When I got home I’d decided I also wanted to swap out shift knobs (putting the joyfast in Berg so I could put the Nielex M2 style shifter I picked up at Karuizawa into Benny). Of course what do we all do when we want to try out a shift knob?? Yes, we run the gears (and possibly make some vroom vroom sounds). First, Second , Third Wait.. where the hell is Third?! No Fourth either?!?! What the bloody hell. It didn’t even want to go back into first all that smoothly. Damn. Better start the engine to see. Slowly let the clutch out and… reverse?!?!?! Something very wrong is going on here. Crap. Everyone hates a setback but atleast I had Berg to drive with its new intake while Benny could get trailered over to Integrated performance. I feared the worst. A thirty year old transmission coupled with 50% more hp than factory may have done it in. Crap. Given holiday rotation et al it was going to be there for a little while but a week later Alex confirmed it was just the reverse light switch. Yes. A switch that lets a little metal pin pop out and join up with the drive shaft to let the light go on. It didn’t pop out. And that? That can make it feel like the entire transmission was completely shot. Apparently not a very common problem but seems it has happened before.
Side note. On one of my trips I came back to the car to see this. Wow, didn’t really think about it before but so hard to imagine that the Z3 was ever seen as a much more desirable alternative to an NA when it was introduced in 1995 (I mean with a significant amount of promotional dollars it did become a Bond car and all). I know I’m biased but sure seems that one of these cars certainly aged better than the other.
Anyways, getting Benny back is always fantastic and a good cause for a nice clean up. The roundels were already discolored at the tops and some cracks were showing along the swage line. My dear friend Adam kindly furnished me with a replacement set at what I think may be the optimum size (17” vs the prior 20”, first ones were 14”) so avoided any particular caution with the pressure washer which made it a lot easier to take them off.
And now? Benny looks naked to me without them. The doors will need a good polish to remove any of the reside so am going to have to run it like that for a while. We’ll see.
I have a little time to figure out what I’ll do and to get the paint work sorted out. Well a couple months actually as I got Benny registered for the annual Japanese Classic Car Show again this year. I’ve also coerced Woolery and a few others to bring their cars so hoping the Roadster presence is strong. It’s an amazing celebration of JDM that previously was limited to 1985 though they’ve since broadened the range so that Maiti aren’t only by special invite any more. It’s Sept 21st in Long Beach in case anyone else can be tempted to make it.
https://www.japaneseclassiccarshow.com/
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