Milano Short Fix, Question & Parts Wanted

[Kurt Haverstock <kh@domain.elided>]

I submitted several questions to the group a while back and received a
tremendous response. While my main purpose for the post is to report the
fix for one of my original problems, I wanted to begin by thanking everyone
again (I replied by mail to everyone, I think) and expressing my pleasant
surprise at the helpfulness of the group. Not that I had any reason to
think otherwise, but nearly every response started with a note of
congratulations on the purchase of my '87 Milano Gold followed by
thoughtful advice on the questions I posed. Thank you.

While I'm on the subject:

To Aaron who was looking at the Verde and wondering what he might be in for:

I understand that religious attention should be given to the timing belt,
water pump and thermostat as well as the 'guibos' along the shift linkage.
Check the oil often and expect the syncro between 1st and 2nd to be fussy.
I personally have also had a devil of a time with the spark plug and oil
change given the location of things, my lack of a slender enough plug
socket and 
my ignorance of the benefits of anti-seize compound when threading plugs
into an aluminum head. 

Even if the thing provides a monthly challenge of one sort or another, the
way the car looks, sounds, accelerates, decelerates, corners, goes straight
and even stands still will more than make up for it. That, and you have a
great group of people here to learn from. I'd go for it.

On to the short report and questions...from my original query:

=Lights are not functioning in the main instrument cluster, but function
=in the upper console window/map light switch cluster on the same circuit.
=I pulled the dimmer unit and found that a trace on the circuit board had
=fried, so I soldered a jumper across the contacts. For the period of time
that =the fuse held out, the lights remained full-on with no apparent
effect from =the dimming potentiometer. There seems to be a tremendous
amount of current =cooking through this circuit... 

No wonder. It was, as most had suggested, a short. I happened upon it when
removing the radio to troubleshoot a speaker problem. Seems there were two
factory-looking pigtails that must have either supplied the original radio
illumination or that of another accessory in the area. When the radio was
installed, the positive lead was just long enough to contact the radio
chassis causing the short to ground. The circuit runs two seperate paths on
the same fuse, thus the still-functioning console lights. Lesson learned:
look for problems where modifications have been performed. A short is not
as likely to occur spontaneously as it is to show up where the previous
owner(s) have been futzing. 

Question: 

I haven't crawled under the car yet to try and pinpoint the creaking noise
I'm getting from the front suspension, but I suspect ball joints. Do these
have lube fittings, or am I into a new set of ball joints? Is this even
likely to be the problem?

Request:

Anyone have any performance exhaust bits or rear wheel arch repair panels?

Thanks-

Kurt

'87 Milano Gold

- -
Manager, Media Services/Distance Learning Center
Software Engineering Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA  15213
kh@domain.elided

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