Workday: 7, Days since delivery: 78
One of the scale pads was refusing to work last time, so we double checked today that it didn't magically fix itself.
Nope.
Nik wanted to make a quick attempt at fixing the busted pad, so we popped it on the work bench and opened it up.
We busted the connection to the indicator LED when we opened it up, but I think that's all the extra damage we did. The wires in this thing are amazingly thin. In fact, they didn't appear to be insulated, which obviously can't be the case, as they carry the signal to and from the four strain gauges at the corners. Maybe epoxy coated wires? 28ga? Anybody know what the heck?
The pad acted like it wanted to power up, as the LED would come on when you pushed the on switch, but as soon as you let go, it would just die out and not respond. We were hoping to see an obvious bad connection somewhere, but we didn't.
After spending 30 minutes or so on it, we decided to put it aside and move forward with weighing the car. We would just use the dead pad with the others, get a weight, then rotate the dead pad with a good one, then weigh again. You'll never get the same measurement twice for the corners, but it would be close enough for my use.
After swapping, we found the left front to weigh 740 lbs.
That means a total weight of 2840 lbs. No idea how much fuel is in the tank. Pretty much spot on for this year/make/model.
Obnoxiously heavy, I'd say. I'll make some efforts at some point to get the weight down, but I imagine it will happen pretty organically through the demo/build.
With that, I started taking the car apart. I'm going to try to get it driving with the new engine and transmission first. A short sentence for a mighty proposition. However, I find that having a simply stated goal like this helps drive projects in the right direction.
"Why can't I drive the car right now?" Well, the engine and transmission aren't in the car. So I'll start with that, which means pulling the current motor, and getting rid of things that will be in the way or not used in the new configuration. I started by pulling off the hood.
Hood weight: 35 lbs.
Then I worked on pulling the front bumper. Messy work, with lots of old dirt, mud, and rusty fasteners. Half of them snapped when I tried to unscrew them.
These things are truly as hideous as their reputation represents.
The hood hinges are seriously beefy. And the dual torsion-bar spring setup to hold the hood up is the first I've come across. Although I haven't taken too many cars apart, to be fair. I think those will come off next time, and I don't think they'll be going back on.
More bumper removal steps. Part of the reason for posting these photos is to help myself as a reference in the future.
I don't think that mounting method (passenger side) is factory. I called my Dad, who repainted the car some time in the 80's, who confirmed that it came with some dodgy repair work most likely from a light collision in the front right. We'll find out how light it actually was, I suppose, as the disassembly/stripping continues.
The bumper came off.
Front bumper weight with shocks, mounts, and rubber end caps: 50 lbs (!)
With the bumper off, I just started moving backwards. The horns were next and I was amazed at how beefy the horn mounts were. Each steel mount was held on with two 13mm bolts. Good grief.
I have the weights somewhere, I'll put them here when I find them.
That was it for the car work for the day. Not much, but it felt damn good to get started.
I have this pile of take-off parts that will continue to grow. I think they probably belong in the trash, but I haven't been able to bin 'em just yet. Does anybody want any of this stuff? I'll update as the project continues. Please let me know if I'm making a bad choice getting rid of some of this stuff as well. I don't know value or rarity or usefulness of these items.
Nik worked on organizing the shop the whole time. We got the third divider shelf done as well. The shop is looking really good now. I asked Nik if he wanted help moving the Saab into place in case he wanted to start work on it, but he's pretty enthusiastic about the shop improvement right now, so he declined. He's ordered more tables to go somewhere I think. More cleaning!
damen
