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.