99 Auto/Rally-X Car ...the beginning

[Jordan]

Ok so I guess its time to retire the '76 99 EMS from daily driving status for sure. I blew the fuel pump fuse today and the fuse panel is all melty... It doesn't help that most of the car was wired with speaker wire and wire nuts. Also, the trans is getting a little tired for sure as it sounds like im making sea glass in a rock tumbler during decel.


And so it begins...

[Luke]

Hmm where to start. I guess the first priority is to fix the wiring and stuff. Then throw on those sport and rally springs, source some spacers for rally-x, get your bilstiens rebuilt, might want to consider sourcing a sway bar that can be easily detached/installed. The car setup is definatly pretty different between auto-x and rally-x but I think with some minor effort you will be able to switch between the two setups pretty easily. If you go to a 5 spd it might be worth trying the 4spd primary thing like geoff did, it supposedly renders 1st useless but gives you 4 other nicely spaced gear for lower speed events. Hill Climb is also something to consider. It would be the most demanding safety equipment wise, but the requirements are still minimal.

[Jordan]

That was pretty much my plan of attack.

I think I will focus more of auto-x first and then see if I can get some modifications to work into rally-x.

To be honest I'm not really sure which would be the best course for the electrical, since the stuff in there is pretty bad for the most part I am going to have to replace a majority of the components (wires/fuse panel/connectors). So either I could peice together some more old stock or try fresh with my own harness. I don't know. Kind of make me want to go to a carb.

Thoughts?

[max]

Go carb. 1. it would be cool, and your car would sound more badass. 2. it's not a DD, so you wouldn't have to fiddle with it on a reoutinely basis. 3. think of the badass carb upgrades you could get. I'm thinking some velocity stacks. :lol:

[Jordan]

Yeah it is tempting... the guy up here has a manifold for the dual weber sidedrafts... and probably wants a pretty penny for it. Also the carbs aren't cheap, but it would be a nice set up.

I think I would need something like this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Triumph- ... enameZWDVW

Another thing I just saw..

http://www.cartct.com/wintercross.shtml

Looks like fun
Winter schedule should be up soon. I can picture my soccerballs with some 165 snows on

[Crazyswede]

You know you could probably just transplant the harness in from a 900 pretty easily. Or you could figure out exactly what circuits you will need and build a rudimentry harness to your liking. Figure one ignition, charging, light, starter, horn, fuel pump with various safety cutoffs. It might take a little while but it shouldnt be that difficult. If you get a hold of a couple old 900 harnesses you can harvest wires and connectors.

[Jordan]

The car is CIS so I feel like I'd having a 900 harness would be a good source of wire but not much help otherwise. I'd basically end up cutting out most of the wires/connectors to fit CIS anyway.. but I'm not sure I haven't really checked out the set up that's in there now. I've removed CIS in the volvo I have so I remember how different the system is than LH or even D-Jet. Carb is sounding might good even if I do have to spend some money.

The other problem is that harness has already been quite hacked already (hence the problems) so it may be difficult for me to figure out where things are SUPPOSED to go.

- Jordan

[Luke]

Well the early CIS hardly requires any wiring, you don't have an O2 sensor right? Might be worth looking into a Painless universal harness. I decided to just build a custom one for the rally car but a premade one would definatly be less work

[matt]

I second the vote for a painless universal kit, you can get a variety of items including a few circuits or a bunch of circuits, plus you know it's got the proper wire for the job.

in auto cross you won't need to worry about some of the things the rally car deals with, but if you plan to rally cross you will probably end up rallying so you may as well prepare the car accordingly.

First order of business is getting Sam up there to chip all the undercoating off the bottom of the car.

[Jordan]

I took a couple of snaps of the current wiring "system"


Mmm. melty


The cap of the fuse was melted to the terminal.


What is that masking tape?


Damn squirrels.

That yellow spec in the middle is bare wire ends twisted together.


Some rouge wires.


Those are either for the speakers ... or for the fuel pump.



The driveway

[max]

Wow dude, I've seen electrical science kits from radio shack that look better than that. :lol:

[Luke]

It looks like a good cleaning of the fuse block should really help things out. The fact that the fuse is welded to the block but not blown means that the resistance was at the connection of the fuse to holder, not in the electrical circuit itself, which is a good thing. Those old ceramic fuses always seem to do that. I like the speaker wiring to the fuel pump, so convenient to have the power and ground in one chintzy fagile cable.

[SaabsBreakDown]

Where could one find a universal harness?

I was planning on making my own.

Especially since the 1970 came with a 16 valve fusebox half stuck in the glovebox

[matt]

painless wiring does universal kits.

I'm sure there are other sources out there too.

[Saab99_16vT]

i put a 900 16vT wiring harness in my 99 and just cut out the unnecessary wires and it runs fine no problems. it took a couple days to sort through but it wasn't that difficult if you have good wiring diagrams.