cruising in the heat

[azruss]

Wifey wanted to hit B & R last night, so grabbed the spider. Noticed a very annoying rattle at low revs. Sounded like exhaust. crawled under the car this afternoon and found all the bolts on the downstream side of the cat loose. (new exhaust from there out). There was a seal installed that has apparently settled in. Checked the tranny fluid while under there. All, ok. took the car out tonight at sunset. Temp at 100F. Without the pounding sun, it was quite delightful. Rattle completely gone. Temp gage is showing a little higher (needle normally is a few degrees left of straight down. Tonight was straight down). Fan is running all the time in the stop and go traffic. Heater is off. I would say this is quite normal for the conditions. I big sigh of relief as this was my biggest concern for summer driving in the Arizona furnace. No mods to the coolant system. Just new, stock, and bled. the best part is watching the wife delight in all the cruises. Its like she looks for an excuse to drag the car out...which is just fine with me. Still have a lot of brake pedal travel i havent solved yet. brakes are good once the pedal gets there. We talked about how long we have been doing evening a night cruises in a 124. Started in 1971 continuously to 1993 when i retired the car. Its nice to be back in the saddle again.

[V12StealthHunter]

The brake pedal travel thing is down to adjustment in the master cylinder. Its an easy fix. People usually go mad trying to bleed the car upside down trying to get every little bit of air out but its almost always the acorn nut that just needed adjustment. Do a search on the forum its quite a common issue.

[azruss]

I did the acorn nut adjust and it helped some. Dont know if this means i have a bad vaccuum assist. I guess I need to drive someone else's spider to see if mine has the normal travel.

[fiat218]

I agree it is nice to do the evening drives, putts along,no hurry to go anywhere