1971 Firebird Build ("The Other Woman", a.k.a. Project "T.O.W.")

[carbuff]

Originally Posted by joerob727

Little known secret (not after this post I'm afraid) Babe's does take out! We call in a big a$$ order and then draw straws to see who makes the run (helps if straws are drawn B-4 cold beverages are passed out). Then hang out in the RV campground and dine by the romantic glow of tail lights.

Funny you say that. As I was waiting, I was noticing the people leaving with the big plastic bags full of food! Thankfully as a party of 1 my wait was short. Good stuff though!

Originally Posted by joerob727

It was great meeting you and checking out T.O.W. this weekend. Missed you on Sunday but it was great watching you run Friday and Saturday. Not sure what I enjoyed more watching you run or checking your car out in the paddock. I fully expect to see you at or near the top of the leader board next year as you two get better acquainted.

Good luck at Harris Hill road, I'll have to keep an eye out for you at local events.

Joe

Thanx! Good to meet you as well... I ended up hitting the road early Sunday morning to get back to Austin before the traffic on 35 got busy, so I didn't get to the track. With the leaking PS rack, I didn't want to take any chances, but I hated not to come back out!

Turns out that Spokes, the local auto-cross club, was running one of there 2 annual events at H2R while we were in Fort Worth. Looks like it was a good course, so I definitely want to do that in the future.

Look forward to catching up again in FW next year!

[carbuff]

Thanx to Ridetech, TOW was weighed this weekend. Here are the results. Pretty well balanced for setting the ride height with a tape measure! Credit goes to Eric for the setup, I just sat in the car while he did the measuring.

[carbuff]

TOW got a new steering rack yesterday. I took her over to Eric's shop and dropped the pan under the spoiler/rack. We scratched our heads for a while because I had added RedLine synthetic PS fluid when we put everything together, but the fluid on the pan was green. It looked like motor oil, but there was none to be found coming from the engine.

Then I pulled a boot off of one end of the rack. After almost being doused by fluid, it was then obvious that the rack was the problem. As best we could tell, the rack comes prefilled with a green fluid, and apparently there is a ton of it in there. I mean a TON! We must have dumped a gallon of the stuff on the floor during the swap. Everytime we thought we were done, out came more.

The swap went smoothly for the most part (fluid spills notwithstanding). To get the rack out on the JRS subframe you have to remove the front LCA support, which just adds some extra time. And it's a bit harder to get to the steering u-joints with the front sheetmetal in place. But I got it done. This job took about 2x as long as I expected, so we were in a bit of a hurry to get the toe set, but we got it close enough and I drove her home. I'll get her to a shop for an alignment this week, and we should be good to drive for a while.

It's still a bit of a mystery why/how this rack failed. I did add some turn restrictors to the rack to keep the wheels from hitting the LCA's, but I cannot see why that would have caused any issues. It looks like they just bottom out against a solid metal flange. Hopefully this won't happen again in the near future! If so, I'll have to look at the PS pump. I do have a volume restrictor in there (from Wegner), so it is supposed to be balanced to the rack I'm using.

Most everything else looks pretty good under the car. We may have a small leak on the rear end housing, but it was hard to tell if it was fluid that blew back from the PS rack or not. I cleaned it all up and will check it again after a few more miles.

[glassman]

Thought so. Most likely a defective/poorly installed seal from the factory. Just another gremlin in our 2nd gens. I heard they dont have these problems on 1st gen's lol.....

Seriously though, glad you got it takin care of and just the loss of a 1/2 day or so and shes up and runnin.

Now go drive that baby the way she wants too!!!! Till the next thing breaks,

I plan on breakin sh$t for the next couple of years and just weedin out the bad stuff....

What was the inch of your steering wheel? 14 or 15?

Mike

[carbuff]

Mike,

I think this is the one I have:

http://www.sparcousa.com/product/r-323

I just walked down and measured it, and it's 13.5" outside diameter. Depending on how they measure, that's probably about right since the 330mm translated to about 13".

I'm sure I will break something else before it's all said and done. Hopefully not soon though. I need to arrange an alignment this week, then I'll start driving her pretty regularly!

[glassman]

Alignments nice and all, but once that thing is dialed i bet your going to eat up two sets of tires a year

thanx for checking on that wheel size, gonna order me up one.

Went to one of my customers today, he had a Ferrari California in the garage and he was sayin "wow, this thing really eats up tires" so i looked down at the tread wear rating "140", then i rubbed my thumb across the rubber, almost like chewing gum....sic car....

[carbuff]

Waking up this old thread... I have my first track day scheduled for tomorrow with TOW. We have a local track called The Driveway that does schools at various levels. I haven't been there before, so this should be fun. It's an all day school, there will be 9 participants from what I was told.

And in typical Austin fashion, we have all sorts of closures around here due to the 'ice' storm (that never happened), and I'll be on the track with 68* degree weather tomorrow.

[gerno]

Which track are you headed to?

[Flash68]

Right on. Don't forgot your GoPro so we can see/hear some action.

[carbuff]

Driveway

Unfortunately I don't have a GoPro yet! I need to pick one up this year...