sure I want to curse this much today. I might not touch it. but I really need that cold start idle to come up. Ugh. Maybe I will revisit timing first. He has a lightweight fly wheel in car and I has no pressed-in ball. So that’s fun too.

Excellent. I am doing this tomorrow. The owner is coming to see the car after several weeks of (part time) work. Hopefully a 1200 rpm cold start idle is in our future. Thanks, and I will report back with photos for later searchers.