the saga continues. lots of fun stuff added. hm, look what i got in the mail


koni adjustables installed. the old springs were terrible, and had a curve in them from the car sitting for 20 yrs. right front shock insert was rusted to the strut. took me two days, half a can of penetrant, and lots of hammering to get it out.


finally got the new zimmermann front rotors installed. also had front calipers rebuilt and polymer coated red by goldline brakes, a local outfit. the quality and craftsmanship are superb.



euro light kit, and euro spec h4 headlamps. they are very bright.


momo steering wheel (i already don't like it - too small) and nice combo gauge from palo alto speedometer. installed led gauge illumination while i was in there. oh, and i also installed a weird looking shifter that i found somewhere


closeup of the rennshift. it is very nice.


engine purrs like a kitten now, thanks to new, correct bosch plug wires (old ones were poor quality). that solves my persistent engine stutter.

also installed a passenger side mirror, and new rocker panels and rear valance too. next up: oil temp and pressure senders, and sway bars.

~a

update, for those who care. more progress towards getting this rip van winkle back on the road after 20 years in hibernation.

purchased: new ssi 2.0 heat exchangers, muffler hanger, heater ducts and bursch muffler, all from hph (thanks rich!), for a complete swap from the old, ugly and poor quality 75-76 exhaust to complete earlier 2.0 setup.

ducts needed some cleaning. or maybe they didn't... i just felt like cleaning them.


cleaned and test-fitted. they'll never look this good again.


heat ducts primed & painted with high-temp paint.


installed, with much help from my wife, who is 7 months pregnant. yes, i can confirm that the paint on the bursch begins to burn off in approximately three minutes.


on saturday morning i dropped the car, started the engine, and took her for the first self-powered drive in more than two decades. runs and handles good! now the real work begins, making it shine.

~a

floorpan refinished and pedal cluster rebuilt with the great bushing kit from pelican. roll pin gave me no problems. this was before, with a moat of brake fluid. yuck!


flaking paint and rust ground off, masked, primed with etching primer and painted body color from rattle can.


used wire wheel to grind down the cluster parts, repainted the ones that were originally black.


cluster rebuilt.


partially installed. dead sexy!

whew! lotsa work to get this one roadworthy. during the brake bleeding process (which btw yielded brake fluid that was chocolate in color) i found out the mc was hemhorraging fluid badly. here's a pic of the pedal cluster sitting in a lake of brake fluid. fluid was also down the entire center tunnel. mucho fun...


and after cleanup, which inovlved a shop vac, dawn detergent, and lots of water.


while i was under there, i also noticed a different paint color on the bottom dash metal. hmmm.


anyone know what these wires do???? they weren't plugged in. i'm especially curious about the round one.


the spring for the clutch pedal is now broken, not sure how that happened, but i need a new one, or a new pedal cluster that's not coated with brake fluid and beginning to rust.


extra parts, can't remember where they go. any ideas? the one on the left looks important...


jp would be so proud, i built myself some 12" cubes out of 3/4" plywood to set the car on. jackstands make me nervous too.


that's all for now. new 2.0 liter exhaust and ss exchangers comes in a few days, i need to get off my butt and remove the stock exhaust system.

~a

installed new fuel pump, fuel lines, fuel tank and sender. uninstalled goofy relays and rat's nest of wiring for aftermarket fog lights.



~a

update: it runs!

there were two culprits. craig laughlin put me on the right track for the first one. he suggested that it might be a loose wire on the resistor pack. this turned out not to be the case, however while i was down there i took a good look at the double relay. sure enough, on one of the plugs there was a wire that had worked loose, just happened to be the thick red wire from the battery. this explains why some injectors were working intermittently. the spade was making random contact whenver the plug or wiring was jostled. and we did a lot of jostling.

the other culprit was the oil filler neck. the filler cap on l-jet is supposed to have a gasket to help it seat properly. this gasket was missing on my car, so we went to the local hardware store and picked up a decent o-ring that will work until i find the correct part number. btw, anyone know the part # for this seal?

gotta give props to jim chambers who drove over to my house from portland on several occasions to help me test a bunch of stuff. he checked the dwell and set the timing this afternoon after i got it running. also big thanks to craig laughlin for providing a new fuel pump and putting me on the trail of the injector problem. and thanks to all who gave me many suggestions on things to check.

so after not being fired for 20 years, it runs! not super smooth yet, but we'll get there. now all i need is new tires, some body work, a new muffler, and...

~a

installed new german fuel and vacuum lines in the engine bay, new fuel lines in front too. also new distributor, rotor, points, condenser, plugs. and engine still no worky

we've narrowed it down to the injectors i think. they don't seem to be getting juice.



~a

making some progress. new windshield is in, $375 installed. guy said i got the last 914 windshield in the portland metro area.





~a

progress report! got her cleaned up a bit, hood off, interior out, windshield track cleaned real good for new windshield.




here's how we flushed the fuel lines, which were full of 20-year-old gas and who knows what else. feeder line from gas can through new fuel pump (thanks camp914! ), through system, return line to milk jug.




... and here's what came out of those lines. yum!




got the rocker panels off too, for probably the first time in this car's life. found the usual pile of dirt, rocks and crap per side.


and here's the passenger rocker, cleaned up. i expected much worse, these look great.


and finally, here's my little helper.


that's all for now. mucho thanks to jim chambers for his help thus far. engine tune-up in the near future, hopefully we'll find out why the distributor is not sparking.

~a

cleaned up the engine bay a bit, sucked up a bunch of leaves and spiders, and here's a better look at the hole. no rust!



~a