Just drained 10 gallons out of the tank. Do you think 7 year old gasoline is suitable for anything (like a lawnmower)? It came out looking looking good, clear and golden-- I was expecting it to be brown and nasty.

 

while you have the fuel drained unscrew the screen from the bottom of the tank and clean it

 

It may sputter and stall, the hydrocarbons have broken down by now, unless fuel stabilizer was added before it was parked. And even then, I don't know that it would prevent the fuel from breaking down over years.

But hey, it's a lawn mower, and it's yours, so do what you want with it. A lawn mower is a lot easier to drain than a car if it is crap gas. I say, go for it! Or better yet, mix it 50/50 with good gas and don't waste it. FTW!!!

 

Good idea. I'll do that. Thanks!

 

My lawnmower was pretty hard to start with old gas in it, and 10 gallons would last me a couple of years. I usually put it in a beater car or DD one or two gallons at a time.

-Joel.

 

Nice project you got here King, and welcome to Renn!

Sounds like you have the right attitude and approach here and Renn will have plenty of answers. Cool car.

How's your "combustable stuff" holding out?

 

Hard to imagine 7 year old gas being burnable. Maybe the mix idea will at least make it easier to get rid of....

 

So far, so good. I've actually spent most of my money so far on tools (the arnnworx stuff). The belts are cheap-- the investment there is in the time.

So far, I've installed a new battery and new dampers to hold the hood up-- they work much better than a wooden dowel!

I mentioned to the owner's son (who is clearing out the house in preparation to sell it) this weekend that I drained the gasoline and it looked really good, and that I suspected that his father may have put fuel stabilizer in the tank way back when. He said he thought so, because he just found an old bottle of it in the tool room!

So, now that the hood stays up, my next annoyance that I'm going to get to is the stuff that is disintegrating from the underside of the hood. Is this material some kind of a heat shield? The stuff is black and so very brittle that it essentially crumbles under its own weight. It's impossible to pick up without smushing it into grains of black sand. Unless anyone has a better idea, I'm going to raise the hood up, put a tarp over the engine and quarter panels, and just scrape as much of it off as I can, on to the tarp. Actually, if there is any wind, most of it will just blow away. The stuff has been annoying though, every time I open or close the hood, a little more of it drops onto the engine.

Finally, looks like this whole project may get moved up... my 2001 S2000 may have the dreaded #4 cylinder scoring. This is a problem that was addressed in 2002 (Honda upgraded the oil jet bolts), and fixed in 2003 (redesigned fuel pump). If so, this may be many weeks/months before I have the car again. This opens up a space in the (warm) garage, where a timing belt could be changed. At least there is a bit of a silver lining...

 

My daughter's friend's father owns a lawn business, so I asked him if he wanted it for his lawnmower's. He said no, but that he'd use it on a wood pile.

 

thats exactly what i did, i ran for awhile without any heat shield with no ill effects, and there are several options for replacements

 

a shop vac works well for sucking up a majority of the insulation from the hood

 

You dont really even need the hood insulation, Porsche stopped using it on the later cars.

 

the hardest part is getting it to look good after you get the insulation off. theres heavy glue under it that doesnt come off easily unless you take the hood off, turn it upside down and let it soak

 

As long as it won't cause any damage to the engine or hood, I'm not worried about aesthetics.

 

Well, the warm weather has brought me out of hibernation, and I've actually gotten a little work done... so I thought I'd post an update.

I've been working on replacing the timing belt... I've gotten the old one off and the new one back on and tensioned. The Arnnworx tool works great! Tomorrow I'll put the new balance belt on.

In the process, I've discovered some extra work... I found a fuel line (return?) that at some point must have needed repair and was spliced with a fuel hose. For whatever reason, the line has pulled out of the splice. Whoever did the original repair didn't do anything to try to barb the line. Should be pretty easy to repair, assuming there isn't any gunk in the line.

Also, when I took the air box out, the front drivers side lower corner (where the mounting bracket attaches) broke. From the epoxy all around, I can see that this wasn't the first time this happened. I'm going to try to find a cheap used airbox on ebay, but so far no luck. If I can't, I guess I'll try the epoxy route again and just be really careful with it this time.

Finally, I've got what I am thinking is rodent damage in a couple of places. First there are some chewed up wires leading to the front passenger side brake caliper. These 86's don't have ABS (correct?), so I'm guessing there's a brake pad wear sensor. Don't think I'll bother fixing that. Also, it looks like they've chewed up a little hose in the intake system. I'll post a picture... I don't even know what this hose is!!! I assume this is something I can replace with a generic piece of hose from the auto parts store-- correct me if I'm wrong.

That's it for now!