by "ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com" (ita97)
Published 03/30/2017 at 17:48
by "ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com" (ita97)
Published 03/30/2017 at 17:48
No Tags
STARS: 7
About a month ago I got my non-running, old racecar off its perch on the trailer and into the garage. After sitting (often, but not always) covered outside since 2009, it had become home to a staggering amount of dirt and Southern NM wind blown sand. It took me an entire day just to clean it up, and there is still dirt to be found in the many nooks and crannies of a gutted car.
Once clean enough that I could touch it without looking like Pigpen, I turned my attention to the fuel system. While I had added stabilizer to the gas left in the tank, I couldn’t remember how many years ago that was. I also remembered that the last time the car ran that is was really hard to start and that the fuel pump was only making a fraction of its usually 80's Honda whirring noise. I drained the tank (and a shout out to 80s Honda for putting a drain plug on their gas tanks), put on a new fuel pump and put a fresh fuel filter on it.
I then turned my attention to the electrical system. Last time I had tried to start the car, it wouldn’t run and with the exception of the starter actually working, everything else on the car acted as if the ignition switch was turned off. This troubleshooting turned into an entire weekend of quality time spent under the dash with my fluke, power probe and the factory service manual. All of the obvious suspects like the kill switch, main relay, fuses and ignition switch checked out.
Eventually, I narrowed it down to circuit #4 on the main fuse box being the one not working or playing with anything else. Checking the various components like the ECU, integrated control module, voltage regulator, main relay and so on related to the circuit all revealed themselves to be working individually, so I turned my attention to tracing the wiring of that circuit. Along every mother loving section of the black w/yellow wire (and two alternating dashes) wire that I could access, there was continuity to be found. Finally as a last ditch effort born of curiosity and sheer frustration, I jury rigged that wire to bypass the main fuse box under the dash and suddenly everything worked. Closer inspection revealed that there was a short in that circuit internal to the fuse box.
$60 on ebay delivered to my door a box containing a power distribution box, main fuse box, integrated control module and nearly complete set of relays for the car (as old as it is, I’ll gladly take spares of hard-to-find electrical parts). Once I had a running car, the engine bay got washed at the car wash. Then it got a cleaned and oiled air filter, an oil change, a fresh set of spark plugs, a fresh interstate battery, a new alternator belt and some fresh water (with just a bit of anti freeze) in the cooling system. At this point, the car was back to running like a champ.
This was already more than I had planned to do before selling the car. With the car mechanically ready for at least an informal track day, I decided to do a bit more to it. In one of its last (informal) winter series races with the local spec miata guys, a car in front of me had thrown up a rock that starred the windshield. Eight years later, there were now a spider web of cracks running all the way across the original windshield to the car. $228 dollars later to the safe lite mobile guy, it had a new windshield. Once I’d gone that far, I figured I might as well put some new wipers on it for the next guy who might end up racing in the rain someday.
Poking around the interior more highlighted the dire state of some of the safety equipment. The harness was now 10 years out of date, completely faded and not particularly pliable anymore. $85 to Ultra shield got me a box with a new 5 point harness that I installed. By using the old belts as guides, it was nice to able to install the harness once and not mess around with adjustments to get the belts correctly set up. The new belts really made the old window net look bad (which was also long out of date, even if not all sanctioning bodies require the window net to be in date), so another $25 to Ultra Shield got me a new one of those too. I even bought a new fire extinguisher for it, and because the minimum weight for the car is now 180lbs less than when I first built it, I got a smaller one this time.
The seat cover is worn and torn, so it needs to be replaced also. My seat is old enough that Ultra shield can no longer make a new cover for it, so I’ll have to either have a local upholstery shop make a new one, or fork out the money for a whole new seat. Getting a cover made locally would be a lot cheaper, but it may not be worth while if I’m going to play with the car myself. The 15" wide one piece seat was great when I was 18 years old. Being in my 30's now,it is on the small side. A 16" seat would be a lot more comfortable now.
A lot of inspection under the car revealed the running gear to be in mostly pretty good shape. Suddenly I now find myself with a car that isn’t that far off of being ready for an annual tech, which will lead into my next post about it.
"uofime-2" (uofime-2)
03/31/2017 at 12:01, STARS: 2
Reading this it quickly became obvious that selling it was becoming less and less likely.
"ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com" (ita97)
03/31/2017 at 13:40, STARS: 0
Selling it cheap is certainly less likely. A race-ready car with a current logbook and paint that is actually red instead of pink is probably worth more money.