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Old March 26th 2012, 02:48
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owdlvr owdlvr is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Canada - West Coast
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Yeah, I can't wait to hear it! Will have to fire up some video for sure.

Well, it's been a long weekend of ups and downs...but progress is certainly happening. Friday I finally cleaned out the car and the garage enough to get it on it's wheels for the first time. It was a good moment, quickly followed by the realization that it was going to be a bad moment. The 300lb springs that I selected are _waaaay_ soft. The car was lowered dry with no engine, no seats, no doors and only one piece of glass. The rear suspension still sags through half of it's travel. Bumping the preload up gains a bit, but they're very clearly too soft. Initially this wouldn't seem like a big issue, I mean they're coilovers...buy another set and swap them in! That's the whole idea. Problem, though, is that I'm already tight for clearance. Each heavier spring will be thicker, and thus cut down on my clearance. Will see what the rally shop has for springs that can be borrowed for static rate testing. I'm going to lower the front a few inches and see if I can find a happy summer setup for testing and actually dialing in the suspension on the car. Too early to panic, but late enough to realize I have a bunch of work ahead of me!


With car on the ground, and tonne of sunny weather for the weekend, I realized it would be the perfect day for a drive. Hmmm, can't drive the car. So, trailer it!


Okay, well, that isn't the full story. I actually the car back down to Chilliwack to GLI Autoworks. Lorne and Gerry have been storing the doors for me while I work on the car, and I've been waiting for the rain to stop long enough to get the car down there. While they mounted the doors, Art from AVR brought out "the magic rope" and helped Rob and I to install the rear window. The front windshield was popped in almost before I noticed, and things were just trucking along. It was team affair as we installed seals, chrome trim and the vent windows...mostly done by Lorne and Rob if I'm honest...but I did a good job of stealing spare parts from their personal garages and the shop to replace stuff that I've lost in the shuffle Rob and I finished the door latches by heading to their family farm to 'borrow' more parts from the company parts cars. With it getting dark I hit the road for the 2.5 hour drive home.


Today I started by finishing off the doors. I can officially state that I hate U-Channel felt. I've hated it for some time, if I'm honest, but always thought it was because the '69 one-piece windows used iffy aftermarket felt. Nope. I think U-Channel felt just sucks in general. I'm sure there is a trick to getting it all nice and even, without looking like a wavy boat, but after longer then I care to admit I decided to accept it for now. You can only remove and reinstall it so many times before you wish for a convertible! I finally remembered how to get the glass back in, and the regulators are...um...acceptable. I'll be scouring swap meets this year for a good pair of used regulators. To his credit, Rob told me to wait until I had a good pair of used ones! Door panels come in this week, and when they do I will do the plastic on the doors and finish them up.


With the doors as finished as I can make them, and my fingers raw from all those stupid clips and stuff, I figured I would go back to prepping the engine and car for some power. Oil filter adapter has been replaced, which seems like nothing mentionable...except all the interior oil lines are finally 100% finished.


Russell fittings had a fuel bulkhead fitting (670860) that ships with two teflon washers and a lock nut. On the '69 I used barbed fittings and standard rubber hose for the valve cover vents, and it was always a pain. Fitting the valve cover for AN fittings, though, was definitely an afterthought on my part. Found this fitting at my local auto parts store, and sure enough it works no problem. I'll need to run the engine around the clock once I have a crank pulley back on, but with #1 at TDC the fitting is clearing the valve springs/rocker/etc. And hey, if it ends up interfering...I'll just cut it down :P


Before I went down for the doors, Rob and I were talking about the list of things I needed to get the car running and how that differed from the list of things I needed to finish the car. After counting the number of engine pulls I was planning Rob put together a bit of a surprise pack when I arrived at the shop. That plan about pulling the motor later for carbs? Yeah, lets just do that now.


So my late afternoon / evening was spent pulling the carbs down and blasting out the passages...then reassembling. The engine was stripped, and my "Salzburg" style shroud installed. I keep looking at it knowing it's just such a quick hack job, but everything I've seen/read about the factory cars was the same. I'm torn on it for now, but could re-do it down the road. Warwick was working on his mini and just laughed at me. "When the engine is the in the car, you're never going to notice" Hmmmmm....


Having never done a hex-linkage before, man is there a tonne of little parts eh?! I did have to shorten the hex bar a little, which I knew was a possibility. A quick zip over to my buddies lathe and I was back on track...I thought. As soon as I had the length right I discovered it interferes with the Alternator strap. Had I left the strap stock, no problem, but the powder coating added *just* enough to the piece that the hex shaft was hitting it. A quick trip back to the lathe and I've got it clearing.


Still have some work to do before it's ready to pop back into the car...but I'm starting to feel like I can see a finish line ahead.


-Dave
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'71 Type 1 - Rally Project
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'73 Type 1 - Proper Germanlook project
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