(SOLD)Karter2026's City Chassis 09 LT XFE, PA Build #72- Registered

Karter2026

Goblin Guru
So about a week or two after I sold my middle daughter's 07 cobalt ( June 2017). My oldest daughter’s boyfriend sent me the link for the Goblin website. I immediately said no and went about my day. But lurking in the back of my head was this Goblin and the car I just sold.

I have for years thought about and came close a few times to buying a Manx style VW powered dune buggy. I was usually able to make an excuse that kept me from going for it. It hit me that I’m not getting any younger, and you only live once. It was time to take on a project. I then realized the Goblin was basically the same thing as the Manx buggy but with better suspension, better dependability, and easier parts availability. I sat down and read almost every build on the forum along with most other threads. A few emails with Adam and the donor search was on. I figured this will be a summer ride to and from work and some weekend cruising with the remote chance of an autocross once or twice. I decided I wanted a 5 speed car; it didn’t have to be a SC or TC car. After 3 weeks of searching and watching COPART for a donor car, after fees they were all more than I wanted to spend. One evening Captain Morgan and I were searching for a donor online and on Craigslist less than five miles from me was a good prospect. It did not run. Got some history from the owner and made the decision that I had found my donor car.

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It had jumped the timing chain when he shut the car off. I pulled the head off and put in new timing chains, valves, valve stem seals, and a water pump. Put it all back together and the car runs great. I took my time with tearing the donor apart and sold parts off of it before I even started to tear it down. I wanted to have the donor parts mostly prepped before I ordered the chassis. Also, I am moving at the end of February, so I did not want the chassis sitting here to tempt me to work on it. The chassis with all three stages was ordered the beginning of December . That is the progress I have made so far.
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Stripping the donor and pulling the drive train.
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A little engineering to get the shell out of the garage.
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Getting rid of the shell
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A lot of corrosion to deal with on the engine and transmission
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Getting ready to clean it up.
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After lots of scotch brite pads, wire brushes and blood. It is ready for paint.
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All painted.
 

Karter2026

Goblin Guru
I decided to clean up the engine harness some.
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While I was pulling the MAF wires out. I moved and shortened the throttle body wires and the fuel injector wiring. Wrapped it all and got rid of the cracked plactic loom. I removed the A/C wires along with the EVAP wires and the secondary air injection.
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The end result.
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Used a friends blast cabinet to cleanup the sub frame and control arms, and some other parts.
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Primed and painted
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Calipers are ready. Now it is time to dive in to the dash and body wiring harness.
 
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Briann1177

Goblin Guru
I'm not a huge fan of yellow, but it actually looks pretty good. The engine looks awesome even though you missed painting your crank and alternator bolts. :)
 

KJP

Well-Known Member
I was just going to clean my engine and not paint it but after seeing yours I feel like paint may be necessary, it looks great.
 

Karter2026

Goblin Guru
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I worked on thinning out the dash harness about two weeks ago. I want to start on the body harness but Mother Nature knocked the bottom off the thermometer and it has not been above 20 degrees in more than a week and not going up for about another week. Forecast to be a high of 7 on Friday. Not worth heating the garage for a hour or two.
 

KJP

Well-Known Member
Over the weekend here it's supposed to be almost 40 hopefully some of that heads your way to give you some heat to work on the harness.
 

Karter2026

Goblin Guru
So I have my chassis. My brother and I made the trip to Cincinnati yesterday to pick up mine and one other chassis from KJP. The trip went well. Only one detour of about 2 miles on the return trip. The trip down with the empty trailer used more fuel than the return with a load thanks to a headwind on the way down. Felt like we gained a few horsepower on the way back with the wind pushing us. We put the floor pans and all the boxes of parts in the back of my suburban. Thanks to the guys at DF for the creative packing we were able to get both chassis in my box trailer. We had to trim some wood crating on one of them to get them in but it worked out well.
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I took this picture after the trip. I moved the hood in right before I took the picture, I should of left it out till after.
 

Karter2026

Goblin Guru
I have been working through thinning the harness. Went to move the brake fluid reservoir plug plug and it was no where to be found. Well I did find it in the bucket of trimmed off connectors. :mad: I had already trimmed the BCM cutoffs and put shrink tube over them. I had to go back and find the cut off and solder a wire back on. I still have no idea why I cut it out it was clearly marked master cylinder.
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Karter2026

Goblin Guru
Today I dropped off the floor, fuel tank firewalls, and some small stuff off at the powdercoater. Worked on a rotisserie for the frame for painting. I may use it for some assembly if it works out well.
 

Karter2026

Goblin Guru
I have been working on some mock up and fitting the harness to the car.
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While I was finishing up the harness and reading up on others having some ground issues. I decided to link all my grounds together. I used some leftover ground wires and ran some new 12 Ga wire between the pedal box ground, tunnel ground and I left a main ground at the battery where the ground lug is. My power steering and BCM both ground at this lug. I cut off all the eyes and soldered on a copper terminal to get all the wires in.
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So after wondering if I had the harness correct I wanted to hook it all up and test it. So I installed the engine hooked up all the connections and gave it some power for the first time since October. Everything worked :). Fuel pump ran, Dash lights all worked, and most important it cranked over.
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While I had the battery hooked up I wanted to see what the lights would look like. They are just on a flat piece of scrap metal so I can figure out how I want to mount them.
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Next step is to weld in some bars to support the seats that showed up last week.
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Karter2026

Goblin Guru
Been a while since I updated. I haven't made a lot of progress I have spent a good bit of time trying to come up with a windshield frame that will let me run laminated safety glass. Thanks to Bar-Air for for showing me his design. I have to say I pretty much copied it.

I cut the tunnel cover in three pieces. Tacked some 4mm nuts inside it. and will use 4mm stainless button head screws to hold it all together
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