Anglin's Road Car Projects and History

[CV12Steve]

I know this is off topic. But this is for Chris and anyone that wears their wedding band while working on cars. Take it off. I know some off you are wanting to keep it on. But what good is it when it gets hooked on some part of the car that is falling off and tears your finger off. I sound like some old codger. But I know a guy that got his finger tore off because of this. I always cringe when I see this. I don't wear any jewelry at work. And it has probably saved my finger a few times. Just my .02

1) A gal I used to work with had a ring rip her finger off (in this case it caught when she was jumping out of a tree).
2) I've heard of people shorting a circuit with their ring and almost burning a finger off (much harder to reattach).
3) Jewelry should be treated like loose clothing around machinery.
4) Do you really want the little women (SO) on your case because you let the symbol of your undying love and respect end up looking like crap?

[ginandtonic]

Thanks for all the photos. Looks like you have been meticulous in your repair jobs. Pictures tell the story much better than words. Since I have only owned my Merk for three days now, just looking at your engine compartment was helpful.

The prior owner of my vehicle was in the middle of doing "something" with the car but I have no way of contacting him to find out what. So I am finding myself looking at your photos saying. "Cool, he has one of those too" and "So that's how he solved that issue."

Anyway, thanks and take care.

Mark

[anglin]

So, there it is. The car has started perfectly on two occasions with the "NOS" junkyard solenoid.

Quick update: the car has now operated properly for a week. It has not displayed any of its previous characteristic difficult-to-start traits.

Thanks for all the photos. Looks like you have been meticulous in your repair jobs. Pictures tell the story much better than words. Since I have only owned my Merk for three days now, just looking at your engine compartment was helpful.

Thanks for the kind words. When you are ready to move on from the repair stage to the much more interesting modification stage, the following resource will give you plenty of pictures to look at:

http://www.merkurtech.com

There are a ton of resources out there as well, I just don't want to drift too far from the topic at hand. Your best place to start is the Merkur Desktop ( www.merkurdesktop.com ). Enjoy!

[anglin]

I figured today was as good as any day for replacing that disintegrating dome light in my road car. I've had a couple sitting around that just needed clean up prior to installation. I took the clean up process to the extreme and made sure it was completely functional before I installed it. I even checked the resistances on the switch positions and cleaned terminals. It's a good thing I did, too, because the dome light switch that determines if the light is on constantly or just when the door is open or not at all, had some corrosion on one of the connectors that would have prevented it from properly functioning. Sure, it's just a dome light, but if I'm going to swap the thing, I might as well put a good one in.

Here's the old one:



Here's the new one:




Here's the old one after I removed it:




I didn't do anything to make it look like that other than handle it. Knowing that it was going to fall apart, I put a towel down in the interior to catch the falling bits. That saved me some clean up time.

My web server seems a little hit-or-miss today, so if the pictures don't show up, try to right-click; "show picture" first.

[Mike McCreight]

Oh, memories... I tried to "fix" a dome light or 2, then just found good working ones when I got tired of rapping it with my knuckles in the dark. Did you manage to find LUCAS stamped anywhere on yours, Anglin?

[Ed Lijewski]

So.......

I'm still waiting for the climactic photo and caption re the solenoid laboratory dissection exercise. We got artistic direction, close-ups, dialogue, tension build-up, and the....neither denouement nor closure.

I mean, I've done the same thing--taking one that didn't work apart after installing a new one and solving the problem, but it's a lock those who bother to look at such pictorials are expecting something close to an explanation of why the part failed. I was.

Still am.

YMMV


Oh; might as well add that in my case I drove the XR into my garage for some major work, and several months later after finally finishing that was surprised to find that the starter wouldn't crank, when there had been no indication of any kind earlier while the car aws on the road. None. Traced the problem to the solenoid, and replaced it.

[anglin]

I'm still waiting for the climactic photo and caption re the solenoid laboratory dissection exercise. We got artistic direction, close-ups, dialogue, tension build-up, and the....neither denouement nor closure.

... it's a lock those who bother to look at such pictorials are expecting something close to an explanation of why the part failed. I was.

Still am.

Ok, here goes. I know not why it ceased in its previously unceasable operation. I couldn't find any obvious detrimental fault in the heretofore mentioned mechanism therefore I cared not to postulate or pontificate thereon to the whereabouts of such a degradation causing my malady, m'lady.

The closest thing to an indicator is this picture:



I believe the visible damage is either just like everybody else's solenoid or it indicates that there was something causing a hangup which lead to poor contact when the solenoid activated and poor returning to its unactivated position when power to the solenoid was removed. Until you remove the functional solenoid from your XR4Ti, tear it apart and take comparison pictures, we won't know. So, the above picture may just be a symptom, not the problem. The cooked copper contact is two layers thick and one of the layers was burned through by the arcing damage.

[anglin]

I'm waking this thread back up.

I swear I've talked about this recently somewhere on a thread or a forum, but I can't find mention of it anywhere... A few years ago my road car (87.5 XR4Ti) sprung a power steering leak while I was driving it to school. The fluid had completely drained out by the time I realized what was going on. I added fluid twice on the drive home just to try to keep the pump temps down so it didn't sieze, figuring the pump was toast but I was good as long as it was turning.

I pinpointed the leak with some direction from IMON and the Merkur community. Here's the original thread which covers my discovery of the leak, the repair and a steering pump whine reduction method:

http://forum.merkurclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5849

Well, the car has had an additional 11,000 miles on that steering rack and power steering pump. It leaked on and off at times. Now the leak is getting worse and I'm starting to leave spots where I park the car. I'm not down with that, so it's time to bite the bullet and replace it.

Of course, I'm not happy with "good enough" so I'm doing a couple tasks while I'm in there. Some are back-to-original-condition tasks and some are let's-do-some-cool-mods tasks.

- The steering rack has new inner tie rods so it is only appropriate to fit new outer tie rod ends as well.
- Of course, the destroyed steering rack boots are getting replaced as a part of the package.
- While the steering rack is out of the car, it would certainly be an appropriate time to install mc²racing solid steering rack bushings.
- I'm going to remove the cooler that I installed when it first failed and replace it with a more sturdy cooler with proper mounting and sheilding (it's near the left front tire and gravel may take its toll). I don't want to leave the cooler on there which has had the burned and particulate-filled fluid flowing through it.

I've picked up most of the parts I need with just a handful of items left to get my hands on before I am ready to start this job. I plan on documenting the task as well as I can. I'll start with my sources and product links.

steering rack (inner tie rods and boots): Jorgen Auto, pn 5449/Q
http://www.jorgenauto.com/rack-pinion/m ... ml#MERCURY

nylon rack bushings: mc²racing, pn 00548
http://www.mc2racing.com/products/xr4ti ... index.html

outer tie rod ends: BAT, pn M434L and M434R
http://www.batinc.net/merkur.htm

power steering cooler and fittings: Racer Parts Wholesale, pn TRU-B7B
http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/cate ... il_Coolers

A couple of the important parts, like the steering rack, just arrived today, so I haven't gotten a chance to take pictures or prepare stuff. I've got a couple plumbing problems to solve and some brackets to make.

[Mike McCreight]

NICE cooler! (And Canadian, I might add.... )
Didn't you JUST send me a M7B???? Yes, yes you did!

For an annoying PS leak, think Lucas. My rack was leaky, and had a most annoying notch just off center. I flushed it with ATF a couple of times, Drained, poured in a bottle of Lucas PS additive, and topped off with Mobil 1 ATF.
Stopped the leak, AND cured the notch.
Feel free to delete this post, mods...

[anglin]

For an annoying PS leak, think Lucas. My rack was leaky, and had a most annoying notch just off center.

There's more to this story which I haven't gotten into yet. There are some issues with the steering rack which are causing an odd deflection of the rack itself. The steering of the car has become very vague and extremely sensitive to the slightest changes in the road surface. I'll have more detailed info once I get under the car, but no fluid is going to fix this. Suffice to say, with light pressure on the rim of the (road) wheel, you can see the rack (the part that moves in an out of the steering rack housing) deflect upward.

[Ray]

The steering of the car has become very vague and extremely sensitive to the slightest changes in the road surface.

my car is the same way, but only above like 55 or 60mph.

makes highway driving FUN

[anglin]

my car is the same way, but only above like 55 or 60mph.

When I have the winter tires on the car it is difficult to determine whether the vagueness is the tires or the worn out steering components. I originally blamed this on the replaced ball joints in the rebuilt TCAs from BAT but now I am thinking otherwise. The quality of the ball joints still remains to be seen, but since I saw the deflection of the rack itself, I realized the majority of the vagueness is from that. Now that I have the summer tires on the car (the fronts are 215/40 17s) the directional instability issue is huge. Driving is bordering on hazardous. Video and pictures to come...

Edit: The car follows changes in pavement in my neighborhood at speeds around 15-20 mph. Wowza.

[anglin]

While I continue to collect parts for my power steering project I decided to solve another problem that the car has - the magical, sluggish, low-reading XR4Ti tachometer. I decided to resolder all the connections on the circuit board inside the tach. Here are pictures and a write up to go with it.

Removing the gauge cluster only requires a phillips head screw driver and perhaps a pair of pliers if the boost gauge vacuum line is difficult to remove.

- remove steering column top trim (1 screw)
- remove steering column bottom trim (3 screws)
- remove turn signal switch stalk assembly (2 screws)
- remove wiper/head light switch stalk assembly (2 screws)
- note that the thin metal bracket on the top will come loose with the top screws of each of the switch stalk assembly
- remove the gauge cluster surrounding trim (4 screws, two on the bottom next to the steering column, two on the underside of the top near the sides)
- pull the gauge cluster surround straight away from the dash a short distance to reach up behind from underneath and either pop the gauge bulb dimmer and wiper interval controls out foward and unplug the harness or unplug the wiring plug from the back of the control without popping it out; this will free the black gauge cluster surrounding trim
- remove the gauge cluster from the dash (4 screws)
- the gauge cluster will be held in place by three things:
-- the speedometer cable
-- the boost gauge vacuum line
-- the wiring plug

gauge cluster pulled forward and flipped upward (speedo cable disconnected, wiring connection visible and boost gauge vacuum line visible)


The speedometer cable has to be removed first because it has the least play of the three connections. To do so, pull the right side of the gauge cluster out enough to reach behind the cluster. The cable is held onto the gauge by a plastic slip ring:

- apply pressure to one side of the ring to pop the cable free
- apply pressure to the portion that has grooves molded into it

plastic slip ring on speedo cable (apply pressure from the right as viewed in this picture)


See the grooves? Push there!


you can see the plastic tab on the inside left of the metal cylinder which grabs the notch in the back of the gauge


backside of the gauge cluster


- remove the screws from the backside of the gauge cluster along the perimeter to separate the front and back halves (5 screws)

front side of gauge cluster


- carefully remove the foam trim around the gauges; note that it has a very thin cross section in many areas which may tear easily

foam trim


- remove the three 7 mm nuts and their copper locking washers from the backside of the tach; if you have the IVR add-on board, note which stud the black wire connects to

tach free of the gauge cluster


tach-less gauge cluster


- with the tach free of the cluster, remove the boost gauge and tachometer needles, BUT FIRST:
-- take note of the needle position, and
-- take note of the offset of the needles from the gauge face

... if you don't, the tachometer may hang up and not operate smoothly

tach needle offset


needle position


- remove the gauge face by removing the screws at the top left and bottom right of the tach as seen in this picture (2 screws)

gauge backside


- with the gauge face removed, the boost gauge needs to be removed with a 14 mm deep well socket (and you thought you'd NEVER use that thing on your XR4Ti)

boost gauge nipple and nut


The boost gauge has to be removed because it sits right in the middle of the circuit board you are about to remove and resolder.

boost gauge mechanism and circuit board


there is literally a hole through the circuit board for the gauge


With the boost gauge removed, the tabs holding the circuit board in place should be manipulated in order to get the circuit board out. You can see that I broke one of the two tabs off.

upper left tab missing, lower tab in place


Here's a quick detour about the boost gauge. It's a ridiculous contraption made of a small, thin, curved pressure vessel that deforms when the pressure inside of it changes. That curved thing around the outside isn't a spring, it's the gauge mechanism!

boost gauge mechanism with the needle on for posterity


side view


back view


Note the threads inside the nipple... at one time these threads held a set screw which made the boost gauge respond more slowly. It has since been removed. See the link to the MTech Tech Article under the following picture for instructions on how to remove the screw and why you would want to remove the screw.

threaded nipple


http://www.merkurtech.com/merkurtech/te ... tem001.php

Back on topic... the circuit board pops free from the tabs and you can solder the connections on the board

circuit board


During reassembly, I found it easier to stick the foam trim into the front section of the gauge cluster first and then install the gauge cluster behind it. This saved frustration and made the installation go very well.

foam trim installed


Like any repair project, I broke something else in the process. Both of the top screw holes in the gauge cluster surround broke out during reassembly. DOH!

"extra" gauge cluster trim screws


I completed the entire task in about 90 minutes.

edit: typos corrected and clarification added where necessary
edit: also just discovered this link when someone else woke the thread up

http://forum.merkurclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10560

[hEaT]

Nice. I've had the gauge cluster out a few times. I'm just not comfortable with soldering yet.

Just a note. Make sure the speedometer cable is seated all the way upon reinstall. If not, you can go from 60-0 in about one second. I couldn't get it, let out a nice louder MFer and POP right on. Works every time

It may be easier to get it from the bottom with the lower dash out.

[Mike McCreight]

Thanks for the excellent post(s).
I've been through this, but I appreciate the extra effort it takes to stop every step of the way to snap pics!