Fix or Repair Daily
In preparation for tomorrow’s rallycross, I had some crap to fix. First order of business was the cooling fan- testing confirmed that the relay was once again functioning, but would refuse to switch back on after continuous use (I left it wired to a battery overnight, disconnected, and then tried to reconnect it again and it didn’t activate). Being a 30 amp relay, my best guess is that maybe it failed due to the fan running close to the amperage limit? I replaced it with a 45 amp relay, wired to run whenever the key is in the “ON” position. This way, at least I can tell if the fan is working every time I start the car.
The next step was my 2nd gear issue. I’m afraid that the T5 may already be E36 M3ting the bed, but I might as well eliminate other possibilities before I rip the trans out. The internet has multiple accounts of this problem being caused by old, hard rubber shift boots, so I ripped mine off. Surprisingly, this has made it significantly easier to engage 2nd, so maybe there is something to it- I guess I’ll find out at the event tomorrow.
Finally, some weight reduction I had been putting off- gutting the doors. I had left the entire window mechanism in both doors in place, and locked the windows in the full-up position, for fear that I would lose the option of having windows while it was still cold out. But now it’s spring, and therefore angle grinder time! A quick note on angle grinder safety that I haven’t heard anywhere else: although everyone knows the rules about eye protection, I have an additional rule which has served me well, especially when using a cutoff wheel. If you can’t get a tourniquet on it, don’t put it in plane with the cutoff wheel. They explode, I’ve even seen them go through guards on some Harbor Freight models, and you’re going to have an easier time driving yourself to the ER with a belt around your arm than with a severed jugular.
I left the internals of the door in place, eyeballed the location of the door seal, and went after the doors with the cutoff wheel. Mustang sheet metal is insanely thin, so I was done pretty quickly. After liberating the windows from their mechanisms, I threw out the rest of the door innards and cleaned up the cut edges with a grinding wheel. Leftover generic edge trim from the spoiler project was used to insulate the edge, and this is what I ended up with:
The rope is not only a door pull, but allows me to put the windows back in: they slide up into the top half of the door, and the rope gets wrapped around the bracket on the glass. Of course I didn’t take a picture of this, or the window net I installed afterwards, but if anybody wants pictures just let me know.
Tomorrow’s event should be interesting- it’s at Kempton, which is actually a very good venue with consistently poor turnout for some reason. There’s a ’71 Bronco in my class, which should be cool/terrifying/fascinating.