What Did You Do To Your Car Today?

ttocs · Dec 20, 2020

yesterday was my fathers birthday and my brother and I got him the dash camera he asked for. I went to install it today and he wanted to watch so who am I to say no? I had to laugh as every install bay I worked in had a strict NO CUSTOMERS policy that was only occasionally broken for them to give instructions or something. We never let them sit in the drivers seat while we di the work but again its dad and what is the worst that could happen? I got to the point I needed to get the car out of park so I could remove the dash trim around it and asked him to go get his keys. On his way back probably 5 ft from the car he ripped one of his famous 8 second 4 tone level 3 farts. Not the funny level 2 sounding fart but right on the edge of where you want to ask if he needed to wipe, but I did not want to know that answer. I figured he was far enough away and still had to go around the door to get in so I should be safe. He gets back in and puts the key in, I shift to neutral and start to remove the trim when the waft hits me. It was one of those wafts where you can almost feel the humidity rise around your face and you feel slightly violated. I didn't mind him watching but this was just too much so I bailed for fresh air outside of the garage. It was actually bad enough to chase him out as well and 3 secs later he bailed as well and it was then that I realized its still in neutral... Thankfully I was behind it and could hold it while he got back in to put it in park. What we do for family....

white95 · Dec 20, 2020

RAU03MACH · Dec 20, 2020

Got the engine out of my cobra yesterday
I will start to tare it down to the block find out WTF happened

joe65 · Dec 22, 2020

warmed mine up yesterday and drove it to the bank. window wouldn't go down...son of a..lol. oh well had fun just driving the thing. its been a couple weeks since it got to cold and snowy to pull it out of the garage. Man i just really like driving the SN.

white95 · Dec 22, 2020

(Yesterday)

Permanently installed the Cobra hood!

Boostr1 · Dec 22, 2020

Werecow said:
Cherry Bomb first fire... Maybe????

Sooo got the carb back on as y'all can see here...View attachment 8404
Some of the more observant of you may have noticed the 90 deg elbow on the carb fuel line... That's cause of the frakkin huge distributor!!! K next... Needed to clean out the nasty radiator... Got that covered too!! View attachment 8405

Any questions, just ask, if you wanna do it, MASK UP THE FUMES CAN SRSLY MESS UP YOUR LUNGS!!! Anyhoooooo it did a great job!! Next plugs and plug wires... View attachment 8406

BTW, the big round black thing right above the no 8 plug you're looking at, that's the brake booster....

View attachment 8407
I kinda lucked up on the plug wires, I was able to reuse the wires from my 460 after I got the firing order fixed. Found out 351M and 460 have a different firing order so that was a blast getting the wires all lined out. Finally got all the wiring lined out, made sure the hot I had for the fuel pump had a fusable link on it. Heat shrink on all connections.. fuel lines hooked up pressure set.. ready for the big moment... Please do bear in mind, this engine has not cranked up in almost 11 years!!! I did record it.. this was the very first try, not after several attempts....

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ByEHDUSamsdUvjBXA

After this I did discover one plug wire wasn't on good, and I think the intake manifold gasket is leaking from underneath, thus causing the low vacuum. The timing chain also has almost 1 in of slack in it as well, found this when I had the old fuel pump out... But, given all that... After almost 11 years.... And the next day we went out and hit the gas about 5 times.... She lit right off!!!

/Me takes a bow.....

joe65 · Dec 22, 2020

Replaced the brake light today.

white95 · Dec 23, 2020

New new shift knob!

Now I need to finally use the mint shift bezel and boot I’ve been stashing. That’s apparently a different color

ttocs · Dec 23, 2020

white95 said:
New new shift knob!

View attachment 8523

Now I need to finally use the mint shift bezel and boot I’ve been stashing. That’s apparently a different color

View attachment 8524

do you still need that handle? Its been a crazy week with my brother in town and it slipped my mind till I went into the garage today and saw the handle.

I finally got out today to get the wheels in the air. I have been wanting to do this for a few weeks now but with family in town I have not been in the garage much. Since the shake down drives I have been wanting to just get under it and check for any new loose bolts/nuts, look for leaks or other problems. I changed the oil just so I could inspect it as its not old at all and it looked good. I actually still have to fill the oil tomorrow but after I install the low oil level sensor, I had to stop to get gasket material to make a gasket for the sensor. I did manage to finish changing the oil in the supercharger for the first time. It recommends the first change at 2500 miles and I know I am not near that # but it does have some time on it idling while I was tuning so it was better safe than sorry.

amf201091 · Dec 23, 2020

Did the spark plugs for the first time on an SN95. The second to last plug on the passenger side was a PITA with the fuel rail being nearly in the way. So I went to Harbor Freight and got a swivel socket adapter which helped tremendously. Then I wrestled with putting the coil back onto the spark plug for 10 minutes. After a few colorful words and asking God where I went wrong in my life, I noticed that the rubber inside of my spark plug socket (Autozone special) came off on the spark plug...

Also bought me a radiator compression tester which I used and have fallen in love with. Looks like I'll be replacing the thermostat housing gasket underneath tomorrow.

ttocs · Dec 23, 2020

amf201091 said:
Did the spark plugs for the first time on an SN95. The second to last plug on the passenger side was a PITA with the fuel rail being nearly in the way. So I went to Harbor Freight and got a swivel socket adapter which helped tremendously. Then I wrestled with putting the coil back onto the spark plug for 10 minutes. After a few colorful words and asking God where I went wrong in my life, I noticed that the rubber inside of my spark plug socket (Autozone special) came off on the spark plug... Also bought me a radiator compression tester which I used and have fallen in love with. Looks like I'll be replacing the thermostat housing gasket underneath tomorrow.

if it was your first time hopefully you can learn from my mistake. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS compare your old plug to a new one to be sure you got the right plugs. I got a real dipshit at vatozone that did not seem to understand that my trickflow heads didn't use stock plugs and got the plugs for a stock 94. I didn't compare them and put them in and then struggled with issues for a while with plugs fouling. I Finally went back and got a new correct set and discovered the difference between them and the ones I had in there.

amf201091 · Dec 24, 2020

ttocs said:
if it was your first time hopefully you can learn from my mistake. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS compare your old plug to a new one to be sure you got the right plugs. I got a real dipshit at vatozone that did not seem to understand that my trickflow heads didn't use stock plugs and got the plugs for a stock 94. I didn't compare them and put them in and then struggled with issues for a while with plugs fouling. I Finally went back and got a new correct set and discovered the difference between them and the ones I had in there.

In hindsight, I probably should have removed a spark plug before buying new ones since the car is a recent purchase and I had no idea what was in it. I just got the BOSCH pre-gapped, double iridium. Being a previous BMW owner (E39!) I was familiar with BOSCH.

ttocs · Dec 24, 2020

amf201091 said:
In hindsight, I probably should have removed a spark plug before buying new ones since the car is a recent purchase and I had no idea what was in it. I just got the BOSCH pre-gapped, double iridium. Being a previous BMW owner (E39!) I was familiar with BOSCH.

just an fyi the people I know and trust say that these old pushrods like a nice simple autolite plug instead of all the new fancy names. Its all I have used.

RAU03MACH · Dec 24, 2020

I have bad luck with autolite
And I know that autolite is a made under the same roof of the ford house as motorcraft
I always have better luck with motorcraft plugs

ttocs · Dec 26, 2020

I finally got my dash back together and got the AFR gauge and fuel level working as well. I wish the fuel level was digital to match the dash better but with the strange fuel sender resistance(18-159 ohms) there are not that many that will read it correctly. I also need to program the dash correctly for the oil level as well as the alternator warning but that will be next.

And to celebrate today I took my pops for a short ride in it. The trans is still making unhappy noises but I knew that was only a matter of time so a T56 magnum is in the plans. I might be bummed about the trans noises if it were not for the fact I am still just happy its starting up right away.
I was also happy to find some NIB cat converters on my local fb marketplace for 1/2 of retail. I had been wanting to put them back on for a while now and will when I take the x-pipe down for the trans swap.

tmwsccsh · Dec 27, 2020

Took the back seats out and the plasticy carpety thing under it and sucked all the water out from under there and also out of the plasticy carpety thing - tons of it.

Dried out the entire under-seat floor pan (found a dime! Ok, not impressive but is when you think the car has been here in the UK for about 15 years...).

Sucked a load of water out of the rear carpet.

Then poured about 6 litres of water over the rear of the convertible hood to see where the water appeared. And it didn't! It either dropped out the bottom just in front of the rear wheels (very slowly) or ran down a channel somewhere and loads came out the front just behind the wheels there - assume a drainage channel of some kind.

The 2x rear drains do seem slow but the path to the front was good and no more water appeared.

I am not excited - have left the rear seat and plasticy carpety thing out as well as the carpet behind the drivers seat being up and will see what happens on the next downpour - as in, do I get a build up of water there again or not...

TMW