Is my wagon a wagon?

That is very stylish. Down in Seattle, back in the late '70s or early '80s, King County's transit system (Metro Transit) decided to replace aging single-chassis buses with articulated units built by MAN. Those buses had their wheels run off them for nearly 20 years (including electric trolley buses) because they were so sturdily-built. Point of order: back in those days, the company did not use periods after each letter in the abbreviation, but they did use two stylish diamonds between the three letters on the first batch of buses delivered. Subsequent batches, IIRC, did not have those diamonds in the logo.

 

So stylish that one might forget he or she's driving a truck.
That lever looks to be the emergency brake. Personally, I don't really care for shifting gears on a steering wheel. They should have left those features on Formula 1 cars

 

Or '75 Granadas.

 

Is my wagon a wagon? Friends, Romans, and Wagon Lovers, The time has come not to ask "Is my wagon a Wagon, rather what is Poisin_Ivy ?

 

The weed or the musician?

 

They both make me scratch and itch!

 

"Yet gonna need a ocean/of Calamine lotion/you'll be scratchin' like a hound/the minute you start to mess around!"

 

I pulled my front bumper, today. It's not really a bumper, as traditionally defined. But, I'm in the process of at least bringing it into that direction.
I've started with adding screen to the radiator side of the grill, in order to keep it from getting damaged by flying gravel or worse

 

This is what I meant by Surprise Package, in that other thread. With the toy "bumper" removed, no shortage of rot gets exposed. The rotting bolts on the heat shield were already obvious.
Removing the "bumper" isn't that much work, making it feasable to do so, if access is needed to the front of the drivetrain. If I had a torch available, I'd first heat up that manifold, in order to remove those bolts and then replace them with studs and bronze nuts

Typical Jap construction, never planning on time and corrosion. At least, the bolts holding the heatshiel in place should have been studs with bronze nuts instead. There's no way now of removing the heatshield intact, without drilling and tapping for screwing in studs. Same goes for that cross brace



I found me a 100% bronze radiator from some Japanese brand. The core almost looks like it's in better shape than the one I've got. All I would have to do would be to get a hole saw and then move the in- and outlets accordingly and solder them in. The radiator's heavier. But, the advantage being that I can replace just the core, without having to buy an overpriced original replacement.
The capacity of the original seems generous, because it didn't overheat last Summer. But, I still don't like the looks of that salt-pelted bottom of that core

 

The former Cat Lady who has 2 like mine and one of them from the following series showed me her parts car. She was ready to junk it, hadn't I asked her about her second car. It's sitting in a farm trailer which is welded shut. If it wasn't, fetching parts would be much easier:



Last week, I harvested parts for mine, from it:



I've yet to see the car of which needs parts from this one.
I'm done with the bug screen. As soon as I've got it parked on the street, I can get better images against direct sunlight

 

I went and photoed a second color candidate. Supposedly, it's similar to that that's on here already. Unlike the copper color on that truck, this would be a one-coater

 

I thought I was going to mount those rubber stops at the bottom of page 5. Well, guess what. There's a spacer between the Stopper and the control arm. Those are those rusted out as a battleship on the ocean floor thingies, at the bottom of the following image.
The arrow points to a thin spot on the spring where salt has done a good job. I simply turned the spring around and assembled everything together, of course, without the stopper and thingie tower, until I can fabricate a replacement. I have until February 2021 to do it, as long as I'm not overloading the car between then

 

I've been collecting empty as well as near-empty and near-full cans of spray foam used in building construction. Not only did I use it for building a speedometer housing for my 3-wheeler. I've recently been filling my toy bumpers with the stuff. I figure that the foam will evenly distribute any impact to epecially the frame area.
I started off by gluing foam blocks from cut-out packaging onto the bumperless front- and rearend, so that I'd have about 10 millimeters space between the foam and sheetmetal. This way, trapping moisture between the two surfaces can be avoided. After gluing the blocks onto the contour of the applied surfaces, I stretched plastic film over them and glued it in place







Here's the rear bumper getting done. I simply poked holes into the cans, poured and scooped out the honey and then waited until the stuff hardened enough so as not to drip down on its own weight. After the gas left the cans, I had to poke the can further and then poke a screwdriver through the can, so that I cut cut a slit down the entire can, so that I could unfold it, in order to get at the honey. I repeated the process, over several days, before finally getting expected results. The last step involved bolting the bumper back on, before the stuff fully hardened.
The arrows show the spot where I had to gouge out the foam which otherwise would have blocked the air vent which prevents carbon monoxide collecting in the passenger compartment

 

This is the stuff I used for stuffing the toy bumper

 

I'm replacing the rustbucket with this one. It's a year older. But, in much better shape. It's also an automatic:



I'll have to go the filter-change route again. Just wait until I show you the air filter itself, later today. You won't believe this thing even runs


This was obviously not maintained at the best garages. A little old lady supposedly owned this and it seems that they sold her an unnecessary waterpump change, while they were doing the timing belt. In the process, the bolt holding it and the dipstick tube worked itself loose, as it they neglected using a lockwasher. A dropped somewhere original bolt here was obviously replaced



The engine was knocking, when we picked it up (the car was initially not for me. I drove with this lady who was buying it and I drove it back. We eventually agreed to trade ours, mostly because she's never driven an automatic. Thus, is she scared of it). Suspecting that a too high an oil level was the cause, I unscrewed the filter twice, in order to let out enough oil to get the level below the upper dipstick mark



Back then, they put unconditional 3-year guarantees on these only limited to 100.000 kilometers, says the window sticker



It has something like only 105.000 kilometers which is roughly 11.000 less than on my first one


Here are some remaining images from the one which is still of my registry. I went out and got me a missing clip from a bigger Mazda and renewed the battery