(Sort of a mini story)
Some of you may have followed my journey regarding BB-4RE. In short, I flew out to Columbus to pick her up. While there, I enjoyed Matt Brannon's open house celebration but had to install a complete clutch assembly (courtesy of Matt's facility) and jury-rig some headlights so I could drive back to New Hampshire. Over 700 miles and she made it! I tell people I made it on a wing and a prayer. :laugh:
Since then, I've been 'picking at it' on weekends. Winters here are too rough to work outside, so my time was limited. Fortunately, we had an early spring with great weather, so I was able to put some serious time into finishing up the restoration.
BB-4RE is a 1979 carb'd X1/9. For the most, the wire harness was trash, so the first thing I did was pull the old harness and install a renewed one from a late model X. While everything was out, I also updated the entire interior with a perfect shape replacement dash, black visors, matching keyset all around and LOTS of TLC. The replacement parts list invested is HUGE. From top to bottom, this entire car has been gone through to insure ALL good parts were installed and EVERYTHING works. Also includes a completely new suspension, brakes, wheels and sumitomo tires.
This car does NOT need the brown wire mod, as the headlights have the insertable headlight mod I designed a couple years back and I doubled-up the battery wire to the fuse panel. Anyone looking at the car today would never know the harness had been changed.
I did add some LEDs to the dash, but not a complete changeover.
I put so much money into this car, I had to limit the number of goodies in what I included. But I didn't spare the electric antenna for the stereo! Ha!
So, below are some photos of the finished car. I took over 60 but in the interest of time and space, I've limited my post to 10. This is NOT a rust-free car, but the places where the rust is at is easily repairable (not structural) and doesn't show unless you're looking for it. Overall, this will be a great daily driver until I decide to sell her in the fall.
Lastly, this car rides and shifts really nice. The car has lots of power and I can't be happier with the results. Enjoy the photos, and if you're interested in owning her in the fall, let me know. She has a little over 65K miles.
-Bob Brown
Some of you may have followed my journey regarding BB-4RE. In short, I flew out to Columbus to pick her up. While there, I enjoyed Matt Brannon's open house celebration but had to install a complete clutch assembly (courtesy of Matt's facility) and jury-rig some headlights so I could drive back to New Hampshire. Over 700 miles and she made it! I tell people I made it on a wing and a prayer. :laugh:
Since then, I've been 'picking at it' on weekends. Winters here are too rough to work outside, so my time was limited. Fortunately, we had an early spring with great weather, so I was able to put some serious time into finishing up the restoration.
BB-4RE is a 1979 carb'd X1/9. For the most, the wire harness was trash, so the first thing I did was pull the old harness and install a renewed one from a late model X. While everything was out, I also updated the entire interior with a perfect shape replacement dash, black visors, matching keyset all around and LOTS of TLC. The replacement parts list invested is HUGE. From top to bottom, this entire car has been gone through to insure ALL good parts were installed and EVERYTHING works. Also includes a completely new suspension, brakes, wheels and sumitomo tires.
This car does NOT need the brown wire mod, as the headlights have the insertable headlight mod I designed a couple years back and I doubled-up the battery wire to the fuse panel. Anyone looking at the car today would never know the harness had been changed.
I did add some LEDs to the dash, but not a complete changeover.
I put so much money into this car, I had to limit the number of goodies in what I included. But I didn't spare the electric antenna for the stereo! Ha!
So, below are some photos of the finished car. I took over 60 but in the interest of time and space, I've limited my post to 10. This is NOT a rust-free car, but the places where the rust is at is easily repairable (not structural) and doesn't show unless you're looking for it. Overall, this will be a great daily driver until I decide to sell her in the fall.
Lastly, this car rides and shifts really nice. The car has lots of power and I can't be happier with the results. Enjoy the photos, and if you're interested in owning her in the fall, let me know. She has a little over 65K miles.
-Bob Brown
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