Poor life choices - C4 content

I too was chuckling a little wondering at what point through the tear filled conversation did you drop the bomb of "will you take less?"

Not that I wouldn't do the same I just figured it might be a little tricky to work in with positive results.

Nice score.

petegossett wrote: In reply to Stampie: No turbos required. I'm not convinced there's any reason for more than 400hp/tq in an autox car

Since when did there have to be a reason?

Wow that's a pretty crazy story, but great you found what you were looking for Pete.

Watching with interest. Always liked the C4, mainly because that was the hot car when I was a kid.

Day-1 of actually working on & documenting the car(2-hours):

First of all the OE Z51 package Bilstein's are still on the car. They don't appear blown, but if they're truly almost 32 years old I don't expect them to last too many miles. That's something to worry about later though.

Since I'm starting with a non-running car, I picked the most obvious place to get to work: the interior. (Side note - this may partly be why I suck at finishing projects...) Honestly though, with broken glass form the original shattered rear hatch scattered all over the interior, I thought it would be best to clean it all out before I slice myself up while climbing in & out. Also, it had sat open under the disintegrating tarp just long enough to get a bit of yellow mold on the interior surfaces, so I wanted to clean it out as well.

One problem we discovered yesterday is neither seat would tilt or slide, so I spent most of my time removing the passenger's seat, cleaning the mess on the passenger's side, then cleaning all the hard surfaces on the inside of the passenger door.

Fortunately you can unbolt the seat from the seat rail simply by removing the bottom cushion & removing 4-13mm bolts. Once I got the cushion out I was surprised by how complex the seat mechanism is. I also discovered the spring supports were rusted through, but I'll make new ones from some bailing wire. I discovered these are the "sport" seats, which is making the back more difficult to get apart so I can free the seat-back release.

Once I got the seat out, I found it still had the original sticker still attached. Jan 29 1985 is the date stamped on it. I'm surprised it says "driver" since this was the passenger seat?

After that it was just a lot of vacuuming, followed by liberal quantities of CRC Freeze Off(I put that E36 M3 on everything), some hammering to free the sliders, and a bit of grease.

Then I scrubbed the door, and scrubbed it a few more times. My rags were so black I was afraid I was somehow removing the coloring from the plastic. Nope, it was just that dirty. I won't bother reposting the before pic from yesterday, but here's the after.

I wanted to see if the engine was free, and also knock a few of the mud wasp nests out - it turns out ice scrapers are actually useful for something on the gulf coast after all. There are dozens more like this one...I'm really glad I didn't buy the car earlier in the year.

Here's a gratuitous engine shot. Fortunately everything appears stock & unmolested. Unfortunately I couldn't get the engine to turn. That's at least partly because the crank bolt is recessed about 2" in the pully, and only being a 16mm I was struggling to keep the wrench seated & apply enough to leverage. I didn't remove the spark plugs either, but I'll wait a while to dig in that deep.

Lastly, here's a pic showing the majority of the mess in the hatch area I still need to clean.

Some people have more free time, and some people have more free cash. It's clear which side of the seesaw you are on! :)

In reply to EvanR:

I'm pretty sure I've racked myself trying to straddle the fulcrum.

I'm not sure I'd wear that hat. Not sure I'd be able throw it away either.

In reply to Robbie:

It wasn't the PO's, it was his friend's. The same one that declined the offer of the car for free. It's in the trash.

This reminds me of the C4 episode of Wheeler Dealers.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

I've not seen that, but I'll look for it & check it out if I can find it!

Pete that black stuff coming up on your rag is not dirt. It's a Louisiana car from the swamp. I bet it's black mold. At least we're a masks to prevent inhaling that stuff

Sad story about that family, but that's not the car's fault. I'm digging the color, too.

In reply to Ovid_and_Flem:

I had to help clean out my mother's basement in IL 15 years ago after the roof had leaked for a significant period, the whole thing was covered in black mold. Of course some of those boxes contained stuff I wanted to try & salvage, so I've moved them about 3 times since. I finally got smart and tossed out a bunch of them with the latest move.

The good news with the car is none of the mold is airborne. I can't even pick up the slightest mildew odor, nor does none of the mold/whatever get blown about while I'm cleaning. I don't think I'll be sitting inside with the windows up the first time I turn on the blower fan though.

get yourself some of this from home despot

It will help lots with the mold, been using it on some stuff from my moms formerly flooded basement and it helps a ton.

This car is begging to be turned into a Vettecart ala RoadKill: http://www.roadkill.com/car/vette-cart/

In reply to Apexcarver:

Thanks! I need to make a trip there this week, so I'll add this to the list.

I'm still missing the part where this is a poor life choice...

I hunted for this type of car for about a year before I gave up and bought my 318ti. I had dreams of a crusty roller with a blown engine and swapping in a 4.3L v6 or supercharged 3800 and going lemons racing.

I can't believe someone actually has had success with Freeze Off. I'm 90% sure it's actually designed by some kind of malevolent entity to make removing fasteners harder.

collinskl1 wrote: I'm still missing the part where this is a poor life choice... I hunted for this type of car for about a year before I gave up and bought my 318ti. I had dreams of a crusty roller with a blown engine and swapping in a 4.3L v6 or supercharged 3800 and going lemons racing.

The "poor life choice" is that a.) I've never actually finished a project car. Ever. And b.) what I really needed at this point was something cheap, reliable, and practical. At least I got one of the three.

In reply to ssswitch:

Really? The only two times I've ever broken a fastener using Freeze Off was when there were rusty threads extending past the part that was engaged & I neglected to clean them before attempting to extract the bolt. Most of my experience with it is in the rust-belt too.

Nice save, congratulations. Your car is frost beige over bronze, always liked that combination. The cloth sport seats are not common, and kind of nice since they are more grippy than leather. This car is pre-roller cam so it won't be particularly quick even with the Z51 rear axle, but if an engine swap is in the cards you don't care, right?

Three practical considerations - 1. No ABS (standard in 86+), but that gives you the chance to perfect your threshold braking; 2. consider swapping to the later hood prop design; and 3. hardest thing about autox will be tires. There is nothing in the stock 16" for max performance summer tires, as far as I know. Either look for 17x9.5s with 84-7 specific backspacing or pick up a square set of later C4 wheels and add spacers. The suspension changed in 88 with respect to scrub radius, and the earlier cars actually have a small theoretical advantage in autox.

The really bad thing...

I have a friend trying to get my to buy his (similar condition) c4 for somewhere around $1500

Only his is a stick with the 4+3

I just keep repeating to myself "Finish Bugeye, Build a Locost" (and/or maybe try karting..)

In reply to conesare2seconds:

I'm definitely not worried about the L98(lack of) performance. I just want to get it running/driving and sort out all the bugs a 32 year old car that's been parked & neglected for 3.5-years is bound to have. Wheel spacers to run the later wheels on an early C4 are dirt-cheap, but if I'm going to buy wheels I want to hold out for 18's so I can go to a square 315 setup...and those tires are definitely not cheap. Like, 1.5x the purchase price of the car for a set of tires.

Oddly, the prevalent tire I'm finding in the stock 255/50/16 is the BFG G-Force Sport Comp-2. It's not going to be a top contender in autox, but they're also only $123-each. So I may get a set of those for the stock rims, use them for my street wheels/tires and a handful of events before I step up to the 315/18 combo - and really, there's no need for that much grip until I'm at the point of an LSX swap anyway.

In reply to Apexcarver:

A C4 is a bit like a Locost, only the engineering is already done, and it has the comforts of a real car.