Monday, May 2, 2016

Long Time Gone & New Things to Come...

I know every time I post I'm all upbeat about how I've finally got time to start working on the car again and I've got the problems figured out, and blah blah blah. Well I'm a full time engineering student, and during the summer I work full-time so a good bit of the time that just works out to the poor Sonett getting the shaft. Hopefully though this summer I'll have some time after work to get the engine back out, figure out my issues and get that damn thing road worthy!

My current DD (An 85 Fiero GT abomination) got a little to much attention in recent months, damn squeaky wheel gets the grease and boy oh boy does that mother squeak. Well I finally decided enough is enough and I'm selling the thing. I'm gonna fix it's few little foibles to make a sale and it's gone. If anyone wants to buy an 85/86 Fiero Fastback V6 with a 5-speed, with power everything; that currently backfires like it's going out of style, $3000 and it's yours... SOLD




But a new challenger approaches... Very soon I am flying out to Denver from Raleigh to purchase my next DD/Project (have you not learned yet that I'm a glutton for punishment?) and drive it back (and I'm stupid). What on earth could be next? Well I'm not gonna tell just yet, but here's a hint: it's definitely Swedish. I'll post some more info on the car after I actually pick it up and get some miles under our belt.

3,000+ Miles in a car I've never seen in person, only heard run in grainy videos and only spoken to the owner over the phone; what could go wrong?

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Finally (Hopefully) getting back to work

This seems to be a recurring trend... I work on the car for a week or two relentlessly, hit some kind of giant set-back and lose interest in the project/run out of money/don't have the time to work on it. Well hopefully in the next couple of weeks that will change.

It's been long enough (almost 9 months) since I last really worked on the car. The only thing that has really changed since my last post is the SAAB has moved. I got out of my buddy's shop cause, well frankly they wanted me out; can't say I blame them. Now the SAAB has it's own storage unit, tucked in tight to a 10'x15' space, yes it fits, yes just barely. The Sonett with the nose on measures like 14' 6" or something long and about 6' wide. So the unit contains the car, a couple of shelves full of parts, and my tools.

The other thing that has changed is I may have a lead on what caused the god-awful banging last time I tried to start the car, at least I hope this is the case. The Taunus V4 is a Ford motor, Ford uses stretch-to-spec bolts for attaching the flywheel. If that makes no sense let me break it down how I understand it: everybody knows certain things should be always to torqued only a very specific amount. Torque it too little it won't do what it's supposed to, torque it too much and you'll break the bolt or maybe worse, warp the part you're bolting. The bolts used for the flywheel (Ford part #D4FZ-6379A) and ones like them need to be torqued multiple times to stretch the alloy. This process intentionally warps the threads, ever so slightly so the thread grabs that much better; BUT it makes it so the bolts CANNOT be reused. So take one guess what I did when I put the flywheel back on... yep, I thought I was above these simple rules, plus I didn't use any thread-locker, like a total loser.

So the prevailing theory is that the bolts in the flywheel have either backed out (not so bad) or broken (F**K) , essentially leaving the flywheel bouncing around on the clutch as the motor tries to turn. What lends credence to this theory is that the banging happens at the same time as the clutch problem, the flywheel moving out also explains the sudden lose of clutch use. This seems like it is most likely the problem, and thankfully should be an easy fix. 'Easy' of course being subjective cause it does mean pulling the motor and trans again, but that's way better than pulling the motor, breaking the seals, and hunting down rod knock...

So I bought some new fly-wheel bolts, the nice thing is since ford used those bolts in all kinds of cars there are aftermarket ones out there that don't cost 15$ a bolt, I got a set of six from ARP at summit for like 30 bucks. They sell them as parts for a Pinto, but the Ranger, Mustang, and a handful of others use the same bolts.

So that leaves the issue of timing, and the gas tank. I need to debug my ignition set-up because upon the third or fourth reading of the install guide for my MSD box it may not be wired 100% correct. Once I get that right I suspect it will either fix my timing problem straight up or make setting it a simple distributor rotation away.

The gas tank is a little more interesting issue. My buddy has a spare fuel cell or two lying around, but at the moment we're also building a 71 Datsun 240z to go LeMons racing, and it's going to be getting one of those cells... but we don't know which one. Obviously long-term I'll probably fab' up a new stainless tank based up the two tanks I have if I can get my hands on a decent TIG welder and someone willing to teach me how to use it... or the YouTube. For the foreseeable future though I suspect the Sonett will be drinking out of a 5 gallon gas can.