I finally got the order placed for the last few items I needed to get the clutch working. The plan was to get them in time for the long 4th of July weekend, so I could have everything ready for when the slave cylinder finally arrived.
As luck would have it, when checking the status of the order on the new parts, I noticed that the slave cylinder had finally shipped as well! The slave arrived first, so I installed that and put the lower hard line on to determine where everything bolted up. The next day, the bracket, extra bolts, and master cylinder reservoir showed up. I only had a small amount of time that night, so I installed the bracket and finally had all the lines in place. As the picture below shows, the new reservoir came with new seals and a new pin that holds the reservoir to the master cylinder. Interestingly, the reservoir has a blue tint to it. I’ve included a couple of pictures showing the difference between the two reservoirs along with how it’s attached. It’s actually a pretty slick setup. The pin holding the old reservoir on came out fairly easy using a punch and a hammer to get the pin about halfway out, and then pulling it out the rest of the way with a pair of vice grips. Putting the new reservoir on was a little more tricky. First up, the seals need to be placed on the reservoir first and then the reservoir can be pushed into the master cylinder. Getting the pin pressed through was more challenging. I had to squeeze one end first to allow it to fit in the hole, and then ultimately used a small torx bit to use as something to hammer against.
Next up, I attached the flexible line from the clutch master to the master reservoir and filled the master with Motul brake fluid. Rather than just bleeding the clutch slave, I went ahead and took the time to bleed the brakes and get fresh Motul in the whole system. I have a nice bleeder that uses compressed air to suction the fluid through, so it’s an “easy” one man job. I took my time to make sure that fresh fluid made it’s way through. After doing all of the brakes, I hooked it up to the clutch slave and after a few moments, fresh fluid came out. I closed it up, got in the car and felt the best feeling so far, the clutch pedal seemed to actually work. After a few pumps, I went back down and bled a little more fluid through for good measure.
Next up was some cleanup around the car, putting the wheels back on and lowering the car to the ground. We set the camera phone to video, and recorded the first drive of the car as a 5 speed! Since the car is far from street legal now, all I could do was drive it around our townhouse complex. I don’t think my neighbors appreciated it, but I wound it up a bit in first and second and it seems to run great.
Particularly funny was when I started pulling it out of the garage and realized that having the key in the ignition was good for another reason….. While turning out of the garage, the steering lock engaged. Oops. A quick turn of the key and I was off.
Now I’m working on cleaning up the wiring in the passenger compartment. The most challenging part is figuring out what is needed and what isn’t. While the wiring diagrams are very helpful, I’m working it a little different. Basically I’m trying to go connector by connector to figure out what I need from each of the connectors. What I’ve decided will work best is to write down each of the wire colors in each connector and then trace them in the diagrams to determine what each one is for. It’s a lot of work, but ultimately it will make the job easier. As you can see from the picture, I have a big mess of wires right now. I picked up some heat shrink tubing along with other tubing to put the finished wiring in.
I also put hood pins on the front of the car. I purchased aluminum ones and have done the front so far. I placed the pins where the stock rubber stops go. There is a nice flat spot where these meet the hood, and the holes were a good size to put the pins through. Also, this made drilling through the first layer of the hood since there was an obvious point where the bump stops hit that portion. For the top portion of the hood, I snugged the pins down and then put a dab of whiteout on the top of each one and closed the hood on them to allow the whiteout to transfer. This showed me where the center of the drilling point needed to be. After drilling the holes to the appropriate size, I put the round aluminum protectors in place and riveted them to the hood. Lastly, I cut the tops off the bumpstops and placed them over the pins to allow the hood to still rest on the rubber. Next up is the trunk lid, and I hope to finish that up today. I did pull out all the latches for the hood and trunk lid, and it does save a little weight. More importantly, it’s less work to get into the car at each end.
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