posted by 2fass240us on Nov 24
This didn’t become an expression for no good reason.It’s been on my brain quite a bit lately, since I am trying to get the car street legal. I’ve considered this option for some time now, but only recently did I decide to act on it. I’ve grown weary of making an hour round trip to get a trailer, only to tow to an autocross for 4 runs, then another hour to take the trailer back to its storage place. Including loading and unloading the car from the trailer, this is 4 hours that I could have back for every event I attend.
Getting the car street-worthy will require quite a few things, including:
- Adding back headlights, w/o headlights motors
- Adding back turn signals
- Adding back side markers
Eventually, I’ll have to do some exhaust work to get things where they really should be, but this’ll do for now. While the above may sound easy, it will be quite a task for me, as all excess wiring was removed years ago. I took a trip to the junkyard a week or two ago, and basically took all the interior wiring from a donor car except what I knew I didn’t need. This was quite a task, too. The easiest method was to simply cut big bundles where I would have to put too much effort into pulling pieces through. Given the rain at the time, this seemed like a good idea. Hopefully it won’t backfire.
Street driving will also mean that I need to get some “comfort items” back in the car, like door panels, carpet, and a center console. As a side benefit, this might bump me to a more competitive class in autocross. I don’t care that much though, because I stink at it.
I’ll also need to give careful thought to the oil cooler situation, as I have no thermostat. I think I can solve this through careful driving and cooler core masking, but have no developed a plan yet. I may be a non-issue, but depends heavily on how often I will actually drive the car. It will not get driven to work, and cannot carry my son. So I might drive it a few times a month. Given the lack of A/C and power steering, those times could be even fewer.
Add to this list the lack of water-tightness of the windows and crappy paint, and it may only see daylight once a month, 6-7 months out of the year. Time will tell.