So I was home early on Friday and my dad answers the door & says its for me. Some guy I don’t recognize is checking out the FJ40 ‘Cruiser. Wonder what he wants? I go out to meet him. Turns out the car wranglers are looking at it for Lost again. They wanted to make sure it was still around, they weren’t certain if they’ll need it. Should find out sometime this week. Derek came over Sunday afternoon and after some monkeying with battery, jumper cables, and squirreling the gas from original FX into the FJ, it groaned back to life. The last time it was run was when Lost rented it before, wow, I neglected the poor thing! But after a bit of complaining and sputtering and letting the gas flow to clean out the carb, she was running again. Continue reading ‘Lost & found’
Archive for the 'car' Category
Page 37 of 39
Finally had to go and see Mitch yesterday about my back. I’ve been resisting because of his new office location, but the discomfort grew too great. I had trouble climbing in and out of the work van all morning, and after lunch just leaning foreward a little sent searing twinges of pain from my back all the way down the back of my left leg to my heel.
This all stems back to putting new shocks in the Land Cruiser months ago. The pain had decreased before the Whistler MTB trip, and was not an issue during all the riding up there. Even after I got back it was fine, but this week it just went wild. After Mitch worked on it, I could bend forward, but it still hurt. I took a TC3 and hit the sheets. This morning I felt like a million bucks, then I squatted down to pick up some breakfast cereal that I spilled and wham – the pain was back. It’s almost lunchtime and the pain seems to be back to pre-breakfast levels.
Pinched nerves suck.
Fabio, we need ‘Roncam. Coming down Ward, stopped before Beretania because light red, everyone is stopped. Moron in Titan talking on his cell phone rolls into the back of the Suzuki. I pull into the convenience store at the corner & park on side by gas pumps. I see him turn in. He drives past me, parks in the stalls by the shop, gets out, and then starts walking to the store! At this moment he is officially a ‘Ron. I call out to him & ask if his truck is alright. Of course at this point I didn’t really give a flying monkeys behind about his truck. But I guess maybe its my over polite Japanese culture influence method of saying hey ‘Ron, WTF are you doing?! I had already looked at my (actually Dad’s) bumper and damage was trivial. Luckily his bumper did not hit the spare tire. So really that wasn’t the issue, the issue was that he said he didn’t know he hit me. Sheesh.
Anyway, Fabio, you need to finish development of your tailgater cam and we need to make it into the ‘Roncam and adapt it to spool video continuously to a memory card with the big red ‘Ron button to save the video. Or if its made so simply pulling the card out you can view the video file left on the card. You know, if you made it small without needing a laptop, relatively inexpensive unit, bet you could sell it. Consumer version and commercial version, commercial version perhaps some kind of authentication algorithm so it could be submitted as legal evidence. I even give you permission to use the ‘Roncam name.
Another weekend of back breaking stuff. Hunched over repairing caulk in the bathtub, swinging a pickaxe around for Stump Removal. The the final Insult/Injury was trying to roll a engine crane (with the engine hooked up and suspended) while said engine was still attached to the car.
I’m going to catch up on past work I’ve done to the FX so I have documentation of what was done when. Between the time I started working on this post and now, the point has almost become moot, but it’s interesting to remember the history.
October 2006
Took delivery of the new FX and picked it up from Pasha Hawaii. Minor adventure. Needed a jump start, clutch was tricky, steering felt wierd, mother is loud. Drive carefully home, feel very self conscious as there are no plates. I stop at the satelite city hall in Hawaii Kai to take care of reg, then take it straight home. Continue reading ‘Past FX Work’
The FJ80 was running hot (lean mixture) and the idle had suddenly gone low and rough. A quick check of the intake revealed a crack in the rubber astronaut-arm runner that connects the throttle body with the AFM. Being as this was 18:00 last evening, a repair to make it drivable to Toyota Parts today was in order. Thankfully the tube hadn’t torn completely – the split was maybe about halfway around. I cut a piece of bicycle innertube that would go about 1.25 times around the intake flex tube and split it so it would lay flat as a sheet. After cleaning the intake tube and washing all the talcum off the innertube section, I slathered everything with Rubatex and tightly wrapped the innertube around the intake tube. Some zip-ties helped ensure an airtight seal and hold everything in place until the glue dried. Continue reading ‘Field-expedient repair’
The 17-year-old shocks in the FJ80 were long overdue for replacement, but something got it in my head to replace them this past Saturday – maybe it was the swervy, edge-of-the-envelope, Caddy-like ride. Went by Car Quest and got the appropriate KYB (Kayaba) units on Friday. At one time I was considering upgrading to something like Edelbrock IAS’s, but since the FJ80 may be retired soon, I just went with the direct OEM replacement. Continue reading ‘Gasdruck stossdampfer’
On Sunday, not having an operational car, I skipped SCCA autocross, and instead got roused out of bed at 10 by a call to go on over to Musso Kustoms to help with them work on Tracey’s new old Dodge Royal(e). By the time I got there, Chuck and Jay had pretty much taken care of the bulk of work bleeding the brakes & pulling coolant hoses off. 
Not finding a close enough fit for the water housing, Jay cuts off the offending rusty end. Considering this was probably an original piece, it’s still in pretty good shape once the end is trimmed off.
Got home, inspected FX. It’s not good. 
Look carefully and you can see where seams are seperating on this section of the lower uni-body where the A-arm mounts. There isn’t enough deforming to be obvious, but it’s there. Turning the wheel to full lock it now rubs. 
This clinches it, I’m retiring this FX. I know there are cars running out there in worse condition, it’s even probably possible to fix this so it’ll be within reasonable spec, but I know it’ll never be right. I was hoping to get this car in really good running shape, but I’ve never been quite happy with it. The boys have discussed making a frankenFX by choping the front cut of original FX and grafting it onto this one. The original FX is actually very straight, no signs of any repair work, but it really is rusting badly. It might be a fun excercise. But no, I don’t intend to keep running this FX. Oh, and the door doesn’t close tight now and the rear door edge to frame gap has widened.
I’ve got a line on another one, so maybe this was a blessing in disguise.
Her insurance adjuster is coming down tomorrow to check it out, we’ll see what they say and what the outcome of this is.
What the F! Okay, about an hour ago I was sitting here working on my blog entry about past work on the FX. I heard something outside, I thought maybe some kid on a bike or something & didn’t really think anything of it. A few minutes later the door bell rings. Go to answer. Hmm, pretty cute local girl, wonder what she’s selling. Then she asks about the black car parked down the street. Um, yeah, that’s mine. Then she tells me she hit it. Aw geeze, tell her, hold on, I’ll get the insurance info. What the bleeping hell! Does that FX have “HIT ME” writen all over it?!
I go out and see that the FX is pushed up onto the curb. That doesn’t look good….
I’m fairly speechless. You know, I was only kidding about if someone hit the other door, then I’d have enough money to buy another whole FX from the mainland. Getting closer, I’m expecting the worst, but it’s not quite that bad. But the wheel is turned in. I don’t usually turn my wheel in to park here. My habit is to turn in where I feel the front starting to rise up the curve of the gutter, then turn back to straighten out so the car is pretty much as far to curb as possible.
I’m not happy but things are civil. We exchange info. Oo, ouch, that’s gonna smart for her nice shiny 2006 Lexus RX400. 
Looks like things are under control so I go to straighten out the FX. F, the door won’t open. It unlatches & opens, but door won’t swing out. I climb in through passenger side and move the car. I’m expecting the girl to drive off in her Lexus, but then she reverses & stops. What gives? She gets out and explains that her steering isn’t working. My parents came home from shopping while this was all developing and my mom comes over to see what’s going on. She finds a chunk of munged aluminum with a bit of chassis grease on the ground. Looks like some part of steering linkage, prob a joint of the steering shaft. Wow, junk, LandCruiser that isn’t!
The FX seems to move ok, unknown if suspension , steering, or wheel is damaged. Will have to find out. Hmm, am I going to have to rush to ABC tomorrow and get the other door and fender? And damn, if I get it repainted, am I going to have to have it painted International Orange?! Just what is going on with this car?!