New to me 99' S70, base, 5-speed, 209k

[abscate]

Im thinking Im going to do Evita evaporator so I have a 5 year AC car. I wonder if I can get a buy on qty 5 evaporators, driers, o ring sets?

Anyone else in Northeast contemplating an evap R/R?

If you want to research this, I am in, naturally.

Markone, how is Mr Earl doing as far as A/C?

Do you think we can Talk mark into fixing his AC for the 5 days he needs it in VT?

[850 LPT]

I haven't posted in a while, regular life stuff like getting the kid back from college, outdoor work and such do get in the way of progress sometimes.
But I did get to work on a few little things.

I replaced the antenna with a good used unit off ebay. Originally the plan was to replace the mast on the old antenna, but there is something wrong with the motor/gear on that one. It would suck in the new mast about half way and then quit.

Then I cleaned the door panels and found out that Windex and a bristle brush works great on those grimy vinyl surfaces. I tried GreenKleen first, but that did nothing.
Once I had that done I replaced the super disgusting driver window switch with a new $25 Ebay one. It actually looks to be well made and it doesn't have that sticky coating.

And I finally managed to register the car. I am working on the brakes now and I can't wait to actually drive it and see what kind of can of worms I really have

Dirk

[abscate]

I’ve got graduation and a pickup in PA next weekend , and the Transporter just dumped a back muffler. The one receipt I can’t find is for the $600 of life warranty OEM mufflers , of course.

I’ll probably straight pipe it for the trip then go fight the parts battle at the dealer

[850 LPT]

It's been a while since the last post, but I got a few more things done over the holiday weekend.
The brakes are all up to snuff now, I replaced the rears including parking brake shoes and rebuilt calipers, which was not planned initially. The calipers are Centric ones from Rockauto. They make a good impression but time will tell if they last. Rotors are Zimmermanns and pads are Akebono.
I guess I was a little naive about the rear brakes, thinking that I could just replace the pads and rotors. But when I took things apart I was greeted with a frozen piston in each caliper, and the parking brake shoe linings fell to the ground
A nice surprise was that both cables were intact, I wonder if they were replaced at some point already.

After this I replaced the brake fluid and bleeded the system.
Then I addressed the broken exhaust hanger in the back, which was completely rusted off. A modified hanger with a regular 2 1/4" clamp did the trick.
The tailpipe was a rusted mess as well. I cut that off and installed a round stainless steel one which was standing on my workbench for years.

I also polished and waxed the rims and installed shiny new center caps.
Next is installing the Hella DE Micro driving lights.

Dirk

[abscate]

Dirk ... I’ve got an extra set of Lesjforde rear springs for the 99 I would rather not ship back to FCP

Nice diversion from AC work later i summer

[850 LPT]

Shake down week is almost over. I drove the car to work every day and no major problems occured after roughly 450 miles.
The "only" codes that popped up are for an EVAP large leak and a faulty wheel sensor signal. All in all not bad and hopefully easy fixes. And there are still no leaks anywhere.
I was exited to see this in the morning:

Last weekend I was able finish the driving light installation. This took a lot more time than I thought, but I was fooling around designing new brackets that attach to the end of the frame rails. This did not work out and I came up with a better version that attaches directly to the underside of the bumper. Here is the finished product. These are Hella Micro DE projector lights:

Here is the the new bracket vs. the ones that came with the lights. I knew these would not work because of the offset of the mounting holes:

From the outside:
(I used one mounting screw of the bumper cover and a spacer for the other screw)

From the inside:

Another very time consuming thing was making the cut outs in the grills. The plastic is super soft, which makes it easy to cut, but hard to smooth out. I feel like this just looks too messy and I will make new ones when I get a chance. This time I will use the grills for the OEM fog lights unmodified and then make separate surrounds for the driving lights. Here is a close up:

I also want to take the brackets off one more time and paint them black, they are kind of noticable right now.

Dirk

[abscate]

Yeah - Im getting >30 mpg out of Evita, the base Black S70 with new plugs. The NA 1999 engines are dreamy smooth and stingy on gas.

[matthew1]

Last weekend I was able finish the driving light installation. This took a lot more time than I thought, but I was fooling around designing new brackets that attach to the end of the frame rails. This did not work out and I came up with a better version that attaches directly to the underside of the bumper. Here is the finished product. These are Hella Micro DE projector lights:
DSC_0268.JPG

Very cool, Dirk. If you snap a photo of the lights at night, can you post it? I’d like to see the amount and pattern.

[850 LPT]

Absolutely Matt, I will try to do that this weekend.

[markone]

Looking very nice Dirk!