My new ride

From: Michael Maskalans (dml@tepidcola.com)
Date: Thu Feb 16 2012 - 09:29:09 EST


Those of you who are friends of mine on the book of faces know I was cross shopping the oddest pairing of mid-cheap cars ever for the last couple weeks, E30 BMWs and AMC Eagles.

Well I found a 325is that I loved, but I didn't move on it quickly enough and lost it by a couple hours. I didn't lose the next one I set my sights on though, an '89 AMC Eagle wagon. I was in Denver for Monster Jam (now side job #2 behind the transportation stuff) and the car was in CO Springs. After I was done Saturday night, I went down to the Springs with a couple friends who came up for the show and drove it back up to Denver.

Then spent Monday and Tuesday driving it back here to Rochester. I stopped in Kansas at Kansasland Tire (*highly* recommend these folks) to have a shimmy checked out, and found that both rear wheels are bent; nothing else amiss. Gave me a chance to go over the rest of the underside of the car on a lift and gave myself a list of to do items but nothing scary at all. Needs a muffler, one front wheel bearing for sure and probably the other, brakes, 1 driveline ujoint and one front CV axle. Not bad at all for a $1200 rust free Colorado car.

I've done a sneeze of carb work on it, it's running pretty well. Still need to check the idle tubes for clogging, find a tach to really set my idles and timing at 1650, I think it is, instead of "that sounds good" RPM, and I may set it up for premium fuel with a little more timing. When I advanced it a bit too far (misread the marks) it made a huge difference and was just barely pinging under load on 89. I'll see how I like it as it's set now, correctly. (9˚ static).

--
Michael Maskalans
Rochester NY
585.935.7129



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