4g61t.org

Hey all - Newbie vista owner here. Picked up my car late last fall. Never knew the even existed until I saw it for sale (got it for $400!), and I'm excited about it! More than a hatch, but not quite a van, and AWD to boot!

A few photos:
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BziDt ... sp=sharing

Van is a 92 5 spd, AWD, 2.4L with all the bells and whistles (A/C, crusise, etc) and they work! It's in clean shape body/interior wise. I bought it off a guy who had done a bunch of work to the motor (also replaced driveline carrier bearing) and was tired of it. Long story short, it had a rebuilt bottom end with the head off a different engine. The head was bad, I had the original head rebuilt and just got it together a couple weeks ago and it's running pretty damn good now! Also threw in a new starter and A/C compressor since those are buried, and were easy to do with the head/intake off.

I had it on a lift to have a small exhaust leak in the seam of the rear resonator zipped up and found that the sway bar links were bad (that noise was driving me nuts!) so those are coming in the mail this week along with new cap/rotor/wires and hydraulic clutch line components (master/slave/braided line) and new A/C receiver/drier.

Plans are to throw a yakima rack into the factory tracks for all the toys and drive the piss out of it!

A few issues I'm experiencing at this point:

Couple drivetrain noises on deceleration in gear (stops as soon as you push in clutch or put any power in). I get a low pitch wahhhwahhhwahhwahhh. Thinking prop shaft issue (out of balance, u joints...) Accompanying this is a grinding noise (again, only on decel). Thinking wheel bearing maybe? Need to have someone else drive it while I sit in the back and listen....

Driver's automatic seat belt is dead. Wondering about converting to a conventional style shoulder belt and ran across this vfaq http://vfaq.com/mods/CDNbelts.html. Anybody have advice on this? Was there a version of these vans that had normal belts that could be swapped in?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Test wheel bearings by jacking it up and seeing how much play you have in the wheel (grabbing the lower and upper part of the wheel and rocking) or when driving, turn sharply to one side then the other, If it gets louder when that wheel is loaded then it is wheel bearings.

Welcome to the site and be sure to put your location in your profile

_________________
89 Mirage Billet 20g 63t 12.4@120 417whp 400wtq @ English Racing.
89 Colt GT E316g
06 Silverado SS
07 ZX6R

My 94 Summit has a manual driver's side belt and an automatic one on the passenger's side from the factory so manual belts are available. At least for the D/S.

_________________
93 Mitsubishi Expo LRV 1.8/manual
95 Eagle Summit DL Coupe 1.5/manual
01 Mitsubishi Mirage ES Sedan 1.8/manual

In 95 they went with air bags on both sides, so both sides were manual. But this isn't a total "bolt on" affair! Manual belts have a "slider" to adjust the height of your belt, automatic belt vans do not have proper threaded holes to mound those sliders! So you have to customize things. Not a show stopper, but does need some added effort.

I wonder what Canadian early year vans used?