Ooh Barracuda - The End of 'Christine' R.I.P

[Barracuda]

Well the new windshield is finally installed and damn is it a hell of an improvement.

[Click for 1600x1200]

Old


New






To put into perspective how bad my old windshield was, I could only barely see the tip of my hood indicator. My old windshield also didn't have the blue at the top, but it's nice to have.

 

[Slick6]

If you got yourself some fine steel wool (000 or 0000) and some 3M Imperial Glazing Compound, you'd be able to get nearly all of that rust off of those wheels. It works great for bumpers and trim pieces too. Definately great for those on a budget or for restoring parts that aren't repopped.

Overall, it looks like a great project. It's a very good foundation with minimal rust repair. The only thing that I'd be weary of is the area where it's rusting at the bottom of the windshield. I myself would have treated the area before installing the new windshield, but that's just me. You also mentioned that there were a bunch of leaves all over. You might be surprised with rust when you take the cowl panel off. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress. One of these days I should get my projects on here.

 

[Barracuda]

Well I have some very good news and some bad news. The good news is that my insurance is only $94 a month so with my income tax check I'm able to pay for two months and get my license.

The bad news is that the driving test was today, and I failed, but hear me out. Because my car's blinkers only work when they feel like it, and without power steering I don't think I could have maneuvered around the course, I have to use my mom's Ford Windstar. Bulky, long, and just overall dreadful to drive. I started with it when I first started driving, but I am nowhere near used to it now, or even power steering for that matter. I started out well on the test, even somehow fit the van into the small cone parking space, but when it came to the three point turn I freaked. A three point turn is simple, but my brain turned to jello when I pulled into a simulation small two lane road and was asked to do a three point turn with a parking block almost right in front of me. I ended up backing up and turning, then turning the other way (I did turn around in three points, just not anywhere near correctly). To add insult to injury at the end of the test I was so nervous I did a bad right hand park and even hit the curb and had to back up to straighten out.

Looking at how epically simple the course is and how much much much much harder other countries driving tests are I feel like the biggest idiot in the world. I'm scheduled to retake it tomorrow morning at 9:50, lets hope I can do the test without being a complete idiot.

 

[Jim Prower]

Key is not to get epically worked up about it. Just stay calm, you'll do fine. Think positive thoughts.

I know it's tough at first. You'll get the hang of it.

 

[Barracuda]

I took the test again this morning and I now have my license

After school i'm probably gunna go driving around and maybe try to take some good pictures of my car in different places. I definitely plan on making some new videos sometime soon as well, and i'm going to a car show on wednesday so i'll try and take some pictures there too.

 

[TheCracker]

👍 Congrats Diablo' - time to enjoy that Barracuda!

 

[kingcars]

Glad to see you finally got it! Congrats dude...now you better not be spending much time on here, and instead spending time cruisin in that Cuda!

 

[Giancarlo]

If you got yourself some fine steel wool (000 or 0000) and some 3M Imperial Glazing Compound, you'd be able to get nearly all of that rust off of those wheels. It works great for bumpers and trim pieces too. Definately great for those on a budget or for restoring parts that aren't repopped.

Coca-cola and aluminum foil definitely work just as fine.

 

[Prosthetic]

I didn't realise you get to use your own car in the test... Ugh going to be so easy in my Focus

Congrats dude! You envy your car, as you have the baby version of my dream car. 👍

 

[bergauk]

No power steering? What about a power assist rack? Thats what I have on the Comet. I'm not really sure how it works but its really nice to have. Congrats on the license, I'm still waiting on getting mine. I'm on the fence about getting it right now or getting it once the Comet starts looking like a car again. By the way, that window looks gorgeous.

 

[Barracuda]

Thanks for the comments guys.

After school I decided to pick up my friend then go have a little fun in front of my other friends house. He kinda lives in the middle of nowhere and he's a bit of a douche so I was going to step on it in front of his house, but that plan kinda fell through since he wasn't there. Not to waste being out there I got to the nice straight near his house and let her have it. I was just in drive so it shifted into third but I still managed a good 80mph before I slowed down because I saw a white car at the end of the street. Already excited the next straight I decided to show my friend what second is like, so I dropped it into second, mashed on it and quickly hit 80mph before passing a cop car parked backwards on a side road. I literally almost had a heart attack when I saw it, but thank god that he must have not been in the car because I wasn't pursued. Even then I still found a nice hidden place down another road and parked there for a bit to calm down. That is definately the end of my shenanigans, at least without doing a very thorough check before, I get one ticket and I wont be driving for a LONG time.

I went to the gas station after that and put $20 in her. My friend also needed to get to a class so I dropped him off, then I went home because I was tired and hungry. I get home glad to be back, roll up my windows, lock my car, then I look over and my gas cap is gone . When I fill up I usually leave the keys in the cap and put it in between my fender and window. Stupid me took the keys out, filled up, then forgot to put my cap back on. I ripped up a towel to cover the hole and drove all the way back to the gas station but no luck, who picks up a lockable gas cap with no key, seriously. I called my dad and he got me one from autozone, but thank god it doesn't fit, I say that because the one he got me is black plastic . So now I have to drive back to autozone and hopefully find a chrome one that looks good and also fits.

What a weird day.

 

[mustangGT90210]

Nice job getting your license! Now I'm extremely jealous

 

[buickgnx88]

That is definately the end of my shenanigans, at least without doing a very thorough check before, I get one ticket and I wont be driving for a LONG time.

 

[Barracuda]

I have a few updates on my car but nothing too substantial.

My cars been having some problems lately, but now I know why:

This Monday my car wouldn't start so I had one of my friends give me a jump. He hooks up his end and I hook up mine, but when I go to start it my friend yells and I see smoke. As I quickly jump out to take the cables off I look and smoke is pouring out of one wire. It turns out that my friend hooked his end up opposite causing my fusable link to do its job and fail. Luckily it didn't completely fail so I was able to try and jump it again and it started. After that I headed to autozone since I needed a new one, and on the way there I found out the lovely surprise that my blinkers now barely work at all instead of work when they feel like it. I figured a new fusable link wire wouldn't be that much, but it turns out it's apparently made of magic fairy dust because it cost me $10 for a piece of wire as long as my hand is wide, and it wont be there till Thursday. I'm gunna head down there tomorrow after school and hopefully the new one will bring my blinker back to a sometimes issue.

My engine has been running a bit sketchy lately so I decided to sea foam it. My friend had 1/3 of a bottle of it left and I'm broke so he let me use that and it worked decently well. He took a video of the smoke coming out of the back and it was pretty cool, would have been helpful to have a tachometer while I was revving it but she didn't blow up so I guess I did something right.

After that, like I explained in the "Fastest You've Ever Gone in Your Car?" thread, my friend and I went to go check out a road and I ended up going 110mph. When I got back to my friends house the engine was running a bit hot and it developed a small belt squeak, but I'm hoping it was only because my engine was hot and that it will go away.

I'll try to have a video up sometime soon. There's still some footage that I want to get and my friend has the camera so god knows when I'll be able to work on the video with him. I'll hopefully try to talk him into letting me edit and put a video of the sea foaming up this weekend, but no guarantees.

 

[Barracuda]

When I went down to autozone the part I ordered turned out to be completely wrong. They didn't have what I actually needed so I got a refund, went over to ACDelco, and was able to find it right there on a rack for $3. Today my friend and I changed it and even messed around with some of the grounds.

At the end of the day I need a bigger ground wire to the engine, a larger ground to the alternator, a new belt (I only have one which is nice), a new fuel filter (It's not bad, but the previous owner painted it black), and another quart of royal purple (or rather liquid gold how expensive it is).

I pestered my friend and was able to edit together a video. Unfortunately his premiere wasn't working so I had to edit in god awful windows movie maker, but at least it's something.

 

[mustangGT90210]

So hows it running after the seafoam?

 

[bergauk]

Nice video Diablo'. Is it stock?

After hearing about Seafoam I went and pressured my dad to go buy it for the Comet. I only poured about 1/4 of it into the tank. Turned it on and didn't really notice anything. It has different effects as an additive I guess. How did you go about it? Through the carb?

 

[Barracuda]

It actually didn't do much of anything. My engine is still running as choppy as it was before, which leads me to believe that I'm getting bad gas, but for the most part I think my carb just needs to be rebuilt.

Yeah it's stock. I poured about 1/3 in through the carb. I figured it would be a lot easier then when my friend and I seafoamed his Blazer, but it was actually a lot harder since your pouring straight liquid into the intake instead of it going through the brake booster and mixing with air.

 

[bergauk]

It actually didn't do much of anything. My engine is still running as choppy as it was before, which leads me to believe that I'm getting bad gas, but for the most part I think my carb just needs to be rebuilt.

Yeah it's stock. I poured about 1/3 in through the carb. I figured it would be a lot easier then when my friend and I seafoamed his Blazer, but it was actually a lot harder since your pouring straight liquid into the intake instead of it going through the brake booster and mixing with air.

For being stock it sounds really great. Nice miniburn-out at the end of the video btw.

What rate of speed did you pour it into the carb? Slow stream?

 

[Turbo Lag]

Sounding sweet. 👍

 

[Barracuda]

For being stock it sounds really great. Nice miniburn-out at the end of the video btw.

What rate of speed did you pour it into the carb? Slow stream?

Thanks, my friend and I actually poured some water down in front of my tires to give it a bit of help. It may sound silly but I took my spare out and it seemed to help out a decent amount. I didn't get it on tape but after that I stepped on it on another street and was able to get my tires going almost as good as in the video but without water.

I had to pour it in very slowly. You almost cant pour it in as a constant stream at all.

 

[bergauk]

Thanks, my friend and I actually poured some water down in front of my tires to give it a bit of help. It may sound silly but I took my spare out and it seemed to help out a decent amount. I didn't get it on tape but after that I stepped on it on another street and was able to get my tires going almost as good as in the video but without water.

I had to pour it in very slowly. You almost cant pour it in as a constant stream at all.

Ah. You have a spare? Thats something I noticed I don't actually have, how odd. Water on the front tires? Sounds a bit odd but alright.

Alright then. I was curious about how fast it should be put into it. Seafoam is very vague about it.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

Water on the front tires? Sounds a bit odd but alright.

Nono, in front of the rears so when the car pushes through the brakes a little the tires are standing in water

 

[Barracuda]

Next time I get a little extra gas money I'm gunna head back out to that spot and try to do an actual burnout. Since I have a limited slip I might only be able to get one tire going, but it's better than nothing I guess.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

You mean since you don't have a limited slip

Open diffs will spin one wheel, an LSD will spin both.

 

[Barracuda]

You mean since you don't have a limited slip

Open diffs will spin one wheel, an LSD will spin both.

Oh, thanks. I guess I need to learn more about differentials, lol.

 

[CDailey]

Your Cuda sounds badass. 👍

 

[Barracuda]

Yesterday I rebuilt my carb.





Nothing special, rebuilding the carb was really easy, but my dad and I had a hell of a time getting it to work correctly. We put it back on but when I started my car up and revved it to take the choke off it went to a higher idle and wouldn't go down. We spent at least a good half an hour adjusting things, taking apart the carb, and just trying everything to get it to work. Finally we realized that a cable was preventing the carb from going down to idle, so we take it off and tada, it works. Turns out whoever put the carb on last must have put it on as far back as possible, so the pedal cable was adjusted for that. We adjusted it and it was fine, although i'm a bit skeptical on whether or not the cable is letting me get the full use out of my carb or not.

After we got everything back to normal I took her for a drive and she ran much smoother. Doing a bit of stepping on it I'm still skeptical, but from a dead stop I can still get the tires going as well it was. It was quite a hot day so I can't be sure, will have to try it out some other time.

On a much more random note the other day I stopped to take another picture of the 442 I saw as well as another car he was selling (I'll post them up when I'm not feeling so lazy), and decided to take a picture of my car:



I've also been doing a bit of thinking and have decided to get a new engine for it whenever the money shows up (don't expect anything this century basically, I could find osama bin laden easier than a job). My main goal would be to drop a 340 in it (which I've seen done before with room for tuned headers), but I'd be willing to go for a commando 273 or maybe a 318. My reason, I've been talking to a lot of people at car shows and with all the stuff I do I just don't want to risk blowing a numbers matching block. I'm not looking to sell it down the road or anything, but eventually sometime down the road when I'm not 17 anymore I think it would be nice to have a numbers matching cruiser (and have another crazy 66 to mess around in )

 

[Turbo Lag]

Looking sweet there. 👍

I'm sure you'll find a job sooner or later.

 

[Barracuda]

Just another weekend really, and plus my friend bought me a full tank of gas so I owed it to him to use it in the best way possible



That was my first burnout I've ever done so I think I did pretty well. I bet I could have gotten both wheels going if I had had some water, but my friend and I forgot to get some on the way there.

Doing that I think I'm done messing around for a good bit, at least until I can get everything fixed. My cousins driving down from NH for my graduation in a few weeks so that will probably take up the last bit of me fooling around until I get new parts (He has a Grand Prix GT with a few mods, expect some good footage). I'll be heading back up with him in his car so the footage wont reach youtube for a few weeks, but expect another video sometime in the future nonetheless.