We got the car running today. Which took more than we initially thought. The fuel tank was empty. So we filled that, charged the battery replaced the spark plugs, and ended up buying a new distributor cap and button.

Carb Cleaner or Brake Cleaner can be used as a poor man's starter fluid but be careful of too much of a good thing. While hosing it into the intake it backfired (aka exploded) and blew a lot of the hoses off from the intake and probably didn't help the nearly 30 year old intake electronics either. It also scared the sh!t out of me since I was the one doing the hosing while Craig mashed the gas pedal.

Ultimately it was my 'italian' tune-up suggestion (run it a long time at high RPM) and a can of Sea Foam magic fuel system cleaner that got it running under its own power and on all cylinders again. We also took the time to shore up the vaccuum lines with electrical tape in lieu of replacing.

We then drove it from secret location 1 to secret location 2. I was the pilot. The car has absolutely NO brakes. It also isn't registered, or insured and the windows don't roll down. And the door ajar chime is constantly going off. It was a pretty stressful ride, but it all ended well enough.

The second stage of making the car cool now begins. We began this process by removing the entire interior of the car and screwing the fog lights 'rally style' to the roof.

Labels: Democross