Glad this car is a hobby

[spidernut]

It isn't always nice to pick on prior owners, but they're often such easy targets. As I dig deeper and deeper into my 80 Spider project, I realize that it is going to be quite the interesting project for certain. Why?...some of it is just the age of the car and other parts are the interesting things prior owners have done.

Here's what I found tonight...

1. Removed Air Filter Canister (three clips were missing)
2. Removed air flow meter, found it was a rebuilt unit
3. Removed the bottom part of the air filter canister and found the lower radiator hose that looks older than the car itself has a major kink in it because it is the wrong hose. The bottom hose clamp wasn't even connected at the radiator. It was extremely rusted, so I'm sure it has been there a very long time. Surprisingly, it didn't leak.
4. Removed the hose to the plenum, and found the exhaust manifold heat shield had a weld repair around one of the mounting bolts.
5. Removed the heat shield a substantial crack in the exhaust manifold. I can't hear a leak when it runs, but the crack is there nonetheless.
6. Removed the plenum heater and one side of the mounting bracket is broken off
7. Removed the accelerator cable and found that it was not secured at the plenum (it could have just fallen off)

I'm glad to have a project to keep me busy and off the couch, but now I need to find an exhaust manifold for an EFI head, find the clips to the intake canister and maybe find another plenum heater. The ones on Ebay are a bit expensive to say the least and I don't want to pour a ton of money into this one...just want to put her back to good operating condition.

It tells me that I need to dig really deep on this one to make sure everything is O.K. It sure is different that the condition of my 79 when I bought it! Looks like fun days ahead

[aj81spider]

I can sympathize! I bought two because I work slow and found I never had a car to drive. I have a firm rule - only one car can be disassembled at a time. Unfortunately the cars don't always cooperate. Right now I can't drive one when there is a chance of rain (waiting for a wiper motor to be delivered) and can't drive the other on the highway (need to install a new speedometer cable - incredible screeching sound when over 50 mph).

Like you I curse the PO, but I may have to keep these two forever so no one is cursing me!

[maytag]

I sure hope y'all never own a car that I owned when I was younger!