"Shelby? Is that the same Shelby guy who did the Mustangs?"

Got a notice that the Shelby valve cover has shipped.  I may have it as early as tomorrow.

I took my Daytona to Rain Forest oil change and car wash today.  It's quick and relatively inexpensive.  I filled the Daytona with high mileage Castrol GTX and added in 4 cylinder Engine Restore.

Anyway, I took the Daytona to Rain Forest and got the oil changed.  I was the only car there at the time and the five guys there all did a slow walk around the Daytona.  I had my window down sitting in the car and I could hear some of their conversation among their selves.

"Is that a real Shelby?"

"I didn't know they had Dodge Shelbys."

"Did Shelby make that?"

"When did Shelby do any Dodges?"

"What is that?  Daytona?  Who makes that?"

Finally two of the guys walked around to the driver's side and asked me:

"Shelby?  Is that the same Shelby guy who did the Mustangs?"

I told them that Carroll Shelby had worked with Dodge through the 1980's and early 1990's and they admitted that they never knew that.  To them, they had never seen a Daytona before let alone a Shelby based Daytona.  When I thought about it, I guess they were talking about the newer Shelby based Mustangs and not the older GT350 type offerings that originally made Shelby a name to be remembered.  That surprised me but I guess as these cars get rarer and rarer they start to slip from the collective memory of youth.

Sad.

I took the Daytona through the car wash and that was the first time in weeks that the road grime has come off of the car.  I haven't washed it since I got it back from the shop because every single damn time that I get it back from the shop and wash it / detail it, then it isn't a week or two before it goes back in the shop and gets all dirty again.  I kept thinking that maybe washing it as soon as I got it back somehow jinxed it so this time when I got it back all I did was vacuum it out and drive it.

Clean.

Since the Daytona will be restored in the next year or two and since the decals / paint are pretty much disposable at this point I didn't mind taking it through an automated washer system, especially since the wash was included with the oil change and it saved me about half an hour this coming Saturday morning.

Would I normally take my cars through some automated wash system?

The '86 TA, now that it's restored?

Never.

The Daytona Shelby when it gets fresh paint and decals?

Never.

Until the Daytona Shelby gets restored?

Yeah.

I got a few drops of water on my leg from the driver's side window / T-top gasket seal but I guess that's okay since it was high pressure delivered.  I've driven the Daytona in some serious rain the past two weeks and it hasn't leaked once so I'm happy with the seals.  I just wish I could find some replacement liners for the T-tops, the soft, rubber wire reinforced parts that are riveted to the front and back of the T-top area in the roof.  Mine are coming apart.  The rubber gasket is fine, almost factory brand new.  The trim pieces are deteriorating rapidly.

Maybe I can get my body shop to cobble me up a set from scratch.  They don't look that complicated of a design and maybe I don't need the factory OEM parts if I can just get "something" close to original that serves the same purpose.

Shelby valve cover

Oh, hell yeah!

This was an impulse buy but since these things are rarer than an intelligent liberal I had to go ahead and get it mainly because I didn't know when another was going to appear for sale (the last one I saw on Ebay was years ago).  I prefer this valve cover to the stock "Chrysler Turbo" valve cover.  I've been wanting one of these for about a decade now and I've seen them installed on other 2.2 powered Shelby Daytonas so the end result is going to look pretty smurfy.

Here's a pic of what my engine bay looks like now ...

And what it will look like when I get the Shelby valve cover installed (this Daytona is painted factory Daytona Blue so don't freak out, I'm not going to paint the engine bay blue).  I am, however, going to keep putting some serious labor of love energy into the engine compartment until it looks factory fresh.

How much?

$137 and some change, plus shipping and fondling.

I should have the new Shelby valve cover on in the next few weeks and since it looks better than the faded stocker I won't have to redo that part of the engine bay.  

Next underhood projects?

• Clean up wiring, run new ribbed conduit.
• Install remote toggle switch for electric fan.
• Rig up driving lights to come on with high beams / parking lights.

She's still getting incredible gas mileage and she's still running like a top (with the small oil leak up front) so ... I'm happy.  It rained today so I had to throw the T-tops back on for the drive home and after ten minutes on the road I had to turn the fan selector on the AC down to the second setting because it was getting way too cold in the Daytona.

At least the AC blows super cold now ... and in Mississippi we use our AC even in the winter.

A week on the road and ... no problems.

She's still dirty, inside and out.  I thought that washing and detailing it would just jinx the Daytona and after all that work I'd be taking her right back to the shop.  It felt that way for a while, it really did.  I'd get her out of the shop, dirty and dusty, I'd clean her up, something would go wrong, and she'd be back at the shop again all to repeat the ugly cycle.

Anyway, just a quick update ...  I'll clean her up this weekend.

Fuel economy!

Last Monday I filled the Daytona Shelby up full, so she had 16 gallons in her tank.  I then drove her from Columbia to Hattiesburg and back, Monday through Thursday.  Most of the time I did it with the windows down and the T-tops off, cruise set at 55mph.  On Thursday, storms threatened and I had to pull over about a mile outside of the Marion county line to throw the T-tops on.  I ran the AC all the way into Hattiesburg and then again from Hattiesburg back home to Columbia that afternoon.  Each trip to work and back was 75 miles so the first week I ran up 300 miles in four days, used the AC the last day, then on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I drove the Daytona Shelby around Columbia in stop and go traffic.  On Monday (yesterday), I started the day with ... 5/8ths of a tank of gas still left showing on the fuel gage.  The needle was 1/8th of a tick mark above half full.

I don't trust the fuel gage completely, I'm still learning the nuances of this Daytona and her personality and she does have a personality.  She lied to me about how much gas she still had right after I first got her, telling me that I had an eighth of a tank of gas left and flaming out on me when I only had less than a mile to go to refuel her.

Once bitten, twice shy.

I figured that 5/8ths of a tank of gas was good enough to go to Hattiesburg and get back home, again, at least one more time so I took the chance.  At the end of the day, I was down to 3/8ths of a tank of gas and she was still going strong.

Tuesday morning I pulled into my favorite non-ethanol fuel station with just over a quarter of a tank of gas showing in the Daytona.  Since the tripometer and odometer no longer work (gears and repair coming soon!), I decided to do some fuzzy mathematics.  Knowing that the Daytona held 16 gallons and that I'd filled it up last Monday, I figured that if the fuel gage was close to accurate that with a little over a quarter of a tank of gas I should have about four gallons left, more or less.

I filled the Daytona Shelby up with 93 premium non-ethanol.

It took 10.8 gallons to fill her up and when the pump clicks off you don't try to put more in, not unless you want to see high octane gush out the filler neck.  When she says she's not thirsty anymore, this girl isn't thirsty anymore.

So ... say that I used 11 gallons of gas in 8 days commuting back and forth to work and running around doing errands over the weekend.  Take 5 days of commuting, at 75 miles a day (375 miles) plus say about 10 miles worth of running around over the weekend and that's 385 miles covered on 10.8 gallons of gas.  Doing basic math that gives me ...  35.6 miles per gallon and I might can bring that up a bit with some basic tricks.  

As far as gas mileage goes, that's twice what my '99 Lincoln Towncar was getting before I sold it so I'm happy with the fuel economy that the Daytona is giving back to me since now I'm using half the fuel each month to commute back and forth to work.   For comparison, my '86 TA gets a little over 24mpg at 55mph driving the same style and my '04 Honda CBR600RR gets about 42 miles per gallon.

35.6 miles per gallon.

Not bad for a fuel injected, turbocharged, intercooled four banger Dodge muscle car that can run up to 135 plus miles an hour on the top end.

Yeah, if I can keep the Daytona out of the shop now, if all the gremlins have been cast out, then I think I got a pretty good daily driver and I plan on driving it until the wheels fall off.

So far so good ...

So ... I filled the Daytona up Monday morning, 93 premium non-ethanol, and I've driven her to work every single day, to Hattiesburg and back, about 75 miles round trip.  That makes about 300 miles, give or take and I've still got over a half a tank (call it 1/8 above a half of a tank) of gas left.  Of course I've been driving it with a pillow foot and keeping it at 55mph on the highway (I'm in no hurry these days) so she's been sipping gas pretty miserly.

I'm just guessing at the gas mileage / fuel economy since the odometer / tripometer aren't working (I've got to order two gears to get that repaired, the gears fit in the cluster) and I really don't trust the fuel gauge but I did get some pretty effing incredible gas mileage running it back from Corpus Christi so ... maybe.

Anyway, she's got a 16 gallon tank and if I've used about 8 gallons to go to Hattiesburg for four days, with the windows down and the T-tops off, then I'm getting about twice as much gas mileage as my '99 Lincoln Towncar was getting which should put me somewhere in the mid-30's with the Daytona.  Yeah, I can stand that kind of gas mileage.  I'm saving on average about $25 or more a week in gas so the Daytona is basically paying for itself right now in gas savings.

It did rain today, off and on, sometimes pretty heavy.  My passenger side window wiper is acting like it's wanting to come off.  I thought it might just be loose so I popped the wiper blade and tried to put it back on but the clip isn't grabbing it to the nipple all that well.  I guess I'll be buying another wiper blade tomorrow ... this one is barely two months old.  Maybe I can fix it, I gave it about 45 seconds of my time today all told.

Rain.

The T-tops haven't leaked yet but the right side wiper blade is going to give me a problem if I don't fix it ASAP.  I had to throw the tops back on this morning when it started to rain on me just outside the Marion county line and they've been on and locked all day long.  This afternoon I ran the Daytona back home with the AC turned on, coldest setting and the fan speed about half.  That was enough to keep me from turning blue.  The AC works ... my only gripe is that it takes about ten minutes to cool that interior down (so much glass in these cars) ... after that, it's Antarctica on wheels.

If tomorrow is a nice day, I'm going to try to get the Daytona washed, vacuumed and detailed again.  Ditto for the '86 TA since it took to the road last week while the Daytona was (back) in the shop.

Here's an interesting chart I made up just for my own kicks and grins.  This shows the last four months that I've owned the Daytona and the ups and downs of owning it.  The days marked in blue represent the time I found the Daytona online and the buildup to purchasing it.  The orange days are me going to Corpus Christi to pick up the Daytona and drive it back to Mississippi.  After that, the red days represent the days spent by the Daytona at my mechanic's shop and the green days represent the days I've actually gotten to drive the Daytona.  I went ahead and marked two extra days at the end of September to represent the first two days of October which brings us current with this blog entry.

Wow.

All told since I bought her I've owned her for 104 days, I've driven her for 31 days (not all in a row), and she's been in the shop getting worked on / fixed / repaired for 73 days so not a good record so far.  In fact, so far, she's been in the shop for about two days for every day that I've been able to drive her.  I'm hoping that all of this is just catching up on some deferred maintenance and that the days to come will be better.

Replaced the fuse ...

Took the Daytona to work today and as I was loading up my gear I remembered that I needed to replace the fuse that I blew Friday night when I picked up the Dodge.  I have a box of different blade fuses I keep in the garage so I just grabbed the box of fuses and threw it in the back of the Daytona thinking that if I got a chance at work I could pop the panel and check / replace the fuse.  

Later that morning I dropped the fuse panel (below the steering wheel) and checked the fuses.  Sure enough, one was blown.  I replaced it from my spares and had a working radio / CD player and clock again.  Total repair time : 5 minutes and most of that was to get the cover off and back on since it is held in place with three spring loaded plastic twist knobs which do NOT like to go back into their slots once you take the plate off.

I had to work the ER that night and the Daytona gave me no problems.  In fact, it's running great.  I say that sarcastically so that nothing bad will happen.  That night at the ER my nurse practitioner stopped me and asked me about my car.

"That red car you were driving the other night ... is that a Laser?" she asked.

"No.  Dodge Daytona.  It's the sister car to the Laser.  Laser was a Chrysler, they stopped making them in 1986 but Dodge kept making the Daytona until the early '90's."

"Daytona!  That's the other one I remember!  What year is your Daytona?"

"It's a 1989 Daytona Shelby."

Her eyes lit up.

"Oh!  Shelby!  Like the red one that Hunter's partner Dee Dee drove!"

Wow.

It's neat when someone else remembers these cars ... and remembers them in a pop culture reference.  For what it is worth, Hunter's partner "Dee Dee Mccall" drove a Dodge Daytona Turbo Z in the early years (red with silver lower body) and a Shelby Z in the later years (again, red).  Here are two pics.

From the Wiki entry on the "Hunter" TV series ...

"During the first two seasons, McCall drove a Garnet Red and Silver 1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z. Then starting with season three and on through season five, McCall drove a Bright Red 1987 Daytona Shelby Z (Sometimes though, a "Turbo Z" badge on this Daytona is also clearly visible)."

She's back.

I spent a week in Jackson living out of a motel while training in the latest VMWare.  I had to take the '86 TA since the Daytona was in the shop.  I'd say that VMWare is a pretty steep learning curve, at first, but then it seems to get easier as you go along.  A lot of my work hardware is getting virtualized, I've got a virtual server farm at work with six VMs on it and it's only going to grow.

I digress.

I spent the week in Jackson using the '86 TA to commute back and forth to class and after getting off on Friday I was headed back home when my mechanic called and told me that the Daytona was ready.  I told him to leave it outside, locked up, with the keys in the center console.  I had a spare set of keys and when I got home after 6pm that night I'd pick it up.

When I asked him why the clutch fell off the compressor he explained that they had seen that before, but mostly on Fords.

Fast forward to Friday night.  I'm reunited with my family, we go out to get something quick to eat and we stop by the garage on the way to pick up the Daytona.  My mechanic has left my keys in the ashtray and I've left the cigarette lighter plug out.  As I get into the Daytona and reach for my spare set of keys, they slide forward, one key dips down into the cigarette lighter well and ... zap.

There goes another fuse.

There goes the radio, clock, CD player and cigarette lighter / power port.

Sigh.

I crank the Daytona, turn the AC on high, cruise over to Wendy's and meet the family.

Saturday morning I get up and ... after a week of training and driving and ... crap ... I just don't feel like doing anything let alone cleaning and detailing either the road dirty TA or the garage dirty Daytona.  Screw it.  I take my oldest daughter out to get something to eat, call it brunch, then head to Gamestop where she wants to look for a video game or two.  After that, we go to Walmart and I'm thinking that I need to find that fuse and replace it.

Screw it.

Later.

I go home.

I throw myself on my bed.

I play about ten minutes of Borderlands 2 on the XBox360 then I put the controller down, close my eyes and sleep for four hours.  When I get up, it's still light enough outside to snap some pictures so I go out to see what the mechanic did to fix the AC clutch problem.

The answer?

All new AC compressor and clutch.

Back in business.

Brand new compressor.  I've still got a lot of TLC to do to the engine compartment.  25 years worth of grime, wear and tear.  I think come spring I'm going to go through the cooling system like I did with the TA.  I'll replace all hoses, thermostat and radiator, probably add in a manual electric fan switch and with all of the cooling system removed see how much deeper into the motor I can get (and how much more stuff I can clean).

Here's the new compressor in place.  I'm thinking that this week all I'm going to do to the Daytona is put gas in her and drive her.  We're supposed to have some bad thunderstorms in the next few days.  I'll wait until the weather moves through before I try to clean her up again.

Bwahahahahahaha ... I laugh to keep from crying.

So ... I get up early, take the wife to breakfast (the kids are at my parents and us time is rare and far between) and we take the Daytona.  It's nice weather outside and the T-tops are on so I just roll down the windows and we enjoy some fresh air.  About a mile from the house there is a thump from under the hood and then ... silence.  My wife asks me what that was because it sounded like we ran over something but I don't see anything in the road behind us.  My eyes flash to the gauges in the dash ... no warning lights, all needles are right where they need to be ... no obvious signs of malfunction and the Daytona is driving fine.

I shrug my shoulders and we drive on.  I'm thinking it might have been a stuck vacuum door in the dash finally opening or shutting or something.  It kind of sounded like a thump from inside the dash.

We have breakfast at Hardees and after sitting and eating and visiting and enjoying each other's company (without children present) we hop in the Daytona and head back home.  It has warmed up some so I turn the AC on ... and I can immediately tell that it is not blowing cold.  Again.  Part of me says "Wait.  It will start to blow cold in a few seconds." but the other part of me says "No.  This isn't normal.  It should be blowing cool air, dense air, different than what it would blow with the fan only."

I run my hand in front of the vents in the dash.

That is not cool, dense air.  That is just regular air, fan forced.

My wife runs her hand in front of the vents.  We had the Daytona out last night, took it to Hattiesburg on a date, ran the AC all the way there and back and it got so cold that we had to turn it down to low just to stay in the Daytona.  In fact, my wife knocked the temp up out of the blue to halfway into the red on the way home because the AC was working so well.

Now it's not working.

The thump under the hood.

One of my drive belts has been making a little bit of noise lately.  My father heard it when I visited him the other day and he grabbed up his can of "Belt-Eze" and sprayed my belts.  Dad doth not like squeaky belts under the hood ... it doesn't bother me that much, mine was barely audible with the hood shut and some belt noise is unavoidable.

Still ... what if the belt had been on its last legs and had finally given up the ghost.  I remembered that I'd looked at all of the belts when I bought the Daytona way back in June and I'd inspected them before taking it on its 700 plus mile journey home.  The belts had all looked almost brand new.

Back in June and July the AC was basically rebuilt from the dash to the front bumper ($$$$$$$) but worth every penny in the humid heat of Mississippi.  I thought I remembered that my mechanic had put a new AC drive belt on at the time so ... was it the belt that had broken?

Thinking that I had a broken AC drive belt to look forward to replacing I took the Daytona home, parked it in the driveway, popped the hood and looked at the AC compressor.  The belt was still on the drive pulley.  Ok, strange ... then what was that thump under the hood.  That's when I noticed that the front of the AC compressor where the clutch is looked ... strange.  Different.  I reached into my back pocket, pulled out my OT200 flashlight and flicked it on.  I could see an exposed thread on the front of the AC compressor and a single washer just stuck on the side of the thread, like it was magnetized.  I shined the flashlight down into the motor and ... WTF is that!?!?

It's some round metal wheel in front of the crank shaft pulley ... just sitting there in what can only be described as one of the best engineered catch basins for parts falling off of a Turbo II engine.  I look closer and it hits me what I'm looking at!

The front half of the AC compressor clutch!

The AC compressor has shed its clutch face and that was the thump we heard on the way to breakfast.  The front face of the AC just ... fell off and down into the area between the fender well and the crank shaft.

Wow.

Wow!

I start to laugh.

I really start to laugh.

Then I walk into the house and I'm still laughing.

My wife comes out of the bedroom, confused and asks me if I'm laughing because I fixed the problem or because I found the problem.  I tell her what I found and she follows me back out to the garage and I show her.  While she's holding the flashlight trying to figure out how the AC compressor clutch face came off, I go get my magnetic pick-up tool and pull the clutch face out of the guts of the motor.

Looks like I'll be getting the Daytona back to the shop on Monday.

I'm still laughing and I laugh to keep from crying.  Brand new compressor and it's come apart.  Oh, this better be fixed under warranty ... that compressor can't be two months old.

Here's pics.

Wait a minute ... wait a teensy little minute ... THAT doesn't look right.

There's a part missing ... a very important part and it's ... oh, it's way down there at the bottom, near the crankshaft pulley.

And ... here's the part that just fell off.  Yay.  I'm guessing the compressor was made in Mexico or China.  Oh, well, back to the shop on Monday.  I think this was a record.  I think I had the Daytona in my hot little hands and on the road about ten days, maybe, before it had to go back in the shop.

I'm laughing.  Yes, I'm laughing to keep from crying.