Car-ma, You Give Up to Easy, Grasshopper

So after last night’s frustration with the AE86 horn, I go to pick up the FX from Matson. Had to scramble around to get insurance since I didn’t know until late yesterday that the FX was already here. That goes very smoothly, kudos to my insurance agent, and I find awesome street parking downtown right behind the building! Having been through this before, found way to Matson, counter person processed my pickup, and after a bit of wait was taken out for the inspection. As expected, the guy told me they had to jump start it and it’s idling. Have to chuckle as it’s doing the exact same up/down bouncing idle the AE86 is doing. I know what that is so not concerned. The front bumper paint is munged pretty badly. What kind of irks me is the drivers side mirror is smashed. It’s noted by Matson so it isn’t their fault. I have enough spares, so I decide to forget about it. Everything else looks in pretty good shape. There’s some stuff hanging out under the dash and there’s no stereo, I’m assuming from the shippers having to remove the alarm and auto start FX suicide prevention measures. Oog, feels like there’s no power steering, and the tiny Momo wheel isn’t helping. I hope this stiff clutch is really a performance clutch and not a clutch worn down to metal.

Anyway, it feels driveable so I leave Matson followed by my dad in the Suzuki. Make it over the Sand Island bridge and just around the bend when I loose power. Manage to just pull over. Car is still running, but any throttle causes it to bog and almost die. Sheesh. It eventually does die out. I run down the street to get a little gas can & 1 gal of gas. Put it in and after hooking up jumper cables it starts right up. I’m hoping to make it home and bypass the gas station. It’s only me and my dad, and my dad is in no shape to help me push the car. Things seem to be going good and I makeit onto Nimitz, then I loose power again past the Best  Buy intersection. OK, I’ve had it, I’m not going to wrestle with this any more even though it’s probably gas. I call in the tow and wait. Kamaina Towing, cool guy, nice truck. Shiny, clean, and most importantly air conditioned. So eventually I arrive home and the new FX is put into the driveway. Hm, all my cars have taken over the garage and driveway spaces. Not good. But I can’t park the FX on the street without it being registered.

So, the FX, when it was running, felt pretty strong. Body is pretty clean, there are signs of dreaded rust around windscreen and the assumedly bondod over antenna hole. Quite a few windscreen chips which makes me sad. The battery relocation to the back is a hack. (Note it is just sitting in the box. The plastic is already torn on one side, it’s not thick enough to contain the battery in any semblance of security.  Can you say fourty pound acid filled arc welding projectile?) Sigh, what is it with wiring? I’m going to have to redo this or restore to stock. I don’t recall seeing any short circuit protection. There’s also missing front turn signal light assemblies. So five hours later, there goes my thoughts of having the FX up and legal right away. This took way longer than I expected. I’ll post up soem pics later.