This past Friday was on a push to get the AE86 rolling again so could move it out of garage for planned work on J’s headlights. I’d earlier glopped on some cast iron weld to fill up the crack on the exhaust, and after some name calling got it all back together. However while I was in there, I started taking off the EGR system. A rather superfluous system which in more cases than not is malfunctioning by this age anyway. It’s pretty straightforward. Unbolt the bung from the exhaust, find a transmission filler plug from the myriad of transaxles in Root’s Toyota salvage yard, and replace the bung with that. Then unbolt the other bits that hang between the bung and the intake. The only little thing is a bit of fabrication to make a cover to plug the intake hole. Pulling out the barstock of mystery millitary surplus metal, I traced out what I needed to cut. Just about the right size. Continue reading ‘Mystery Metal’
Author Archive for taro
Page 70 of 88
The start
This sunday was the frenching fun on J’s Chevy. Frenching? In kustom car talk, that’s getting rid (actually covering) the chrome headlight rings, bringing the body line all the way flush to the headlights. A project to christen the newly set up air compressor and dedicated eletric outlets! I kind of anticipated this taking a while, so we planned on J showing up at 9:00AM. Soon after 9:00 was when J sneaked in, I didn’t hear the sled pull up! Anyway, we made a shopping run to Napa and City Mill for some supplies so it wasn’t till past 10:00 that we got the car into the garage and ready to start. First the headlights need to be removed. Polished rings are a snap fit and pop off. The main bucket that houses the entire light assembly needs to come off. The plan is that assembly is going to be mounted on the backside of the body metal instead of the front. So we go to start removing the bolts that hold the buckets on. Continue reading ‘Frenching Fools’
Yesterday was the closing of the 30th Pan Pacific Festival with the parade down Kalakaua Avenue. I’d been lazy to catch the other days, but made an effort to catch the parade. I think the highlight of the parade for Derek and I was Bamp! Who/what is “Bamp!”? I didn’t know. A web search turned up nothing relevant. I still didn’t know. When they came up in the parade, all we can figure that their performance is is to be cute, and they are extremely good at that! 
And this cutie gets extra special bonus points for her fan, check it out! If they have a fan club, we want to be in it!
Oh, and the rest of the parade was pretty cool.
Testing the mask
Buzz packin'
So tonight was my second attempt at fixing the crack in the AE86 exhaust manifold. Being only a welding monkey, MIG was easy, but going back to the big old school buzz box stick welder was a bit harder. It takes a bit more skill to strike the arc and keep the stick at good spacing. What I was trying to fix is the all to common crack in the stock cast iron manifold for these Corollas. This lets nice buzz packing fumes go where they’re not wanted, like the front of the car! On Sunday (after wrestling with getting one last nut off on Saturday) I had my first attempt at welding the crack. I had to monkey around with the welder, get used to the blinking on and off of the helmet, and try not to get the stick stuck to the manifold. Continue reading ‘Welding Monkey’
The AE86 Corolla has a cracked manifold (like almost every other stock one) and it was causing me to catch some buzz when I drove it around last Saturday. So I decided to attempt to weld the hunk of cast iron. I’d done it before for practice on a different cracked manifold, and it’ll be a good test of the new fancy electro helmet! First things first, I have to take it out. No problem, I figured, having done it number of times with the FX. Pulled out the trusty can of Kroil and gave all the nuts and bolts a good squirt. Fzzzt…. Ooops, there goes the last of the propelant. Oh yeah, RWD layout is different. Fortunately they all are pretty loose (although makes me wonder about others), except one nut on the backside of the manifold to downpipe junction. It’s a long stud so requires a deep socket, but is angled in such a way that the socket can’t fit on it. WTF? Toyota is usually pretty good about not designing things like this. And there is too much stuff all round to fit a open end in. Eventually undoing all the rest, wiggling things around, I barely fit a wrench in there, and again it’s loose so after much contorting get it out. Took much longer than expected, too late to grind and weld, oh well, guess I’ll have a beer. Prob gonna have to disconnect the steering shaft when I reinstall, what a PIA.
I like that, car with Share The Road with bicyclist and pedestrians bumper sticker making left at intersection with left on green arrow only, but light is red, pedestrian crossing street had to motion and hold out hand for car to stop. And then car continues on as soon as pedestrian is out of way. Oh, and I caught up with that car at the next red light.
(0)Our Saturday night culinary (mis)adventure this week kicked off with this:
Pork rinds for the new age, microwave speed for hot crispy pork skin goodness right at your table! Just like microwave popcorn it comes with brown bag containing the trippy little pork rind nodules. Zap (decided not to say “nuke” in deference to current events in DPRK) in microwave for between 1:30 to 2:00. I was told to be very vigilant in watching bag and stopping it as soon as it stopped expanding. The rinds go from crispy yummyness to carbon lumps and annoying entire office building in a matter of seconds.
Verdict from all the boys? Two thumbs up all around! Sorry, no pics of the finished product, we ate it all that fast! Oh wait, found it. 
And if you look at the nutritional info, it doesn’t look all that bad. Just doing our part to support the pork industry from the misinformed masses panic over swine flu. Thursday Dave did pork adobo lunch, and then his pork trio dinner at Los Chaps, I had chili verde pork, and I just made Japanese style nibuta.
Anyway, 4 out of 4 swine snacking monkeys.
Dang it! Pentax has released two weather resistant SLR lenses that are inexpensive. Wonder if any other company will follow suit? Doubt it since no other company has a relatively inexpensive DSLR camera body that is weather resistant. That’s been one of my wishes for the Canon xxD line of cameras, weather resistance. The additional fuzzy ‘seals’ on the battery and CF doors is a joke, although Canon makes no claims about those.
(0)Brake in the metal working sense. The current FX came to me with the spare tire well filled in with a sub woofer tub. The hold down spindle was chopped out and the tub hammered out. 
The plan to restore the brackets for the spare has been idle in my brain for a long time, then working on J’s door handles inspired me and I finally decided to tackle the job. My plan was also to properly relocate the battery in the well, instead of the hacked cracked plastic box bolted to the speaker board (which is no longer there). Just after noon, J got to my house just as I got home from picking up some supplies. I explained what I had in mind to him and we started taking a close look and making measurements. J suggested instead of my idea of cutting out a large piece of the bottom of the well, to just take the center spindle bracket and weld it into the existing FX’s well and leave the bashed out well as it is. Less work. That’s the nice thing about having more than one brain looking at a problem, alternate views and ideas. The idea looks like it will work, and instead of trying to find space to relocate the jack bracket, if I flip the spare over, there’s a nice spice within the spare that I could just use a strap. Continue reading ‘J the Human Brake’
Buffalo Boys Hoagies
Few weeks back I got a chance to stop in to Buffalo Boys Hoagies to grab lunch. We’d done their register so I knew about them opening, but I wasn’t the one who worked on it so no one there knew who I was. I was there strictly as a normal customer. The store has a warehouse feel to it, its actually a small space, but the open ceiling and space gives it that feel. There’s about 8 tables to sit at, otherwise its take out for you! So I placed my order, I don’t know what I was thinking, I guess I wasn’t feeling very meaty, and ordered the Buffalo Blue chicken finger sub, from a place touting New York style hoagies. I know, I know, what a fool. Continue reading ‘Buffalo Boys’