I really needed one more week to work on the OG before I left for Zcon. Just one more week would have made the whole drive so much less stressful. I would have known that I had a radiator problem and I would have mitigated it before I left. But I lost that week waiting for struts because Amazon screwed up.

So here's where I am today. I took the leaky radiator I got at the show to a local radiator shop. They sealed up the leaks and pressure tested it. I swapped it into the car, and.... Driving around with no thermostat, it wouldn't even reach proper temperature!! Way better than what was in there!

So just to see where the gauge would land, I put a 160 degree thermostat and went for a drive. It stabilized about here:

So next chance I get, I will swap out the 160 for a 180 thermostat and check again to see where the gauge lands. But the bottom line is I'm a whole lot better off than I was with the previous radiator!

I blame Amazon.
And photobucket.

I swapped out the 160 thermostat for a 180, and here's where the gauge stabilized. Higher than the 160 thermostat (duh), but still lower than I was running with NO thermostat and the old questionable radiator. Good deal!

Here's where I am now:

I also made a set of battery cables and swapped out the ratchet strap hold-down for something a little more appropriate. I know it loses some of that road-kill character, but it's much cleaner now.

Here's what I started with:

And here's what I got now:

And I included the ground wire directly from the battery to the firewall now. Didn't have this before:

After seeing your battery upgrade you have the 3rd white/blue early car that I have seen. Eiji had one in Atlanta, a guy that lives not too far from me has one dismantled in his garage and even asked me about helping to put it back together but he's been in bad health and I can't get in touch with him. That's one of my favorite color combinations.