1982 Lada Niva

GoceKU said:
Finally bought some 20w50 oil, it was difficult to found. Seams parts stores and gas station cary only the lightweight oils for newer cars, and the prices are 3x more expensive. So i went to the tractor supply, they only have big packaging so i had to buy 10L jug. Refitted the drain plug, installed a new german oil filter fill the engine with oil and test drove it. Now it drives much better and its a bit more rev happy, i still don't know why the timing chain got so much slack. It's hard to imagine such a biffy chain to have stretched.
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Small point of clarification: chains don’t stretch, they wear.

what happens is each pin wears the bore in its side plate and roller and that creates a small amount of play. Add this up over 50-100 odd links and the overall effect is the chain gets “longer”. Guys often misinterpret this as the chain “stretching”.

so if you were running the wrong oil, or not enough of it, the pins wear faster and the chain elongates (or stretches if that makes more sense to you) faster. How robust/thick/heavy the chain looks is pretty much irrelevant. Its how fast the pins and thier bores wear that kills a chain.

It doesn’t matter if its a timing chain in an engine, a drive chain on a bike or a power transfer chain on a piece of agricultural equipment. It’s all the same type of wear. Wrong grade of oil or a shortage of oil just accelerates that wear.

My 8x8 Argo has somewhere around 70-80 FEET of #50 double roller chain driving the wheels. You learn how chain fails pretty quickly when you have to deal with that much chain in one piece of equipment….
 
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The little niva has been in dally use for a year now and it come its safety inspection. This time around the inspector there was a fellow car guy that i often see on my way to work with the little niva and he wanted to give it a real good check. The rear brakes show a bit off balance but still in range but he noticed the loose feeling steering wheel. He call me in the inspection pit and showed me, my entire steering box has broke and was holding on only one bolt even the chassis where it bolts to was cracked and was moving. He did pass it but told me fix it. As soon as i got home i started searching for a steering box. I did find this entire steering setup its from a lada car but the box is the same only difference is the arm on the bottom. I did washed and check the new steering box. Fill it with new 85w90 oil and struggle to get the car arm, so i end up cutting one side and it finally pulled off. The original steering box was hard to get off the littel niva but i maneged, and seen the big nut holging the arm at the bottom was also loose so i took it off by hand and took the arm with one hit by a hammer. I did changed over the arm used blue lock tight on the big nut. I still need to weld up the chassis and i'll probably reinforce it there, but i'll do that tomorow.
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The little niva was back on the road the very next day from my last update. I did weld on a plate and strengthen the body mount for the steering box, assembly everything i used blue lock tight on all the bolts, and white spray paint( only one i had). The steering now is completely different, much tighter and a bit harder, i think it will loosen a bit with driving. Also the speedo roll over, its a 5 digit mileage counter.
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Today i was in a bit of a hurry after work but the little niva had a different idea. To make a long story short, just as i got down the mountain with no wipers because they quit working stopped gave them a tug and they come back to live but i heard a metal sound from the engine. The temperature and oil was fine so i started grabbing gears to get to my destination quicker and i heard bang, the charge light come on, i know i've lost a belt, pulled over just as the engine temp started to come up. Grabbed a spare fan belt and open the hood to change i but i've seen only 2 pulleys, the water pump one was lying on the inner wing. No coolant was dripping but the pump shaft was snapped. First i called off the job i was in a hurry for, rolled my sleeves up that removed the old pump, called my father he bought me a new pump and drove to bring it to me, i had a 13,17mm wrench and a flat screwdriver, i had to take the radiator off the new pump is OEM Lada and was 20$. Because i did not have a bucket to catch the coolant it went on the ground and there was a ground spring so i fill the cooling system with water from it, washed my hands after i assemble it. Oh i forgot to mention it was raining all the time, started it and drove home, changed cars and continue with my second job, i'll have to give it a check before i use continue driving it but i'll wait till it stop raining. Reason, best i can guess the bearing fails, the cast iron impeller got stuck on the housing, the belt was tight and twisted off the shift, that shaft is real hard piece of steel.
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The little niva has been putin in the work, i've been driving this little russian 4x4 almost every other day. Today was a bit of a funny story as a was leaving my work place. A cat has lay down on the hood to sunbay, so as i was getting in it i try to scare it to leave. It did not care so i fire up the engine give it couple of rew's still it won't leave. I put it in reverse turn around it still on so i started driving, all the people and children wore steering and laughing. That cat ride on the hood just like in the picture for close to a kilometer till the road turn to a field and the car started to bounce a lot. That is one very strange cat and i was the topic of talck in that vilage for today.
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