Birthday Cleaning

Earlier this week I polished and waxed the car for my birthday. There's still quite a few pieces of trim to finish putting on the car, but she's starting to look like a finished car.


Front shot. She still needs front bumper, grille, and left lower eyebrow and lower grille surround.

Driver's side still needs the door post, upper fender trim, door trim, and door lock.

Back is pretty much complete.

Right side pretty much same state as the left, needing the door post, upper fender trim, door trim, and door lock installed.

Windows still need to be installed in the doors, and the stainless trim around the doors and on the deck lid and glove box door.

She still looks good just the same.

Took my granddaughter for a quick trip up the street.

Got SuperCooler

Installed the largest B&M supercooler available as a transmission cooler, since the BeCool radiator has no integral tranny cooler. This cooler is twice as thick and 50% taller than the previous cooler I was running. B&M recommeded I at least run the thicker cooler, but went the full distance for an additional $16 dollars. Hopefully this will give me long life out of the transmission.

Given the routing around the bat wing pan, I just opted for braided line from the tranny to the cooler. I should put a heat shield where the line runs close to the exhaust, and add some abrasion protection so I don't have braided line cutting through aluminum parts.

Summit Racing gave me a challenge in the installation. I ordered a pair of 3/8 inverted flare to AN6 adapters, but got caught with a misship, where one of the packages inadvertantly had a 5/16 inverted flare to AN6 adapter. To temporarily get things together I made a short tube assembly with 3/8 flare on one side and an AN6 tube nut on the other, and used a AN6 male-male fitting to finish the job.


 

Got Bumpers a.k.a. Gilligan's Island episode 39

My lovely wife now grocks the Gilligan Island references on the car. The rear bumpers are stock - the rear fenders are not - they have a slight bulge flaring out to clear the 275/40R17 tires. Fitting the bumpers consistend of elongating the mounting holes, test fitting, and repeating the process until they fit. It also required making a shim for the outer mount to kick the bumper out far enough from the side of the fender, and a shim under the side mount. I had some rigid plastic known affectionately as Dam Rubber, not damn rubber, due to it's past use as air dam material. In a previous life the stuff was anti-static work bench mats. I made the shims out of that material. Once everything was fitting well, I was able to locate the hole for the side bumper mount and carefully drill through the pretty paint, hoping I got the location right.



After doing all this work, I cleaned and waxed the back of the car, then started mounting the bumpers, discovering I needed a bit more shim - one hardened washer on the upper outer hole between the plastic shim and the bumper, and needed to elongate the side hole to line it up. I also had some cross-threading on the outer right mount, so it was a couple hours of tedious work to get the right bumper on, then a much quicker 20 minutes on the left bumper. I am happy to report that no paint was damaged in the process.

Since May, I've knocked a good dozen entries off the to do list, but the list seems to keep holding at three to four dozen major tasks to go. Then there's the little mistakes like putting the tumbler in 180 degrees out on the glovebox - it drops in, but doesn't turn and doesn't come out without carefully drilling a hole in the lock housing to release it. There's also the sequencing mistakes - like mounting the rear license plate and chrome surround, then realizing that the license plate lamp housing goes in first. With all these time sinks, I've decided final interior assembly will be farmed out - looking at what other stuff I can trade money for time to finish this car and enjoy some road time this summer.
 

Air & PCM

The cold air intake system was finished before the fourth of July. On the left is the new right turn that goes through the radiator support and into the engine bay. I ended up fiberglassing together the aluminum pieces. It could have been welded, but I had the materials and skill to do it with fiberglass.  Several hours of work to save three quarters of a pound, but more importantly, it makes a clean transition along the radiator support. A silicon coupler joins to the MAF/MAP sensor, then the 90 degree aluminum bend brings it into the throttle body. Not pictured, but on the other side of the radiator support, a 45 degree silicon elbow brings it under the hood down to a 90" bend and down to the air filter.

 

The PCM mount was another three hour tour - probably one of those to be continued episodes. The pins on the right side go into firewall insulation hold-down grommets, and the left side bolts to the under dash birdcage. Hopefully not too much lost footroom for the passenger, and clear of the kick panel and speaker.