Build Diary – 3. Pull it, pull it….yessss….

Gosh there are a lot of wires and stuff you have to take off before the engine comes out. But we have a hammer!

We got good and started on the prep to pull the motor this week, and it would have gone faster except for our occasional ‘what does this do’ moments were interspersed with ‘what percentage of bolts do you really need because the bolt snapped here also’ moments. Plus we were labeling things as we went instead of just taking the wire cutters to everything at random, which slowed us down for now but will presumably help in the ‘putting it back together’ section of the build.

We would have got further this week except we took a some ‘rally’ time and instead of working on our car we went to Shannonville Stages Rally yesterday and watched other people race THEIR cars. It was pretty fun to work at and was probably really fun to drive. Everyone we talked to liked it, anyhow. As a bonus it seemed really difficult – but not impossible! – to hit any trees. We think we’ll tackle it next year, fates willing.

Anyhow, the car looks like this now:

IMGP4190

Yes, the only visible tool is a claw hammer.

We used today as an opportunity to remove the AC; since the AC condenser had a hole in it and the pulley wasn’t on the compressor that seemed like a safe one to tackle without involving Greenpeace. We also removed the cruise control. We didn’t label those bits.

(Speaking of getting rid of useless poorly designed stuff, we ditched the van this week! We also sold the 97 Talon and all the spares, so jokes about curb-siding are down significantly and the Rally Sputnik coffers are swelling. Well, until we pay for the new seats and belts, which despite being a really good deal are not cheap. Something to do with safety and functionality costing more than rubbish. Go figure.)

What we did do was remove and label things that were attached and reachable and would probably go back on later. Things that were attached and not reachable were pulled out of the way for now and occasionally also labeled. Things like the power steering that were not bolted on when we got it but were still attached by hoses we drained. Things like the fuel filter that are in such a ridiculous spot that despite being well attached and working will need to be moved in the future so we gave it a number of harsh ‘what’s wrong with you’ looks. Seriously, you have a fuel filter that you can’t get to it without pulling the EFI off? Good thing it will never need changing. Oh, wait….

Also in the head scratching area are the sheer number of banjo bolts; it was like they had a bin of them sitting around Mitsubitchin that they needed to get rid of when they were designing this thing.

The plan for this week is to pull some more connections tomorrow night and then get the car down to Rally/Race Developments on Friday, when the cage design work will begin in earnest. We seem to have almost all the messy/drain-y work done so we shouldn’t mess up Ryan’s floor too badly. But never say never!

Stay tuned for another update this time next week.

(Note: a bonus point for those of you attentive enough to get that the title references the old location Rotate This ‘open’ sign. Yes, we are that old).

bryce

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