CCFBG :: View topic - Back in a Formula Again

auto_god wrote:

As a bit of a follow up to the above post, today was the first day I drove the car since putting the new hinge pins & bushings in. I am absolutely blown away at how much fixing this has tightened up the structure of the car! The car is almost creak/rattle free now....the wallowing feeling it used to have over bumps, uneven pavement or during harder cornering has disappeared.

It seems I seriously underestimated the importance of having good door hinge pins & bushings on these cars (likely even of greater importance with a t-top car). I knew the door acts as part of the structure of the car when its closed but really wasn't prepared for the difference it makes.

In any case I'm extremely pleased with the results of my $15 & 1 hour of work!

Author:	Kensredzed [ Fri May 22, 2015 5:45 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
It's good that you caught that before becoming a "one man pile-up". Buy a lottery ticket ASAP! Cheers, Ken

Author:	auto_god [ Sat May 23, 2015 7:53 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
Looks better with the correct tire size on it finally! Finally ditched the old 225/60R16 hockey pucks that were on it. Hopefully there will be fewer unexpected sideways moments now! Lol! WP_20150522_19_14_08_Pro by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Author:	Kensredzed [ Sat May 23, 2015 9:32 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
Nice new shoes! They look great! Did you get the camera out and film a few donuts before changing the old tires? It's the only time it doesn't cost you any rubber. Cheers, Ken

Author:	auto_god [ Sat May 23, 2015 8:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
Kensredzed wrote: Nice new shoes! They look great! Did you get the camera out and film a few donuts before changing the old tires? It's the only time it doesn't cost you any rubber. Cheers, Ken Ordinarily that would be my standard send off to an old set of tires, however I chose not to in this case for 2 reasons. 1. The old tires had plenty of tread left on them, they were just getting old & were getting hard. Having said that, the sister of a good friend of mine (the guy with the Lincoln welder actually) is in desperate need of tires for her car.....which happen to be the same size as what I took off the Formula. I gave them away....hopefully it helps her out. 2. Until I get the spring perch welded back up on the RR axle, its probably best to resist the urge to play around like that .

Author:	Corp Z [ Sun May 24, 2015 5:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
What a nice ride. Good on ya for saving this car.

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Author:	auto_god [ Sun May 24, 2015 6:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
Spent this morning dealing with the spring perch. Sand blasted the affected area spotless clean & hit it with my MIG welder.....seems to be holding fine at this point......I'll be checking it on a regular basis for the next while, but I'm cautiously optimistic the issue is dealt with. Thankfully I chose to sandblast the area spotless clean rather than just clean it with my wire brush.....sandblasting revealed another small crack on one of the other welds that I hadn't noticed previously, so that got dealt with too. Looking back at the picture I posted above, the crack was clearly there but it didn't really grab my attention until I hit it with the sandblaster. Crack by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Author:	auto_god [ Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:48 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
Well, been over a month now & no issues with the spring perch so I'm gonna call that one resolved! Haven't had a lot of time to fiddle with the car (or drive it for that matter) lately, but finally got some time to resolve another issue that has been irritating me ever since I bought the car.......sagging drivers door! $15 & an hour of work later, & I now have a nice & smooth operating drivers door again to match the passenger side. No more slamming the door to get it to latch. Turns out half of the bushing on the top 2 pins was gone (as in not there, not worn out). In any case, it opens & closes like it did 25 years ago now. Also isolated the source of a God awful rattle that was annoying me. Since I've had the car the passenger side mirror has rattled like crazy, generating so much noise that I had visions of finding broken parts inside. After angling the mirror all the way in, I found 1 screw that holds the pivot mechanism to be loose.....I'm not talking falling out loose....if it took a 1/16th of a turn I'd be surprised, but noise is gone. All that racket from 1 screw mildly " not tight ". LOL! At least its dealt with now too! The more bugs I work out of it the bigger the smile it puts on my face! 20150701_164027 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Author:	auto_god [ Fri Jul 03, 2015 10:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
As a bit of a follow up to the above post, today was the first day I drove the car since putting the new hinge pins & bushings in. I am absolutely blown away at how much fixing this has tightened up the structure of the car! The car is almost creak/rattle free now....the wallowing feeling it used to have over bumps, uneven pavement or during harder cornering has disappeared. It seems I seriously underestimated the importance of having good door hinge pins & bushings on these cars (likely even of greater importance with a t-top car). I knew the door acts as part of the structure of the car when its closed but really wasn't prepared for the difference it makes. In any case I'm extremely pleased with the results of my $15 & 1 hour of work!

Author:	auto_god [ Fri Jul 17, 2015 4:02 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
So I had some spare time yesterday to tinker with the car. When I bought the car it had a CD changer mounted in the hatch & the controller stuck to the dash with velcro......I didn't like the look of it & wanted it gone so I set about removing it yesterday. For the most part everything went smoothly until I removed the radio out of the dash to remove the wiring for the FM modulator. After seeing the previous owners attempt at putting battery cable ends on the car, I really shouldn't have been surprised that he had a fire waiting to happen in my dash! Just manipulating the wire harness popped a fuse!! Had the usual rats nest of wires twisted together & wrapped in electrical tape going on in there with strands poking out causing shorts......damn! So 2 hours later after soldering & heat shrink wrapping every wire in the entire harness together properly I no longer have to worry about coming out from work to a burned out shell! 20150716_155218 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr Unfortunately the radio still doesn't work......I'll have to decide if I want to put an OE style radio back in it or give in & put an aftermarket head unit in even though it won't fit the original look I want to maintain......decisions, decisions......

Author:	Corp Z [ Tue Jul 21, 2015 2:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
auto_god wrote: As a bit of a follow up to the above post, today was the first day I drove the car since putting the new hinge pins & bushings in. I am absolutely blown away at how much fixing this has tightened up the structure of the car! The car is almost creak/rattle free now....the wallowing feeling it used to have over bumps, uneven pavement or during harder cornering has disappeared. It seems I seriously underestimated the importance of having good door hinge pins & bushings on these cars (likely even of greater importance with a t-top car). I knew the door acts as part of the structure of the car when its closed but really wasn't prepared for the difference it makes. In any case I'm extremely pleased with the results of my $15 & 1 hour of work! Thats good to hear/know. It makes me regret even more selling my GTA as its excessive rattling was one of my reasons.

Author:	auto_god [ Fri Jul 24, 2015 7:21 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
So this is the next thing that has been bugging me! 20150723_191544 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr 20150723_191554 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr Now that the door fits & aligns on the car correctly again it makes sense to put the new seals in. I was honestly expecting to remove the old seals & find some rust, but that didn't turn out to be the case. 20150723_184626 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr When I was ordering my new seals from RockAuto I discovered that there are 2 manufacturers of seals available, Metro & Fairchild. I didn't really think about it at the time & just figured out which was going to be cheaper & ordered them (I ordered & installed the Fairchild seals). After placing the order I got to thinking "Damn, I really should have gone on ThirdGen.org to research if one was better than the other". Doing so I discovered that the Metro ones apparently have/had fitment issues......dodged a bullet there!! But lesson drilled back into my head....research FIRST! In any case my Fairchild seals arrived, fit as they should & look MUCH better. I'm also happy to report that any squeaks or rattles that remained after the door hinge pin/bushing replacement, are now gone. 20150723_194720 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr Passenger side wasn't as bad, but happy with the improvement regardless! Before. 20150723_182822 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr 20150723_182841 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr After. 20150723_190822 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Author:	auto_god [ Sun Aug 23, 2015 1:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
Minor follow up to my dead radio. Found a good deal on an OE Delco Radio so I picked it up & popped it in. All is working as it should! Happy about the dash looking original. 20150820_203408 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr Started working on my next issue to attack. A while ago I decided to pop a new 160 deg thermostat in the car to let it run a little cooler. A 5 minute job I figured at most.......yeah right! Both thermostat housing bolts decided to break off in the intake manifold....Damn! I drilled & tapped the manifold & managed to get it all back together so the car is driveable again, but I don't 100% trust it, so I've been watching for another lower manifold to put on this winter when I put my cam in. Well, I finally found the right deal on one and brought it home to clean it up. Also decided to start giving it a port job before it goes on too. Lots of work to do yet, but looks like it should come out nicely. 20150821_170409 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Author:	auto_god [ Sun Aug 30, 2015 4:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
Been working away porting my new manifold & finally have it all finished up to my satisfaction....... 2 days later...... received_10156184775035556 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr Turns out my lack of trust was well founded! So the last few evenings have been spent pulling the old manifold off. Ready to start re-assembling! received_10156195591170556 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr

Author:	auto_god [ Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
Out with the old crappy looking, leaking lower manifold......... received_10156196497400556 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr ....and in with the fully ported, cleaned/degreased manifold. received_10156200795520556 by Shane Hewitt, on Flickr Decided to do the throttle body coolant bypass while everything was apart. Happy to report nothing is leaking! My driving impressions are that the car has a significant improvement in power at WOT. I did a few runs with Track Addict which also support what the butt dyno is telling me......car is noticeably quicker (it barks the tires going into second gear now). So while it was a fair bit of work that I really wasn't planning to do until this winter when I put the cam in, I'm very pleased with the results both aesthetically & performance-wise.

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Author:	auto_god [ Mon Oct 19, 2015 3:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Back in a Formula Again
So decided to spend some time with TunerPro & my emulation cable today getting the tune in the car dialed in. Given that my cam will be going in over the winter I want the current tune to be pretty spot on so that the pcm has it full range of correction available for when the car comes to life again in the spring (and I can start all over tuning! LOL!) Car is running extremely well now.....much crisper, especially during the open loop warm up period. Wish I would have done it sooner.......I had all sorts of datalogs showing me that it really did need some attention, but there always seemed to be something more urgent that needed to be done most days. Happy its done now though. At least I have another week or 2 to enjoy it!