Updates!
Last week I took her out for another engine break in after installing the AT axle from the junkyard. The last time I had taken the car out, I noticed a nasty little sound when turning right. This time it started happening even while going straight. I thought it was the vibration dampener rubbing up against the suspension fork, so I pulled over and got it out of the way... still happened. It ended up being that the axle was stretched too far toward the wheel hub and spun itself out of the knuckle on the transmission side. With the suspension and wheel bits tightly secured, this caused that area of the car to jostle violently. something had to give somewhere, and I later found out that thing was a couple of the engine mount welds
. Luckily there is one big long weld left on that mount, but that will have to be something I redo. I really doubt I would've encountered conditions other than this or an impact that would've broken those welds - this jostling was far more violent than a big pothole. I bought a brand new axle from a well known parts store and put it on to discover the rattling went away for all but very extreme right turning. There was still quite a surplus of threads for the axle nut to sacrifice to give more inner axle length, so I got a handful of hardened washers and stuck them on the inner side of the hub and tried it again. Success! Since I clunked the new axle a couple of times, I opted to invoke the warranty and get a fresh one instead of possibly expediting wear. That axle will be here tomorrow and I'll be able to finally drive the car normally (I hope) and fix my welds. Still have to fix the exhaust leaks and get some odds and ends working before inspection (horn, backup lights, bleed the brakes again). I hope to have her ready for the Montreal economy/time/distance rally, but I don't know if I trust her to get me all the way there quite yet. This was all very frustrating at the time, and I didn't feel like posting about it, so here it is. More updates to come after I break that weld