This is the kind of thing that really upsets me. Why can't people cover their vehicles with a waterproof cover of some kind when it won't be in use for a while? The green plastic tarp under the ratty canvas one was my addition by the way. There was a blue tarp with a million pinholes under there before...
The engine had been removed for a rebuild (which was never completed).
And the interior was trashed and water-logged so I tore it out (I found a full late-model interior in a junkyard to replace it).
A shot of the rear...
I had to finish building the engine. A good thing there were two early Spiders in a local boneyard because there were LOTS of missing parts.
Here's Mark, the PO, with the built engine. He was a pretty cool guy for a Chevy & Triumph lover who always had a Coors in hand...
After installing the engine I began filling the cooling system. After a while I was wondering why it hadn't topped off when I noticed a big puddle under the car. A thorough inspection of the engine revealed a stream of water leaking out from the intake manifold. All the nuts were tight, so off came the intake to find out why it was leaking. These are easy to do when the engine is out of the car, but in the car it's a different story.
I discovered that I had used the wrong intake gasket for the earlier style manifold I was using, which was allowing the water to leak out.
So with that problem rectified, the engine was done.
Also involved in getting the car in halfway decent shape was welding of the body in the front, below the grille...
...and some custom exhaust work to replace the exhaust that had rusted off the car: The Ansa muffler originally came on my 128. It was a 124 coupe muffler the PO had strung under the rear control arm and hooked to the rest of the exhaust with that flexi-pipe stuff (sigh). Fitting it to the Spider required relocation of one of the mounting points. We then fabricated our own exhaust from the downpipe back with pieces from a junkyard car and scraps laying around Mark's garage. Talking about low-budget!
Other things I had to deal with were getting the brakes functioning (junkyard parts and old 128 calipers helped here), and curing a rough run condition (installing a ballast resistor on the coil did the trick). I'll be sure to post some more pics as I deal with the rust and interior (maybe suspension too...).
On to Part II - Frame Rail/Crossmember Repair