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Monday, April 23, 2012

More Doors

Before I started back on the mechanics several weeks ago, I spent some more time with my friends Fiberglass and Resin.

The door skins were beat up pretty badly.  As is the pattern, the driver's side was the worst off, but both had various corners, missing, cracks, dents, and poorly performed repairs.  The mirrors on one of the doors had apparently been torn out of its mountings some time in the past.





Here they are post reconstruction.  

I still need to do some bondo work to finish out the repairs.








I've also made more fiberglass repairs to the nose of the car.  More on that later.

And now for something completely different. . .

On a completely unrelated note, I've found a replacement aftermarket knob for my missing gearshift knob.  It should match the other brushed aluminum interior trim nicely.


Hear me roar!

Apparently the tweaks to the voltage regulator wiring were enough to correct the electrical problem.  A jump from my wife's car, a little gas from the throttle, and here's the result:


What a relief!  All the work to this point has been done in complete faith that some way, somehow, the darned machine would work.  But aside from a few individual assemblies there's been no way to test any of it.  These V4 engines are relatively simple, but there are still a lot of parts, pieces and assemblies required to make that noise!

And what a great noise, too!  I've never understood the appeal of a loud exhaust until this moment!  I almost hate to put the mufflers back on.


Redneck Engineering

Question:
What do a can of purple PVC primer, and the filler cap from a 1971 Saab Sonett clutch master cylinder have in common?

Answer:
The same size threads.



Drill a hole, add a little solder and paint, and voila - a new specialty part is born!  



(No, it definitely is not an OEM part, but it's a lot cheaper and more accessible than buying a complete refurbished master cylinder)

I'll be honest - it took a bit of finesse to get the new top to seal - but no more so than the original.  (The original, by the way, was toast because the threads got crushed when I repeatedly tried to tighten it down with an adjustable pliers to get it to quit leaking.)

I've attempted several times to start the car, but with no success.  The problem appears to be on the electrical side of the equation.  There is no spark to the distributor from the coil, so I've attempted to replace the coil.  Apparently that wasn't the problem.  With a little more investigation, I found that the contacts on the points were lightly corroded, enough that they weren't conducting.  So now I have spark, but the battery has gone dead.  Even with a jump, however, it still won't catch, and one of the alternator wires started smoking.  I tracked down two loose connections between the alternator and the voltage regulator, and tried to test the voltage regulator, but apparently you can only do that with the car running, so it's kind of trial and error at this point. . .

Radiator Madness

I guess I should start with the disclaimer that I've dropped the engine back into the chassis and hooked up all the miscellaneous hoses, belts, wires, and other bits.  I also filled all the various tanks with their respective various types of fluids and verified that none of said fluids are leaking.


In the case of the radiator, this took a little more time and effort than originally expected.  Long ago (I thought) I had pressure-tested the radiator.  It turns out there were no big leaks, but there were a half dozen or so small drip-type leaks.  After filling and draining the radiator several times, marking and soldering the holes encountered, I finally got it to hold water. 

Next, I worked out where to add brackets to hold my new electric fans.

New fan mounts at bottom and at top (hidden) behind chassis frame
Here are a couple of views of the installed fans.  (I still need to work out the wiring connections).



















Next, I needed to create brackets to mount the new air conditioning condenser coil.  The coil, compressor, and drier are from a late model Mazda hatchback.  I think the sizing of the condenser is spot-on.




Both radiators will get a coat of paint, but now that I'm this close I want to keep pushing to see if I can actually get the motor to start.  I still need to mount the compressor, work out the AC hoses, and purchase a longer drive belt to turn the compressor.  I've actually already cleaned up and made minor modifications to an original Sonett AC compressor mount to fit the new compressor.  Here it is installed: