Monday, July 30, 2007

New Project - The Gem.




I recently bought a TE Gemini to keep myself busy, get better at 'mechanics' and learn with.




This is it here. It has apparently had a variety of things occur over her lifetime.
Immediately obvious modifications:

Webber 32/36 DFV
Extractors
Retrimmed Interior.
Beyond that pretty standard.

When I say standard, I also imply "standard back yards repairs". Its amazing what you miss when you get caught in the moment. Things like rust, dodgy repairs etc are easily missed.
Regardless I'm already having fun.

The boot pan has had the common rust repairs done. I'd like you to take note of the very well sorted and connected wiring. In all honesty when I first got all the crap out of the boot and saw multiple wires connected with 'leccy tape and a fuel pump held in place with a single tech screw into the floor pan I was pleasantly surprised to find that they hadn't sourced power for the fuel pump from a stereo speaker lead.
Engine is bay is nothing too exciting. Apart from the obvious removal of the pollution gear and just leaving numerous sensor leads disconnected it all looked pretty good.


Now, I thought I had a photo of what I'm about to describe but apparently I don't. Which is highly likely. This is so, because as soon as I actually noticed it my first thought was (apart from 'wtf is that?') what else can I put in here. Short story even shorter, someone in their infinite wisdom thought the best solution to an oil leak in a unknown spot (I figure unknown because despite their best efforts it still does leak a bit) is too smear some form of metal/engine bog all over the join between the block and the timing cover (oil pump side). So without taking a chisel to the side of the engine to discern wether there is a crack in the block? Timing cover? Oil pump leak I'm just going to get rid of it. As I figure I'd like to have a crack at painting the car too this particular G161 is coming out and never going back in. I dare say a G200 will go back, mind you I did see a 13B mount/cross member setup go on ebay the other day!


The truly wonderful thing I have found so far (despite all the things I have to /want to do) is that this era of car is truly simple. Pulling it down so far has been a breeze.


I mentioned rust?


Yes, Yes I did.














I've removed all of the interior except the dashboard. Heater unit is pretty much ready to come out too. Engine bay is stripped of everything except the engine and the brake booster.
I do have some paint flaking/bulging on the bottoms of the front doors, but not even remotely as severe as seen above.
Sick of typing. Will add more later.