Ordered pump gears. Put car back together. Pumped oil. Bingo.
A few days later I took the car for its shakedown run. Went about 2 miles down the road, car was getting warm. Sat in the parking lot for a bit then drove home to start bleeding coolant. On my way, the car just shut off. So I coasted into a parking lot about a half mile from my house. After checking fuel pressure, fuses, relays..decided it was time to call Travis up for a tow.
We got home, pushed it into the garage. He pulled the oil cap off and we cranked the car..exhaust cam wasn't spinning. Pulled the valve cover off to find the exhaust cam bolt backed itself off enough for the sprocket to wiggle off. Pulled the head off that night to see 2 bent valves on cylinder #2. Over the next week it went to the machine shop, valves got replaced, lash got set and I had it home. While I was putting everything back on, one of the washer from my ARP headstuds fell in the front timing cover and got lodged under the timing chain and sprocket, which resulted in pulling the pan, and front cover to make the project a bit more fun.
Once the car was back together and a few shake down runs were done I spent some time polishing and sealing my paint which collected dust all winter.
I always found that everytime I had to remove the eyelet and wire from my speedhut coolant temp gauge, the sending unit never worked after that. Friend gave me the connector from a foxbody mustang, which just slips over the threads. Shouldn't have that issue again. Ended up re-wiring and tidying up my cluster wiring with a spare cluster subharness I had since I was unsatisifed with my results over the winter.
At one point I was having issues again with my charging system. Turned out, my alternator had shit the best. Warrantied it and re-installed. Bought a sheet of black textured ABS plastic and a $5 amazon volts gauge and made a small piece to fit in the cluster surround. I'm not sure how long it will stay. Its nice to have a diagnostics tool, but it makes the car feel cluttered to me. I might just invest in one of the positive battery terminals that displays voltage.
Two fridays ago I was driving home from work and noticed my defi gauges shut off. Then my radio..then my wideband started doing weird shit. As I pushed in the clutch to go into a parking lot the car died. Who would've guessed...more charging system issues.
When I got the car home and started to test the alternator, when I reached in the positive wire from my lower harness to my alternator fried itself off the connector. After pulling down my lower harness, when I extended the alternator power and ground I used two metal screw in type connectors and wrapped them in electrical tape. For whatever reason, it worked for 3 years and now the electrical tape moved and caused them to arc on eachother. Luckily it burnt the eyelet connector before it hit the fusebox or caught on fire. I had a different connector from over the winter, staggered my connections and shrink wrapped over them so this problem can't ever occur again.
Its been a summer of headaches for sure. But I have about 1100 miles on the car and couldn't be happier. Still chasing a weird ignition issue over 15PSI though. 4 brand new coil packs didn't fix it either. Whatever. Homeboy from GRAVECO scooped a cool picture of Travis and I chillin which doesn't feature his outlaw, for once.
