grant mills

The reservoir is attached by two bolts that drop down from the bottom of the reservoir and through the flat firewall that the reservoir sits on. From under the dash on the drivers side, you can reach up and feel the two nuts on the bolts that hold it in place. You can see the nuts if you are double jointed, lying on your back, with your head touching the brake pedal. Once the nuts are removed, the reservoir will pull straight up.....If you think that you may be needing to remove it many times (say to fix a leak that can't be easily fixed) When reinstalling, I used velcro adhesive strips (after covering the two holes in the firewall) and simply attached the tank in that manner. I will come off with not much effort and it will not come off from normal (aggressive) driving.

I had new front coil springs installed last summer and now the car has negative rake. The rear springs (5 leaf standard duty) are flat from front to back. I can get a local shop to make me a set, but I need all the specs. I have the workshop manual which gives all sizes except the height at the arch. The front tire has 1.25" greater clearance from tire top to fender opening than the rear tires. At one time I had 225-70 rear and 225-60 front, which gave me a nice rake, but that was before I replace the tires with the original factory size and added the new front coils. I should note that the locally produced ones will be about 1/2 the price of the "Eaton Detroit Spring" set after currency exchange, duty, and shipping costs are included.

In '96 I installed a "door w/s kit" from Nostalgic for my '84. You can try Dan Booth to see if he still has some.

mfg, Can I assume that my 84 has the same opening as the 83? My Bluapunkt has died and I am wanting to replace the cassette deck unit with something more modern.

The alternative to the spacers is: remove the (wider) flange/rubber from the base of the old shock and use it to replace in the flange in the new shock. I had already tossed the old shocks when I learned this.

Any front shock that you buy today will have an issue. That base flange is 3 inches side-to-side, while the mounting holes are 3.5 in. apart on centre. I jury rigged extensions for each side using flat stock of the correct width that enclosed the outer edges of the flanges and had a slot in the middle to extend the flange. I also made a spacer from the flat stock to cover both the original flange and the extension to keep everything in place....There is a description of all this in my posting in the 84-91 forum under the name "front coil springs"

mfg, could you give the part number of the specific radio you got? There appear to be numerous models of 630 receivers. My Blaupunkt has died and I am looking for alternatives to repairing, including an upgrade in capability. Also did it easily integrate with the power antennae?

I had moved to the 225/70 on the rear end to get my speedometer back to accurate. The tires on it when I bought it were so small that the speed read 10% higher than I was actually going. It took a 10 mile measured distance (provided by the highways dept.) to show me why I never got any speeding tickets. I liked the more aggressive look/width of the B.F. Goodrich tires, but had to put a smaller circumference on the front to keep from rubbing the inner fender well on sharp/fast corners. The newer suspension may have corrected that problem, but I really want to be able to need only one size of spare. I still need to fix the steering control valve to get the handling I remember from days of old.

It only took me about 5 minutes to put both flex hoses back on. But as I did it, I got to wondering why someone doesn't just make a short conversion piece that fits over the oval and then expands to a circle to accept the flex hose. I think a simple 3D printer could easily make one, given the dimensions of each end

My flex hose is off, as yesterday I replaced the fuel filter in the carb housing. (hoping to correct a very recent failure where the engine dies as I come to a stop). I well know about the problems with the flex hose and have considered getting replacements but fear the "fun" of installing them. As to the brake....there are no brands stamped on the housing. There are 2 sets of numbers, one for the master cyl. and the other for the fluid reservoir. The number on the master cyl is: 7K3 082A 10 02 (with the spacing as shown). The reservoir is: 306 FA 1379A. I may be wrong about the FA..it may be PA, but I could not get all the crude off the side of the housing

photo of my original brake master cylinder from an 84 Avanti. The label on the booster is to indicate DOT 5 only.

to MFG: Now that the installs fro front springs and shocks are completed, I feel that the front end is just a bit higher than I am used to....of course this can be explained by the fact that the rear leaf spring have all the curve of a carpenters level. But I had also moved to 195/75-15 all round from the 225/70-r15 rear and 225/60-r15 front that had been on the car for 25 years

I am looking for a source for a complete rebuild kit for my control valve. It is (hopefully) the last thing needed to restore the steering to its previous perfect. I was simply going to have the valve seals replaced, and then the garage showed me the looseness where the ball stem connects to the pitman arm. And yes, the engine was running at the time they were testing it. I have seen a few articles in the forum showing the rebuild steps (including the fun with pitman arm removal), but none of them seemed to indicate where the rebuild kit could be acquired. I know that I can remove the assembly and send it out to Dave Thibault or Dan Booth for repair, but that would mean I have to get under the car and remove it myself. I would prefer to give the kit to a shop I deal with and let them do the removal and rebuild....(it feels like I already spent the summer under the car working on the steering/suspension). SO again, does anyone know of a vendor that sell rebuild kits that will work for the Avanti control valve? There are no new ones to be had and even RockAuto cancelled my order for their rebuilt LARES 64 after realizing that they had none. thanks in advance, grant

Mike, I have just finished getting the sway bar attached, completing the front end work. I have attached a picture of the lower connection for the front shocks. As I was adding a spacer to help clamp the extension, I needed longer carriage bolts as the original ones looked to be too short. My mistake there was using carriage bolts from a local hardware store. They turned out to be grade 2 and when I tried to torque then down, two snapped. I corrected that by getting 4 grade 5 bolts from a blot supply house. They easily took 15 ft.lbs. of torque, I just hope it is enough. ( I would have attached a picture but Microsofts latest upgrade broke the picture download for my flip phone) As to the sway bars...There is a technique that took me 3 days to discover and an half an hour (or more accounting for coffee breaks) to apply. (Note: dish soap makes an ideal lubricant for slipping bushings along bar. ) After slipping two bushings onto the bar and pushing along to their interior location.....put the two end bushings in their brackets and loosely connect the bracket to hold them in place. Next, having lubricated the interior hole of the bushings and the ends of the sway bar, push one end of the sway bar into its bushing as far as it will go. It should stick out the other end of that bushing. Then take the other end of the sway bar and push it into its bushing. There should be enough clearance for that to enter that other side. NOTE: when the sway bar is complete, the two ends do NOT extend out the end of the bushings and seem to leave about 1/2" of the end bushing open at either end. Now put some support under the centre of the sway bar until it is held a few inches below its position. Put the brackets on the interior bushings and get them into the back slots (If you put only one side in the slot and then loosely connect it, you will be unable to get the other bracket into its slot) With both in their slots, raise the bar an inch or two to hold the brackets in place (to keep the sway bar from pulling them out. At that point you can work the brackets one a time to insert the bolts to hold them in place. I used a small bottle jack and a short piece of 2x4 to lift the lower end of the bracket until the bolt holes aligned....A metal drift pin helped align the holes and a ball peen hammer was used to knock either the sway bar or bushing/bracket for final alignment from side to side. I've tightened down the bolts hard by hand (with lock washers), but have no idea of the suggested torque for these.....If anyone knows what they should be, let me know

Mike, If you have a 7/8" sway bar, the bushings from Dan Booth (Nostalgic) would be a perfect fit if you are using the original brackets, and would need NO opening up. They are meant for the 7/8" sway bar. Where did you get the bushings such that they are too small (assuming about 3/4" hole diameter)? Remember that the correct bushings may seem tight, but liberal use of dishwasher soap on both the interior hole and the sway bar should make things much easier. I have not yet installed the bar, but I have the interior bushings in place and it is just a matter of making some supports to hold one end of the bar as I first work on the other end (cross my fingers) If you are stuck with too small bushings, I used a dremel w/ steel cutting rod at the end of the shank. It was small and started to make cavities along the interior. I would then switch to the largest grinding stone that would fit in the hole (or to the largest sandpaper drum) again with the dremel. This larger stone/sandpaper would smooth out the hole. I needed the high speed to be able to cut out the rubber quickly. The steel cutting rod does fast removal and the larger grinders do proper, slower, finishing work. An electric hand drill just does not have the RPMs that are needed to cut the rubber.