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Rain Hats

El FrazooEl Frazoo Supporting Member
Gonna run a new thread for this, which was touched on in the "IDF Teardown" thread. Carey at Spec. Eds. has these, as mentioned: $60.00. Lane says he has some, so Lane: how about a picture? There is some concern about throttle linkage interference, and making a cut out, and so I wonder about that. I bought some Tupperware and aluminum baking pans and have yet to get serious about how that would be wiggled to fit. Might end up looking really shabby. Would rather have shabby than wet, but maybe I can beat the rain AND look good doing it. Comments??

PS: Car was caught out parked in a real gully washer couple of weeks ago, and the carbs were soaked again. Car was loaded up for a week at the beach, and I had few tools. Panic was the order of the day when I got back to the car after the deluge. I did R&R of the air filters and saw they were drenched and water standing on the filter holder bases. Mopped this up w/ a bath towel (standard issue equipment for ALL Speedsters), shook out the air filter elements, and reassembled all, praying for a minor miracle. Was expecting (and was unprepared to deal with) either hydro-lock &/or dirt in the jets -- AGAIN!!! Prayers were answered, as car started up fine and ran well, so maybe dodged a bullet. But I gotta get past this issue. Must figure how best to do it.

2007 JPS MotorSports Speedster

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El FrazooEl Frazoo Supporting Member
Gonna run a new thread for this, which was touched on in the "IDF Teardown" thread. Carey at Spec. Eds. has these, as mentioned: $60.00. Lane says he has some, so Lane: how about a picture? There is some concern about throttle linkage interference, and making a cut out, and so I wonder about that. I bought some Tupperware and aluminum baking pans and have yet to get serious about how that would be wiggled to fit. Might end up looking really shabby. Would rather have shabby than wet, but maybe I can beat the rain AND look good doing it. Comments??

PS: Car was caught out parked in a real gully washer couple of weeks ago, and the carbs were soaked again. Car was loaded up for a week at the beach, and I had few tools. Panic was the order of the day when I got back to the car after the deluge. I did R&R of the air filters and saw they were drenched and water standing on the filter holder bases. Mopped this up w/ a bath towel (standard issue equipment for ALL Speedsters), shook out the air filter elements, and reassembled all, praying for a minor miracle. Was expecting (and was unprepared to deal with) either hydro-lock &/or dirt in the jets -- AGAIN!!! Prayers were answered, as car started up fine and ran well, so maybe dodged a bullet. But I gotta get past this issue. Must figure how best to do it.
Lane AndersonLane AndersonMt. Pleasant, SC Supporting Member
Kelly, here is the only picture I have of them. I am out of town on bidness, but can take one off and shoot another picture when I get home, if needed. If you look close, you'll notice the notches I had to cut to clear the throttle linkage. I plan to paint them after I've resolved my oil leak.

Oh yeah, since this picture was taken, I've drilled the appropriate holes in the lower inside deck lid. The car got caught out in one downpour, and got enough in one carb to make it stumble when I started it. Ran lousy for about 1/4 mile and then all was well. I think I had some leakage around where I made the breather holes. I've since redone that so it doesn't leak. If you come to the Dragon Run, you'll see them there. Of course, you'll probably have yours fixed by then.
El FrazooEl Frazoo Supporting Member
Alan,

No drilling yet on inside of grille cover, but will do that. Believe that the main source of water is simply off the back of the body, into the seam between lid and body and down into the engine compartment. This would happen whether or not there was a grille in the lid or not. This seam is not treated like a door seam, i.e., with weather stripping, although I guess it could be, right? If it was, then I think a good deal of the water that gets in the seam would flow around the lid and off the back of the car. And do all agree that these lids from Spec. Eds. allow proper breathing of the carbs? Lane's photo shows the carbs right well covered up. Still good air flow even so?
Gordon NicholsGordon NicholsMassachusetts 1993 CMC Supporting Member
Lane's engine is shiny-clean because it sprays itself with oil continuously while driving in order to self-rust-proof.

;>)

Kelly:

On the underside of the engine cover there are two areas at the far left and right of the cover that channel water coming in through the grill left and right and down.

The problem is.....there's no place for that water to go, so it pools up in the under-sides of the cover and, when it overflows the available space it then runs right down on top of the air cleaners...

Unless you have drilled small holes (3/16" is fine) at the very bottom of those trap spaces to let the wtrickle out as it accumulates. Holes at the bottom ill let the water trickle onto the rear of the engine compartment, away from anything important.

This has been a long tretis which would be easily explained with a picture, so I'll try to get you one tonight. The holes are VERY easy to do - take you a minute and no danger of marring the outside paint, since the holes are inside of the cover.

Stay tuned....pictures at eleven.....

gn
Lane AndersonLane AndersonMt. Pleasant, SC Supporting Member
Gerd - Alas, Gordon's comment is all to true. I wipe it down periodically because of the oil film that builds up on everything.

Sometime between now and the Dragon Run in October I am going to pull the engine, tighten everything (headbolts, etc.), replace the internal oil cooler AND pedestal, re-plumb the external cooler and filter, and hopefully resolve this mess. I spoke to Pat Downs about the leakage, and he's pretty convinced its a porous casting of the oil cooler pedestal.

As for Gordon's comment on "flames", no, but Cory and I are talking ideas. I will let the master arteest do his thing on them.

FM Former Member
Gerd, you can actually spray Foamy Engine Brite directly into your fan and on painted engine surfaces without any trouble. It comes in an aerosol can about like spray paint, usually with a silver can and an orange lid. I do that from time to time, just to knock down any gunk in the doghouse and on the cylinders. Hose the parts off in keeping with the can's directions.
For the tins and just a cursory, pre-show cleaning, you can use Simple Green, an environmentally friendly cleaning agent that dissolves in water and which comes in a squirt bottle like glass cleaner or Formula 409. I'd suggest putting bread bags over your carbs and distributor when you hose off the engine in either case.
For detail stuff that you don't want to get wet, or if you don't need to go through the whole engine compartment, use a red 'shop towel' of the type a mechanic wipes his hands with. There's something in those towels that wipes oil up and hangs onto it. They're available in bundles at auto parts places.
Those towels do a fine job of cleaning ick off of ivory-colored knobs, too.
Gordon NicholsGordon NicholsMassachusetts 1993 CMC Supporting Member
Lane wrote: " I spoke to Pat Downs about the leakage, and he's pretty convinced its a porous casting of the oil cooler pedestal. "

S.O.B! I was wondering about that when we were running it without the fan housing, but it didn't show itself then - probably because we didn't run it long enough or rev it over 3 grand. I wonder if (and how many) of those he's seen....

Should be interesting to see the result. Hey! You might not need to pull the engine to fix that, but, to be honest, it might be easier to do so. Pulling it shouldn't take more than 45 minutes and then you could "Engine Brite" the living heck out of it...

gn
El FrazooEl Frazoo Supporting Member
wrt: "porous casting" Yes indeedy. Some may recall that I had a case crack and/or porosity right at the tapped hole where the oil sending unit screws into the case. [Pictures in my gallery.] It was a bear to find, as many other more common sources were suspected first. Method was to keep cleaning it all up real good and look very closely at everything until you see the source, vs. just the result sprayed all over everything. [Some suggested using flour or other white powder sprinkled around so as to highlight the source. I did not resort tothat technique.] Fix was to use JB Weld epoxy paste. Cleaned the location up proper w/ copious amounts of solvent and carb cleaner, filed down the metal to shiny as best I could in the vicinity, and just pressed a blob of JB onto it. Hardens overnight, and seals up tight from then on. So far so good.

And Gordo: no need for pics of the holes -- have seen them up close and personal so know what to do, just gotta go do it. Still, water sheds off the top and car body right into and through the lid/body seam, and would drip right on the carbs regardless of the grille structures, holes or not, IMHO.
Lane AndersonLane AndersonMt. Pleasant, SC Supporting Member
I could fix it without pulling the engine, but you really have to put pressure on the fan shroud to get it back in. It gets caught on the forward edge of the decklid opening and the internal cooler, and I have wondered if that pressure (I've removed the shroud a couple of times) might have worsened the leak. Besides, pulling the engine gives me a chance to do several other things more easily, like tighten the head bolts, change the plugs, replumb everything, etc. It should be worth the effort.
El FrazooEl Frazoo Supporting Member
I am now on Mod II of the baking pan solution -- I should take a picture or two and post. Frankly, I am not all that proud of the arrangement, preferring to see it as temporary until I can get over my sticker shock for the plastic ones like Lane and gerd have. And I will not take credit either, as I think I heard about the aluminum baking pans first from Gordon of the Five Cent Racing Team. And also note: while they've been on there a while now, I have not had 'em in the rain yet. But they should work fine. The nicer ones, painted the color of the car would be pretty cool, no doubt about it.
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