Eduardo joins the family

In 2005 it became quite clear that my wife wasn't going to let me drive the Red Imp very often, and if I wanted to drive an Imp, I would have to obtain one of my own.  After passing up a few on eBay and going to see a Mk3 in Maryland, I finally found the ONE.

September this car came up for auction on eBay.  It seemed well cared for, and had a bit of history to it.  The body was the best I had ever seen on an Imp (which wasn't much).  It was a California car and hadn't been sujected to the snow and salt of the north east.



Val and Tiger Tom went to pick him up while I went on my annual motorcycle trip to Elk County with the Friends of Nature.  We discovered some important aspects quickly.  No brakes, No Oil Pressure, No compression on number 4 cylinder.  Just the kind of work I can do... the body was fine, all it needed was a bit of wrenching.  There wasn't a spot of rust on the undercarriage and the only issue was a leaky steering rack boot.

The wrenching took four months.  Looks tiring doesn't it?



In the meantime, we learned some of the history of the car.  The original owner Eduardo Pallazo from California must have loved this little car.  He painstakingly maintained it, kept his reciepts from Sunbeam Specialties, and created a one of a kind wooden dashboard for it.  Legend has it Mr. Pallazo was a Hollywood carpenter and set builder.  The dash was fitted to take the place of the Mk2 cardboard shelf in the standard car.  We refer to the car as "Eduardo" now in honor of the car's first owner who cared so much about it.  Originally taitian blue, the car had been resprayed Toyota Super White II, which makes it a bit stark like a rolling refrigerator, but the interior makes up for it.  The stock Imp seats had been replaced with VW bug seats, with the bottoms cut off.  The rest of the interior which would have been orginally vinyl was decked out in a blue velour.  Oh, Eduardo is a pimpin' little Imp.

Sorting the brakes was no big deal.  The master and slave cylinders were stripped and redone, and refilled with DOT 5.

The oil pressure problem was the big deal.  The mains were shot and so were the big ends.  The engine bearly made oil pressure at idle.  Someone screwed up majorly, and had installed an external oil filter in a way that basically short-circuited the lubrication system.  It was basically a new block for goodness sake, and it was almost ruined!  We took the claptrap off, and concentrated on new bearing shells from Speedy Spares.  Luckily it wasn't too bad and we didn't have to turn the crank.

Number 4 piston had us going for a while.  It wouldn't develop compression, and would simply leak by the exhaust valve.  We pulled the tappet shims and measured them all.  Oddly enough the number 4 intake and exhaust tappet shims had been reversed by the previous klutz to put the engine together.  They were swapped, and the engine ran like a champ!

I took a few victory laps outside Tiger Tom's workshop in 4 inches of fresh snow, drifting the Imp happily around the snow covered blacktop.



Later I pulled out the Subaru radio and put in an MP3 CD player out of a Ford truck.  I can now play all my bagpipe music on MP3s.  The dash was refinished and restored to its original glory.

I later replaced the transaxle mounts... with the engine still in.  It CAN be done, but I don't recommend it.  The front of the gearbox would fly up and hit the bottom of the tunnel... so new transaxle mount were a MUST, and of course supplied by Uncle Malcolm Anderson.

The work wasn't over though.  The Solex (err Slow-lex) carb kept acting up.  I couldn't tune it right, I even got a rebuild kit of Uncle Malcolm and it still wouldn't tune up for me.  I finally gave up and in an impulse ebay purchase got a set of SU HS2 carbs and a LYNX manifold from a fellow in Oz.  Now I was commited to getting the engine to run right.

The Lynx manfold came with two carbs alright... two left-handed ones.  Blast!  How I had to get creative.  The linkages didn't work out, and I had to create custom ones.  I think I'm the only person running two left-handed carbs on a Imp in the whole world.  I tilted them, cutting a groove in the bowl to housing junction to get them to stay level.  Then I changed the routing of the throttle up over the top, to meet with a custom bracket I had made.  Notice the big spring tower to hold the throttle closed (the spring came off an upright Hoover vacuum cleaner bag).  It all worked out rather well.  I even used an old clutch cable to join the enricher levers to the existing choke cable.  The whole thing was topped off with a K&N air filter from a Suzuki GS750 motorbike.

I ended up with the V3 needles and blue springs per http://www.imps4ever.info/tech/carbs.html#SUs



I thought I was done, but there was something else not right.  Every time I made a left turn.  Especially one made in anger, the oil warning light would flash.  Now friggin' what?  It shouldn't do that.

So, I pulled the sump cover off again.  Nothing looked strange, but having limited experience, I had no idea what could look out of place in there.  So I consulted the great gurus of the Imp club, and they informed me that my oil pickup was off a 930cc engine.  Well that makes sense... it was made for an engine that sits straight up rather than at a 45 degree angle.



There were no replacements of the right type readily available, so I went on modifying what I had.  I got some idea of how close it should be from the bottom of the sump and did some basic cutting and re-welding.

I think it turned out pretty good.



Now I can turn left in anger.  In extreme anger at the autocross last autumn it performed flawlessly.

Eduardo had been very reliable, comfortable on a long trip, and a joy to drive.