A 30 year journey, and a 2nd chance.

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It was also time to get rid of that junk stock shifter once an for all, ordered my choice of B & M gated shifter, something I can bang rather than slide. And never risk slipping it into neutral. And a decent tunnel mount to mount it on, and started modification of the Console to slide over it if I go back to EF/S again later.

But, once (for the very 1st time since the car ran down the assembly line in December 1984), that the quite dirty carpet, and 42 lbs. of very heavy underlayment was out of the car, I finally realized very quickly why the car was so dang heavy.

The floor panels and up the firewall up high for some unknown reason was plastered 3/4" thick all over with heavy black mastic seam sealer (like tar w/ fibers in it everywhere, and every floor drain plug was over filled with that heavy crap, and zip broke out a hook knife, the shop vac and started chipping, scraping and vacuuming up the mess, and did so for more than a week. Pics to follow.

Once I was done vacuuming the first time, I weighed out 24 lbs.of the chippings and scraping. Time to see what was left, found a few cans of bright silver paint in the spray paint cab. And sprayed over the mess, easily showing what I still needed to work on removing.

The second go around was another 20 plus lbs. And sprayed again.

Layed the carpet out on the driveway, broke out the power washer, put together a concoction of soaps, and got all that dirt, stains, and carpet backing that turned to dust over the years out of the carpet,, hung it over the fence to dry,, then weighed replacing it or using the old much nicer now looking clean carpet, it weighed much lighter now, and was already form fitted, so decided not to replace newer, it was light.

And got to work removing the stock shifter and cable, preparing for the new shifter and mount to arrive. And installed the new shifter and mount, fabled up the cable end in the engine bay, and got that all mounted and working correctly and adjusted.

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I actually started with the passenger side auto window that was sticky, pulled door panels off cleaned away all the old hardened grease on the rails, sprayed w/ silicone lubricant, and both slide like new again up and down. And measured up for a passenger window outer upper belt window scraper I damaged attempting to get that slow passenger window up once in a hurry. Have not found that replacement part quite yet but a line on a few new ones.

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Almost net 100 lbs. removed just from under the carpet, and I still have probably another 20 lbs. alone up both sides on the firewall, that I can remove another time (I flat got super cramped and tired of scraping up the firewall under the dash, pedals, etc., so left the rest above the carpet line.

My math (on paper at least), at this point said w/ the empty 14 lb. weight box/torque strap combo, still inside the engine bay (So I can adjust wt. later), that I was going to scale about 20 lbs above the DF/S min. wt..

Time to install the carpet, shifter mount and new shifter, and make some adjustments to the console to slide over it and remount in the future (if going back to EF/S later I will need that weight), just thinking ahead as dropping the weight also requires it to run .95 seconds faster just to make the DF/S Index, and with the stock ECM/PM at elevation would still be a miracle 345 lbs. lighter (I don't care how far under it can run at Pomona (or any near sea level track), I am stuck w/ the lousy elevation and ever worsening DA (corrected not enough at even +3/10ths), of Las Vegas being my home track, Phoenix next closest, then Pomona, and Bakersfield, Sonoma, etc....On to the shifter install, replace seats and the rest of the interior trim.