Yesterday the latch for my console door came in, and that was a simple matter of just snapping the new one in place to fix that problem. So now my console door will stay shut.
Today I pulled out the oil dipstick tube, as I had noted that it was rusted where it was close to the header pipes, so I assume the heat baked the paint off, and then the bare metal rusted over. So I bought a new one a while back, and since I was going to be painting the dipstick handle (used to be chromed, but that didn't hold up through the gauntlet my car had to run the past couple of years), I figured I might as well paint up the new tube as well and use some high temp paint. So they are both drying right now and I'll be able to put them back in a couple days from now when the paint has cured sufficiently.
My order from Ecklers came in and when I looked that over, I noticed that the box for the AC tensioner was not sealed, and sure enough, the bolt that was supposed to come with the tensioner was missing. I called Ecklers and they are supposed to be sending me out a bolt. But that shot down my plans for replacing the darn thing today. In any event, I looked over the new tensioner, and for some reason the mounting hole just looked much smaller than the unit on my car. I looked at it more closely, and year, the hole is no where near the size of that bolt on my car. So getting worried that not only had I not gotten the bolt I was supposed to, perhaps I got the wrong darn tensioner. So I decided to pull the old one out to take a look at it.
Well, I can see why they were supposed to include a new bolt. The old tensioner's bolt has a sort of collar on it that fits in a slot in the tensioner. Of course, this one was wobbling like crazy, so it pretty much tore up the hole. And you can see scrape marks around the hole as well. Definitely shedding metal, as I got a bunch of tiny shards of metal in my fingers pulling that guy out of there. Kind of like those tiny hairs you get from cactii when you try to get too friendly with them. It wasn't all that tough getting the belt off of the tensioner, and the mounting bolt out, but that thing just BARELY fits between the front spring and the engine cradle. But any way, this fix is dead in the water till I get that new bolt from Ecklers. Hopefully it will be in before the weekend.
Another thing I got from Ecklers was a kit they offer to fix broken rocker panels at the point where it connects to the front fenders. I guess this is a common problem. I've had mine broken on the passenger side ever since the car was at Harwood's shop, and although Aaron did fix it for me while at his shop, well, I just really wasn't all that impressed with his "fix".
No to mention the hose clamp on that turbo pipe pressing against my fender making that noticeable bulge there.
I fixed that way back when I had to move the turbo pipe out of the passenger rear wheelwell.
But in any event, I got the two pieces of plastic for this fix, but since my driver's side is still OK, I only needed to tackle that passenger side. After figuring out how to orient it, I used some 3M plastic bonding epoxy to bond the piece to the rocker. BTW, that 3M stuff started setting FAST, so I really had to hustle getting it layered in there and then putting the fixer piece in place. Seems solid, so I hope I moved quickly enough...
I still need the clip that attaches to that fixer piece of plastic, so hopefully I can find some at the hardware store. I looked through all my junk and couldn't find any spares laying around. But hopefully that will take care of that flapping fender....
Actually, looks like everything I started today is incomplete because I am waiting on something. :shrug01:
Oh yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what to do about that airbridge hitting the inside of the hood. I found an airbridge by Vararam that was suggested to me by Chris at Compcams that may do the trick. It also will relocate the MAF sensor to the front of the airbridge, right next to the throttle body. I asked Mike Carnahan about this, and he said relocating the IAT (incoming air temperature) sensor in that manner is actually a good thing to do. I don't believe we even use the MAF sensor any longer since he did the speed density tune on my car.
Ah well, I guess I'm going to be doing minor stuff like this for a while yet on the car...
Even if the too long bolt was put in by Harwood, it should have been obvious to him when he loosened the tensioner to get that belt off of it. It's not like you can MISS seeing the darn thing.
