Another Darksider Rides Again - 11/19/2005

Today was going to be the day. All we needed was to check the steering and add new mirrors and the car could go home...



Good thing this rag joint was replaced. It disintegrated upon touching.



Old universal mirror is removed and new mounting hardware (original factory replacement) is added.



New mirror is installed. It's the shiniest\nicest piece on this entire car. It's hilarious.



Gee. Look at this special piece of hardware. Since I bet this car didn't come with one (PHS en route) they probably drilled holes in the body to attach it. Hopefully they match the holes needed for the new mirror...



...and they don't. One hole lines up fine, but the others won't work. So I need to drill a new hole. But the good news is that the hole once drilled will allow the new mirror to cover up the existing holes. Then I can be really safe with 3 mirrors!



Lisa came along to help today!

We had a scare on the way home. It developed one nasty lean shudder. Apparently it was starving for fuel. Returning to Steve's, we discovered a kink in the fuel line and a very low gas bowl. Apparently it was starving for fuel. The power piston just fell out without effort, probably contributing to the condition. Unkinking the fuel lines and re-adjusting float settings was accomplished in 35 minutes and everything went off without a hitch on the test drive and subsequent ride home.



And another darksider rides again to make it home without incident! It smelled like something was burning once I got it up to 65MPH for a while and I started to freak. Then I realized that the paint was probably curing (aka burning off the exhaust ports) and the spider nest collection under the hood was probably burning away. Not to mention this car had a ton of leaks and we may have not caught them all.



Once home, I popped the hood and checked for leaks. No fuel leaking obvious, no power steering fluid apparent, no oil drips (one TINY spot from the rear main, but it takes 2-3 days to drip out of the car and onto the ground).



The engine has a vibration to it when running (who can blame it? It did a half-gainer off the back of a truck) but other than that it seems to run well. It gets off the line slowly, but 2.56 rear gears will do that. Going up hills isn't terribly pleasant either but 2.56 rear gears probably don't help that out much either. It seemed to do highway cruising and around town cruising quite well. Not too sure the accuracy of the speedometer, I paced someone going 50MPH through a mobile speed scanner and the needle was bouncing between 45 and 50, so it's reasonably close. I'll need to lube the hell out of that speedometer cable since it bounces around so much above 60 (bounces between 60 and 75). That's old hat since I've done it so much lately.

Manual drums are an experience. You have "oh crap" braking ability, but it's largely governed by your ability to stand on that pedal. So my left leg will get buff as hades driving this car around while the brakes are in this configuration. The right rear tail lights also are still acting up. I need to fix the ground problem with both of those lights and it will probably be fixed. Right now it turns the night-time portion on when you brake and the turn signal only runs the night-time portion as well (not the brighter stop\turn signal filament). It's a simple electrical circuit though, so I should get it in no time. I'm going to take this car to the carwash tomorrow and tell them they better not scratch it or put any rips in my seats, or I'm taking it out of their tip.

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Last updated November 19th, 2005