I am now the proud owner of a 1979. A friend of mine's dad owned it, and after his father passed, the car was put in a storage unit a decade ago. It was started periodically until two years ago, because to start it you had to crawl in through the hatch because the storage was so full. It has some minor rust in areas. Looks like the door seals may be shot.

Before going into storage my friend raced it. He changed out the wire wheels with, I think, 1983 wheels. He also had installed some travel computer that tracked fuel consumption, temp, and other things.

Unfortunately, sometime in the last two years, some buttholes broke into the storage unit and ransacked the place, stepped on the hood of the car (see photo of shoe print), and broke the driver's side mirror off. No dents from the step, but one one headlight pops up, not the one they stepped on.

Looking under the hood today while replacing the battery, I noticed it only has the white and blue solenoids. I mention that because I am unable to pull the choke. I do not know if things were changed to it, or it just needs a shot of wd40 on something.

 

Hi, congrats! Just stepping on the headlight would not necessarily stop it from opening. Each motor has an relay clamped to the side of the motor, under a rubber cover. Try tapping on it or removing the cover by bending up the metal tabs. Inside is a set of contacts, like a set of ignition points. Lightly sand the contact surfaces with a finger nail board and hit them with some WD-40. Both motors are controlled by one of the (3) fusable links on the drivers fender just behind the coils. When neither headlight operates, thats a common culprit.

The choke should pull out by hand. With the ending running it should remain out until the engine comes up to temp and automatically go back in. Create a thread with your questions in the 1st gen section and you'll get a lot of good advice.

 

Thanks. the headlight problem is the link between the headlight motor and the triangle hinge thingy (that's the technical term). I'll look for a replacement, but it also looks like something I could fabricate if needed. Looks like its turning into a project car, the laundry list of things is growing, starting with it not starting .

 

Assuming the "triangle" part is in the attached picture? Not a common thing to fail. Normally the plastic bushings in the extension arms (1 long, 1 short) wear out but the headlight door will still open. You can find headlight motor assemblies from people who are parting out a car, individual assembly parts, not so much. FYI, SA (79-80) motors are different than FB (81-85) ones.

 

Yeah, I have the triangle and the link to the headlight, but am missing the the same piece that is.missing in that photo, the link from the triangle to the motor arm.

 

I was going to try to start it so I could get it into the garage, so i put about 4 gallons of gas in it in the evening. tried starting, but it would't catch. A couple days later I got a friend to help push it into the garage, and i noticed it is leaking fuel. It appears it is on the bottom to the right of the right tank strap. I got the gas siphoned out (gas tastes nasty ) and it was full of crud and orange colored. So I need to drop the tank.

 

Here is a video of the gas siphoning out.

 

You mean the long and short rod linkages. Those are still available new I believe. The plastic bushings are what usually wears or breaks on those. The was someone who was making and selling replacement bushings on here too.

 

Cool. There is definitely no plastic bushings anymore. Just one of the rods missing. Least of my concerns now that I found the gas leak. Hope to drop the tank this weekend.

 

Great score!