The cross-country voyage of the Hawaiian 2002

[KFunk]

Yeah I felt like I was missing out on something, as I didn't really understand the significance of the place. I just knew the name Pebble Beach was really big.

Do you have any idea where I can see some pics of pro golfers to see if I can identify that guy I saw? Maybe it was just a nobody that had won smaller tournaments or something. It was September 8th, so maybe all the real pros were somewhere else that weekend.

Golfing is pretty fun, and I should get into it more someday. I've only played at my friends' 9 hole course when they give me free rounds.... so I've never really focused on doing good, and mainly just play with the carts.

I also wanted to mention some of the funny things I heard on the radio during the trip. I've got a good Alpine CD/MP3 player with tons of good music, but most of the way I flipped thru local stations to hear what was going on in each area. I also strangely started to like country music again....

Somewhere around northeast Arizona, I heard an ad for one radio contest... and I heard them say, "You could win a 42" big screen TV, or a truckload of hay!!!"

Wow, hay must be expensive down there! I mentioned that to my friends in KC, and they laughed at first... but started to think that a truckload of hay might be a pretty good deal.

Another time I was driving across the texas panhandle, and for some reason the livestock report was on. I wasn't paying much attention, as some boring guy just monotonously read off cattle prices. But as he wrapped up the report, I couldn't quite catch every word, but he said something like this, "and thats it for cattle today. And if you happen to see my beautiful sister down in Odessa, please tell here that.....blah blah...... it wasn't my fault, but if she wants to make a personal attack, then we'll have to bring up the beauty pageant that her mom entered her into in 1973. If you'd see the pictures from that event, you'll see that Cindy Ward originally invented the 'Billy-bob teeth' look. Thats it for the livestock report."

I thought it was a joke or some kind of funny advertisement, but then it just went right into another commercial. Haha......

[culpy]

I found 1 in Hawaii on Craigs list 76 white, guys name is Joe.Check it out? Let me know what ya think? Little rust, Nun on strut towers. Im checking it out this weekend. thanks , Chris

[KFunk]

I found 1 in Hawaii on Craigs list 76 white, guys name is Joe.Check it out? Let me know what ya think? Little rust, Nun on strut towers. Im checking it out this weekend. thanks , Chris

Oh, so you're already out there? The only squaretail white I know of is one that was inhabited by a homeless guy near Pauoa Road. It was a bit rough looking.

If its not that one, then I don't think I've ever seen it. Good luck, your guess is as good as mine.

[KFunk]

OK, I better continue on toward the current status. I figure I'll just leave this thread open to show the car as a continuous project, even though its relatively stationary for a while.

Before I washed it, here's the bugs I collected on the license plate over the whole trip. It hadn't been washed since Sept. 10th in Redwood City. I had to wash the windshield about every other gas stop, due to so many bugs. I even washed the headlights once in the middle of the country.

Here it is united with the miata finally, and I did a lil switcheroo for fun:

why?

That was fun for a bit, but it took some of the fun out of the 02, so the 13s went back on it. The miata couldn't move from the driveway due to caliper clearance issues, so I never tried that combo out.

Now that I've got the 02 back home, it was time to fix the little stuff and start tuning the car for a autocross again a little now that I have a decent garage and few worries about reliability.

I've also been cruising town showing off the car, and hitting the backroads I love.

Here's Funk's Service Station:

The mural downtown. My grandpa is the guy in the blue coat on the right side. (medium sized) Sam the boxing trainer is the guy on the far right edge.

runnin the ridges:

and I just found this story the other day online, which might kinda explain why I'm back here:

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/02/12/20060212-C1-02.html

I didn't realize I was so much like Sam. Why do we come back here? I dunno.

I found that story while googling my friend Brian. He was a good friend when we were kids, and I just found out that he's now an undefeated pro welterweight boxer nicknamed 'The Golden Greek.' I think he's 12-0 now. weird.....

I've also been tearing the rust off the miata, which is far worse than the 02. I avoided showing it in the pics, but it is extensive. It's gonna require new metal for the rocker panels in 3 places. I've cleaned and spraypainted most of the rear subframe and diff, but I've got to get the gloves on and go at it with some POR-15.

Anyways, I've been trying to tune the 02 a little to get the best power for this altitude, gasoline, and such. But it was a pain due to exhaust leak issues. The reason the muffler broke loose in Wichita is due to this low RPM wobble I've always had in the engine. After new engine mounts, replacing most everything on the top end, and thoroughly checking for vacuum leaks, I gave up and lived with it. I thought I had cured it a few times in the past, but it had only been drastically reduced... and was still slightly there.

But it was enough to break those welds loose on the muffler, which broke loose in Kansas. Dad welded that back up for me shortly after getting home.

But, somewhere else the exhaust was leaking up front. At first I thought it was around the header, due to a missing header stud on #3. I have no idea when and how it disappeared. I got new studs ready to put on it, but then I realized it really wasn't due to that stud. The flange where the header meets the midpipe had broken off. So, I took off the header and we tried to weld the flange back on there, but it turned out ugly, and still leaky. I thought it was held in place OK, but it was still loud as hell.

I went ahead and played with my timing some, and the carb, and got some decent power out of the car. For some reason it started killing the engine whenever I hit the brakes hard (even at a stop), but I just didn't worry about that. I had a fairly new booster hose and check valve that were all in tight, so it was time to hit the autocross at SCCA Ohio Valley Region. I'll post about it in a few minutes.

Ah, I forgot to update on the job situation. My good friend that is close to the guy in charge of the job I want has spent a lot of time talking with him. He's actually looking for someone that does a lot more cloning and genetics than I've done, but... he's still gonna think about hiring me. I know I could get into that stuff easily, and surely teach it well. But if he decides not to give me a job, there will be other better positions opening soon... and he pretty much guarantees a job for me within six months.

Teaching at the community college level is my ideal goal right now, and now that there's a good chance of that within six months locally, I'm not going to be looking for aything less far away. I'll be lookiing at teaching at other community colleges around the east coast, especially the virginia area.

[KFunk]

OK, on to autocrossing it here.

Before we get into that, I need to mention the 2SlowRacing team, heh.

http://www.2slowracing.com/

Before I left Ohio, I met Tim, Ben, and Dick at Ohio University, and managed to drag them out to their first autocross. They then got addicted to it and have been at it hardcore, while I ran off and let them go.

Ben still has the same VW cabrio as before, but its now very well race prepared, and does quite well in Street Mod with a 2.0L Jetta engine, like 700 lb. springs, and tons of of stuff welded up.

Dick went thru two corvettes, an E30 325iS, and now an E30 325i w/turbo.

Tim now has a 2000 miata with pretty well built suspension.

Well, 2 days before the autocross, the head gasket, etc. blew up on the E30 turbo while at Mid-Ohio, so he asked if he could co-drive my car. So, might as well.

I took the Azenis from the Miata, and put my old race wheels/tires on the miata to move it around the driveway. Only one of them has a few patches of cords showing.... but I couldn't resist taking a spin in it real quick. That is still a very, very good car with a completely different feeling than the 02. But the 02 is my current project, and has my attention right now.

Meanwhile, the exhaust was still really loud on the 02. I got some cheap exhaust patch stuff and just gooped it on the flange, hoping it would do something. But nope, so I just headed toward Columbus loud.

Columbus is an hour and a half way, so I planned on just driving up to Columbus on Saturday night, staying at Tim and Ben's apartment, then heading to the autocross Sunday morning.

Saturday in the daytime, Ben was going to be closer to my house in Logan, at his parents house working on his VW rabbit pickup truck (diesel). He's been doing a lot of working welding it together to replace rust. Dick was also gonna drop by there.

So, I planned on heading toward Columbus, and meeting them halfway at Ben's parents' house, and following them up to Columbus.

Well, it was loud, but I headed on up the highway. I get all the way to the turn off to go to Ben's house, and I make the left turn off the highway.

As I'm crossing the opposing lane, THE MIDPIPE FALLS OFF! I mean the flange where it meets the header had just broken off, and the midpipe fell on the ground!

The car was instantly extremely loud, plus the pipe dragging on the ground wasn't pleasant. I got out, and realized I'd misplaced my safety wire, and had nothing to tie it up. I was getting the cell phone out to call Ben, when they come sliding up next to me, after returning from a drive. This is the first I've seen them in a couple years of course....

So, we get some wire and tie it up slightly, but not very good... so it still drags on the ground.

But Ben's house was less than a mile up the road. It was really really loud at that point. So, I take it up their gravel driveway (filling the midpipe with gravel...), and ride it up onto ramps. Luckily Ben had a gas welder there ready to go, and he did a great job putting it back together. Dick had a brilliant idea for removing the debris from the midpipe: blow it out with an air hose up the tailpipe! Everything shot right out. Ben's welds are still holding tight. Over to Hawaii I would have had to pay somebody a couple hundred bucks for that. That took less than an hour, and we headed on to Columbus.

Once we got there, I let Dick and Ben each take a drive in the car, and they were pretty well impressed with car.

Finally, we got to the autocross the next day. There was only one other car in FSP, a '68 Sunbeam Alpine, that looked slightly better prepared:

But we drove hard, and had fun:

and luckily, for some odd reason the Sunbeam was incredibly slow.

Yeah, we took 1st and 2nd out of three in FSP. Unfortunately I wasn't #1, but no big surprise. Here's the results:

http://www.ovr-scca.org/download/eventResults/soloII/2006/PE10.html

I figured Dick had gotten better at it since I left (and I haven't been focusing much on AX), but I didn't expect him to beat me by that much. He said there was a second or two more in the car, but he screwed up a few times on his best run. He was very impressed with the handling of the car.

I think I focus a lot less on getting a fast time than I used to, and I just don't hammer on it like before. I've wondered why I've been getting slow times with the 02 before, and this confirms my suspicion that it was the driver all along.

I think, as well as people that have driven the car and watched me, that the open diff is the major problem for me. I tend to like to get on the gas a lot for fun, but that 02 has a lot more bottom end power than my miata, and I just spin all the time and go nowhere. Recently though, I've been trying to avoid that by going smoother, and been way too conservative. So, I've been looking hard to try and find an LSD so I can really get on the gas again and have some fun.

I noticed when I drive the miata now (which now has an open diff), its much harder to spin the tires due to the lack of bottom end power. It can still be done easily with the miata, but you have to really intend to it. The 02 just does it all the time.

But atleast the car held together rock solid all day, thru both co-drivers.

Ah well, time to tell you about the next autocross.

[KFunk]

OK, I better continue on to the breaking point.

When putting the wheels back on the car, we noticed there was way too much slop in the center link now. A few months ago I changed tie rods, but cheaped out on getting the center link. After several thousand miles and some abusive autocrosses, yeah it had been killed. Ben said he noticed some slop in the steering before the autocross, but I didn't. After the autocross, I could notice it.

So, I had Autohaus AZ send me over a new one. I finally figured out how to easily pop out the new tie rods without breaking them, and I managed to proudly use a 3 foot extension to tighten up the center link from above the engine. That tightened up the steering a little, but mainly just made me feel better.

When I was at Autozone, I noticed they had some Energy Suspension polyurethane sway endlinks that looked like they'd fit perfect, for $20. I couldn't resist, and threw them on. Now that really tightened up the suspension, and got it cornering sharp and flat. Before, I had the huge sways but they were acting thru stock rubber endlinks, and thus negating most of their power.

Then onto fixing the brake/engine stalling problem. I finally figured it must be the brake booster. Luckily Karl e-mailed me to say he was going to harvest some parts from a junked 76 in Xenia, and asked if I wanted anything. He picked up the booster for me, and I drove over to Chillicothe to get it from him.

It was a fight to get the old booster out without messing with the brake lines, but I did it. I had to remove the EGR block-off to do it, which I later replaced with better bolts and good silicone to seal it.

While the booster was out, I could finally access the drivers side frame rail pretty easily, which was covered in goop. I degreased it, and thoroughly coated it with POR-15, which made me feel better.

So, I crammed the 'new' booster in there, put stuff back together, and fired it up. It actually fixed the brake problem, and no more changes in engine speed when I hit the brakes.

Not only that, but miraculously somehow the engine wobble was completely gone! Now the engine runs very, very smooth. I'm not sure if it was due to a leak in the booster, or that EGR block-off, but its fixed now. So I've been happily cruising it around with an engine that idles much smoother.

Dick says he thinks the throttle response is much sharper now, but I can't really tell it myself.

It was also much easier to tune the carb without the engine shaking, and got the ignition timing perfect.

So, the engine was running nice and strong, and the handling was rock solid. Time for the next autocross.

This time, Dick was going to bring down the Koseis for his E30 to race on them, as well as a set of E30 BBS wheels I wanted. I like the look of the 13" BBS wheels on the 2002, but they're just too small and have the wrong offset. 14" E30 BBS wheels would be perfect for it, I think. He had snows on them right now, which would be nice for using on the miata in the winter time, and in the spring I'd put race tires on one of the sets of BBS wheels for the 2002.

I was planning on paying him back for the wheels/snows at a later date.

Well, I headed on up to Columbus to stay the night up there, so I could go to the autocross at National Trails Raceway the next day.

We knew Dick's 205/50/15 Azenis (newer style than mine, and softer) wouldn't fit that easily, thanks to some tips from the forum, so Dick brought his fender rolling tool.

We proceeded to roll the front fenders out quite a bit, and gently beat the wheel wells out a little with a sledge hammer. They still hit my sway bars while turning sharp, but no big deal. We didn't bother with rolling the rears, since it looked like they'd clear just fine.

Here it is with the wheels/tires the next day:

Needless to say, it was gripping really well.

I stashed some pics of the other cars at autocross here, check out whats hiding in the engine bay of the E21 (look closely):

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kfunk/2002/OVR/

They decided to give us each 6 runs this time (!!), and I was worrying about how brutal 12 runs would be on that old car.

Well, Dick took the first run this time. He launched it kind of hard, but I didn't pay too much attention. For some stupid reason my new super loud, deep horn started honking uncontrollably, and distracted him, and the run was really ugly, and probably annoyed a lot of people. As he pulled in to get his time, I finally reached into the steering column and pulled the wire, and it stopped.

Then I went for my run, but as soon as I got to the starting line, the horn started going again. I have no idea why. But I decided to try my best to ignore it, and kept going. I proceeded to try and set a good example and launch it nice and gentle. There's no reason for a drag style start, as the timing light sets like 10 or 15 feet ahead of the starting line. The car handled nice and solid, and I took a fairly conservative run to be sure I knew the track. There was a huge straightaway, where I quickly realized I should've been haulin ass a whole lot more.... so I had a lot of time I could make up easily.

And still the car was honking uncontrollably. We pulled it into the pits, and this time popped the hood and yanked the wires off the horn itself.

Then I rode along as Dick took his next run. He launched it way harder than necessary, again... and with those big tires, it had to have been rough on it. We went into the next corner, and uh oh..... big grinding noises underneath and car was goin nowhere.

He coasted it to the side, we jacked it up, and confirmed our suspicions that the rear diff was toasted. Our day was done.

I called AAA, and told them to come pick me up at National Trails Raceway. (Gee, your rear end gears are busted while at the world famous NHRA dragstrip, thats a mystery how that happened!)

Meanwhile, Ben and Dick had to quickly run back to Ben's apt. and get my 13s and 14s, since they left them there. Plus, the Koseis on my car were to be sold to someone on Monday, so it couldn't be towed all the way home to my place with them.

I went on over and talked to Larry with the Sunbeam, and told him he had 5 more runs to improve on his times and maybe beat us this time. It seemed like he was running a little quicker this time. Last time he had fuel pressure problems, and I recommended that he pitch his Holley pump and get the Carter rotary pump that I've got. Maybe that helped.

Here's the final times:

http://www.ovr-scca.org/download/eventResults/soloII/2006/PE11.html

Looks like he got us. I still really don't think I hit a cone on my first run, as I stayed far from them. But there's no sense in protesting it much. Without that cone, it'd subtract 2 seconds from my time, and I woulda won.

But oh well, atleast Larry got to win one, and got a trophy. We felt kinda bad for him since he had such a nice looking roadster, but was getting beaten by my old ugly car.

As for the rear-end of my car, I started to worry that maybe it was my fault due to not checking the fluid for like a year. I filled it up when I first got it, and never checked it, although it looked 'damp.' I was afraid it was my fault due to it dripping out slowly over time, and now it might be dry, and thus the gears broke.

Well, AAA came and picked it up on a rollback, and I had a nice long talk with Ike the driver as we cruised ~60 miles along SR13, a twisty 2-lane backroad that's a shortcut to Glouster.

The next day, I crawled under the car, and was happy the rear end came out so easy. Just five quick steps in the Haynes manual, and it was out:

Then, time for the unveiling:

It appears I'm missing something there on that shiny spot....

Yeah, there was plenty of oil in it. But it was old, and those were some big sticky tires.

Oh well, time for that limited-slip diff!

I checked around on Ebay a little, and called some foreign car junkyards, and no good deals on E21 3.90 LSDs like I wanted.

I got ahold of Dave Varco at Aardvarc racing in California, and he said he had one that just came in. He'd inspect it, and sell it to me for 325, plus 100 for all stuff to adapt it to the 2002, and 45 shipping, minus 10 bucks since it was dirty. I don't really like spending that much I can't pay back on the credit card right not, but I hate the car sitting there like a lump, and I don't wanna mess around with another stupid open diff like mine.

So I told him to send it on out, and it's supposed to get here on Tuesday via FedEx.

Dick felt bad for breaking it, so he decided to help make it even by just giving me the E30 BBS wheels with Blizzak snow tires, so I don't have to pay him back for those, so that makes me feel better.

Today I threw them on the miata to make sure they'll fit it. I had to hack out the plastic fender wells a little, but it'll go pretty good off-road now. Should be a little better than the old bald Azenis:

Next comes one more autocross on November 5th, and its the last for the year. I can't wait to get the new LSD in the car and see what it can really do. Unfortunately though Dick won't be driving the car this time, so it might not go quite as fast with me. However, I just checked with Chris from the golf course. The golf course is now closed for the winter time, so he might be able to make it. And probably put me to shame with my own car at his 2nd autocross, but ah well. Should be fun.

[KFunk]

more pics:

I also edited to put up some higher res versions of pics from around town, as I thought they deserved it...

[KFunk]

It's alive again! and it has traction!

The new rear-end came in tuesday. I cleaned it off, and coated the whole thing in POR-15. It seemed like a good idea, after seeing how rusty the diff has gotten in the miata. Now this one isn't ever gonna rust.

It was tough to put it up into thae car on Wednesday, since the car was parked in the mud and I couldn't push it uphill into the garage. The biggest problem was when I set the diff onto the floorjack, and tried to push it under the car, it kept getting buried in the mud. But I eventually crammed it under there, and got it into place. I had a creeper so I didn't have to lay in the mud myself. I tightened it down nice and tight, torqued the bolts properly, and its ready to go. I put new brake pads on it too at some point.

It feels pretty weird to drive now, but I'm getting used to it. Its really weird that I can spin the tires, and actually propel myself at the same time. The rear-end swings around in a whole different way, but it should be good.

Right now I'm down in Athens, and gettin ready to get an Ohio title, so I can get Ohio plates. Unfortunately the Hawaii plates have gotta come off, since they're now expired. It'd be 140 to renew them, or like 50 bucks to just get Ohio plates (plus its more legal...).

Ah well, I'll throw my shiny Hawaii Alumni license plate frame on them to make it better.

[KFunk]

Somebody else say something, I know you've been reading since you've been e-mailing me.

Anyways, just thought I'd tell you about the last autocross. Things have bee a little weird with the car. It's picked up a lot of bump-steer and steering isn't that tight, and I don't know why. Everything is fine with the front end, but I think it may time for a new steering box.... But no time for that before the autocross.

The engine was also acting a little weird, and not as powerful as it should be. I wiggled all the plug wires, and found that a plug itself was actually loose! The ceramic on the center had broken free from the metal, and was simply bouncing around in there and loosing compression thru it. Some of the spark plug boot had also been melted off. I have no idea why this happened, I just replaced them all last year when I got the car. I managed to find an old used Autolite sitting in the garage tht happened to have the same threads. I used some high-temp RTV to mold the spark plug boot back together. Then the engine seemed to run a little better.

On the way to the autocross, I picked up a new set of 4 Bosch platinums, since thats all that they had. I also had to tighten up the alt belt in the parking lot, and some guy offered to buy the car. I said no and moved on. Surprising that a normal looking guy in domestic car country would be interested in the car.

By the way, the other day someone asked me if I had the only 2002 in my hometown. Of course I do, but then I realized its also the only BMW in town.

Anyways, on up to the autocross. I managed to borrow Ben's Azenis (which are fresher than mine), and reimbursed him with a 24 pk. of miller lite and a batch of mom's chocolate chip cookies.

Chris from the golf course managed to make it up in time to co-drive. And yeah, me managed to make that car go faster than I ever expected, thanks to some friendly competition.

Since Dick is no longer driving my car, and he was waiting on the new motor for his turbo E30, he brought his never been washed, leased 04 325i:

This week the Sunbeam ditched his 13" street tires, and put on some used race slicks he grabbed for free from some vintage racers at Mid-Ohio. Unfortunately they weren't DOT, so they bumped him into GP. Ah well, no more vintage competition in FSP.

But, Ben.... (pictured here in this photo I had on file):

...decided to leave his VW at home this weekend, and got out his grandma's old Acclaim. He's been using it for a daily driver, and recently swapped a 5-speed into it:

Just for that day, he:

-put some spare 500 lb. springs on the front.

-drilled holes in the struts, drained the oil and replaced it with 90W gear oil, and welded them up

-welded the motor mounts solid

-got some steel rims and mounted spare 225 R-tires on them

So with a good driver, it actually made some pretty good competition.

It's too bad that this was just a fun event, so they didn't record the times. They just announced them and gave you time slips, and you took as many runs as you could in the allowed time.

I had to hand out timeslips for one heat, and most of the better cars were happy with 52 and 53 second runs. 54 and 55 and higher were more of the norm. There was a Z06 vette and a WRX that managed to get down into the 45 to 48 second range.

Marty brought out his daily driver VW wagon (w/Azenis), and we loaded it full of people for many runs, and it rocked all over the place. I tried to sit in the center of the backseat and lean into the corners to help. I think he got it down to 55 seconds.

Dick let me drive his 325i one run, and I managed to wipe out a lot of cones. I'm sure it probably handles well normally, but it seemed like a big car and I couldn't get used to the auto 'sport-shift'. Dick managed to put together one clean run and got like a 54.3 in it.

In my first run, I managed to get a 54.2 in the the 2002. And Ben was pretty close behind me. Of course, Chris my co-driver got a 53 something. So, we proceeded to trim off a second or so with every run. And we ran the old cars hard, and I have no idea how many runs we ended up taking. I stayed ahead of Ben at first, but he managed to get by me with the last couple of runs. If I pushed it any harder, I just screwed it up. I ended up with a 51.8 as my best run, which I screwed all up and plowed hard in a couple corners. So I know I had more time left in it. But at that point the street tires were getting hot and greasy, and kept plowing on me. My car was workin double-duty, while Ben had only one.

But somehow Ben managed a 51.1 in that old Acclaim, and I have no idea how. The 225 R-tires probably gave him a good advantage.

While he managed to beat me, my co-driver managed to uphold the honor of the 2002, and pulled in a 50.5 second lap. With his final try, he actually got a 49 second lap, but hit a cone or two, so that musta been his limit.

This was only Chris' thrid autocross ever, and he's just a natural I guess. He's constantly thinking about all the different dynamics of the car and the best line. I just wish we could get him away from the golf course and up to most events, but usually sunday is a big day at the golf course.

Oh, and last I noticed the Sunbeam got something like a 53 second run, so it seems like he was doing better.

Most importantly, the car didn't fall apart, and is still running fine. It went around that track way faster than I ever expected. I'm a little worried about the steering, so I'll probably grab that steering box from the junkyard over in Xenia soon.

I'm sure the limited-slip helped a lot in my times, and it felt much more solid pulling out of the corners.

[JayG]

I started reading this a few months ago reading lines at a time when I was free. Since its veterens day and nobody needs help transferring balances on their credit cards, I got paid to read the whole thing today. Awesome story. And big bumpers rock my socks!

[Jim_75Sahara]

Kevin, you've got to get to that 76 Fjord at the Xenia junkyard. They have been clearing things out more quickly there, so hurry. What kind of impromptu offer did you get on your car, btw? Let me know if you're going to hit the boneyard.

[KFunk]

Glad I could be of assistance, Jay!

Jim: Thanks for the warning about the 76. I'm gonna get busy on some other stuff on Monday, so I might head over there on Tuesday. Unless Karl has already removed the steering box for me, but I told him not to worry about it.

So I'll check with Karl, and probably take the backroads over there sometime Tuesday. Let me know if you're free or wanna grab lunch or anything.

For the offer, I didn't bother to get a price out of the guy. I don't think he knew much about them, since he asked the size of the engine. I had the hood up at the time, so he could see the shiny engine and musta knew it was something special.

With both my cars, people are always trying to buy them at random places, and I brush them off real quick.

Thanks,

Kevin

[a54atii]

Kevin,

I haven't made it back to Xenia to get the steering box. Here's where you're going to go:

Xenia Iron & Metal

840 Jasper Rd.

Xenia, Ohio 45385

The 2002 is blue (Fjord, maybe) and is near a red Datsun 260/280Z in the foreign section. Its right on the edge of a hill. If you find "the valley" in the foreign section, you will see the 2002 sitting on a hill nearby. Hard to describe because the yard is a convoluted mess - there's not much in the way of rows or other organization.

Good luck!

Karl

[JohnW]

Kevin,

Keep the updates coming. It's great to see an 02 that's getting a lot of use. Oh yeah, that Acclaim rules!

[KFunk]

Karl,

I'm really glad I didn't ask you to get that steering box for me. That was just a wonderful and joyous experience....

I spent all day there Tuesday. I couldn't find my tie rod separator (pickle fork) that morning, but figured I wouldn't need it since I now know how to pop off a tie road with a small sledgehammer. But when I got there and saw the car, I realized in order to get the proper solid hit onto the pittman arm, I had to have my whole body under the car pretty much. But there was no way I'd jack that car up enough for me to get under it, its just not that safe. Plus it was sunk in the dirt up to the calipers, so that made things nice.

I fought with it for hours and hours, and tried various ways of pulling the pittman arm off the center link. I kept trying to get a good hit on it with the hammer, but just no easy way to access it. I almost gave up on it, and they were closing at 5pm.

Around about 4pm I decided I didnt even have to remove the center link from the pittman arm to get it out of there. I just jacked up the right side and set the frame on some bricks, and proceeded to beat on the right tie rod and idler arm. It was so rusty I didn't bother to remove the cotter pins, just put the wrench on them and sheared them off. I was out of PB Blaster too, so that made things great. But I just hit it really frickin hard with the sledgehammer, and they both busted loose.

Then I could pull the steering box out along with all three tie rods thru the bottom of the car. The plastic clutch line got in the way, but luckily I had a MAPP torch within an arm's reach, so out it came. I started to walk down to the office with the entire rack, but realized theyd charge me for the tie rods too. So I just set the steering box on a rock and whacked it with the sledgehammer, and this time the center link popped off real easy.

I also grabbed some seatbelts from the car, and managed to make it out just at closing time. They charged me $38 for everything.

I put the steering box in last night. Regardless of whether it fixed my problems, I needed that in there. Mine had leaked for years, and had no room for tightening left in it. It was much easier to get mine out than on the parts car, and the new one slid right in just fine.

I took it for a ride, but it still felt really unstable.

As I figured, the real problem was the left inner control arm bushing. I've had my eye on it for quite a while. The old steering box sat right on top of it, and leaked gear oil onto it for years, which made it disintegrate. I knew some of it had fallen apart, but figured there was some rubber left in there. But as I messed with the steering box, I noticed a couple more big chunks of rubber fall out of it.

I had planned on replacing all the suspension bushings sometime anyways (with urethane), but just haven't had the time or the energy. Plus right now I don't want to spend another $115 that I don't have.

It's about time to put the car away for winter anyways, so it should probably wait until I get a new job secured.

Today I went ahead and did some exploratory work on that inner control arm bushing. Sure enough, there wasn't any rubber left in there. Just a nickel-sized piece. The rest was just gone.

I went ahead and did some rigging, and figured a little bit of rubber stuck in there was better than nothing. I searched the house for something that might work, and ended up cutting a piece off an old 'Built Ford Tough' truck floormat, wrapped it around the metal sleeve, and shoved it back there.

Sure enough, its handling rock solid now. I don't know how long I want to trust that 'bushing,' but it certainly helps for now.