[Pepi]

Wow, I wouldn't have been ale to sleep that night. Did the manufacturer do anything else besides replace the lift. Offer to reimburse any expenses you incurred to get the car back down safely?

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by Pepi

Wow, I wouldn't have been ale to sleep that night. Did the manufacturer do anything else besides replace the lift. Offer to reimburse any expenses you incurred to get the car back down safely?

Yeah, like a year's worth of anti-anxiety medication.

I would be soooo paranoid about any storage lift after that happening.

I remember when I was 16 and I had a carb backfire that started burning the hood insulation in my Camaro. I eventually was able to put the fire out with several fire extinguishers and a large bowl of old tuna salad that my Mom had happened to be carrying out to the garage to dump in the garbage. I took a year for me to lose the paranoia about starting that car up and seeing imaginary smoke. But I digress...

I would imagine that you are going to put the less valuable car under the lift and the next least valuable car on the lift.

Leave the black car on the ground on the other end of the garage, please. :-)

[njsteve]

P.S.
Bob, Do you think that maybe the black car is getting a bit jealous and just happened to try to kick that lift (and the red car), out the door? :-)

[Bentwheelbob]

A few random responses...

1) Frankly, I was surprised the whole lift stayed together given the horizontal stresses it was subjected to over the course of about 16 hours.

2) The primary seal blew out on the hydraulic cylinder allowing fluid to leak out the vent and the system to lose pressure. The first offer from the manufacturer was for a new cylinder and cables. Pretty quickly they agreed to an exchange, but I ate the other costs. With the cost of lawyers and the value of my time I couldn't have argued very long before my costs exceeded the amount being argued about.

3) I think everyone else was more stressed out than I was. I learned long ago that worrying and getting stressed usually has an adverse impact on the quality of the outcome. I slept really well, but I hated to go out to the garage that morning not knowing what I would find.

4) The lift was not anchored to the floor and is not required to be. I never thought about earthquakes though....I think what probably saved me was the epoxy floor coating. I've got "full flake" coverage, 3 bottom coats and 4 topcoats. In all the coating are probably 3/32" thick and the corners of the base plates were able to dig into this coating which likely prevented them from kicking out. If the floor had been slick finished concrete I think the mess would have been huge.

5) I've put a number of these together myself and this is the first problem and I hope the last. On the replacement lift I left the car hanging from the cables (at very low elevation) for a number of days to stretch them. I then left it sitting in the lock position for several days, after which I went back and re-leveled and adjusted everything.

6) Steve - you may have something there with the Black Car jealousy, but perhaps something more like a curse. One other member here has suggested that this was probably a sign and that I should sell him the Red Car to add to his hoard of cars. The lucky thing is that everything shifted over toward to the side wall of the garage. The other lift was loaded with Black Car over Yellow Car and given the short distance from the side wall I don't believe I could have stabilized it as effectively with the binder straps.

[The Boss]

Originally Posted by Bentwheelbob

I learned long ago that worrying and getting stressed usually has an adverse impact on the quality of the outcome.

Wisest words I've heard in a long time around here!

[Lloyd-TX]

Whoa!

Bob - you should probably buy some lotto tickets, as luck is apparently on your side.

Thank God that you weren't injured and that your gorgeous LeMans weathered the storm.

Is that lift of offshore manufacture, by chance?

[Formulabruce]

Underside pics of a lift with LED lighting and power.

[Bentwheelbob]

Originally Posted by 70RAlll

Sorry..not Rustoleum, Krylon Semi Flat Black. Here is an Amazon link. $7.74 can with Amazon's free shipping. They show cheaper at $5.99 but you pay shipping..


http://www.amazon.com/Krylon-RTA9203...emi+flat+black

Bill,

Thanks for the recommendation. I received the master cylinder back from White Post last week. They fixed the seal and sprayed some type of finish coat on it, but it wasn't much of a finish. The whole unit was covered with some type of oil and simply wiping it off also wiped off the finish. I media blasted the master cylinder and sprayed it with the recommended Krylon Semi Flat Black. We got it installed this weekend and it looks great.
Here's a couple of pictures.

[njsteve]

Looks good! Glad they were able to re-fix it.

[Baron Von Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by Bentwheelbob

OK, time to come clean. Sort of like confession.

That scared the he]] out of me just reading about this fiasco.
DaaaammMMNNN what a muhfukcer that was !

Glad all is well Bob

[PB]

Is that flat black used on 72 A body lemans too?

[Bentwheelbob]

It was a beautiful weekend here in WV and I was able to get the Black Car out on the road several times and log some miles. It was great to have it on the road and blow out the cobwebs. Since it was last out, My Pal Dave and I have done several things in addition to the master cylinder repair and clean up. The main project we tackled was to try and eliminate a persistent belt squeal that occurred under hard, WOT acceleration above 70 MPH. NJSteve also fought this problem before handing the car and the squeal off to me.

We did several things in an effort to alleviate the problem - fine tuned the pulley alignment, and changed the alternator belt to a shorter and narrower belt the one on the car was wider than the pulley grooves and had no adjustment left. Lastly, and this is a trick MPD says he has used many times. we dressed all the belts with Turtle Wax F21 Super Protectant. Well today I made numerous runs with hard acceleration from 70 mph to 110 mph and the belt squeal is gone. Let me tell you, it's hard to feel cool driving your car when the belts sound like a screaming banshee. I'm glad this problem is fixed.

Several other things got cleaned up under the hood, most importantly the spark plug wires. As sold by Lectric Unlimited, the spark plug wires that were used to rebuild the unitized loom are longer than stock. This results in a lot of excess wire that looks sloppy. The plugs wires have now been trimmed back to stock or slightly shorter and they look much better. Here's a few photos including one that shows a chart PB put together comparing stock wire lengths to the length of the Lectric wires.

[njsteve]

Great job in the squeal fix. On the wires, I actually used the exact lengths that came from a set of original unitized wires I had so I don't know where he discepency came from unless there were vrious length sets made by the factory?

[Bentwheelbob]

I'm sure you're right on the wires and it's likely PB's chart is for non-unitized. However, trimmed to that length or a little less give a much neater fit, albeit non-original.

[PB]

I have a few harnesses to check measurements on. I will check wire measurements from the harness to the terminal ends. They should be shorter that the above chart as I will not be taking into account the distance in the center harness to the outside. I'll check and see if there is a "standard" measurement with the harnesses I have.

[The Boss]

I've been wondering where you were?

Shoot any video of those 70+ MPH WOT tests?

[njsteve]

I used the measured lengths of the wires after I dissected the "octopus" and had the full wire available.

[Bentwheelbob]

Originally Posted by The Boss

I've been wondering where you were?

Shoot any video of those 70+ MPH WOT tests?

Life's been a little busy and I've been on the road for most of February. I have stayed up to date and lurked in the background, but haven't had much time in the garage. On the video, I've got to go high tech and get one of those GoPro setups. It's too hard to shift, steer and hold an Iphone.

In regard to the wire lengths, I'm sure that NJSteve had the lengths like dialed in like the originals. The problem is that this original length left a lot of extra wire - at least for my taste. This was particularly true on the drivers side cylinders 1,3, 5 and 7. Here is a couple before pictures. Note the master cylinder before clean up.

[Judge273]

Will we be able to see you and car in Dayton? Bringing the bourbon?

[Bentwheelbob]

Originally Posted by Judge273

Will we be able to see you and car in Dayton? Bringing the bourbon?

Let's put it this way - I have confirmed lodging at the Holiday Inn and hope I can keep the dates open. Do you think I can find a parking spot with a few other Formulas? Are spots assigned or grouped by year/model, or some other system?

I'm sure I'll have some bourbon, but will try to also bring along some distilled spirits made in the hills of WV.