1982 AMC Sprit Challenge Build

I am now subscribed to your newsletter. thanks for the assist in the other thread, will do a build thread when I have something to show.

Thanks, wish I had more updates for this project. It's been sitting with a slipping trans and a broken drivers seat. Between racing 24 hours of Lemons, house renovations, and all of our teammates getting married in Oct, I haven't had time to work on the car or go to the challenge. Only new parts I've collected are a 2wd AX15 and a gas tank from a Cherokee.

When you did the tall ball joints, what all was involved? I'm starting to look at going to kill on ours.

In reply to Dusterbd13:

I used 63-71 GM Truck ball joints. They are about an inch taller which helped correct the camber curve a little but the wheel still has a lot of positive camber mid turn. The GM one has a different bolt pattern so we welded up the stock holes and redrilled the upper control arm.

Do you mind if I blatantly steal this?

Not at all. At one point I measured the front suspension pick up points and was going to plug them into a suspension calculator but I've lost them before i got around to it. Maybe we can figure out a good solution for the upper are that doesn't involve cutting up the car too much.

Link to the calculator if you want to mess with camber curves.

http://www.racingaspirations.com/apps/suspension-geometry-calculator

I’ve been shopping for a used truck and getting frustrated will all the crap I keep seeing. Instead of spending 5K for something with no rockers, cab corners or bed sides plus a bad frame I’ve decided to put them AMC back on the road. Figure since it’s a hatch back I can use it to do most of the truck stuff I need right now. It also forces me to work on it more. Hopefully I’ll have some time to pick at it this weekend. I’ve already grabbed the paperwork from my teammate so I can title it in my own name.

Still a challenge possibility?

And what did yours weigh and in what configuration?

I'm still going to try. The challenge is the same weekend as the NH Lemons race. Most of the team would rather stay local then drive 3,500 round trip to FL. Current goal is to drive it to the CT Lemons race.

Right now the car weights 2,835 lbs. That's with the big heavy wheels, no A/C, and no front bumper. It even has a CD player and speakers.

I suck. So as soon as I registered the AMC 2 months ago I bought a truck. I've also been sidetracked by Datsun and house projects. Other then putting plates on it I haven't touched the car. I even bought a new battery which has been sitting next to it in the driveway. Finally 2 days ago I put the battery in and fired it up and ran great. Few problems I have so far are the power steering pump is making noise, brake pedal is very soft, and 2 tires are flat. I also still need to fix the drivers seat frame before it can go anywhere (still ignoring the transmission problem). Maybe i'll have time to pic at that stuff this weekend.

Unfortunately I won't be making it back to the challenge again this year. I'd be going by myself or maybe one other person and I can't swing the cost. Current plan is to start driving it and upgrade a few things before winter. I'd also like to make a few drag passes to see how it would have stacked up against this years challenge cars.

It would beat us if it came.

But cool to see it back on the list again!

so cool... going to have to watch this thread!

I was hoping to bleed the brakes and take the car out Monday but no luck. I couldn't get any fluid out of the rear brakes. Pulled the rear bleeders all the way out and nothing. Not even a drop of fluid on the bleeders.

I cracked the line after the proportioning valve and it would bleed fine from there so I worked my way back. Turns out the rear brake hose was completely blocked. Since the hose is special order I started picking at the front suspension.

This pile of suck looks even worse after sitting for a few years.

I'll clean up the rotors after I can bleed the brakes properly. For now I wanted to pull the spring and measure camber gain. Surprisingly with the taller ball joint it wasn't as bad as I though. Starting at current ride height for the first 2 " of travel camber stayed at zero instead of going positive like it use to. Then it actually started going negative for the last 2" of travel till it hit the bump stop. Ignore the + sign, its actually going negative. Since the car still sits pretty tall I could drop it more to get in into the better part of the curve without changing anything else. I still might need to tweak the lower control arm mount for more static camber and to address any major issues with bump steer /roll center. I know none of this will be perfect, I’m just hoping to make it somewhat better. Also my measurements are very crude but it was just to give me an idea of what I'm working with.

Does this mean there might be two Spirits at the challenge this year?

Unfortunately I still can’t make it. Way too much to do and I can’t afford the trip down this year. I’ve also decided to race Lemons that weekend in NH. I’m still picking at the car with the goal of being able to drive it 2.5 hours to the lemons race. Farthest it’s ever driven is from the Gainesville hotel to the race track and back.  

In reply to PseudoSport :

Sometimes the bleeder port in the bore of the wheel cylinder gets crudded up and won't flow.  Get a 1/16" drill bit and twist it by hand while poking it into the depth of the bleeder screw hole and see if you can't get some fluid out.

New rear hose fixed it and I was finally able to bleed the brakes. 

Next up was fixing the seat. The front corner was broken and cracked so i welded that up and reinforced it. The back of the seat still feels kind of twisted but at least its not all floppy now. 

New to do list is:

-figure out why front turn signals don't light up

-fix reverse lights

-redo exhaust system so it will pass state inspection. 

Also I really want to find a set of Mesh Crown Vic wheels. I just wish they were wider then 7"

^Those look perfect.

Installed new turn signal bulbs up front and fixed some wires that were just twisted together. So far turn signals and headlights work as they should. 

For the reverse lights I went under the car to check the NSS/reverse light switch and found there were no wires going to it. The main harness comes out behind the brake booster so I started looking for any random connectors. Turns out I had tied up the harness for the NSS and labeled it.

Only problem is the small adapter harness that goes to the NSS was missing. Fortunately I can pick up the connector for the switch locally but its $27 new. For now I jump the 2 pins and verified that the lights and the rest of the wiring was ok. 

On of the last things I need to sort out is the horn. It was getting late but I put a meter on the horn wiring and got nothing. I have a feeling the horn relay is missing but i have no idea where its suppose to be. I'll have to start tracing back wires later this week. 

You're doing better than me. My turn signals, reverse lights, nss, heater, and horn dont work....

For a challenge car none of that is important which is why I never sorted any of it out before. 

Since I haven't had as much time as i hoped to work on the car i'm taking some short cuts on the exhaust just to make it street legal for now. I ordered a Foxbody Mustang tailpipe and a open box muffler from Amazon. (for anyone building a challenge car Amazon Warehouse deals are awesome.) From what I've read the mustang tail pipe is a close fit which would save me from cutting, fitting, and welding a bunch of mandrel bends like I originally planned. Down side is the pipe is only 2.5" so that will limit power.  Once I get the new trans and axle in i'll build a larger system or just dump it for now.  Also found a better price on the NSS connector and got that too. 

Made some progress. Installed the NSS plug and the reverse lights work as they should. I then found the remains of the horn relay wiring and the relay itself in the glovebox. Connector was still missing but I soldered up some pieces from the remains of the old harness to get it working. 

Next up was the exhaust. The mustang tail pipe fit great but the cheap mufflers I ordered didn't have the correct offsets. Ended up having to buy another muffler a the local parts store that fit. All that's left to do it weld a pipe to the existing exhaust to the muffler. Unfortunately welder died last weekend while trying to fix the seat and i'll have to borrow one this week. Another problem I need to fix is i had mounted the inline fuel pump where the muffler should go in a rush to get it challenge ready. I don't have any other good spots below the tank so i'll have to mount it near the diff higher then i'd like. 

Still need to do something about the tires since the fronts hit everything even more now with another half coil removed. 

I was able to move the pump and filter over some and installed the old NH licence plate between them and the muffler as a heat shield. I'm not proud of the setup but so far its working. 

Other minor fixes were cleaning 2 side marker light sockets and installed a new rear view mirror. I also moved the front 8" black wheels to the rear and put the stock AMC wheels up front. Its looks dumb but at least I can turn now.

I finished working on it last night at 8pm and decided to finally take it for a test drive. I left my driveway then ran out of gas 2 houses down. Yup, off to a good start. Went back and grabbed one of my race jugs and slowly poured fuel in because the hose was larger then the fill. It was also fun holding my cell phone flash light while holding down the licence plate and trying to lift the fuel jug and not spill gas everywhere. I got about 2 gallons in and decided to drive it to the gas station. The external pump doesn't like working with a low tank plus there are no baffles so it cuts out in turns, accelerating, and braking. I make it to the station but of course there is a slight hill to get to the pump. It sputters and bogs but I manage to get close to the pump. I swap my card and go to fill up but i already forgot about the stupid locking gas cap and the key is in the car.  Grab the key and unlock the cap and the pump times out. Reswipe the card and go to fill and the car is just out of reach of the hose (which was annoying short). Blah, stopped pump, moved car and now my card won't work. Used a different card and was finally able to fill it. 

Drive back was uneventful. I was finally able to give it some heavy throttle but the transmission is still unhappy. Hopefully I can just cruse around in it the rest of the year till i get around to swapping in a AW4. Also with the muffler the exhaust is very quiet and all you hear is a lot of turbo noises. Ended up putting a few miles on it and will go for a sticker tomorrow. 

PseudoSport said:

...Also with the muffler the exhaust is very quiet and all you hear is a lot of turbo noises... 

video or ban

In reply to 4cylndrfury :

Ha, i'll take one when I get home tonight.