And sounds soo sweet
Today, I took the Z down to Darren’s Muffler & Exhaust Centre to get the exhaust system installed. Dad had visited Darren the day before and got a converter made up so we could put in the old exhaust system just to get her down there without drawing too much attention to us.
But, before I took her down, I wanted to get the old seat belts back in; I just didn’t feel comfortable driving her with no seat belts. This only took a few minutes and I wanted to crank her over. And lucky I tried early. The battery was dead flat. Now, we were very puzzled at this as we had charged the battery before starting her the other day. I pulled the batter out of my daily driver and put it into the Z. I turned the key again and this time she cranked. And cranked. And cranked. And nothing. Not even a sputter. I played with the choke, then I put the accelerator to the floor and finally something. And was it rough. A few days ago, the engine hadn’t been started for over three years, and it started a lot easier than it did today. We finally got her idling okay, once she got a little warm.
I drove her out of the garage and followed Dad to the shop. She drove well all of the way and didn’t give me any troubles. We pulled into the shop and put her onto the hoist. Darren took one look at her and said “We’ll make it 2¼” all the way, put a small hotdog and a sports muffler. Then we’ll finish her off with a simple chrome tip”. Exactly what I was going to ask him to do.
A couple of hours later, I went to pick up the car. I started her up and a smile from ear to ear crept onto my face. Darren built the exhaust to produce the exact note that I wanted to hear. She sounded great. I gave the accelerator a tap and, man, beautiful. This time, I let Dad follow me, and not on the back roads. I wanted to take her onto the freeway to stretch her legs a little. I swept round the round-about nice and slow in second gear and once around, I planted the pedal. I think she had been waiting a long time for that, as she took her cue and tore out of the curve and got up to speed in no time. And the note! Nice and mild up to about 3,500 to 4,000 RPM and then she resonated beautifully. Music to my ears.
Once back, we started to look into a couple of the electrical problems. The first was why the battery was dead flat and the second was why the alternator was not charging the battery. We found that the battery had a 0.5 amp drain on it when the car was off. We found the circuit causing the problem, but not the problem itself. With the fuse pulled, the battery would not drain until we can fix the actual problem. The reason that the battery wasn’t being charged was a simple one. A fuseable link had come undone. Plugged it back in and hey presto, the battery is charging again.
This will be the last work on the girl for a while. Mum and Dad are moving house soon and everything has been packed. But it is great that she’s back on the road, even if the interior is not complete yet.