Shark #2 Has Arrived

[husker boxster]

Since Ant-hole has moved to the top of the heap, thought I'd give an update on my electrical issue to knock him off the top.

I mentioned in the last post I disconnected the neg cable to ensure the battery wouldn't be down for my next day's show. When I went to connect the cable in the morning, I found it was already connected. OK... Would she start? Yes! Previously the battery would've been down just enough to prevent it from starting, but would only need 30 min on the charger to start. So that was progress since the battery had plenty of charge.

Now it's a matter of seeing how far I can go? I went 2 days between starts. She started. This week I went 4 days between starts. Fired right off, no battery issues. What's the limit? I'll try for a wk and see what happens. The last time I accidentally went a wk the battery was so dead I thought I'd killed it. My charger wouldn't bring it back to life. Took it back to Interstate thinking I'd have to replace it but they were able to resurrect it with their deep cycle charger and it's been fine since.

It's satisfying to have tracked this down, esp since I'm not an electrical genius. Makes me more willing to take on more of these types of jobs.

Went to a car show yesterday. Hard to keep a black car clean when parked on grass.



There was also this black car.



Reminded me I need to get my 1924 Model T Touring out and about. Esp since she's 100 yrs old.

Next up for the shark, in no particular order:
track down the electrical issue with the AC
hole in the dash - repair or replace
trunk liner - build or buy carpet

I might start with the last one first. I'm thinking of repurposing the cover they used over the stereo equipment. Might fill in the holes and recover in alcantera and use it as the trunk liner.

[husker boxster]

Ant-hole and his friends are bombing us again, so time to do an update to the shark.

Between staining the deck and getting everything ready for our next HPDE, I've been building a trunk liner for the shark.

You will recall my shark came with a trunk full of stereo equip.



Spent a lot of time removing and replacing it with a single amp. She lost approx 100 lbs and tons of wires in the process. However, the trunk looked very bare.



From the factory, she came with a couple of floor covers - 1 plastic, 1 fiberboard - that were covered by 1 piece of carpet. Those items were long gone with the 1st owner's foray into mega stereo, so I had a blank slate. I could've found a fellow shark owner who had those parts in addition to buying a new carpet ($119), but I decided to build my own. After replacing the headliner in my Cayman last yr, I thought I could build a trunk liner and cover it with the alcantara material I used on the Cayman headliner.

Initially I thought I could repurpose the stereo cover that came with the car by filling in the holes. But after removing the vinyl cover, I gave up on that idea when I found I'd have to pull at least 200 staples used to keep the vinyl in place. So I bought a 1/2" piece of plywood and started with the orig cover as a template and cut it down a bit to fit on the floor. I cut a hole over the amp area so any heat would be released and added some strengthening braces to the underside.





Next up was gluing the alcantara on. Glued the flat part first, then worked on the sides / overlap. Did 1 side at a time, using flat bars and C clamps to ensure it held tight. The final step was to add a grille over the hole, so I bought a black gutter cover and cut a piece to fit. Secured it with a cpl flat bars.





Very happy with the results, although I may have outthought myself with the alcantara. It can grab and hold fuzz or whatever better than carpet. But it looks good. I may find someone with a staple gun and add some extra protection on my glued ear tabs, but wanted to get it finished between all my other activities.







Another item checked off the shark To-Do list. Also, I've gone 8 days between starts and no dead battery. Yay!