I was working under the hood last week and rubbed my shoulder up against the inside of the hood, accidentally rubbing off 20 years of grime and leaving a clean spot. That made the rest of the engine bay look like total crap, and we can't have that, can we?

Here's a pic after some of the cleaning... I was amazed at how well everything cleaned up. She has 188,000 miles on her right now and the PO had driven through three winters. Other than a couple of small spots of surface rust on the body, she is immaculate!

Anyway, I also pulled off a bunch of unneeded stuff, relocated a few things, and finally put my electric fans on. What a difference! Anything that had any trace of rust was soaked in an acid bath and repainted. Radiator was also re-sprayed, but I really need a new one.

I've been a member of the forum for a while now, but didn't feel like I had anything to show you guys until now. Never tried to post pics before, so hopefully this will work....

 

Looks Great!
Mine has just a few more miles on it (191K), and I need to do the same. Hopefully, I can make it look close to what you have done

 

Thanks RW! After four days of hard work, I was beginning to think that I should have just rubbed some more grime on the clean spot...lol Man, does my back ache!

 

Damn, i have under 70,000 and mine looks way worse!,

You did a great job cleaning and moving things around! great job!!!!

 

Hella job. I'm impressed. I started something similar but haven't gotten that far. Now I'm properly re-motivated.

 

what kind of efan is that? i like it

 

Looks great. I really like the way you painted the fan shroud.

 

Thanks again guys. I was really surprised at what was lying beneath all that grime!

The E-fans are from a Toyota MR2. I wasn't sure if they would be strong enough, but they really kick out the wind. I just have them wired up to a switch right now, but will be getting two thermostats so they will operate automatically with one switching on before the other does. I got them for like ten bucks, but they were totally rust covered at the time. After I dismantled them, I soaked the shrouds in acid and they came out great.

I picked up the paint at Autozone, some type of anti-rust stuff, and it turned out that it is a perfect match for my car color. That was a nice surprise.

I still have a long way to go with this car, but it feels pretty nice to have some visual results on hand to keep me motivated.

A friend helped with quite a bit of the disassembly/reassembly (thanks Corey!). It would have taken a lot longer without the extra set of hands. Now we just need to do the carb, suspension, tighten up the steering, and get some decent rubber on her and we'll be ready for some track time at Gingerman. Can't wait!

 

looks awesome man, im trying to clean my engine bay up like that as well, hopefully I will have half as much luck as you... Oh yes and now all your missing is the matching red Blaster 2 coils

And I have one question for you, what is the stock unit that is normally where your charcoal cannister is now relocated? Its the round thing, I have removed my rat's next and am wondering if I can remove this as well... I love where you mounted the CC looks really sleek

 

Looks great! What did you use to clean it?

 

Are you going to try the transistor trick?

 

The round thing is either the cruze control, under it is the cold start assist. Take them all out. No need for them.

 

Damn fine job!!! It's good to see some luv given to your 7.

 

u can get a new dual row radiator from radiators.com shipped for round 120 bux... mine was 122 bux after shipping, and it got here in 2 days

 

I hope mine looks as good as yours when I get done with it. I will hunt for an MR2 this weekend.

 

very nice, very nice. you could eat off of that. i couldonly hopemine would look half as good as that

 

aieeee get rid of that ugly bee hive oil cooler and swap in an '82 one. that'll make things way nicer under the hood and more mechanically sound. very nice though!

 

WOW! that looks great. I know its alot of work, been there done that. But I think when you see pix like that, it kinda makes it all worth it

 

dp

 

Looks good, what'd you use to clean it up? I need to clean up my engine bay too.

 

Thanks for all the kind words guys...

I used an old carwash mit along with your typical engine cleaner to get the majority of the grime off, then followed up with some Meguire's paint cleaner which really did a nice job. Next I hope to get a coat of wax on to help preserve it for the next 20 years....

An upgrade in oil cooler is on my list, but not very high on it at this point. I need to upgrade the alternator (I suppose) due to the new fans and my 150 watt spots, and I need to find a 2nd gen radiator.

But first I really need to get that Sterling carb! Right now I have no secondaries at all due to some carb fuel flow issue. Tried to do a rebuild, but some of the screws have become one with the carb... It's a real bummer driving a car that looks so fast, but has the power output of a VW Beetle!!!

Jeff20B; I'm not familiar with the transistor mod, I'll need to do a little research on that.

I still have a long way to go because it still has all original suspension and brakes. The body could use a repaint too, but that will be last because I want to get all mechanical work done first. And man, that steering slop is really a drag. Other than that, she handles like a dream even on the old suspension and 4 snow tires. Can't wait to get her on the track....

Thanks again!

 

There's a thread here with a schematic. I've been too busy to build the circuit. It's pretty simple though. You're welcome to try it although I can't guarantee anything at this point.

 

Wow, I took a look at that thread and I think its written in Frech or something. Didn't understand a bit of it. I think I'll let someone else work it out first, my current setup is working just fine for me and I have too many other things on my to do list....

Like we say at work "My plate is full, and they're all out of bigger plates"...

 

No problem. I havn't even built it yet. Whatever you do, don't remove the 2nd gen ignitor from the base assembly.

 

I started cleaning all the grease and crap from my engine bay last week....there i so much and have used so much gunk doing it but can finally see the nice white and not black crap every were