I decided to keep track after stating that it seems that nowadays, it is the exception that there is a day that I DON’T see someone run a red light. So far it’s right, the count is 0 for 3.
(0)Archive for the 'car' Category
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OK, I don’t know if it’s really a Kohler sink or not, but it works with the alliteration. I’ve got only a little over a week before the First Hawaiian Auto Show where my FX is actually going to be shown! Sounds like one of them reality shows, NOT. So today I continued work on the custom engine gravel guard belly pan. Last I left, the sink was almost to the point that I could eyeball it into place. I continued to trim pieces out and make cuts and bends to get it to fit. J cruised in, I had it to the shape that would fit pretty well now. He jumped in and with his skill with the tin snips we cleaned up more spots and put in a final bend for clearance. Something of a milestone, we drilled the first mounting hole! Continue reading ‘Kustom Kohler’
Update on the kitchen sink mod. Finally got around to working on chopping the sink to make a custom engine belly pan. Destroyed one carbide tipped hacksaw blade labeled good for stainless cutting the flanges off. It worked, but things got difficult as more parts got chopped off. The sink got more floppy and it got more troublesome to secure down pieces. Switching to the cordless demolition saw actually worked better, went through one standard bi-metal blade. I’m sure the neighbors love me, cutting sheetmetal is always a horrendously noisy deal.
After dinner, I set about pounding in new lip. I’m not entirely sure of what I’m doing, this metal forming business is new to me. I make some ugly tears in the corners, but I do get the lip formed. Here’s how it looks for now, it’s begining to look a little more like the plastic shield I’m trying to replace.
Derek made a suggestion the other day about finding a better way to store all the wheels I’ve got, I hadn’t given it much thought before. He’d suggested using the same rack/shelf units I got for the closet and using them for tire storage. Took some quick measurements and it looked like it would work, so I ran down to City Mill. Got them, set up and here it is! Works quite well for my car tires. 
Truck tires are too big to fit a complete set, and actually if you go wider than 195 tires a complete set of four does not fit on one shelf either. But stacking them like this is much more efficient.
Cleans up a bunch of space!
OK, today was the fourth ever Hawaii SCCA Rallycross, and like usual it was a blast! None of the forecast showers reached us at Kalaeloa. I made it to the event with the rally FX after a midnight wrench session, actually I beat midnight by 15 minutes, but had to wait for battery to charge. On the drive out, the car seemed to be running well. No warning lamps, alternator & battery seem ok, the engine hesitation & missfire seems to have gone away after driving the week & dumping some fuel injector cleaning stuff in.
Sun was already up by the time I made it there. The air was nice and cool, but windless, and not a cloud in the sky. Helped with some setup. We pretty much had the usual suspects, gaggle of Subarus, a Miata, Civic, Jetta, Toyota longtravel pickup, and myself. Ground looks to be shaping up decent, the recent rains looks to have stiffened up the dirt some, and there’s grass/weeds growing all over! I run second heat, and it is slick from the water truck wetting down the track. Super slide-o uncontrol-o action! I get through the first half of the course and then hear a real ugly flappy thunky sound. WTH? I slow down wondering if I’d snapped a drive shaft, but the car still drives. Huh? I finish out my run cautiously slow. I examine the car, but see nothing obviously wrong. Weird. Continue reading ‘Mud Slinging’
510 floor pans came today, we really need a metal brake and bead roller, if we had the tools we could have made these, its pretty rudimentary. A little too large and thick for us to do by hand. Ah well, maybe in the future. Next up will be attempting to weld these in!
So what was that about Ckucky’s kitchen sink? Well, I picked it up from him early this week, and darned if it looks like the size is almost perfect! To give you an idea of just what I’m trying to do, here are some pics:
The black plastic thing is the original engine splash cover that we are trying to replicate, sitting on top of the kitchen sink. Looks promising!
Oh, and welcome to Root’s garage of dead alternators. The bizzarre demon possessed behaviour of the rally FX was due to to a bad alternator. Something inside seemed to have shorted the weeks ago I first wondered about when I smelt burning electrical and saw smoke coming from the alternator area. It was just before our snowboard trip so after making sure it wasn’t about to catch fire, I forgot about it until now. I finally took a closer look at it, first off the battery was deader than dead, only about 3V. I went to my spare parts pile, looks like I’m down to my last alternator, the other two I know are bad. I swapped out alternator, swapped out to a good battery, and lo and behold, the car runs fine. We shall see if it I get this all together in time for the next rally, and if it’ll hold up!
Mr. Scat Spark Licka cruised on over this afternoon for a day of car stuff. No grease monkey today, today we’re going to mess with bodywork. We whiled away the first part trying to figure out how to fabricate a engine underbody gravel pan for the rally FX16. As we were leaving for City Mill to see if they had some appropriate sheet metal, Ckucky and Dave showed up after their session at the shooting range. Man, how macho manly can you get, go shoot some guns in the morning, then some welding on a car in the afternoon. Of course Dave with his iced mochaie espresso coffee thing and the fact that we we’re doing this and ignoring that there was some kind of sporting event going on kind of ruins that image. Continue reading ‘Jalopy Day’
I was forwarded info to article in paper about the TV show Off The Map currently shooting in Hawaii was looking for vehicles for a scene in their season finale. Criterion was beat looking vehicles as this show is supposed to take place in the jungles of South America. Well people, do I have the vehicles for you? Within hours of submitting these pics to their casting dept, they called me saying they’d love to have them. But I gathered from the descriptions and what they said, they wanted people to drive to the shoot and man the vehicles for the scene, which is supposed to be a traffic jam during a festival. It would have been amusing to do, but they are shooting this Monday at Kualoa ranch, something I couldn’t swing. Oh well, next time, I’m not too heartbroken over missing chance to be in this show. If it were Hawaii 5-0 I might have considered it more. It seems to pay more to NOT fix up my vehicles. Guess it’s not easy to get that authentic patina!
The Shell gas station in Kaneohe has “ethanol free” 89-octane for $0.20 more per gallon than 87-octane E10 Regular.
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