It’s been a long summer and it’s winding down now. Life really isn’t though. Since the last update we’ve added to our family. Annabella Marie was born (rather quickly) on July 15th. It’s been formula and diapers since then. Hardly been any time to do other things. We did make it to Wade’s one weekend which was a nice break.
I did get some time to work on the car yesterday. Did a couple of things including re-installing the modified brake pedal (incorrectly), cutting the now useless support bar out of the trunk, and trying to tighten up the bolts on the engine and transmission. What I accomplished was to put the brake pedal in the wrong hole, strip a bolt hole on the transmission and find that the engine is not sitting on the frame mounts squarely. I was feeling pretty crappy about the results from the day. Fired off an email to Wade lamenting my situation and here’s what I got back. The brake pedal has to go in the lower “manual” pedal holes, those bolt holes on the transmission get stripped all the time and all I need to do is loosen everything up and yank the engine back and forth until it seats. Actually, Wade’s email made me feel a lot better about my situation. Thanks man, I needed that!
I’ve also been working on getting the wheels cleaned up here and there. I have them stripped and I’ve painted one with some silver wheel paint to see how it turns out. I’m shooting for marginally ugly rather than full on vomitosis. Trying to avoid spending the bucks on wheels right now. I think they will turn out just fine as temporary solutions. Be nice to have the thing sitting on some clean wheels and brand-spanking new tires.
I’d also like to take a moment to thank Rick Myers. Just discovered him a couple of months ago and he lives right up the road a bit! Has an EM (I think) that he built about 10 years ago. He was kind enough to donate an upper manifold to the cause. In my attempts to seperate my TB and EGR from my upper manifold I found that the studs were completely rusted over. I managed to get the TB off but the EGR was a lost cause. I also wasn’t able to extract the damn screws holding on the old cover plate. I figured it was time to find another. Thanks Rick! I’ve just started to clean it up and it looks like it will be sweet. I’m planning on painting it a flat black to match the block. With the cover plate that I got from Prodigy Designs it should look really nice.
I have a ton of pics to post…hopefully I can get to that soon.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I picked up a number of things from Summit when they had their latest discount code. Chief among them was a new B&M Shifter. I got spoiled on our BMW 323 that we had for a while. Gotta have that short throw! Also got a 90 degree offset oil filter adapter. The FFR one is a piece of S. It’s amazes me they can include some junky parts like that in an otherwise excellent kit.
This update just keeps rolling…I should thank my wife. Ang gave up her side of the garage for good, or at least until the Cobra’s done. (no comments about that!) The body buck is now residing in that side of the garage. I now have no more excuses for not running out there and working for an hour or two. Thanks Hon!