Today I did some exploratory unbolting and bleeding to see what I'm in for. But before that I test fit my magnets. Yep, looks good:
Engine bay has had its first degrease and wash down. Consequently, work commenced in this general area:
Road rims and tires are +40 offset. Stock offset is +49 and I'm allowed +/- 7mm in HS class. The right front tire was rubbing under hard corners and after inspecting the strut mount I see that it's not even centred. Unbolting it under load showed the centre hole of the strut mount had been flogged pretty hard, suggesting that the top nut had been loose at some stage in life (shown with min camber and no caster adjustment:
With Cagare's help these were adjusted to a trade of max camber vs. max caster, i.e. cranked inwards and backwards at a 45 degree angle.
I was thinking I may have to drop the struts to adjust camber but it turns out all I have to do is loosen the centre nut. Picture of the front right wheel well with all the important bolts Kroiled up:
Rear bushing of the front right control arm... cracked rubber is packing every single important bushing under the front of the car:
Bit of oil resting on the AC compressor. Apparently the AC is borked, but IDGAF:
Exhaust manifold showing a little flat spot and a missing nut on the 3 bolt connecting flange. It's been missing for a while:
Screwdriver is pointing at the plastic bushing on the gear selector. This wears thin on two sides but can be rotated 90° so that its former thickness is back in play (
details found here). This makes a surprisingly large difference in reducing shifter play:
All four frame bolts on the transmission mount be spinning freely. Centre bolt was tight, but all the rubber is torn to pieces:
Even just tightening the four bolts has made a lot of difference in removing engine movement.
I was given three rims with the car. This one looks like it was dropped and may just need to be an emergency spare. There's no way I'm driving hard on that in case it's hiding a fracture which lets go at the worst possible time:
Air intake tube was loose. Just so happened to have extra hose clamps in my toolbox:
During my progress there was a heavily rusted bolt on the exhaust manifold heat shield. the bolt head was less than 8mm and my socket was spinning. 7mm wouldn't do it so I had to shim my socket with some tin plate I snipped off an acid brush handle:
Replaced it with a non-rusted bolt I happened to have playing around (hoarder).
Right rear studs, one is short. Good job I have new ones coming:
Right rear wheel well:
25 or 26mm Eibach rear sway bar and a rusty rear sub frame:
- Took her for a test drive after the sloppy gear selector mod and after I tightened as much as I could in the engine bay and she feels completely different now. I don't feel like she's going to crap out if I thrash the engine and toss her around a bit.
- Also used up two cans of brake cleaner to degrease the underside. There's a bit of oil sitting here and there and it would be nice to be able to track it. The steering rack was soaked in oil.
- The air box has plastic clips which hold it down into rubber grommets in the body. One of the clips was broken and I was contemplating finding a used replacement, but then, naaaah she'll be fine as the filter is downstream of the holes in the air box.