Sort of shiny, and new enough for me: ;-)
The master at work, fashioning new hard lines:
Having the right tool for the job is priceless:
A work of art:
Fuzzy vice (not to be confused with fuzzy dice; you might hurt your windshield) from some operation of Bernie's:
Aforementioned new PS hoses:
Sunday Cherry Z stopped by to fab up an intercooler duct for me. Man, what an operation! Mark, I appreciate the work you put into that project. Meanwhile, Bernie finished prepping the motor to go back in, and in it went.
Bernie doing the hard work of connecting things on the back of the motor:
In the old exhaust directly after the precats:
That was flaky, not hard, and we're speculating that it might be precat material that got knocked out by shrapnel?
More pretty blue:
By the way, some of you may remember the post I made back when I replaced my clutch, and my description of how difficult it was to get the tranny stabbed. I assumed that all Zs were that way, but have now learned that is not the case.
Only my Z.
Bernie was ready to crush it into a small metal cube, swearing that he'd never encountered this before. Meanwhile, my prior wussiness felt vindicated.
We finally got the stupid thing in when we made sure that the clutch tool, again, could be pulled out by a baby, by two strands of hair, by a sneeze. Stupid picky thing! :-/
The week leading up to ZCon - Got the exhaust installed, rear wheels, rear Carbing bar, hoses and wires for the AFC and BC (thanks for the loan, Noel!). New SS clutch line and slave cylinder. Put the dash back together - it was apart for me to finally install the gauge rings I won at last year's ZCon TT.net dinner.
Took care of strange wiring that was found in my car, cleaning it up, shortening or re-running where necessary. We still don't know what one wire is for... Gotta love previously-owned cars and the mysteries they come with.
Took the opportunity to clean up the rat's nest that was under here as best I could:
Got the Z put back together by Friday night. Thanks to Barry and the NJ crew who stopped in on their way south to briefly lend a hand. =)
29 September - Saturday morning of the day we were to leave for ZCon - Added fluids to the car, decided it was as ready as it was gonna be. Turned the key
aaaaand...
it immediately dumped half a quart of oil on the ground.
Crap.
Bernie got under and did what he could to figure it out, but finally threw in the towel when he realized it was most likely the braided oil return line on the DS turbo, and would require another motor pull to replace.
Knowing I wouldn't have the freedom of my own car, knowing it was supposed to rain a lot, and feeling my hollow pockets depleted from this project, I decided to skip ZCon.
Spent a couple days being depressed and catching up on sleep lost to late nights over the past week. Skipped town for a long weekend, visited my folks, didn't think about Zs.
Next installment: Pulling Engines is So Much Fun We Just Can't Stop!
You don't have to live in a bubble just because someone else caught the flu. Make your decision on your ability to trust yourself. - NytWolf 15:49:05 12/17/06
I was previously a aviation mechanic and avionic technician and this car is harder to work on than Aircraft. - Hocuz77 03:04:56 02/28/06
