Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) said:Can you hit the underside with a pressure washer? Or some engine cleaner? Or both?
It does look pretty nasty under there.
I'm thinking once I get the car back on the ground & outside I'll prop the front end up on jack stands in the driveway & attack it with my (crappy) electric power washer.
I do this pretty often. Its well worth the hour of suck that being dirty and wet is.
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Can't rust if it's all covered in oil and grease.
I cleaned the cowl, it was skanky. I really should have got a pic before I vacuumed it, but here it is halfway clean afterwards.
I also worked with the oil pan a bit. I needed to clearance it a bit more for the oil pickup, then work out a strategy for mounting it without smearing RTV all over. I think I have a plan though: with a ratchet strap around the driver's side axle I can slip the pan up & almost past the pickup, then as I tighten the strap the axle will move with the pan & I can push it the rest of the way into place. In theory anyway. I'll have to put the RTV on the engine though, so that might be interesting...
Wow, you have been busy. Nice progress!
In reply to Ben_Modified :
Thanks Ben!
I'm in the midst of the cleaning doldrums still, but hopefully the tedium will be worth the result.
I think I stumbled upon the reason the car wouldn't easily go into reverse...
The one source I found for new cables lists them at $236, so I'm either going to try & fix this(it looks like there are repair bushings available), or try not to use reverse at the Challenge.
In other news the head should be ready to pick up this week, they're just waiting for new valve seals to arrive. The total is $312 with leveling it, pressure testing it, grinding the valves & installing the seals. I did use my new Icon torque wrench to re-torque the rod & main caps that I pulled to inspect the bearings.
Other than that I'm still cleaning the engine bay. Once that's done(in a few weeks) I picked up some brushes so I can paint the engine bay(at least what I have access to).
Making things not gross is a worthwhile part of any car project. Better to do it early in the process.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
I've finally reached a point that I realize this, but it's still something I completely loath & can only tolerate for short periods of time.
Just scored this for $120 tonight.
I'd been looking for a cheap Kirkey or similar off & on for a couple years, but they just don't exist around here. I'd have to drive over 100-miles just to find a beat one for $100. I'm not sure I'll have budget for this, but if not it'll go in post-Challenge.
Whoa, that really is a steal! I got the exact same seat but almost $300 for one new.
Are you going to be making your own brackets? If the seat didnt come with the sparco slider, you can get a set of those to go along with the bracket:
https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Sparco-00493-Seat-Slider-Set,108752.html
In reply to engiekev :
I have a couple Miata seats, so eventually I'll flip one over & see if I can make that work, or maybe I can harvest the sliders off the stock DSM seat? Though if the stock seat is worth much I may be better off recouping it.
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
It could be possible, depends on how the stock frame and sliders line up with the Sparco bolt pattern. I would sell the stock seat as they're getting hard to find now and worth a litte.
No major updates, but I finally had reason to use my Xmas present from last year. And just to outdo both Patricks.
And while continuing to clean the engine bay tonight I found a bit more berkeleyery. This is where the battery cable from the relocated battery in the hatch tied into the stock harness. The whole thing was hanging loose in the engine bay with some other wiring & hoses, which totally obscured this bare hot positive battery connection...
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Now, I never did anything quite that janky, but I've often wondered what other people have said about some of the roadside/"I gotta get to work" fixes I did and never made time to revisit properly.
Also, I'm pretty sure that wasn't an "emergency repair".
As soon as I hit send, I remembered breaking down on the bay bridge in San Francisco in my Kingswood Estate wagon just before New Year Eve.
I figured out I could hotwire it and make it run and ran a piece of speaker wire through the door in the cab, and had one leg going to the battery, and the other to the coil. I'd twist the two ends in the cab together and I'd not only continue my road trip that way, but I'd also end up taking a month to fix it properly. ("It" being nothing more than a bad connection to the coil.")
In reply to Crackers :
Oh I've definitely done plenty of stupid E36 M3 too in my younger years...and too much of it still in my older years, for that matter.
I hope everyone is sitting down, because this happened today.
I'd called yesterday afternoon & he said he'd call around 6:30 last night when it was done, but I never got a call. When he called this morning he said he was installing the last valve spring last night & dropped it. He searched for 45-minutes, but couldn't find it. He came in this morning & found it in a box of Chevy valve springs!
The total was $325+tax(they tax labor here...), However, since checking the head(and the associated tax) doesn't hit the Challenge budget, that brings it down to $321 for the event accounting.
I also got the oil pan installed today, though there's one bolt that feels stripped. Which is odd, since it wasn't stripped when I removed it. I'm going to try a longer bolt & see if that works.
Just my option but that checking the head should count towards budget as labor performed on the car but the tax doesn't at all. Almost a wash in this case.
Any labor you pay for counts.
Under exempt:
All sales tax on parts/cars/etc.
Other than that issue does your wife know you're sleeping with it tonight?
Edit ... check your text
In reply to Stampie (FS) :
That makes sense, thanks!
I unfortunately confirmed the one oil pan bolt hole is stripped, which is odd since it didn't seem to be stripped when I dropped the pan. Hopefully the RTV will seal it anyway, but I'm expecting leaks.
Glad your making progress! Looks like lots of fun.
That head looks like it'll seal if you use a good gasket and the install goes well. I look forward to the impressive results!
In reply to Professor_Brap & AnthonyGS:
Thanks! Realistically I'm at least a month away from reassembly. I still have a bunch of cleaning & bit of paining to do while I have access.
The seat-swap was a success. I no longer own a Sparco that's too large & instead have a Butler that's just about perfect - and at least 5lbs lighter too.
I like that Butler much better.
In reply to Stampie (FS) :
Thanks, me too. I have some foam padding to insert under the cover along the lower sides & it'll fit me perfect.
The Sparco fit him well too, so it really was a win-win for each of us.
That's a good price for the head work, have you purchased a head gasket yet? These Fel-Pro composite have great results . I would shy away from MLS since the block surface was not decked as well.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/fel-9627pt
Rockauto sometimes has them on clearance, I usually get a few when they come up like that: FEL-PRO 9627PT
For the oil pan always be careful about the bolt location, some of the oil pan bolts are different lengths:
Oil pan bolts are M6x1.0, (2) 10mm long under the timing belt, and (17) 12mm long for the others.
The timing belt bolts are shorter to not interfere with the front case.
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