Adams Probe 16 Restoration Project...

[Wayne 962]

Okay, starting to tear into this thing to understand what is going on here. First weirdness - POSITIVE GROUND! Okay, this is my first British car, and a quick Google search reveals that the Brits grounded the positive leads of the battery. I figured that out before I did any real damage! The headlamp raising mechanism doesn't work terribly well - that's the first thing to tackle!



Photos are slightly out of order, so here's a random shot of the interior. So cool...



Took the headlamp off to take over to the paint shop for them to match the paint. I hope they don't lose it and I hope the shop doesn't burn down. There's only three of these in the world!



At my house, in the garage. Random photo that captures random stuff. I took off the front turn signal lens in order to get access to the headlamp lifting mechanism.



Took off the rear center lock hubs - more on that later...



So, I heard through the grapevine that one of the other cars was damaged when they lifted it incorrectly. So I'm paranoid! The chassis is made of wood (when this photo was taken, I wasn't too sure what that meant, but I know now - more on that later!). So, I used to AC Hydraulic jacks to lift the rear of the car from the suspension "leading" arms. They are "leading", not trailing like on the 911. I think the 911 design is a bit better, but this car is not about track performance per se...



Rear shot with the two jacks. I just love the four tailpipes. Almost like a six grader designed it. If it were a 12-cylinder, it would have twelve pipes!



Cozy blankey for the night!

[Bill Douglas]

Fantastic styling on the car Wayne. Good score.

Kind of a dumb question. But what would happen if the windshield broke? Could a new one be manufactured, or is that it for the car.

[Wayne 962]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Kind of a dumb question. But what would happen if the windshield broke? Could a new one be manufactured, or is that it for the car.

Windscreen is already cracked in two places. We've budgeted a new one to be made from scratch. One of the three cars was restored in the UK, and they made one for that car - there must be a mold kicking around somewhere, I suppose...

-Wayne

[mgro1959]

There is a company in Abbotsford BC Canada that can make windshields. They specialize in curved glass and a friend had some 962 windshields made. Thanks Rob.

[stevej37]

"Another shot of the crazy driving position. The pedals move sideways!"

How does that work? Any pics of the pedals?
A very unique collectible!

I've seen it before years ago...but I just added 'Clockwork Orange' to my Netflix watchlist.
I have to see the car in action!

[NordschleifeFIA]

Gorgeous car, Wayne! What a great find.

As a former Marcos GT gullwing race car owner, I experienced similar issues. How do you safely lift a car with a thin, plywood monocoque chassis?

I only found 2 ways to do it; one is somewhat more risky:

Safe: jack under a metal suspension point (rear diff pumpkin, or under the front arm).
Riskier: use a Formula Ford race jack with a 12"x12" piece of plywood, just behind the front wheel opening at the corner where the wood floor pan meets the side of the car.

Pedals: The pedals in the Marcos GT1800 (also designed by the Adams Brothers) moved forward and backwards to accommodate tall/short drivers. I'm guessing the Adams used something similar on the Probe?

Getting in & out of the Probe - how do you do it?

I found getting in and out of the Marcos GT to be quite an interesting acrobatic maneuver. Luckily the roll cage's upper door bar provided a "Monkey Bar" leverage point to swing my feet up and then down into the driver's seat.

I can't imagine entering & exiting the Adams Probe... Wayne, you really should share how to do that in a video.

Best,
Andy

[Wayne 962]

Originally Posted by mgro1959

There is a company in Abbotsford BC Canada that can make windshields. They specialize in curved glass and a friend had some 962 windshields made. Thanks Rob.

That is a good lead. Although there is a batch of 962 windshields floating around that do not fit well. I have about seven in stock in my warehouse that were made in the UK that we have used on our cars and they are perfect (with the heater element, etc.).

I don't think it will be a problem to have a windscreen made - it will probably just cost $3K-$5K to do it!

-Wayne

[Wayne 962]

Originally Posted by stevej37

"Another shot of the crazy driving position. The pedals move sideways!"

How does that work? Any pics of the pedals?
A very unique collectible!

I've seen it before years ago...but I just added 'Clockwork Orange' to my Netflix watchlist.
I have to see the car in action!

Yes, I have some pics of that in the folder, getting ready to post soon. The car is very torn apart right now, I'm just behind on posting pics.

-Wayne

[Wayne 962]

Originally Posted by NordschleifeFIA

Safe: jack under a metal suspension point (rear diff pumpkin, or under the front arm).

Yup, that's what I did. Trouble is shifting it off of the suspension / hubs when you need to work on them. Haven't quite figured that one out yet, but I will probably use four jacks. Two on each suspension point to jack the car up in the air. Then (remove the wheels), and put the other two jacks under the spindles. Lower the original two jacks (that were using the suspension points), and replace those with jack stands. Then lower the remaining two jacks (supporting the spindles).

I have four jacks (actually five), but that is a huge pain. But you don't really want to risk damaging something by lifting from one side, or pushing on the wrong lift point. You can never be too careful - one of the other cars was supposedly cracked and damaged due to carelessness!

-Wayne

Riskier: use a Formula Ford race jack with a 12"x12" piece of plywood, just behind the front wheel opening at the corner where the wood floor pan meets the side of the car.

Pedals: The pedals in the Marcos GT1800 (also designed by the Adams Brothers) moved forward and backwards to accommodate tall/short drivers. I'm guessing the Adams used something similar on the Probe?

Originally Posted by NordschleifeFIA

Getting in & out of the Probe - how do you do it?

I can't imagine entering & exiting the Adams Probe... Wayne, you really should share how to do that in a video.

It's very similar to getting in and out of the 962, but both easier and more difficult at the same time. The center gauge pod gets in the way - you have to plan your entry carefully. Same as on the Porsche 962. The 962 is technically tighter, but there's no center gauge pod. With the Probe, if you don't know what you're doing, you get into the car with your legs bent, and then you can't extend them, and have to hop out. It's difficult to explain. On the 962 you lean on the bodywork - on the Probe (especially with my cracked windscreen) you don't want to lean on *anything!*

I've got a lot more photos, I will try to post 10 per day, starting tonight. Trying to get some traction on this thread, thank you everyone for commenting!

-Wayne

[astrochex]

This is fascinating, Wayne. Thanks for sharing the journey.

[javadog]

This may sound stupid, and it probably is, but do you crawl through what looks like a side window or try to step over the top of that to get into the car?

[Wayne 962]

The car is only like 34" tall, so it's probably easier to get into this than it is to get into a roller coaster at Six Flags...

-Wayne

[stevej37]

some more info from youtube..
won't imbed...need to click on 'view on youtube'

[Wayne 962]

Yes, that's a cool video. Some proper info and some misinformation in it. The video was made in 2012, so I'll cut it some slack.

- That's my car in the starting part of the video.

- Yes, there are only three made, all three are around in various states. There's mine, as seen in this thread. There's one in the UK that has been restored (was yellow, now it's orange), and the first one, the blue left-hand drive is also in the UK but in pretty sad condition from what I can tell.

- The car on Top Gear was indeed fully restored, and it's now the other orange one with the circular wheels that is currently located in the UK. Odd, in that in the video, the author says it was "never fully restored" yet in the video he has pictures of it... fully restored. I get how it can probably be confusing and he's not a Probe 16 expert.

- Again, three in existence, not two, although only two would be able to make to a car show at this time.

- Now, my car is in Los Angeles, so one will probably see it at the Pelican Cars and Coffee when we restart it up again!

More photos coming soon, I have about 100 or so I haven't posted. Working on an "electrical manual" / diagram right now.

-Wayne

[Wayne 962]

Okay, so one of the problems with the car was that the steering wheel was very wobbly. So wobbly, you wouldn't want to drive it or trust it. It was also loose and was hitting one of the gauges (damaged the ring - new one on its way in the mail). This is a standard problem on Porsche 911s with the worn out bushing, so I assumed the same. Trouble is, it's not easy to get to:

Here's a shot of what we're starting with. The console and bolts are all the way in the footwell, and the windscreen is a definite restriction:


I managed to get my iPhone in there to snap a picture, but I can't see anything from the photo:



Not too much room to work, but once we removed the seats, it created a cozy nap spot (on the passenger side):


Here's the console once we removed all the bolts:


Close-up of the gauges:


More really cool gauges:


Got the console out, and the wheel off (had to loosen the bolts in the front trunk). The problem is that this very old bushing is made of some type of wood-like material and the hole that they use to secure it is worn through. The bushing itself is okay. I ordered a new Delrin bushing, but we can't use it (I'll explain in a bit):



Here is the hole that the bushing goes in:

[TimT]

Its a linen phenolic dowel or tube

[Wayne 962]

Sorry, for the conclusion / plan. Since this bearing is in very good condition, I will just leave it in place (our goal for this car is to reuse as many original components as humanly possible), and drill a new hole more towards the middle of the bushing, on the opposite side. That should fix the problem. Not a new Delrin bushing, but I think trying to unweld and modify the steering wheel when the existing bushing is still in very good condition would be be a mistake.

-Wayne

[javadog]

Originally Posted by Wayne 962

[size=3]More really cool gauges:

One of the things that always bugged me about my Lamborghini was that it also had an ammeter. I always thought of them as somewhat useful but once I pondered the fact that all of the current the car consumed traveled through the gauge, then I started worrying about the “Italian” wiring on a very limited production car.

Given the likely state of the wiring in this car, I might suggest a close examination of yours.

Lord only knows how they managed to install the interior in that thing.

[Wayne 962]

Already looked at that and thought the same thing. The gauge does not appear to be wired properly, and only measures the current of some of the accessories. Not sure how useful that is, pretty much not at all. But I'm not done looking at it and testing it, so I may be mistaken (on how it's wired).

-Wayne

[Wayne 962]

Found this interesting article on this car (with vintage photos) from 1972! This helps to confirm what was on the car originally and what was added later on...

-Wayne