It's Alive!

We started the motor last Tuesday! After 2+ weeks working 16-7 on this car, we think we might actually have a race car. Up to that point in week three none of the stuff we thought we'd have done on the car had gotten done. We kept hitting snags, like the right caliper appears to be from another type of Opel. But none of that matters, because at 10 PM, Tuesday, June 8, the motor ran!

But, it wasn't pretty. The car was backfiring and after-firing. Rust and oxide scale was shooting out the back of the car and at one point a big flake of carbon shot out of the carburetor. At least the exhaust wasn't clogged with rat's nests. On the other hand, maybe it is and we'll find out when we finally get the motor hot.

At first we had the timing 180 degrees off. Fixed that, and it was still coughing and shooting crap out the back. So Geoff grabbed the distributor and I cranked and Alan handled the throttle while Geoff adjusted the timing, and it started and ran! Then we shut it off after about 10 seconds. We just wanted to know it would fire and would turn. We didn't have the radiator hooked up, or any gauges, and the oil that came with the car, which looked great by the way, was still in the crank case.

We've got video of this historic moment and will get it posted soon, or hopefully before the race, or well, soon after the race. There's still so much left to do.

Since that historic night we set about getting the rest of the car put back together. Starting with the brakes, Alan and Zep blew out the brake lines and we found that the rears were clogged at the flexible line. New braided lines were installed front and rear and now all that is good. Alan installed the new 22 mm brake master cylinder then he and Zep got to work on the brake calipers. Zep took the calipers back home to rebuild and soon called back to tell us that the left and right calipers were different, the piston diamters were different. A quick call to OGTS and we heard stories about POs (previous owners) installing calipers from another model of Opel. So we pulled the caliper from the parts car, but then we couldn't get the damned pistons out. After posting this on the OpelGT forum we got a reply saying that what most people did was drill through the back of the calipers and push the pistons out, then plug the hole. We did that, and it worked. Success, minor as it was, and it took all day to do that. But then reassembling them was not going well, so we took it to a shop to let them have a go at it. (On Monday when we picked up the caliper, they charged us 2 dozen donuts and wanted to get a picture of the finished car.) Meanwhile, we ordered rebuilt calipers from OGTS.

I took out the rear deck to get a better look at the rear section, the vacuumed out yet another rats nest, wire brushed the whole area to remove loose rust, and washed it down. It smells much better now. Rat pee pee-free.

I redid some of the engine wiring to make it more robust (soldered the crimp connectors, etc.). You wouldn't believe how little wiring it takes to start and run a 1969 motor.

Continuing with the wiring, I made up a wire bundle and pulled it through to the back, added crimp connectors, and tested the lights. All is good. I ran wiring for all of the lights, even though we won't be using much more than brake lights at the first race, but once in a while LeMons does run a genuine 24 hour through-the-night race, so I wired up the tail and marker lights, too.

We installed the fuel tank bulkhead, 22 gauge steel for the rear, 0.1 aluminum for the bottom, which we will mount the battery on. We still have to find a way to bolt down the aluminum sheet. With the battery on it we can't use sheet metal screws for this.

Zep took all parts off the parts car that we though we'd need as spares at the track. Mostly that was stuff from under the hood. We'll clean and test them next week, when the '69 is in the shop getting its cage. We'll get the rotors later. We still need for the car to be in its wheels. The engine in the parts car (model 1971, block # 19S...) has water in it.

I removed the rear bumpers so I could clean them and prep the car for painting. I broke only one bolt this time. Usually we break 3-4 of those of those rusted-on buggers a day.


We picked up another crew member this week. Bernhard, from Germany, who raced there in his younger days and now runs outdoor kart tracks. He started one in Phoenix and is starting one here in Davis. He was here last night helping put some final touches in the engine bay. He may also drive for us.

We decided to go ahead and hook up the gauges so that when we run the motor longer we can see what's going on inside. I rebuilt our prototype gauge cluster using scrap ABS plastic. Unfortunately, we need metric adapters to install the sensors and by the time we got around to that it the stores had closed, and when I checked in the next morning no one had metric adapters! What, no one works on foreign cars in this country? So it looks like gauge will have to wait until my next Summit order comes in. Meanwhile, we'll use the car's original temperature gauge and tachometer.

Also in the gauge area, it looks like swapping the oil pressure sender is going to be a bitch. Team Tinyvette needs a team tiny mechanic who can crawl in there between the header and the body and wrench it out. Also, where to put the oil temperature sender? I wonder if that plug to near the oil filter will do, or of we need to punch an hole in the oil pan and put it there.

The interior is almost clean. I've been scraping up sound deadening material for a while now. My little detail sander worked wonders for shaving off the sticky tar that was on the tunnel. I followed that with some Brakecleen and a brass wire brush and towels and it's looking OK. I still have the foot-areas to do, and the carpet glue along the sides.

As of Friday the brakes are still not done. Many little things still delaying us. Our guys weren't comfortable with the rebuild of the one caliper we did and so ordered another. OGTS has been great and deliveries are quick.

Geoff dropped by Friday to help with body work. He had rebuilt the carburetor for us and it looks and works great. Well, we only ran the motor for about 10 seconds. But it ran with the carb as-delivered and with a few quickie timing adjustments!

Alan and Zep were here on the car all day Saturday, Geoff brought his wife by for a look, Keith dropped by for a look and to pluck a few parts off the parts car and offered some very useful advice and insights.

Bernhard came by at 9 PM and told me to give him something to do. He replaced the rubber vacuum and fuel lines in the engine bay with aluminum tubing. It looks great. Now we just need a few brackets. (I can't believe how floppy and loose we did these things back in the 60's, with fuel lines and wires and even the in-line fuel filter just hanging loose under the hood.) Between him running lines under the hood, me scraping tar and running wire, and Alan and Zep taking care of the brakes and other items, it was a good week. For Bernhard and I, it was it was midnight before we called it quits that day. So it was along week, too.

Working as late as possible on this car seems to be the best for me. I have trouble going to bed with things still left undone, although I have no trouble getting to sleep when I finally do go to bed. And I've been having stranger and stranger dreams, and as of last night I think I'm having a little trouble figuring out which parts are dreams and which are true. The car is scheduled to go to EGR this week. We all need a break. My hands are sore, and the house is a mess.

Week 2, yahoo!

During week two we reached the milestone, the tuning point, the verge of greatness, where instead of ripping stuff out of the car we started putting things back on it! The part involved is not big deal, its just the thermostat housing, but after we did that we realized that the project had turned a corner.

So here is what got done, and undone.

Engine - Once we got our starter back from the shop and installed we set about getting compression numbers. Slow and steady, though, we started by pumping oil through the engine (using a drill, a long wood bit ground flat on the end, and the distributor shaft) and turning it by hand. With the spark plugs out we could see into the cylinders, and surprise, when the piston in #2 came up, there was a red object in it. It turned out to be a little straw like the one that comes with a can of WD-40. Alan surmised that the previous owner might have tried spraying WD-40 into the engine before he tried to turn it by hand, and lost the straw. No wonder we got the cars so cheap.

The engine cranked and our compression numbers were not bad, 150, 135, 125, and 132. It's a 40 year old car, has not been run in over two decades, was cold, and the odometer read 40k miles, a lot of miles for a 1960's car.

So it appears that we have an engine. Now we need to get the electrical and fuel systems put back together.

Electrical - All of the old electrical system is out. If we had tried to run the car at LeMons with it in the car we surely would have caught fire. Like everyone notes about these cars, the headlight wiring was rotten. The wiring to the lights in back didn't look so great either, and the fuse panel was broken and hanging down in front of the pedals. So, all wiring got pulled and I drew up a new wiring diagram and designed a new instrument/switch panel. We'll have FrontPanel Express make it for us. Driver comfort and information (gauges) are budget-exempt, but I wonder if making a pretty gauge cluster could earn us BS laps anyway. We'll use the original tachometer. It's mounting will be ugly. Hopefully that will help spare us the BS laps.

All of the lights were pulled off the car. They will all go back in except the headlights, even though they may go in at a later date when LeMons runs a true 24 hour race in our region. All of the lenses of the other lights are cracked and broken, but with a little glue and clear packing tape they should hold together, until someone hits us.

Fueling - We removed, examined, and reinstalled the fuel pump. It doesn't look at all like the ones in the books or the ones you can buy at Opel GT Source (OGTS), and they are not rebuildable by two guys working in a carport. We'll eventually replace it with a newer, more standard, model. Probably the rebuilt pump from the parts car.

The fuel lines got a looking at and being old and hard plastic, they will be replaced. Following it to the back of the car all looked OK, until we got to the gas tank. The gas tank had rotted out. There were two big holes large enough to get 2 and 4 fingers through, plus a number of other smaller holes. We weren't going to be repairing this one. Back to OpelGT.com for ideas, searching and reading, we discovered that we could get a duplicate tank made out of aluminum. Cost, $499 plus shipping from the east coast. We didn't want to have to buy a new tank, but that sounded nice. We considered getting a fuel cell, but were warned that by the time it and all the extra parts we'd need were installed we'd be looking at $700 minimum. On top of that, what are the chances we could find one to fit in the closed space available? This car does not have a trunk.

Later that day we once again got help from the Opel community. The person we were placing an order for brake parts from at OGTS told us he'd ask around to see what he could find, and he soon called back with the name of a guy, Rodney, in Texas. We called, and a good Opel GT tank, cleaned and sealed, is now being prepared and will be here in 2-3 weeks. I should have the electrics done by then.

Brakes - Alan has been dealing with the drum brakes. As is normal, it seems, for drum brakes, it was a bitch getting the rusted-on drums off. Alan made up a wheel puller for the job, we hooked it up, and both drums came off with a bang. They sure were on there solid. Someone should invent a rust-based glue. He took the drums in for turning and one was too far gone. Yes, we finally get to rob something off the parts car! That turned out to be an even tougher job. One of the retaining clips had come off and the rear shoe was holding onto the drum. We both fought with that for over an hour before we resorted to the brute force approach using Alan's wheel puller again. We had that drum pulled out almost 3/4 inches and the shoe was still holding tight. We backed off before something exploded in our faces and tried a few things involving sticking a screw driver in and trying to move the shoes around. Back to pulling and turning, and suddenly the drum came off. We have no idea why, but now we do know why shops charge $60/hour. The first $30/hour for the work, and the second $30/hour for the aggravation. Anyway, that drum turned OK and now we are waiting for the parts from OGTS to arrive. We should have working brakes on the car by next Wednesday.

By the way, for disc pads and shoes, John at Evil Genius Racing will be taking care of that for us. He has a custom pad material that he uses on cars he prepares and will have pads and shoes made for us at only $10 or so more than Hawk Blues, which are available for the pads but not the shoes.

Suspension -What to do about the suspension? The car is known for a good amount of under-steer, and all of the photos we have seen showing the car cornering had the car leaning over to the point of being silly if not ugly if not scary.

Sway bars, a sport version of the front leaf springs, poly bushings and adjustable shocks, all that great stuff, are available from OGTS, but with everything else we need to replace on this car they are not in the budget. Our cheap suspension upgrade ideas include:

• Chopped rear coil springs and shackles for the front leaf springs to lower the car.
• Spring rubbers for the rear coil springs and rubber wedges inserted between the leaf springs and chassis to stiffen everything.
• Screw a second set of coil springs in with the ones that are on the car. This will stiffen the rear by double, probably too much.
• Make our own sway bars. They are just bent steel rods, right?

That's all we've been able to come up with so far. I am a bit concerned that if we stiffen and lower the ride, but don't do it right, because we don't have many options or ways to tune our approaches, that we'll just make things worse. Keep in mind that changing one aspect of the suspension geometry will change others along with it, and also that the spring rates for the stock springs are 150 pounds/inch while for the sportiest springs available it is 200 pounds/inch. Not that much different compared to what I've done to my Prelude, doubled the spring rates, and that is considered moderately stiff.

Actually, the rubber wedge and spring rubber techniques should be somewhat tunable. We could use different length wedges in front to in effect shorten the leaf springs (Are leaf springs progressive?) and different length rubber in the coils to turn off as many coils as we want. But this will be seat of pants tuning and will require track time, or midnight parking lot testing.

Speaking of rubber, so far just about every plastic and rubber part on the car has been cracked, rotten, brittle... useless. Hopefully the rubber bushings, protected in their mountings, will not look like the bump stops shown in the photo below. And now that I think of it, I wonder what the motor mounts are like.

Body - Obviously this comes last and while we are far from finishing the mechanical and electrical parts of the build, but we did have a go at sanding and checking the status of the bonding that is cracking, but so far none of us has the courage to start trying to pound out the damage on the right-front fender.

Sanding is sanding, but none of us have ever done it on a car before. A LeMons race car seems like a great opportunity to learn this. It looks like we'll be taking it down to the metal on many of the large sections, like the roof and doors. We're using a disc sander for most of this, but I've also got a detail sander that is working great for the tight spaces around windows, etc.

Bondo is a another new skill for us to learn, but before we mix up our own and start slathering it on, we have noticed that there is an awful lot this stuff on this car already. Other than the one fender, where damage is superficial, the body looks fine, but still there is almost 1/4" of bondo in front, around the headlights, and judging from the cracking, thick layers of bondo just about everywhere there might be seams in the sheet metal (The body panels on GTs were brazed on!) None of us are feeling like removing all of the old bondo and redoing it, and this is a LeMons race car after all, but still, we want it to look good from 20-30 feet and we don't want old bondo breaking off during the race and getting us a meatball flag.

On the inside, we are still cleaning off the tar and glue and after removing the fuel tank and wiper motor we cleared out the last, we hope, two rats nests. Again the meatball flag issue - up to this point I had had visions of being called in off the track because crap was flying off the car, that crap being walnut shells, olive seeds, and rats nest bedding, and stink. I think we're safe in this regard now. I am now back to the normal LeMons visions of regular car parts falling off.

Crew -So far it has just been Alan and I working on the car. Zep, Alan's son, plans to drive in August but until yesterday had been away at college. He is back now and ready to work. We're thinking of letting him gut the parts car, to experience the sweet smell of rural abandonment himself, an initiation. But, we are not that cruel, yet. Check back after the August race.

Also, big plus, Geoff has joined us for the build and will help crew. He has all the tools we do not have, has lots of experience pounding and welding metal, and lots of build experience, his current project being a rusted out 914. He's rebuilding our carburetors now and soon we'll have him building our air dam and splitter, and more.

So, this week ends with us putting parts back on the car, and adding crew. Not bad.

Three Observations

Alan and I are now two weeks into this project and it is going well. Part of this is because of the people we have met, if you can call it that, at OpelGT.com, and at the shops we have called and visited. True, the first people we talked to at our local NAPA didn't know what an Opel was, but "the old guy" there sure did, and they've been very helpful. The folks at Kragan really dug into their databases for us to help find parts for our little Corvette (Corvetteette?) and seemed to enjoy the challenge, although they never could find any Opel GT parts for us.

When searching for help with the starter solenoid I made a call to a Sacramento shop that Google pointed me to, and while they were not the right place, the manager there gave me the number of a guy he worked with who did rebuilds and could surely help. Turns out that guy did not do retail work, that the referrer kept trying to send him retail business anyway, but he was still game and dug into his books. He was sure the parts still existed, but sent me instead to Lehr Auto Electric to talk to Shawn. He was absolutely sure Shawn could take care of this for us. Shawn took our starter and got right back to us after the weekend with an offer for a replacement solenoid for $75, but also that he had repaired our starter! $25!

Our best resource, which is becoming a source of moral support as well, has been the OpelGT.com forum. People there have offered us free and almost free parts, trades on parts, and they have even set up a meet here in Davis, only blocks from my house it turns out, so I'll get to bring my questions to them in person. OpelGT.com has also helped with our starter, suspension, gas tank, and other issues, and while we did hear from people asking us to not trash the car for a LeMons race, and we explained that we are reviving but not restoring a barn-find and wanted to make the car nice, if still LeMony, and the forum admins set up a forum just for this sort of thing!

So observation 1, car people are pretty OK people.

Our other observations had been about the car itself. The insurance paperwork in the car indicated that it had had been insured in Texas in 1983-84, the newest penny in the ash tray was from 1985, and an inspection sticker in the windshield said 1985. We figure 1985 was the last time the car was driven.

That insurance ticket also noted that the owner also had a '67 Dodge Dart! So, he likes interesting cars. That seemed to explain why the car was empty of fluids except new-looking oil in the crankcase. Also, the windows had been left rolled up. He knew how to store it. Well, maybe. We might have been a bit optimistic. It turns out that the gas tank had huge holes in it, corrosion, which explains why there was no fuel in the car. But still, considering how long the car has sat it looked pretty good, except for the sun damage to all of the plastic and rubber. Mostly, there was little corrosion on the body and the car was complete.

The final bit on this was that we finally cranked the motor and got good compression numbers. Maybe we do have reason to be optimistic.

Last observation. A car that has been sitting idle for some 25 years or so would be expected to have some problems, but we also look at it this way. The car has 25 fewer years wear and tear on the motor, transmission, and other running gear, than car that have been one the road all along. Seeing as we didn't need any of the interior, or the heater, and other comforts, in a LeMons race car, this was probably the ideal car for us.

First Week's Progress

At the end of each day it didn't seem like we accomplished much. We'd get hung up for hours fiddling with a starter, or trying to get a bolts off something, or more often breaking bolts. We still haven't started the engine. We haven't even cranked it.

So what do we have to show for a week's work? Plenty actually. First of all, the car doesn't stink anymore, and it is vermin-free. Cleaning this thing was a full-time job for several days. The car was full of rats nest bedding, olive seeds and walnut shells, one rat carcass, one bird carcass, maybe, we are not sure what it was, and one ant farm. Thankfully, no snakes. By the time we had all this crap out we had filled the shop vac twice and started filling it again. We're still finding more rats nest material when we get into a new part of the car, such as in the headlights. But, most of it is gone and I'm not nauseous any more. But, the parts car stinks!

So, the interior is finally empty. All creature comforts are gone, everything plastic is out, most of the glass is out, a good portion of the sound deadening is out, and we've started digging into the mechanicals. Here are some highlights:

• Engine - It wouldn't crank so we took out the starter, opened it up, found a broken wire leading to the solenoid, repaired it, and the solenoid worked, but would not get power to the motor. Then, smoke came out of the solenoid and it quit working. Our fix was still good, so it must has shorted inside somewhere. The motor does run, however, and a few minutes on the Internet and few phone calls later, with some very helpful people on the other end, we found a shop that we were told would absolutely be able to help us. Great! That's much better than what NAPA and Kragan could do for use (Kragan - parts were listed, but not available, NAPA - "What's an Opel?") We'll know on Tuesday if our starter was fixed.
  
  
   
  
  
• Brakes - We pulled the rotors and got them resurfaced and the broken lug replaced. The people at Vander Hamm Goodyear were great and got it done right away. The people we have met have been the best part of this project! We pulled the calipers but haven't disassembled them yet. We'll wait for the rebuild parts to arrive first.
  
  Alan had to make up a jig to pull the rear drums. Man, were they stuck! When they finally broke loose they let out a really loud bang. I thought we had broken something. Once inside, the drums looked OK and the shoes had lots of life left on them. But, there was yet more critter crap to clean, mostly insect.
  
  
   
  
  
• Steering wheel - This has been impossible. We want to replace it with a quick-release Momo wheel but we can't get it off. We talked to Keith today (he offered us some of his spare parts) and he is nearly finished rebuilding his beautiful red GT, and told us he could never get his wheel off either. It may be time to break out the saws-all.
  
  
• Lights - All lights have been removed, and all are intact and working, but they could look better. We'll put them back in and the tail and trim lights will be wired up, and the brake lights, but we won't need the headlights or turn signals.
  
  
   
  
  
• Fuel Pump - we pulled it to inspect it, but it doesn't look anything like the one in our books or like the one on our parts car. We cleaned it and will reinstall it without opening it up because we might not be able to find parts for it. We'll rebuild the pump from the parts car and will take it to the track as a spare. Spending money on spare parts doesn't count towards our $500 build budget, right?
  
  
• Fuel Tank - It looks OK, but it has been known for a few problems, such as a dead sender (easy to fix), a brittle vent hose that fills the car with gas fumes (fixable, cheap), and brittle plastic fuel lines (we've got aluminum tubing already). But, there doesn't seem to be any gas in the car, per the smell test, and opening the fuel lines test. We're thinking of trying to flush it with something, not sure what, to make sure all rust and crap are gone before we install the new fuel lines and a second fuel filter (near the tank). By the way, any fuel system work we do, up to the fuel pump, which on this car is on the engine, are exempt from the budget limits. Safety first!
  
  
• Electrical - we've already pulled most of the wiring out of the car and will rewire it ourselves. It will be a much simpler system without having to wire up all the accessories, fans, etc. The new circuit design, including our gauge panel, is done and we'll start rewiring the car soon. I've got tons of wire and connectors in my shop so that shouldn't compromise our budget, and as for gauges, they are allowed under the "driver comfort" exception.
  
  
   
  
  
• Suspension - We're not sure what to do here. There are some nice after-market parts available that will stiffen the suspension and lower the car, but it's not possible on our budget. We could cut the real coil springs to lower and stiffen the rear (the car is know for significant understeer) and make up some simple shackles to lower the front. As for stiffening the front, I keep mentioning rubber blocks and Alan keep laughing at me. Still, I think rubber blocks, or wedges, shoved in the effectively shorted the leaf springs, will do the trick. Did I mention that the front springs are leaf springs. Yes, we've got a 19th century buggy suspension in front. Oh, and like just about every rubber and plastic part on thsi car, the rubber suspension parts look aweful. We're hoping that lots of WD-40 or Amour All will keep them alive long enough to get through one race.
  
  
• Tires - We're abandoning the 13" wheels that came with the car in favor of 14" Miata or E30 wheels. There just isn't much available in 13" tires.

Now that we've had a chance to carefully look over the car we've been able to make up a parts list and will start ordering stuff tomorrow. We've still got more cleaning and inspecting to do, and it may be time to start on the body work.