Big Update this weekend!!!
First of all Allie is home!!!! It's just for a few days so we can finish up a few things and she can take the car back to VA and get it inspected. It's has a kind of 30 day plate and we are running out of time on that. But to have my garage buddy back and turing wrenches is just the best.....EVER!!
We are just painting parts for the car right now. The goal is to get to the 5 foot, good look condition!! The major change will be the nose. The current nose is broken with a big piece knocked out around the lower right vent opening to the rad. I started to make a repair on it until Allie had the budget to buy a used one or find an aftermarket one she would like. Well, being a cheep Yankee, I troll Craigslist once a week or so for cars and parts. Low and behold, a GT2-ish nose is listed for sale local-ish and she likes it. The price is out of the budget but I take a shot at it an see where it can go. It's a full polyurethane nose of unknown maker as it has no marks on it. The plastic is very thick and strong. A few more pics and some emails back and forth and they guy just wants to get it gone. So I make a ridiculous offer of $120 and he takes 3 minutes to come back and accept!! My buddy who lives in Jersey, goes to make pic up, I send funds via PayPal (who I hate by the way) and it's ours and headed towards home here in NY.
Paint match?? we shall see. I have the light grey primer on there but most of the dings I have filled seem to be over dark grey primer so I may shoot some dark grey on it before color. I'm a real amateur but have done some painting. I did spend a week at McPherson College taking a paint class and Allie spent the same week taking welding and metal working classes. This is an excellent school that has these 1 week courses for 2 weeks at the end of the semester in June for the home hobbyist. Wonderful learning place and we really got a LOT out of it. I have very low expectations and with our 5 foot goal in mind, I just do the best I possibly can.
We have just primed it but it hasn't been quite warm enough in the garage to shoot paint yet so It will probably not get on this weekend. That was part of the plan but a low level parts as Allie needs to get the car down to VA for inspection as she only has a 30 day plate.
So we left off with the coolant tank replacement. What a bull$hit design to put the one hose inside the engine bay and all others on the manifold. What evil genius figured that one out?? Well, I got pissed off when I could not pull the tank back far enough to get that clamp loose because it was a screw type and NOT a spring type. It's bad enough that the bugger leaks after to PO told me they just put a good used one in but now while working to get the clamp off, I pinch my thumb and give myself a nice deep cut that bleeds really fast. So over to the swear jar and fill-er-up to pay for my lack of control and small vocabulary and get black electric tape to stem the flow. I have a moment of inspiration and grab my small air powered sawzall and give that sucker a go a cutting the stupid thing put so I can get to the clamp more easily.
Buzz, Buzz, Buzz and 45 seconds later we have the tank in 2 pieces and the clamp loose and off.
And we can now see the location of the EPOXY repair that was made and is now leaking. More trips to the swear jar after make comments about the PO, his family and all of his lineage including the origin of his ancestors and this whole event. This cooling system have been a nightmare!.
The design is crap as anyone who has done this R&R knows. The manifold fits over 2 studs that are 5 times longer than they need to be, the hoses only reach to the 4x length of the stud so that makes the pulling of the manifold further particularly scary as the fear of breaking something unseen is high, at least in my tiny little swear-jar filling mind. But I have an idea that pays off, and slot that tab on the new tank so I can get it onto the bottom stud and leave the excess manifold pulling to later on.
This trick allows a bit more maneuverability of the tank while getting that clamp on the hose tightened up.
OK, cooling system now secure and we are ready for fill up with special german coolant and distilled water. I had drained and used compressed air to blow out all remaining water in the system, checked it all for tight and started pouring the stuff in. Got it hot, burped a lot of air out and took it for a ride. Looking good, very happy, grab overfilled swear jar and head to beer store :-)
Allie comes home and wants to go for a ride in her "new car". She heads out onto our country roads and come back with a HUGE smile on her face. This is a great car and runs nice as well as sounds killer with the Top Speed full exhaust. BUT as we stand there catching up and talking cars, we see a small trickle of pink fluid run out from under the back end. Ugh, I drop into swear jar filling mode and she drops down to see what's leaking. I'm hoping hose, but she says no, front of engine, looks like water pump .... What the $&CK!!! I have been under and around the bottom of the wreck for weeks and there has never been a drop of moisture around the damn pump. This is what you get when you really can't fully test drive a new and very cheep car completely. Every step along the way to full test drive has lead to another thing needing attention.
So I get online and order a new pump to be delivered overnight so we can get this in and fixed for the trip back to VA. I can't get what is considered a good one overnight, so we order a Gates that might have the plastic impeller. Well, it doesn't. We install it anyway as we are short of time. She KNOWS it will have to be changed again in a year or so and monitored in-between at oil changes to watch the bearing for looseness. It was only $76 too, but it's brandy new and not a rebuilt, from a real company, with a warranty, so maybe it will go the year. Fingers crossed.
Allie digs into the Box for her first time to change the pump. Seats fully forward, engine covers off, back carpets out and the the good stuff starts.
Next post. ONly 10 images allowed :-(