Best laid plans

Post date: Oct 9, 2017 8:32:46 PM

Good news:

Got the hole cut out for the RH door handle and got the mechanical bypass for the trunk latch all set up.

The trunk was a bit odd. I made a L-shaped piece of 16ga sheet, stuck it in the keyway, wedged in a screw to hold it in place, then connected to a bike brake cable. I managed to find 10' housings and 25' cable spools on Amazon, so I also replaced the LH door bypass with a single piece. Both work perfectly.

Now for the not so good news.

*) The engine would settle about 195deg running around town. In traffic with the A/C would sit at 215deg, and it'd start getting really unhappy. On a lark I put the mechanical fan back in yesterday. I've only gone for a short drive, but trying to dog it with the A/C running it didn't go above 188deg. I'm not sure more fan is an option other than the Mark VIII - maybe? Even then, my experience with the nixie power supply has me convinced that I wouldn't be able to make a PWM power section, which means buying an aftermarket unit and either ditching the arduino or hacking it into the other unit's control scheme. All of which is terrible and/or expensive.

*) The manual and power holes in the brake pedal are only about 2" apart. I drilled a hole about 1/3 down from the manual hole. It's still twitchy, but doesn't have the brief hangup like the manual hole does. Going to shop around for a different mount, or see if the Denton guy would make one that uses the upper hole.

*) Talked to three shops for body work. All are 3 to 6 months backlogged, one said the work would take 3 months, another said 6 months, last said 12 months. One was double my budget, the others were pretty close. Only one guy seemed really excited by the project. Still want to go to another two or three shops then put my chips down.