Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:07 am Post subject: Has the universe ever had it out for you?
I think it did for me today.
First things first, it's HELLACIOUSLY windy here these last few days. Gusts up to 60mph, no poo, 60mph. Going down the road at 65mph, my cool exterior sun visor experienced wind speeds of 120mph. The welds arent rated for that, so one of them broke, cool.
Second thing i get to a flat stretch in the road and i notice suddenly it's taking a lot more throttle to keep going the same speed, odd, it hasnt gotten any windier. Just then starts up a rough loud just, horrible sound from the rear of the car. Sounds like a bag of potatoes falling down an escalator.
"Oh no" i thought "I finally blew up my transmission, i've been thinking about it for weeks and i obviously put a hex on it!". I clutch the engine, and the vibration/noise is still there when it suddenly dawns on me that i have a flat tire. A blow out. Interestingly enough i've never had one, always came out to the lot and found it never lost that much air that quickly.
"Oh no" i thought again, pulling off the (amazingly soft) shoulder of the road "i dont have a spare tire, poo!". So, emergency call to the brother who-i-keep-fixing-all-his-crap-for-free-ffs to come rescue me with the two 85 series tires i have up at the parents house.
A few games of Bejeweled on my phone (i splurged, it was 2.99 and i was bored) my knight in shining armor comes with my tires, covered in ice, and my jack, covered in ice (apparently it had snowed overnight up there, uhg). So, i change the quite large 205/75 tires for the much smaller 165/85 tires. I will mention at this point the rear end of my beetle is kinda squatting a bit, due to the extra weight of the subaru lump, no big deal i'm on pavement.
We just decide to go get my snow tires today, might as well i'm out of tires to use for the winter, so we roll up to the tire shop, do all the paper work and go outside to have a lookyloo at what tire goes where etc. At this point i notice a basketball sized puddle under the rear of the motor and ALSO notice this basketball sized puddle is engine oil, and its coming from the engine oil pan.
Which i just recently poked the drain bolt into the pan creating a pretty big crack and a pretty big leak on something i had hit in the road. Most likely gone through a drainage dip in the road and scraped it just by the car dipping. Great.
Aaaaand of course, theres one shop that has a pan, and they want 50 bucks for it. I guess the universe decided that i need to take the old holey pan and make a shortened sump out of it afterall. And put on snow tires. Fantastic.
Other than that though, great day! Freezing temps, 50mph winds, and i also managed to stick my hand into a running freaking fan blade dicking with the thermostat on my old gas heater-cum-shed heater i have hooked up to the 'garage' at the parents place, leaving me with a middle finger missing a few grams in skin :/
I'm in colorado, usa. Rockie mountain area. I live down at around 5500~ feet or so, i work on stuff and go to work (delivery actually) up at 9500~ or so feet. It's pretty much early winter here already. Freeze warning overnight tonight, windy, snowy, cold, blah.
Upstanding salvage yard around here. Called them in the morning "yeah we have an oil pan" they say. Cool, so i drive 40 minutes to the yard, and guess what? Noone is there.
The guy took off to go skiing or something is what the shop adjacent to the yard said. Cool. So i made a patch out of some jb stik-weld epoxy, i thought it was working pretty good. I had to patch over part of the drain bolt as the bolt was pushed into the pan metal and it had tore through a little bit on the lip of the bolt. I tried taking it out to drain the oil out of the pan to no avail, apparently the threads were locked up or the bolt was peened to the pan or something, wouldnt budge. Oh well, it's patched, not leaking.
So that wasn't a total waste of today. I did get to get my tires put on though. I wanted to watch just cause i was curious and almost witnessed the destruction of my cooling system from some slap happy teenagers working in the bay that almost jacked the car up with those in-floor scissor lifts, almost crushing the cooling lines until i yelled at him and told him to watch where the jack is going, idiot.
They lost two of the lug bolts for about 15 minutes, looking under everything, in everything, scouring around for them. Instead of putting them where someone wouldnt kick them, they just put them out in the middle of the floor. Someone apparently came by and kicked one of them halfway across the shop. Cool.
Then i heard the tale tell sound of a slap happy teen getting rough with the left front wheel, popping off the hub cap and it rolling halfway across the shop. I walked over to see what was going on, and just as i rounded around the door i see this pimply faced moron about to cram the hub cap over the hub and speedometer cable WITH A GOD DAMN SLEDGE HAMMER!? I yelled at him, different guy from the lift-guy, to put the freaking hammer down i'll put it on after you guys are done.
So. Tires are on, cool. But, uh oh, here comes the shop manager "Hey boss these tires dont fit see here the fender is rubbing". The front right fender is obviously damaged on the bottom and the whole thing has been bent in a little bit for as long as i can remember. "Oh no!" I said, "Lemme call the dealer and see what he thinks" i grabbed the lip of the fender and pulled it out with an audible pop, suddenly the tire isnt rubbing anymore.
I pay, leave, all is well when i get home. The patch i had fashioned for the oil pan obviously isnt working, as theres already a cup or so of oil on the ground. Nifty. I go ahead and call around for another oil pan, and a place that's precisely 30 minutes away has one, but it's rush hour and too late to get there and get it before the yard closes. Groovy.
I go back out to get my jacket out of the car to discover the front apron drizzling coolant like a racehorse. Pants. Apparently, my stupidity has caught up to me on this one as my crap-tacular mounting job of the radiator has allowed it to shift forward and poke a hole in the right tank of the radiator.
I think the universe is actually out to get me. I dont think theres any other fluid my car could be leaking, i didnt smell gas but you never know.
Joined: 23 May 2006 Posts: 2527 Location: Mudway, Kent
Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 12:09 pm Post subject:
Today's not your day.
Have a beer and try again tomorrow.
It's nice to know that 5hite happens to others too _________________ The advice you receive on here is worth the paper it's written on.
Your experiences are worth shed loads to others, including the f'ups - live and learn.
Wouldn't YOU rather learn by someone else's mistakes? So would they.
'78 Bay, 2 litre 091 box, EJ20 NA & the ashtray's on the 'right' side.
I don't lean forward for hills any more
Bugger, missed out on "Live fast, die young"
Joined: 23 May 2006 Posts: 2527 Location: Mudway, Kent
Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:07 pm Post subject:
If it's any consolation, my pan's just started to leak right on the dipstick tube join.
You've jinxed me _________________ The advice you receive on here is worth the paper it's written on.
Your experiences are worth shed loads to others, including the f'ups - live and learn.
Wouldn't YOU rather learn by someone else's mistakes? So would they.
'78 Bay, 2 litre 091 box, EJ20 NA & the ashtray's on the 'right' side.
I don't lean forward for hills any more
Bugger, missed out on "Live fast, die young"
Sorry elusivestranger, it must be contagious through the internet tubes!
Got everything done but not fully tested, only drove it a block to get home. I had to put a little oil in it and scoot over to a parking lot behind a carwash to work on it. I had enough tools to do it (and had to buy about 50 bucks more to finish it) but i got it done. Some observations:
Coolant line clamp, very very very useful. I only lost about a half a gallon of coolant, instead of having to dump the entire system.
The oil pan is adhered firmly to the block. I had to beat on it with a rock to get it to let go.
The dipstick tube joint is adhered firmly as well, had to yank on it with all my might and ended up with my ass in a pile of leaves ><
Dropping an almost full pan of oil is quite a challenge. And by challenge, i mean messy as hell.
Welp, hopefully everything will hold up alright. First thing i'm doing when i get back up to where all my parts are is i'm going to shim/stuff the radiator into the front compartment more securely with some foam pipe insulation as a buffer between it and the car body.
As a more over moral of the story. Keep a full sized spare tire with you at all times. Make sure it's inflated, too
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