The more we dig into this piece of junk the more we start regretting this endeavor. But anything can be compensated for by adding drink and food!
Our recent work party was partly a chance for the rest of the team to acquaint themselves with the piece of crap I foisted upon them, extract some useful work from them, and finally ply them with food and beverage, so we could sucker them back. We’ll see if it works.
Recently, we repaired the leaking master cylinder and performed a flush of the system. The black fluid that came out made it seem as if the fluid hadn’t seen the light of day since it was originally injected into the system back in 1989 Japan..
A previous issue with the turbo system, seen at LeMons T-Hill 2008, were the constantly loosening turbo bolts. This caused a massive boost leak, consequently baking everything within reach, especially the master cylinder and coolant lines. We replaced the nuts and split-washers with crimped lock nuts: hopefully this should last long enough for the race.
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Sean, captain of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys, toiled over the turbo/manifold and fashioned some appropriately long studs out of conventional bolts, replacing a few of the existing studs that were too short to engage the new lock nuts. Then he turned his attention to carving meat, meat and more meat!
A picture of John Kimball’s rear-end was the best we could do. I was really trying to get a shot of crack (shh! don’t tell) He was busy getting the car jacked up in the air so we could drop the tires and do some brake service.
One of the most remarkable feats was the therapeutic touch applied to the right-rear koni shock with the stuck adjuster. Scott’s technique? Repeatedly drop the shock assembly on the ground until the adjuster cries uncle!
5 drops from 6 feet and the adjuster would squeak and turn a tiny bit- a few more drops allowed a bit more motion. At last, we had full adjustment, albeit with much protest from the mechanism. *Now* we have to find out if the adjuster actually adjusts properly. Regardless- An impressive technique! Left up to me, I probably would’ve over-engineered a solution. Too many cooks may spoil the broth, but there’s no such thing in our shop!
The rest of the evening was spent drinking and eating our sorrows away, lamenting our mechanical misfortunes..
