Winky's Last Ride

Here's a quick video of Winky's last drive before he gets stripped and reassembled. Hopefully, he'll emerge from the cocoon running better than when he came in!

The trip around the block wasn't just to hoon around my neighborhood. I've never actually driven the car, so I wanted to see how (if) it runs under its own power.

The good: The clutch seems very good. The shifter was very very fluid on the upshift, but the synchros seem a little balky downshifting into 1st and 2nd (I only got up to 3rd). That may be because the transmission was cold.

The bad: There seems to be pretty bad HLA knocking. I'll have to have those replaced or cleaned.

The ugly: White smoke coming out of the tailpipe! The 3 mile drive after the collision (with a busted radiator) must have toasted the head gasket. Hopefully it's just a gasket and didn't warp the head. There doesn't seem to be antifreeze in the oil, so maybe it's not that bad.

Now I'll have to decided whether to delay the build and rebuild the engine, or whether to press on ahead and just get the Spartan built and running. I'm leaning toward the latter, but I know having a basket case for a motor is going to drive me a little nuts.