Wrapping Up Round One

Now that the car is on the ground.. it's time to... roll it back into the garage and finish.

it was fun while it lasted, sitting out side over night where I could look at it longingly from my bedroom window. /sigh

I rolled it back into the garage, and put it back on the jack stands to wrap up some of the final tasks of getting it properly running.

First up was getting the exhaust back on. This Borla system is a rather large pain in the ass, and some of the clamps were in really bad shape. I picked up a few generic ones from the auto parts store to replace a few, and i'm glad I bought extras. I had to address the missing clamp under the passenger seat, and another was cracked. When I took the impact to it, it actually snapped in half. Oh well, it's off and getting replaced anyway. After a lot of finagling, I got the muffler and pipes back in place, but one of the bolts for an exhaust hanger snapped off in the new subframe. Hooray. There's more than enough support without it, but the exhaust moves under load and hits the subframe with the hanger. Damn it. I tried to shove half a rubber exhaust hanger between the frame and the hanger on the tube, which worked for about 10 minutes. Damn. Fuck it. I'll fix it later, a little banging never hurt anyone.

With the exhaust back in place, I can tear into the ride height. I took a few inches out here and there, and evened up the sides. I jacked each wheel up to see where it would land under more or less full compression, and settled that I was happy where it would probably land. It would have to get on the ground again before I knew exactly where it would sit.

Lastly, I had to top off the diff. When I had the subframe off the car, I inverted it, and forgot there was a blowoff tube on top, so a measurable quantity leaked out on to my garage floor. I wrote it off, and figured I'd just top it off. So I reached under with my wrench, broke the fill plug loose, and began to turn.. to be met with an out pour of fluid. what the hell? the car's level, and all you have to do is fill it to the fill plug. Jesus tap dancing Christ, how did you fuck up this hard previous idiot? So the diff is overfull, and the fluid pouring out is basically black and smells of burnt horse's asshole. If I'm making a mess, I might as well make a bigger mess and change the diff fluid completely. I had to swing back to the autoparts store to pick up another bottle of "synthetic" gear oil. I'll care about the quality when I get something that's better than an open diff in the pumpkin.

That's it.. right? I keep running through things in my head. I'm not done. I'm forgetting something, right? There's got to be something left... I can't be done.

Holy shit. I am done.

I put the car back on the ground, and the ride heights appear to be about where I want them. I torque the wheels, and step back..

It's time to do something I haven't done in weeks... It's time to drive it.