Monday, July 14, 2008

Pug of the litter





We had a productive day of labor on the car last Saturday. We swapped some wiring from the black car into the red car and the ignition problem that had manifested itself during my test flogging went away. We also stripped away most of the civilizing bits of the interior. Ron and Bret are the co-discoverers of 'Lake Peugeot' underneath the rear seat. There were two full sized bath towels under the seat presumably to reduce the irritating sloshing noise of free standing water. I think we removed 70 lbs. from the curb weight just by binning the towels. The leak that produced the pool that necessitated the installation of cotton breakwater was caused by cracks and tears in the sheet metal incurred by a tremendous rear end impact. I'm actually surprised it survived the crash. The frame was so bent that the floor under the front seats was rippled. I'm glad we're installing a roll cage if for no other reason than to reduce the chance of the car being torn in half by 14 hours of brutalization.

We also began discussing planting a new (used) engine into the black car and fielding both Pugs. Now we just need to find one for dirt cheap. The black car has a much straighter body but mechanically it's quite the hoopty.

We had a guest mechanic on duty. She's certainly not afraid of getting her hands dirty. Especially when fine tuning a French muffler bearing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the wheelbase on the red car is still stock then? ;)

Solracer said...

I learned my lesson about that with my old Rx-2 rally car. Only after I bought it did I discover that the wheelbase on one side was an inch and a half shorter than the other! Sure made driving through the woods at 85 mph a lot more exciting!

Solracer said...

Noticed while working on the car today that there is 3" long rip in the metal inside the left rear wheel well area. Doug is going to add it to the list of things to weld. Sure glad we're putting a cage in the car, don't need it breaking in half mid-race!