metaruss

I’ve been driving the Shelby daily now for several weeks while I addressed some issues with the Daytona.  All and all it has been reliable, though still has some cold startup issues, uses oil, and sounds like a Mack truck.  I may drop the old Shadow engine in if looks like the Daytona project is going to take a long time.  Eventually I put the Daytona wheels on because they actually have tread and they are also round.  There are various things that need fixing on the CSX as well, but much of the work is the body.  If all goes as planned, I will have a compressor fairly soon and will gain some experience at painting the Daytona.  Then I’ll be able to repaint the Shelby, finally.  I may try to polish the rims next winter to have a nice, fresh Shelby by next summer.  Yeah right. :p

I haven’t driven this car at all lately.  I don’t like to drive it in the winter anyway, but real reason is that the starter solenoid was dying.  I knew it would go, since I got the car with no heat shield and the solenoid was all melted.  Well, this weekend I swapped the starter from my old Shadow in and found that my retrofit heat shield was now gone as well.  That would explain that burning plastic smell I was noticing this summer.  Luckily I had bought 2 new heat shields this fall (dealer parts), so I put one of those in along with the starter.

Well, the car is back together.  It’s not perfect, but it’s close.  I didn’t notice it before, but the right rear quarter is pushed in about 1/4″.  Also, somehow the subchassis is tweaked such that the taillight is mounting a bit high and the bumper a bit low on the right side.  It sort of spread things out.  It looks fine until you get up close.  Once these cars get bent, it’s really hard to get them back where they should be again.  Everything else lined up well, though the liftgate is not popping open as it should.  I suspect the latch is not operating as smoothly as it used to.  Still need to paint that trim below the taillights, but it will just have to stay red until the spring.

Putting the bumper back together was a bit of a pain.  All those stupid plastic studs broke off the bumper fascia when I got hit, so I ended up making bolts with very flat heads to mount them.  The heads are covered by the CSX fascia, so that’s no biggie.  I also threaded the CSX fascia studs so I could mount it to the bumper fascia with regular nuts.  A lot of the original push nuts were gone anyway, so this setup worked well and allowed me to adjust the tension for minimal warpage.

With my Shadow now donating the rest of the parts I need, I have finally made some progress on the repairs.  Using my dad’s handy hydraulic kit, I was able to push the underbody most of the way back…still needs a few tweaks though.  I test fitted the Shadow’s bumper, just to make sure the frame wasn’t tweaked at all.  It fit perfectly.  Looks like the restoration will have a happy ending.

Thanks to our club’s prez, Jason Trotter, I now have a tail light and that flimsy trim piece.  Now I just need a bumper support and struts.  I’m thinking of getting brand new struts from Mopar, since all the ones I’ve seen in the yard (and on my cars) are rusted pretty bad.

BAM!  Some kid in his daddy’s SUV rear-ended me today.  A few seconds after stopping for a red light, he hit me thinking I had gone through (it had just changed).  Just what I needed…another project.  The damage isn’t too bad: collapsed bumper struts, bent bumper support, broken taillight, and the metal trim between the taillights and bumper is twisted up.  There is no other frame or body damage except for the underbody behind the right tail light.  That’s going to need a bit of pushing.

Kudos to Dave Tekampe for helping me install the new suspension components.  The work wasn’t too bad except for the control arm bushings.  Whatever stories you’ve heard about removing those suckers is true.  It’s a chore getting the rubber out of the metal sleeve.  All the metal pieces need to be saved because the kit from energy suspension does not contain anything useful except for the rubber itself.  The rest of the bushings are fairly straight forward.  After some trial and error, we found that pushing out the center sleeve with a large bolt, followed the rubber works best.  There’s no need to push the outer sleeve out of the control arm.  Of course, he had access to an arbor press….

Anyway, the CSX now has new Koni struts and shocks (including KYB strut mounts, etc), new Energy Suspension polyurethane control arm and sway bar bushings, and new lower ball joints.  The car handles wonderfully now, compared to before, even with the eye-balled alignment and shot tires.  Those are next on the list.

Another few months since the last update (better than almost 2 years).  Not much has changed with the car except that it has been my daily driver since the trans blew on the Shadow in early June.  On a positive note, I now have all the parts needed to restore the suspension.  On an even more positive note, we now own a home and I have a garage!  The mighty resurrection will surely follow soon….

Long time, no update.  Now that I am living in an apartment, little has changed with this car.  Stills runs pretty good, but the trip back from SDAC with those bad tires ruined what was left of the original struts.  To become safe for the roads, the cars needs struts/shocks (probably Konis), lower ball joints, tires, and bushings (polyurethane).  In its current condition, the car becomes rather unstable above 50mph, but I still take it on the 5 minute drive to work to keep it alive.  The motor is still the same, piston slap and all.  Still makes good power, though.  The car also got flooded when our parking lot flooded twice last year.  I was able to dry it out, but now I find that it leaks water in the rain.  Grrr….

SDAC-10 = the best time I have ever had with cars in my entire life.  I finally got to put faces to some of the names that I have known for years now.  The Chicagoland folks were probably the rowdiest bunch there.

The highlight was definitely the performance driving school.  It was done at Michigan Speedway (NASCAR).  The road course included almost a full mile of track oval, allowing me to achieve speeds of over 120 MPH!  My 3rd session was in the pouring rain, which resulted in a spin-out on one lap and some hydroplaning through the cones on turn 1 on the lap after.  Not long after I flew through the cones, someone smashed their nice 1987 Shelby GLHS into the wall on turn 1 due to hydroplaning as well.  Big bummer.

My first trip to the drag strip went fairly well.  My time slips are below.  The only things I did to the car were empty the trunk and remove the muffler.  I drove very consistent low-15s most for the day.  The ND Computer was only giving me 13-14psi of boost (should be 16), so I borrowed a G-valve.  Unfortunately, the ball was not seating and I only got 3-4psi and ran high 16s.  I fixed the G-valve and set my boost to 18psi.  The engine would break-up real bad above 4700 RPM.  The 8th light on the A/F gauge was flashing at those speeds, so I raised the fuel pressure.  I also gapped the plug down a bit.  From then on, I couldn’t get traction (see my 60-foot times).  I finally got a run in the 14s with 20psi of boost: 14.918 sec @ 94.68 mph.  I KNOW the car can do deep 14s if I could just hook it up.  The treads on my tires were full of track rubber because I couldn’t find a clean spot.  All in all, I had a great time.

I certainly got a lot of runs, as the track was not busy at all.  I wish the track stayed open after the SDAC events for more runs.  Many of the other drag racers were having car troubles and everyone seemed to have trouble with traction.  Anyway, it was a blast.  I’ll definitely try to bring the car to more local events to work on my launch techniques.