A Newer Project!

[njsteve]

I stopped by the bodyshop today to get an estimate for replacing the "targa panel" that has the factory defects from the adhesive bleed-through. I left the replacement panel with him so he could start prepping and painting it. Here is a shot from when I spent several days last summer removing it from the sawed-off roof section of a donor car. The bodyman indicated that it will be much easier for him to remove the existing panel from the car since it does not need to be salvaged and he can use heat from the painted side to loosen the adhesive.

[njsteve]

I tackled the spark plug and wire set challenge yesterday. Boy is that an insane job. Plugs 1,3,5, and 7 can be done with a minimum of effort, while lying across the front end of the car with your arms pretzeled along the side of the engine. Plugs 2, 4 and 6 require the smog tube to be disconnected from the manifold to give you some room to get your hand in. Luckily the bolts came out without breaking due to the low mileage.

Number 8 has to be done from under the car, sticking your arm straight up alongside the block. The hardest thing is using two fingers (because that's all the room you have) to pull the plug wire off the plug and coil. I could have used some of Bruce Lee's <span style="font-style: italic">&quot;One Inch Death Punch&quot;</span> training to get the finger strength to work in that tiny work area.

And of course, GM had to sharpen all the edges of every pointy piece of metal and shielding in the general area of the plugs and wires. At the moment, my right arm looks like it lost a fight with a rabid honey badger.

The original Denso PTJ16R15 12563707 plugs were still in the engine. They look like they were burning nicely but the gaps had worn to over .060 over 14 years of running. I replaced them with some regular copper ACDelcos. She idles much more smoothly now.