GrabberGT Ev. 5

I REALLY like it. I want one of these though. They are in Austin this weekend. I wonder if Doug Bouer will steel some and bring them to the Mini Meet Sunday.

 

Damn I love that stance you have. With those wheels its a killer ride you have. Great Job!

 

Your car only gets better. Glad you still have the hood scoop its sweet, but now your saving weight and the carbon fiber looks awesome.

 

that paint and hood are AWESOME! very nice

 

To one and all, I am just a general enthusiast and I saw this car in person the other day. No offense to the photographer, but photos don't do it justice. It is one awesome machine and actually looks very contemporary. Chris I was the guy that pulled up next to you in Roanoke the other day. Man it sounded good pulling away, would love to see it compete in autocross. Where do you race?

 

Wow! I honored you would come find me. I hate to ask but which guy were you? LOL. It happens quite often when I have the car out and about.

I race out at Texas Motor Speedway. There is an autocross there almost every weekend. I try to hit one a month.

 

I don't know if you would take notice of the vehicle, I honked, asked you what kind of powerplant you were running, driving an F-250 loaded with drums.

 

looks like we may have another maverick/comet guy on our hands in the future

 

Both my mother and my mother-in-law drove 4 door, six cylinder, base model Mavericks at about the same time. Both cars were as dependable as they were plain. After many miles of service, they were traded in for other models, since the Maverick was no longer in production. My mother-in-law has since passed away, but my mom would still tell you that the Maverick was one of the most dependable vehicles she has ever owned. Chris's car has given me a whole new perspective on this mostly overlooked 70's model.

 

Nice. Were you the guy at the light on 114?

 

Yep, on my way to FMC in Justin, dropping off a little hydraulic oil. My wife and her family are from Minnesota, her mom always called her car a Mivrick, that Minnesota/Dakota speak, oh yah. It was kind of a running joke. She had a large bumper version which was a good thing, she "bumped" into several things before the car was retired, but it never gave them a second of problems. I had to find your car so I could show my wife what a "Mivrick" could look and sound like.

 

Alright. So its been an interesting couple of weeks. I couldnt wait any longer to get out and autocross. I really needed the practice. So I finally decided to make one of these new 1-1/8" sway bars functional to see what it would do. I make it out to the event and make my first 4 runs. Its getting close to 100* and Im hot lapping the car. Basically its a 55" pass followed by a wait in line for another maybe 2 minutes to make another pass. The car is getting hot 210ish but overall is doing great. The front tires are sticking better than ever but the rear tires are all over the place and getting worse the hotter they get. The 4th and final pass of the morning, the rear is just all over. I really thought at first that my panhard bar had broken loose. Over lunch, I loosened up the rear C/O to give the rear end more room to grip. This works well and my first 2 runs in the afternoon re feeling better. When I pull up to make my 3rd run of the afternoon, the car dies on the start line as I drop the clutch. I try to start it again but there is no power. Like someone just disconnected the battery. We push the car off the start and I start looking around. I remember the last time I had this issue, it was the ground cable going from the frame to the neg battery post. I took a peek at it and found that the side post style battery clamp had actually broken in half. so the car was no longer grounded. Thinking the was the problem I, with the aid of a couple other guys remove the clamp and just tighten the wires directly to the frame. Get in the car and it tries to fire but nothing. Then smoke from under the hood and a sizzling sound from the trunk. I jump out and open the trunk to remove the cable. My Optima Yellow-Top was frying. (I dont think Gel cells boil) I got lucky it didnt explode in my face. I opened the hood to find the short. After a brief inspection, we found the one-wire alternator cable had come loose and was grounding itself against the Alt casing. We did a quick repair of the wire to insulate it from the alt and its now time to limp home.

Not liking the feeling of think my car is fixing to burst into flames as Im trying to get into the trunk and disconnect the battery, I come to the conclusion that its time for a battery disconnect solution. I find several to choose from but what I want is a switch I can reach while driving that will disconnect the battery as Im driving if need be. Its not a kill switch just a disconnect. I choose one from Keep-It-Clean Wiring for its price point. On Amazon, its half the price of Ron Francis and Painless solutions. Its basically a constant duty starter solenoid that you put in line between your battery and the rest of the car. Its armed by grounding out the solenoid by on/off switch inside the car. GREAT! I've got a couple switches mounted but not connected to anything I can use. I order it and wait.... to be continued

 

... So now with parts on the way, I begin preparing the car for the trip to Austin for the Roundup. All I need to do is double check my A/C wiring and get the system charged. Not a big deal and takes just half a day to do after repairing the Alt cable. I get the AC charged on Tuesday and drive it to work on Wednesday. Its running good and blowing COLD. but... Theres a lot of racket coming from the transmission tunnel related to my parking brake and the car starts to overheat when cruising. The parking brake has not been working for a while, something came loose and I've never noticed the noise because I drive with the windows down. I've always had issues with cooling on this motor. Its a combination of rusty engine block and mal-adjusted timing. I cant do much about the rust in the block or really the timing but play with it. See, the timing on the motor cannot be checked/set properly due to the poor design of this March performance pulley set. You cannot get a clear line-of-site at the crank balancer to set timing due to the placement of the AC compressor, the Power steering pump, and associated hoses. So you’re kind of flying blind with the setting. I've found that when the timing is too far retarded, it runs hot at highway speeds so I set about increasing my timing to reduce the temps. In the meantime, I've been running water only for cooling and figure some actual coolant and Water-Wetter would help some as well. So decide to flush the cooling system and see if I can make it better. In flushing the cooling system another problem arises. I dont know if something shorted out or what, but now my blower fan for the A/C stops working. Oh great! just got the AC charged and now the system breaks.

Its now Thursday and the cooling system is flushed. I have the car up on stands in the garage and am waiting on Vintage Air to call me back with trouble shooting advise. I find my p-brake issue. The adjuster nut had come loose and fell completely off allowing the adjusting bold to dangle down and bounce/rub on the drive shaft. The best I can do to fix that is to put it back in place but cannot tighten it and completely fix it without dropping most of the rear suspension and taking out the drive shaft. So I let it be and hope it doesn’t fall out again. Even if it does, its just noise anyway. Its only a parking brake after all.

My drive line STILL vibrates like crazy at anything over 70mph so I check my drive-line alignment. the front is ~3* and the rear end is ~-3* so its definitely within 1* of being perfect. It should not be a problem... Vintage Air calls. We walk through their trouble shooting guide and determine that the best thing to do is remove the ECU from the evaporator unit and mail it to them for inspection. GRRRRR! Thats a half day project in itself so isn’t going to happen before the trip. The blower fan DOES work though, so I decide to wire it directly to the battery with a toggle switch. This will allow me to still have AC on the trip.

So now I've got the project of adding a toggle switch and running lines to the battery for it. Might as well install my new safety switch while Im at it. I took Friday off work and spent a full 13 hrs that day routing, crimping cables, and running for parts. The Disconnect kit did not come with all the hardware it should have. So I had to source some 8mm x 1.0 nuts, some more connectors, and, because Im an idiot and bought a 10' length of 6ga ground cable instead of 13' like I needed, I had to find a place that sold 6ga butt connectors. (This nickel and dime stuff takes time AND money.) So I finally get it all installed and go for a test drive around 9pm. The switch works, car is running cooler (prob because its night and, well cooler outside) and the AC with fan is blowing cold. We're ready to get up and hit the road at 6am the next day. Austin HERE WE COME!

Get up at 5am and clean up the wiring trash and tools I left in the car from the night before, get loaded and ready. Start the car up at 6am to leave. I hit the switch to turn on the battery. Turn the key and... nothing. WTH! I flip the switch again to make sure its working and it does. I now have power. Car starts. I verify my connections and they are all tight. no problem. Decide to head down the road anyway. So at 730 we finally get out the door. 2 miles down the road, something comes loose from the car and I hear it pass underneath and see it fly out the back. I pull over and walk back to pick it up and see what it is. I found it. Its the billet aluminum nose cover to my AC compressor. I study the compressor while it runs to ensure its not vibrating unusually or there are any other belt accessory problems. I notice the compressor cycling on and off rapidly. Great. Something else wrong. I decide to continue without AC now. At least a cold front has come thru and its cooler than usual this time of year.

Continue on and the car cuts out every so often. I watch the gauges and notice the fuel pressure drop suddenly and then back up. Not sure what it is so I pull over at a service gas station to inspect. For whatever reason, I decide to hit the cutoff switch before turning the car off. The car shuts down. Woohoo! oh wait. Its not a kill switch and should not shut the car down. Its only supposed to disconnect the battery. The car should stay running off the alt charge. So now Im on the South side of Ft Worth and cant figure out whats going on with anything. Thinking its prob in the switch, I could bypass it but like everything else in my car, I installed it out of the way rather than easily accessible and would take some time to get in there and do it. Its now 9:30 it'll take 30 minutes to fix, I have no AC, new baby is screaming (in the other car), Austin is still 3 hrs away and the show is over at 2pm. I would make it there in time to hang out for an hour IF nothing else goes wrong. Yup... its time to pull the plug on this trip.

I spend Saturday making it up to the family for not getting to go to Austin. Sunday, I ask my 7yo what we should do and he suggests I check out what the problem is with the car. (good kid) I find it strange that the car will not run if the switch is not on so I try running it with it on but disconnect the neg battery post. The car still runs fine. I disconnect the positive battery post next (it also provides the power to the switch) and the car shuts down. Interesting... I bypass the switch so that it is no longer needed and start the car. Disconnect the negative and it still runs. Disconnect the positive and it stays running. Just like it should. So I conclude that my kill switch is grounding out my system when it disconnects my battery. That makes no sense. Im now waiting on the "Keepitclean" tech support guy return my call so we can discuss.

 

that was an adventure in its self WOW.
your car is just saying NOPE IM NOT DOING IT! IM NOT GOING AND NEITHER ARE YOU!

sounds like youll get your car to see things your way with a little convincing

 

LOL. No kidding. It gets a little bit of magazine publicity and not has a big head about it.