It's alive... ALIVE!
Today I decided to start the process of dropping the cradle on my parts car. I disconnected everything on the top side of the engine, put it's original steering column back in, and then decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to drop the cradle where the car now sits. It sits on the part of our RV driveway that has broken off from the rest, and is now tilted towards the neighbor's yard. I could just see the cradle on my home-made cradle dolly, with casters, rolling over to the neighbors yard. So I decided that the car has to move.
So I decided to work on the club Formula for a while. First I put in that trunk lock that I had bought a while back. It works fine. Then I decoded to replace the ignition switch with the one I bought a while back.
Now I had this battery in my garage that I had replaced over a year ago, and put on a battery rejuvenator, where it's sat all this time. So I put it in the Formula, thinking that maybe I could spin the engine and circulate the oil. Turns out that the battery is as good as new. The engine spun good, with good oil pressure. So I stole a spark plug wire from my parts car and replaced the broken one. BTW, the frayed wire I found in the center console doesn't look like anything to do with the engine.
After some sputtering, the car started up and ran. It sounds like a cylinder is missing -- could be my replacement spark plug wire -- but it runs. Maybe I'll put some injector cleaner in it tomorrow and see what that does. But now, at least, I can move it if I have to.
I also had a copy made of the one door key we had, so now I have two complete sets of keys to the car.
Oh, yeah, one strange thing about the car. The steering column is a manual transmission column. but the transmission stick is also connected. So to turn the key to the lock position, you not only have to put the car in park, but you also have to push down the lever that manual cars have.
