I haven’t updated the site in months, but I’ve still been working on the car. The Optispark distributor died (at the same time the one on the Camaro did as well, just to make matters worse). I had to take all the accessory drive off to get at it. With it all back together, and a small leak fixed, I got back to working on the car. I wasn’t happy with the way it handled even with the swaybar fitted. I decided to replace the swaybar with a Hellwig one, and put QA-1’s on the front as well. The Hellwig bar is much beefier than the old one, and had much better fixings to put it together. After a lot of messing about, I gave up on trying to get it fitted with the A arm brackets and use the ones I made for the old bar. With that done I pulled the old springs and shocks out, and drilled out the A arms for the QA-1 bottom mounts. I ground the rest of the old nuts flat and fitted them on the lowest setting. Unfortunately I crushed a brake hose while I was doing it, so I needed to replace and bleed the brakes. It was so low I couldn’t get the jack under the frame, so I bought a C spanner to raise it back up. I wound them up about an inch a side (I measured with a bolt as I couldn’t get the calipers in there). With it back on the deck, and the brakes bled I took it out for a spin. It handles a million times better now, but the brakes still have air in them so need bleeding again. Progress at last.

I got wiper blades this week and a quick check showed they didn’t fit the arms that I had. After a bit of grinding down to size I fitted them but didn’t tighten them fully just in case the sweep was wrong. I flipped them outwards as well and switched them on to check. There was a horrble crunch as the passenger side arm hit the body and popped off leaving a nice little gouge in the paint. Another check with the arm off and the wiper was running backwards on that side. I guessed the Rain Gear wiper transmission must have dropped down when I was fitting it and I hadn’t noticed.

With the clock out on the passenger side, I found that the arm was indeed upside down. I loosened it up and flipped it the right way round before putting it back together. A quick check of the wipers (this time with rags under them just in case) and it was working as it should. I took them back off again and ran some tubing for the washers before putting it all back together nice and tight. The messing about with the wipers had moved the vent hoses and the wipers now hit them. After a load more messing about I had the hoses and the engine computer far enough away that they shouldn’t cause any hassle. At that point Tommy came out looking for me and wanted to beep the horn of the car. After about twenty goes I was concerned for my neighbours and my sanity, so disconnected the battery and called it a day. Just as well as he tried to turn the keys when the horn didn’t work any more.