So, What's Next?

Despite looking nearly done, I still have quite a few things to do.

Some of the simple items still do do are as follows.

Bleed the brakes. This is pretty simple, I just need to get someone over here to help out. I may also take this as an opportunity to pick up a motive pressure bleeder. http://www.motiveproducts.com/

Replace the slave cylinder on the clutch. This is a simple task, it will also require bleeding the system. Again straight forward, will probably take some time under the car and its already quite messy around it.

Finish the seat/harness installation. This will involve removing the bracket from the seat. Mounting the bracket to the car. Locate the final rear holes and drill them. Mount the bracket to the car. I will then mount the seat to the bracket. At this point, I can then locate the brace mounting locations and start scoping out the sub belt mounting locations.

I need to actually mount the battery. I am pretty sure the car was missing some of the battery mounting hardware when I bought it. So this will be a matter of locating replacement hardware or fabbing up a new hold down.

I need to pressure wash the engine bay. Its nasty. There is so much gunk under there its hard to tell if there are active leaks or if its just the remnants of 20 years of driving, oil spillage and former leaks. Luckily it does not appear to drop any oil while sitting so I am taking that as a good sign. However, definitely not a certainty.

The Advanced autoparts commercial just reminded me that I also need to get some wipers. Outside of that reminder, I also need to get a transponder, wheels, tires, and a fire bottle. I also think I am going to rework the lower mounting of the window net.

While I am at it, I will throw on some hood pins, radiator screen.

When all of the above is done, it will be time to mount the hard top, address the looks of the car. i.e. the areas with peeling paint. Change all of the fluids with race fluids and take it to the track.

Outside of the purchase of wheels and tires, none of the above items are large or overly expensive items.

A lot of progress since the last post.

As you can tell from the above photos, I have been neglecting this site some. So, I am on here to bring it back up to speed. Since the last post, I have reinstalled the dash. There was a little additional trimming that had to be applied to the dash. Overall, the dash was pretty easy to reinstall. There was one exception to this. Getting the defrost vents back in was a bit of a challenge. The rest of the ductwork was removed to accomodate for the under dash bar on the roll cage.

I also reinstalled the steering column, long with my steering wheel disconnect and steering wheel. I disabled the steering lock before doing so. The disconnect is a quality piece. It has a great fit, finish, and feel. It also seems to be very well engineered.

The kill switch was finished up and tested. I ended up breaking the battery terminal on the new cable so I also had to replace that. All terminals are covered to help prevent any chance of shorting against an exposed terminal.



In retrospect, I should have installed the fire plates before the roll cage. It was still possible to install them but driving in the hardware was a bit difficult. To drive in the self tapping screws I ended up using my drill with a 1/4" drive bit and a 6" 1/4" extension. It actually worked pretty well.

Four of the six points of the harness are now in place. I still need to mount the sub-strap. I really want the seat mounted in its final position before mounting the sub strap. I will allow me to make sure I am drilling the right holes in the floor. The lap belt mounts on the existing lap belt holes. The shoulder harnesses wrap around the roll cage. They are held in place with a couple shaft collars from McMaster. The seat back brace mount is now in place, I once again need the seat mounted to finish the seat back brace.

The rear deck was sealed up with fire resistant latex sealant, and foil tape. This was time consuming, a little messy, but not difficult to do.

The fuel filler tube is now back in place.

I added the roll bar padding, I am sure that I will need to trim it here and there.

I bypassed the heater core. Initially I purchased a length of 5/8" heater hose. While this did manage to connect the two outlets on the engine, it kinked due to the 180 degree bend required. I ended up purchasing a preformed portion with a 90 degree turn in it. The hose is stiffer and with the preformed 90 degree bend it kept it from kinking.



I took this has an opportunity to replace the vacuum line that I previously replaced. The small vacuum line that I replaced has an orifice in it. Well I neglected to notice that initially. The one that is on there now is a preformed hose, with a new orifice.