5/11/09

Well, Ray “Rayed” me again. Friday evening he called and began backpedaling on the Barbara deal. I told him I was kind of regretting making the offer anyway and he was relieved. So Saturday morning I headed to Lexutech to install the clutch and five-speed in Barbara for my own use. Kevin and I rolled the car in and onto the lift then got it up in the air. I began poking around and taking stuff apart. John arrived and we really got tucked in to the work. Kevin and I had the drive shaft out and some other stuff but I realized I hadn’t taken the shift lever out or taken the top bolts out of the bell housing. We dropped the car again and John got to work on the shifter while I tried to take out the bolts. I got one out and we decided the other could probably be reached with a long extension from below. We raised the car again and kept at it. We dropped the zorst and got everything disconnected from the transmission and set the jack under it. When the last bolt was undone, it slid right out, pretty as you please. Now, when I say “the clutch had exploded,” you really need to believe that “THE CLUTCH HAD EXPLODED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” There were chunks of friction material and bits of broken clutch all in the bell housing. The spring-loaded center was sheared clean from the friction material area of the disk. It was amazing. We got it all apart and John took some pictures. Yeah, the ones he linked just then. Kevin used up a can or two of brake cleaner hosing out the gunk in the bell housing while I replaced the flywheel. We opted against the new rear main seal and pilot bushing though. We torque the flywheel bolts and installed the clutch disk and pressure plate and I hunkered down on the bolts. We replaced the missing shock bushings in the rear and… um, probably did some other things. Oh right, I removed the rear bumper. When we decided it was time to stab the transmission back in place, I noticed we’d forgotten to install the spacer plate behind the flywheel. Crap! Rather than put another torque-ing on those flywheel bolts, I decided I'd just cut out the superfluous metal from the plate and add some more lightness. I finagled the modified plate in and we installed the transmission. Oh, I guess I should tell y'all that the four-speed uses a small-spline drive shaft yoke while the five-speed has a large-spline output. That, coupled with the fact that the clutch slave is on the wrong side, made us re-install the four-speed. Oh well, no biggie. We spent some time looking for ways to eliminate the plastic bushing in the shifter but finally gave up and just put a washer in to take up the side-to-side slop. It’s better than it was, I'll say that. Before we lifted the zorst back into place, we removed all of the heat shields to find that the muffler had totally corroded out. We took the Sawzall to it and pitched the muffler entirely. The catalytic converter was the only muffler on there before so we figured, “What the hell?” We re-installed the zorst and had a final look around to see if we’d missed anything. It all looked good underneath so we lowered the car. As it was coming down I asked if we were going to remove the front bumper as well. We stopped lowering and I did that. John removed the “finisher” piece from the grille while Kevin and I tried to remove the front plate from the bumper. No luck. We wound up cutting one of the license plate mounting holes out and tossing the plate on the dash. I feel so “Whiskey Tango” with it there. We buttoned everything up and John moved the car out while I washed up. “Well?” I asked. He reported that the clutch took-up right off the floor and that we’d probably better re-adjust it. I made note of that and hopped in to follow him home. We were going to drop his car off at his house and return for Fifi then caravan to DLR. This we did. The clutch seemed to readjust itself because I didn’t notice it catching too low. The car is not fast, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it runs and drives. John hopped in at his house and we headed back to Lexutech. It really didn’t like the added, oh let’s say 185 pounds of John in the passenger seat. I can’t imagine trying to use the air conditioner! He hopped in Fifi and we rolled towards the shop. We stopped at Hoffbrau for some cow along the way. When I got out of Barbara, I realized just how filthy and shabby I looked. I said, “I look like I ought to be driving this car!” John shrugged. We ate and headed to the shop. There, I got to work removing the rear bumper “finisher” thingy and ditched the cardboard floor of the hatch area and the dry-rotted spare tire while I was at it. John found that the brake light and horn fuse was blown and replaced it. Now the brake lights work. We test-fit one of the Versa wheels and determined that they will, probably, work. We capped an errant vacuum port and the engine ran much better. We replaced the steering wheel with a Grant GT that I'm not 100% fond of. It will probably be replaced soon by the wheel formerly in Barbecue Bob. I took one last test “hoon” down to the lake and determined that either A) Shichi really is fast as shit, or 2) Barbara really is a slow assed piece of shit. The road that seemed really short in Shichi felt twice as long, if not longer, in Barbara. We locked up and headed back across town. It seems like we did something else but I can’t remember what now. I dropped him off and headed home myself. And there you have it. Barbara is back in the DLR stable, running and drivable. I need to get the VIN so I can get it on my insurance soon. Next Saturday, if we don’t go to Tulsa, I'm going to have the Kumho R700 rally tires mounted to the Versa wheels and we’ll get them slapped on there. She’ll really be a slow turd then! We’ll see.