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I’ve got two days of open track coming up and I was still on lock down at work so I decided to take the car to a shop for some much needed track prep. I brought the car to Art and A&A Auto in Petaluma. Art’s a modified racer and has his own repair shop. I dropped the car off last Thursday, gave him a punch list and bailed back to work. Art is the man! I got the car back today and it should be in good shape for this weekend. Here’s what he did:

- change the oil to 20 / 50 and put in 6 quarts
- adjust the carb
- replace the exhaust gaskets (the poorly adjusted carb caused a lot of back firing at infineon which blew out the gaskets)
- nut and bolt the whole car
- top off the rear end fluid (it’s been losing fluid through the breather)

Hopefully the car will continue to perform well at Thunderhill this weekend. Looking forward to it!

ok, not quite but it’s very close. I just need to hang the doors back on, pop out the rear glass and bolt some wheels back on so it will roll. Unfortunately I broke the upper drivers side corner off the windshield when I was removing it… I’ll either need to find a replacement or look into having a lexan windshield made. I need to order the fuel cell, pedals and seat as all the mounting for those items is going to be done when the cage is installed. here’s a little video walk around of the car.

This past weekend was AWESOME!!! Drove the Javelin down to Buttonwillow and beat on it for back to back track days. I’ve had the car since 1992 and drag raced it a couple of times but this is the first time ever the cars been on a road course. The car was great. Honestly I was shocked at how well it worked on track. It’s got a street alignment and I don’t know anything about setting/checking tire pressures. My first session was ridiculous. I’d never been to Buttonwillow before and no idea which way the track went. For my second session I grabbed an instructor who showed me the line. Then I rode in his Porsche Cayman S and got to see how he did it. So, for my third session it just clicked. I finally felt like I was actually driving the track. I spent the rest of the day and the two morning sessions on Sunday just getting faster and faster. The group that put on the track event was NCRC and they were great. I have to give a plug for my brakes. They were amazing. I have a wilwood front disc setup put together by Ken McIntire. They just rocked. If you are interested in getting a track worthy brake setup on your AMC, contact him at McIntire Machine in Crows Landing , CA.

I had some company on Saturday as I met up with Gaetano (gitter done from the Pro-Touring forum) and got a few laps in his killer 600+ HP aluminum block ’69 Camaro. Very cool!

I did have a couple of glitches. First, I had a 6000 RPM chip in my MSD box. However, the rev limiter was kicking in more like 5600 – 5700. Too low. I’m going to switch to a 6500 chip. The other issue is that after my second session on Sunday the car started sputtering on the cool down lap and stalled as I got to the pits. I had no idea what the problem was. I thought maybe the car had gotten hot and I had vapor lock. So, unfortunately, I sat out the rest of my sessions because I thought I had to let the car cool down. Anyway, at the end of the day I still couldn’t get the car started. By sheer luck I had stalled right near where some guys with a stock car were pitted. I went out and asked if they had a carb guru. Well they listened to my description of what had happened and took a quik look at the car. I swear it took them about 4 1/2 seconds to diagnose my problem. I had a piece of junk in the metering needle. The junk turned out to be a small sliver of blue anodized aluminum from the AN fittings on the carb. So, I’m going to swap out my fuel rail. Anyway, after empyting all the backed up fuel from the float and clearing out the junk, the car started right up. Huge thanks to the guys at Wide Open Throttle performance for saving my butt!!!

Despite the minor glitches I’ve had a perma grin on my face all week. I’ve done 3 track days in my vette this year but running the Javelin was just so much more satisfying. It was very cool to be out there in a car I built and feel that it was actually working. AMC RULES!

Enjoy the video…

I’ve had a 1974 Javelin shell for about 7 years.  Finally decided what I’m going to do with it.  I’m going to build it for NASA’s American Iron class.  Here’s a timelapse of day 2 of the disassembly.  The car is 100% gutted now.  Next step is to strip all the insulation and body sealer out of the interior and then it goes out to get a cage installed.  Stay tuned!

wow!  what a trip!  I drove about 900 miles over the last 3 days.  had a great time at the Socal AMX club’s ALL AMC car show.  Just like last year it was in the parking lot at the NHRA museum.  Great show!  One particularly interesting car there was a 1969 AMX 600 that Craig Breedlove used to own.  Really interesting car.  Also got to hang out with Jon Feltis and his dad.  great people and they are building (rebuilding) their cool 1969 Javelin with a killer new front suspension will all corvette C6 components.  Wow!

Oh, and I won a FIRST PLACE trophy… crazy.  I was in “Javelin Modified” class and there were only 2 other cars in that class so I realized I was definitely going to win a trophy.  I was shocked  to get first place though.  My javelin was the least “nice” of the group, with all it’s paint chips and the bugs in the grille from the drive (I didn’t even wash it).  But, I can confidently say I had the MOST modified javelin, so if that was the criteria then I guess it makes sense.

I was really impressed and happy with how well the car performed.  with the tko 5 speed it just cruises on the highway.  it does wander now and then over certain surfaces.  don’t know if that’s because of the wheels or not.  it’s got a street alignment on it… dunno.

coming back over the grapevine was COLD!!!!  I have no heat or AC in this car and it was down right FRIGID for about 20 minutes…  some day I’d like to put a vintage air system in.

Here’s a time lapse of the show I shot with my go pro camera. enjoy.

I went to the Socal AMX club’s AMC car show last year and vowed to come back with my Javelin.  We’ll I leave in the morning and BOY it’s been an epic thrash.  Here are some of the highlights/lowlights…

The interior if fully dynamated and the carpeting, seats and dash is mostly all back together

The center parking brake is installed and working!

The new amp rack and new door speakers are installed and the stereo works!

As for the problelms…

I orderd a set of black, cragar d-window wheels from summit. actually I ordered a pair of 17×8 for the front and a pair of 17×9 for the rears.  and I bought nitto 555 tires.  Well, the 17x9s came quickly but the 17x8s have been backordered for over a month… I made a last ditch effort by ordered another pair of 17x9s so I’d have that size all around.  However, they’re not going to get hear in time for the show.  So, that means I’m driving the 410 miles (each way) on my Kumho victoracer dot legal track tires…  not my first choice but I have been running them on the street for a while.  Hopefully there won’t be any issues.

Another, bigger issue is that I ordered rebuilt door hinges because mine have always been shot.  I’ve tried replacing the pins/bushings and tried added the door springs (which were missing on my car) but I have been unable to get my old, worn out hinges to work.  So I sprung for the replacement hinges.  I decided to go ahead and try to replace them for the show.  big mistake.  there is no way, by myself, that I can get the door aligned…  I started on the passenger side so the drivers side still works.  But, on the passenger side I’ve basically given up and have to sit on my butt and push the door closed with my foot to get it to latch.  oh, and even though I can get the door latched, the window won’t roll up in the position I have it.  So, I’m driving 900 miles with a door hanging on and a window I can’t close.

I spent last weekend, ALL WEEKEND, working on the car and realized I would never get it done in time.  So I ended up taking the last 2 days off to complete it.  Leaving in the morning.  Wish me luck!

So I rented the skid pad at Thunder Hill today.  The plan was to beat on the car a bit and see if it held together.  A shake down prior to doing some track days with it this year…  The car performed pretty well.  The brakes and clutch feel great,  the transmission shifts nice.  all in all I was really pretty happy with everything.  There are a couple of issues however.  The steering wheel is not straight.  annoying but should be an easy fix.  the big issue is that I am leaking gear fluid out of the passenger side axle seal.  I’ve done almost everything to this car but I’ve never pulled an axle.  so, I guess there’s something new for me to learn.  also, if you watch this video, I’m not convinced my posi is working.  the couple of times I got the wheels spinning it seems like maybe only the pass. side was spinning???  finally, this adventure has taught me that I’m really going to have to spring for a separate set of track wheels/tires.  The Kumho’s I have on now suck on the street because they pick up every little pebble and throw them up into the wheel wells.  makes a racket.  so my plan is to buy some cheap steel wheels for the track and get some street tires for the wheels I have now.

well, it’s been almost two years but the car is back on the ground.  I sent the hub with the sheared wheel stud back to Ken McIntire and he was able to get the old stud out and put in a new one.  So I put the corner back together and slapped the wheels back on and got it off the jack stands.  I took it down the block and back and the clutch pedal feels great.  The brakes however really need to be bled more.  I hate bleeding these brakes.  There are TWO bleed screws per front caliper so that’s six bleeders to deal with and I never have any help.  I’ve tried a vacuum gun but never had much luck with it…  so, next items are, get the brakes bled, get the dash assembled, finish dynamating the interior and some other odds and ends.  the big deal though is that the car is driveable again except for the low brake pedal…

ok, I was already to bleed the brakes and start driving the car and then wham… so much for that idea.  I moved the car from the wheel ramps it’s been on for a year to jack stands so I could remove the wheels.  it’s way easier to bleed the brakes with the wheels off.  anyway, ONE lug nut out of 20 would not come off.  I must have cross threaded it the last time I put them on.  anyway, I ended up shearing it off with a breaker bar.  this was on the front drivers side.  to remove the sheared wheel stud meant removing the caliper and rotor/hub assembly.  then I had to separate the rotor/hat from the hub.  finally I put the hub in my vice and try to  back out the sheared stud.  no dice.  I know they were put in with loc-tite so I heated the bolt up to 150 degrees and hit it with an impact gun.  nothing.  next I bolted the hub back onto a wheel and held the wheel against the wall.  then I tried to back it out with a breaker bar.  when I realized I was starting to twist my allen head socket but the bolt was not budging I gave up.  I’m sending it back to Ken McIntire who designed/built the hub.  he said he’d fix it for me.

sheared wheel stud... bummer.

it wasn’t part of my original plan but I’ve decided to delete the heater for now…  the heater hasn’t been working for at least 10 years so I guess I can continue living without it.  ultimately I’d rather have a new vintage air heater/ac setup…  we’ll see.  anyway, here are a few pics of the work.  pretty straight forward. paper template to sheet metal and then riveted in place.