Wednesday Night's Bricklin Overview

A late night Wednesday led to ripping out a lot of botch-job wiring from the Bricklin, including an inoperable alarm system and the world's most ghetto radio (a detachable faceplate unit from the 80s!). My original list of work was only 13 items long. It nearly doubled overnight.

Removal of the carburetor revealed it was uncontrollably dumping fuel into the engine with blatant disregard if it was actually needed. This was flooding the engine. Diagnosis: A bad carburetor. I could opt for a rebuilt, but the original plan was to replace the stock two barrel with a four barrel (if the original timeline called for action much later in the process). It will have to be done sooner.

Further inspection revealed the onboard air pump for the doors was originally meant for air shocks. Not exactly heavy duty equipment (though it explains why it takes nearly twenty minutes to pump the system to 120 psi). Whoever installed the pneumatic system didn’t sweat the details. A heavy duty compressor, new air lines (possibly), and a pressure regulator should make the system dependable.

The new Bricklin work list sits at 25 individual items, TWO of which are finished. Most are small fixes, so it should get whittled down quickly to the imperative items fairly quickly. There’s no rush; I’d like to have it done by August, but that’s not an absolute deadline. Hopefully work will move quickly and I’ll be behind the wheel by then.