Since Scat was in the neighborhood after his stint of standing on the side of the road in the pouring rain, we decided to grease up his sled. I bought one of those starter air tool kits, and the kind of odd tools that they threw into the set was the air grease gun. Unless you’re a garage working on cars everyday, grease guns aren’t something you use very often, so I only have the manual hand pumped one. Having an air powered one seemed a little silly, but Scat’s old school ride was a perfect opportunity! Up front I think it’s got at least 8 grease fitting joints on each side, and there were a few that he couldn’t get with a hand pump. Continue reading ‘Grease Monkeys’
Archive for the 'car' Category
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Finally got to removing the FX16 windscreen. If you recall, it started leaking and then I created a crack removing the trim. Got this tool a little while ago, but the snowboard trip happened, and the annoying cough. By all accounts, this is the way to go, forget the wire saw that they sell at all the local parts stores. Dug up some internet videos of various windshield removals, and barring the hi-tech inductive heater remover, this tool seems the best.
12 years. TWELVE YEARS! Can you believe it? It was 12 years ago that I brought The Pig home. All the boys said don’t count the chickens till it’s rolling down the street. Well, here you have it! I’m rather surprised it wasn’t covered in a thicker layer of dust and that after only a bit of monkeying with the brake pad adjusters and airing up the tires, we were able to roll it out of the garage. 
It helps to have a demon on your side. He was just here to help, demons are no fools and he wasn’t about to get stuck with The Pig taking up precious space in his lair. I kid, about him being a demon anyway, nice dude. Pretty cool trailer rig that they borrowed.
Believe it or not, someone wants the FJ55 Pig that has sat in the garage being a storage cabinet from when I brought it from Hilo. It never went beyond taking stuff apart and buying some parts for it. Grand plans were thwarted by the enormity of the task and never got off the ground. Anyway, Sunday afternoon was spent moving stuff & cleaning the area to get it ready to move.
My order of Luxeon Star LEDs came in. I decided to order a few to play with, and to rebuild the center mount brake light on the FX. Safety check snuck up on me. I cleaned out the bulb socket in the rear drivers side, corrosion had taken a toll and made bulb dim. I also noticed my first custom LED attempt for center mount brakelight was performing rather pathetically.
It was done the lo-tech way with a bank of “hi-output” LEDs and some resistors for current limiting. Unfortunately the electrical system output on cars is not exactly stable and eventually the LEDs started failing. And these “hi-output” of that time were the brighter of the affordable, conventional size. Since then, a new generation of super hi-output LEDs have had enough development time to come down in price. Continue reading ‘STARrrr’
Oops, opened up that can o worms today. The FX has been off the road in the garage since discovering with all the Thanksgiving rains that there is a leak up top and front. This one is bad because it drips onto the seat and your left thigh if your seated inside. So today I decided to pop the trim to take a look at the top edge of the windscreen. Amazingly the windscreen trim clips are still holding well and it took quite a bit of convincing. I got the top edge off, and then the passenger side. There was a lot of collected crap, and some hidden rust developing. Yuck. So I started on the drivers side. The upper corner, where the suspected leak is, there was a lot of sealant goop in the trim edge groove. Hm, wonder what went on there. The left edge trim is proving stubborn, the clips seem to be imbedded in a lot of goo. The first clip finally starts to work loose. Continue reading ‘Can O Worms’
OK, I’m officially super annoyed at the neighbors on the T street from us. Having the second house tell me not to park directly across from their drive way because it makes it hard for them to back out and they might hit my car. Now who’s fault is it if they do? I’m parked in a perfectly legal spot on a public street, and it’s across from their house, not blocking their view to pull out into street. I park in the spot I do because other idiots don’t know how to drive and cut the corner then swing wide and cream parked FX’s there. I barely contained my urge to say “No, this is a public street, this is a perfectly legal parking spot, you shouldn’t be driving if you can’t back out of your driveway without hitting a parked car on the opposite side of the street, I’m parking here.” WTF! If I were really pissy, I’d get all the vehicles running, I’d park the FJ40 on their side of the street in the space between the two houses who complained to me (and Fabio), and then park the FX directly across the first driveway, and the AE86 directly across the second driveway. See how they like a seven foot tall box blocking their view, and then deal with their poor driving skill getting out of their driveways. Aaarg! Learn to drive, people! But no, I need to live with these neighbors.
Even more reason to get the FJ55 Pig out of the garage and the FX16 carcass out of the driveway so don’t have to park on the street. Which BTW, miracles of miraceles, guy is coming this week to start process of taking the FJ55 away.
OK, I can tell I’m annoyed, I cooked dinner & ate, had some sake, and I’m still annoyed enough that I went out & took a pic. Take a look at this. If you can’t get out of your driveway from house on left onto this street, something is wrong with you. When you are issued a driver’s liscence, that is supposed to certify that you have the basic skill and ability to operate an automobile safely and with competance on public road conditions. If you lack the skill and ability, you should not have said liscence.
Saw an old Lexus LS 400 today with the “VIP” tuning thing going on. There was a diecut on the rear windscreen that said, “Simply Discrete – Keepin’ it Simple, Yet Discrete”. Huh? WTF? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever!
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Sunday November 1st, I wake in the dark, the sun has not risen yet. What has brought this miracle about? I have a SCCA race at Stadium and I run 1st heat. Luckily did not do anything for Haloween beyond go to The Shack with Fabio for a burger. At least a cute angel served us. So this is the first real event after the engine swap, transmission rebuild, clutch and flywheel upgrade, so this was going to be the test. Fortunately caught the bad injector plug during the test-n-tune.
Some light drizzles driving to Aloha Stadium, but doesn’t look like anything to be concerned with. It’s looking to be another hot day on the asphalt. Sign in, car teched, and then park the little red Corolla, dubbed “Nemo” by a spectator for it’s little flappy gas door. I walk back to the pit to grab my cooler and air guage. As I’m walking back, I overhear a guy talking to his friend, “I’m gonna be sick if I get beat by that hachiroku.” Oh yeah, something has suddenly become my one and only goal. I’m not angry or anything, we all smack talk, it’s a friendly rivalry kind of thing. But now I have to uphold the honor of all the ugly duckling AE86 “Hachiroku” out there. I take a good look so I’ll know who he is and what car he’s driving. When he goes back to the lineup, I see that he is driving a N/A Subaru Imprezza sedan in my same class. I don’t recognize him, this should be good! Continue reading ‘It was a Good Day’
I keep hearing this radio spot about how “American-built [pickup] trucks from Ford, Chrysler, and Chevrolet outsell foreign-made trucks from Nissan, Honda, and Toyota”. Duh! Nissan, Honda, and Toyota build all the trucks sold on the USDM in North America! None of them are imported! In fact, none of these companies’ Japanese divisions even makes or sells pickup trucks for the JDM anymore. The ad wasn’t lying, but it definitely wasn’t truthful.
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