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.
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