EvanTheTerrible
New member
Hello again!
This thread is to keep track of Sebring #129, the white car that Eli and I have been working on for about 6 months. I'll update this with more pictures but I wanted to get something up here.
We bought this car on Facebook without knowing what on earth it was or where it was made. I have owned two kit cars before, one VW based and one Pinto based. I'm comfortable with a wrench, soldering iron and volt meter and Eli is a hell of a welder.
When we picked it up, it had no floor on the passenger side and the driver's side had been "dropped" in a fairly rudimentary fashion. There was no steering wheel to speak of, it had a really nice set of vice-grips on the column. I think they're the nicest vice-grips I've ever purchased, certainly the most expensive.
In any case, it was just above "basket case" in the grand scheme of things. All the parts were there and installed, but we had no interior to speak of. The driver's side pan wasn't welded in so we pitched it. We got some new pans and spent some time dropping them and welding them back in.
The gas tank is made from a 10ish gallon air tank and was filled with black slime that reminded me of Venom (of comic book fame). It took hours if not days to get the goo out, we ended up cutting the tank in half and wire-wheeling the entire thing on the inside. Then Eli welded it back together and we were good on that front.
Engine wise, we had a single port 1500 that, after some fiddling and a new coil, miraculously ran. We immediately threw a five gallon bucket in the floor and drove it around the block. Brakes were less than adequate but we didn't hit anything. The 1500 had something weird going on, but it ran. At one point, the carb decided to eat one of its pieces (that little brass nozzle for the accelerator pump) and we had to tear down the engine to get it back. Turns out we didn't have a 1500 at all. We had a 1525. Ish. Someone had swapped one of the cylinders and jugs for a 1600cc set. We replaced all cylinders and jugs with 1600 stuff, replaced the intake so we could have heat risers and replaced the carb. It ran great.
Lighting wise, we tore everything out and replaced it with LED's. The taillights are an Amazon special, $7 each. The side markers are trailer lights. The headlights are LED replacements. The front turn signals are a two bulb trailer light that I modified to have two circuits so we can have running lights and turn signals up front. We still don't have reverse lights because we can't be bothered to get to the reverse switch on the transaxle. Suggestions are welcome. All the lights have 3d printed or laser cut bezels to make them surface mount and/or to cover the old holes.
Interior wise, we've covered everything with sound deadening and have templates cut for carpet. The seats are from a Dodge Neon and have only been on fire once. We had to remove much of the tilt hardware to get them to fit and welded the tilt mech up, causing a wee boo of fire at one point. We have plans to replace them anyway, they were always a temporary fix.
In other stuff, we've replaced the windshield wiper motor and all that hardware. The canopy is pneumatic and runs directly from a 12v pump up front. It is a little slow, but I liked the idea of being able to pull a hose if we totally lose power and manhandle the top up without spraying hydraulic fluid everywhere. Brackets for the cylinders were 3d printed but will be replaced with machined parts when I have the time to do that. The 3d printed ones have been working for 6 months so....
Finally, we've recently replaced the engine with an engine purchased from a now-deceased engine builder. No one knows what its displacement is or what's going on internally. It's been sitting in the back of his shop for a decade. Since it had fresh oil in it and fired up immediately, we slammed it in the car and have been driving it. I don't *need* to know what the displacement is in order to drive, right?
The exhaust is a bit of a joke, but we didn't have anything that would fit the heads and thought it would be funny. The bolt pattern on the heads is a bit wider than any of the exhausts I have laying around.
I'm sure I'll think of more later. We aren't really great at documenting our builds since there tend to be 10 ongoing at any one time. Right now, we have the Sterling, Sebring, two 30 foot plus power boats (with 3 V8's between the two of them), a handful of outboards, a tractor, a baby tractor..... all going on at the same time. I'm trying to do better with the Sterling build since the owner is on the other side of the country.
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