Just picked up a 79 last weekend. It needs a little work.
It has one of those "10 foot" paint jobs where it looks nice until you get up close and see the low spots, sanding marks, etc. Pretty rust free though - I only found three quarter size areas where a magnet was weak or wouldn't stick to the body. Drivers floor pan has been replaced w/ sheet metal & machine screws but seems passable for now. Rockers still have a bit of rust I can feel with my hand. Pass. trunk had a dent pulled evident by the bondo left oozing from the holes drilled for the puller on the inside. Looks like the lower front panel took a whack too and PO did kind of a poor bondo/duct tape(!) job on that then sprayed over it so it isn't noticeable unless you are on the ground looking.
Runs great and strong with no noises, etc. - for about 10 minutes and then the bucking/stalling comes out of nowhere once the needle starts approaching 190. I'm no stranger to fixing cars (I am a Jeep nut too) so I'll get it sorted out. Did find insulation rubbed off distributor pickup wires so taped/moved them but problem persists so I'm probably just going to replace the coil/ignition module and see where I'm at. Will probably just replace the dual plane and ADHA too. We'll save all that for another thread though. PO hard wired fan on 100% off the coil + so I've put that back on the wires its supposed to be on and have a new fan radiator switch on order since it appears to be o/c at temp. PO's electric fuel pump makes a banging noise as it operates to that may be the problem with my bucking once its warm. The mechanical pump is still on the block and looks newish so I'm going to see if it moves fuel and if so I'll hook it up and see what happens. Looks to have a 4-2-1 already as it has 2 pipes from the manifold down to the underside and then joins to 1.
No turn signals, dash illumination, or headlights but otherwise everything electrical seems okay. Brake lights and parking lights do work as do all the gauges thought the fuel sender seems to have an intermittent ground. Interior is so-so - center console looks like it was attacked by an animal but the dash is perfect (probably recapped by a PO I'm guessing.) The radio area was hacked up too so PO could fit a non-DIN 80's Ford tape deck so I'll probably have to replace that at some point. Drivers vent hinge is in the glove box so the vent is just shoved into the seal to keep it in place. Seats are actually perfect except for a small 4" section where the stiching has come undone on the drivers seatback. Interior is all blue - not a huge fan.
5 speed, suspension, subframe/shock towers, and exhaust all perfect. New battery and brand new tan soft top. All the trim and badges and stuff is complete. It actually looks really nice if you ignore the interior and occasion rough spots in the paint prep.
This is actually my 2nd spider. I had a 78 (or was it a 76?) in the 90s that had rusty rear wheel arches, leaked fuel inside the cab and would stall randomly from sucking air through the rust holes, and made a horrible racked from the valve train. I paid $600 for that one back then and sold it for $750 a year later w/ only an oil change, carb rebuild, and new fuel lines invested. Paid $1K for this one (plus 250 for the tow home
) so I think I got a fair deal. Hopefully I won't go broke fixing the 30 little problems it has.
