at long last... '76 Opel by Isuzu

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 27, 2012 9:37 am

I'm going to go take the back window out now, to see about the rust there... wish me luck.

UtahSleeper · **Posted:** Sun Oct 28, 2012 9:22 pm

Good luck, and hope you have this thing going for meets next year.

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:34 pm

thanks for the good words, and I hope to have this thing going before thanksgiving, but at this rate...

man, I feel like I've been working on it for a hundred years, and I'm only getting farther behind. so I got into the rust repair on the rear window this weekend, and as of monday evening, I still don't have it ready to put the window back in yet. so here's how I started:

pulled out the window, even kept it in one piece! but again I say, rubber shouldn't shatter. that stuff was so baked!

the hole was a bit more than the inch I thought it was

other side not too bad, but it did have a bit of a hole.

so I pulled out the material from the shelf area, and the plastics. man, these poor things were sun-baked! they crumble at the slightest touch.

took the wire wheel around the bad spots

cut out the hole

cut out a patch from the door I grabbed.

welded it in

tried some of this for any rust I may have missed

it was pretty useless.

so I wire-wheeled everything again

I also welded up the hole on the other side, but no pic.

put some bondo on, but a little too heavy. (it's been a while)

sanded it down

and that's pretty much where it sits right now

UtahSleeper · **Posted:** Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:58 pm

Nice. I imagine the trunk will be the not so fun part of rust.

cdtpf60 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:26 am

glad my pf60 doesn't have that musch rust..the black wire goes the the bolt that holds the points in place

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:34 pm

cdtpf60 wrote:

glad my pf60 doesn't have that musch rust..the black wire goes the the bolt that holds the points in place

thanks, I'll have to hook that up before I forget.

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:38 pm

what do you guys think about the factory gap between the body panels just below the repair? fill it in, or leave it?

john · **Posted:** Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:27 pm

opelboy76 wrote:

factory gap between the body panels just below the repair? fill it in, or leave it?

I always fill it. I know it's not "original", but it looks sooooo much better. :tu:

F3ared · **Posted:** Thu Nov 22, 2012 6:44 pm

You finallllllly got one! Congrats dude.

Interesting to see the differences between markets etc - suprised that it has a small port pollution head on it, but if it was originally from Cali that shouldnt be that suprising :oops:

More of a suprise is the dished pistons. Aussie models had no dish [slight step down] and 8.7:1

That is awesome! Ours only got some of mdf-like particle board covered in vinyl. Although admittedly, the vinyl did hold up better in the Aussie sun then the plastic so who knows. I assume you got this from ctmandu? If you need to find bits for suspension, engine etc jump on ozgemini or ebay [aussie one].

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Fri Nov 23, 2012 10:08 pm

F3ared wrote:

You finallllllly got one! Congrats dude.

Interesting to see the differences between markets etc - suprised that it has a small port pollution head on it, but if it was originally from Cali that shouldnt be that suprising :oops:

More of a suprise is the dished pistons. Aussie models had no dish [slight step down] and 8.7:1

That is awesome! Ours only got some of mdf-like particle board covered in vinyl. Although admittedly, the vinyl did hold up better in the Aussie sun then the plastic so who knows. I assume you got this from ctmandu? If you need to find bits for suspension, engine etc jump on ozgemini or ebay [aussie one].

so we got less compression than you did, huh? interesting.
and actually, no, I didn't get it from ctmandu. it actually came from a member by the name of trooper geek.

Garant · **Posted:** Fri Nov 23, 2012 11:56 pm

perhaps the 2 most loathed words amongst jnc'rs... "smog head"

:lol:

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Sat Nov 24, 2012 9:58 pm

sounds like a nickname...

Garant · **Posted:** Sat Dec 22, 2012 11:33 am

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Sat Dec 22, 2012 10:04 pm

nothing new to report... I haven't been real motivated to work on it lately, considering the cold temps outside. updates will resume later.

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Sun May 05, 2013 8:27 pm

well, I have a little bit of an update, but it's not huge. I had decided earlier that my starter was bad, so I ordered one from Rock auto. well, it came, so I decided to put it in. actually kinda hard to reach the nut on top, but I got it all installed, hit the key, and -click-. still no cranking. I had load tested the battery earlier, so I knew it was good, so just to see what would happen I hooked the jumper cables up from the wife's car. let it charge for 5 or 10 minutes, and still nothing. so then I had a thought. could I possibly have a bad cable? so I hooked up the load tester right at the starter positive terminal, and the ground went to the block. 13.2v until I hit the load switch, then it dropped to nothing. so I put the ground back on the battery, and hit the load switch again. this time it was good. bad ground cable. so just to double check, I hooked up one end of the black jumper cable to the battery, and the other to the block. just let the red ends dangle. reached inside, hit the key, and....

it cranks over! it's that much closer to running now! it doesn't have spark plugs in it, or fuel lines hooked up, or even all the belts on, but it does spin over with the starter. I'll make a new cable at work tomorrow. I wonder if that was the problem I had earlier, when one of the wires to the voltage regulator burned up, and someone said it could be a ground issue. how about the main ground for THE WHOLE DAMN CAR!!? I bet the new cable fixes a lot. anyway, that's the update for now.

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Mon May 13, 2013 9:02 pm

well, today I got a package from the seller. I opened it up, and look what was inside!

needless to say, I was excited about this! now, to start figuring things out...

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Sat May 25, 2013 10:34 pm

ok, so I ordered a few more things from rockauto.

new denso u-groove plugs. definitely wasn't going to put them in without some anti-seize, not in a brand-new head...

new denso wire set

got a couple new belts and an element for the air cleaner, too.

here's a picture with the air cleaner housing and radiator in place:

the hoses aren't hooked up to the radiator yet, and I pulled the lid back off the air cleaner. why, you ask? to put gas in the carb. yep, that's right. I decided to give it a try. and you know what? IT FIRED UP!!! IT ACTUALLY RUNS!!! not very well, and not for very long, but there you have it. I think I'm going to rebuild that carb after all, because it doesn't idle, it emptys the bowl in about 10 seconds, and you have to hold it at least halfway to the floor to get it to go. so, anyway, that's the latest progress. I'll try to get a video up in the next day or two.

john · **Posted:** Mon May 27, 2013 6:27 pm

opelboy76 wrote:

you know what? IT FIRED UP!!! IT ACTUALLY RUNS!!!

Woohoo!

opelboy76 · **Posted:** Mon May 27, 2013 7:03 pm

there is a video, but I wanted to let the seller see it first...

john · **Posted:** Mon May 27, 2013 7:06 pm

Tease...

at long last... '76 Opel by Isuzu

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