Unfortunately I’m not talking about a Knight Rider-style front end—yet—but yesterday my dad and I were able to adjust the Formula’s hood so that it no longer rests on top of the front clip. Since I’ve owned the car, I’ve noticed that the hood sticks up about an eighth of an inch on the driver’s side. This is because the front clip is crooked—too far back on that side—and the hood lays on top of it and won’t shut all the way. Originally I figured I could adjust the fender and the front end so that they were further towards the front, but apparently that isn’t possible—somebody must have struck something with the car and bent either the impact bar or the frame rails slightly.

Since I wasn’t about to try messing with either of the latter possibilities, I decided to try moving the hood back instead. With my dad’s help, we slid the hood back on its supports, and then slid the supports back on the fenders. Combined, we were able to make the hood clear the front clip. The headlight doors need to be raised very very very slightly to make them perfectly level with the hood, but the alignment is even and much improved from before. I was so happy, I drove KITT to work this morning.

Here are some photos I took of the car yesterday (after the hood adjustment and a fresh wash). Click each for an enlargement.

While we had great success with the hood, we were unable to remove the oxygen sensor. The damn thing is REALLY frozen in there but good. The process was not helped by the fact that I have SHIT for tools right now, but all that is going to change on the 3rd of January when my new set arrives. If I still can’t get the damn thing out, I suppose I’ll have to have someone else do it.

In the meantime, though, I have added all 3,000-odd pages of the Formula’s Helm factory service manual to a humongous binder and started to look through it. I’ve already learned some additional possible causes for the problem I’m having with the car stalling right after it’s started. We took a look at the exhaust during one such troubled start, and there was no smoke at all—so it can’t be excess fuel getting dumped, or it would blast a cloud of black soot on ignition. In addition to the standard bevy of ignition-related equipment that could cause this, I also learned that the MAF sensor could be at fault. Unlike most of the car’s other systems, a test of the MAF sensor is as simple as disconnecting it—with the sensor disconnected, the computer will use hard-coded values which are known to work. Unfortunately, the sensor is buried in the intake snorkel, so it may not be as simple as unplug-and-play. Something else to check out!

Too bad I have to get some freelance work done before I can focus on any of this again. At least I get some more money out of it.