travis' brain dump

no pictures yet – sorry Derrick. lol

With Andy’s help I was able to get the subframe dropped and the transmission out by 6. We had a close call at one point as the engine jack seems to have issues holding still… I could have ended up in the hospital if Andy hadn’t have grabbed the back of the transmission and caught the thing. I *might* have gotten it, but it was a close call none the less…  Thanks again bro.

So, when I pulled the transmissions apart, I found a slight problem however with the old forward housing… the output shaft bearing had metal shavings in it… grrr… well after searching for a couple hours and coming up with no solution, I embarked on the daunting task of cleaning it out. My fingers burn from the solvents used to flush out the bearing, but it seems like its doing good. It rolls well and there doesn’t appear to be any shavings left in there. *cross fingers* If I could have gotten another bearing I would have paid hundreds for it to have it tonight, maybe its a good thing I’m taking this route. I got the housing swapped to the good gear box. The old one was WASTED. Shift fork was busted, third gear was ground around the edges, synchros were busted in three or four pieces… etc.. etc… it was pretty awesome considering. It’s as though the transmission just gave up. lol

Anyway, we got the transmission back in and bolted up to the engine and got the transmission mount all bolted up. Tomorrow morning I get to put the subframe back on – yay. Sharon stopped by with Ryan – the highlight of the evening when looking at all the events of today. :D She wasn’t here long but it was good to see her none the less. Her and Ryan had gone out to Monsters Inc on Ice and Sharon brought back Arwen a little something. 🙂

Poor Ryan… We put him to work when he got here, lol… I think I almost gave him a heart attack having him watch the engine jack while I was under the car. It slipped again and luckily I was watching it …. I lifted up the engine and transmission and had Andy and Ryan re-align the jack so the whole thing wouldn’t land on me. I don’t think the poor guy could handle much more stress from that… If you happen to read this though, thanks for watching that thing for me.

Anyway… I’m tired – my chest and arms hurt so bad from putting that thing in. I hope I can lift up the subframe tomorrow… I have a lot of work to do and if I want to catch up to my schedule, I need to get up early and get on it.

I feel like I didn’t make any progress tonight, despite the fact I know I made some… I’m so frustrated.  Most of this week I’ve just felt useless.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Just feeling like I’m not doing anything right… *shrug*  I guess I know better but it doesn’t really do too much to help. I’ll be glad when this passes. I hate it.

So, I got as far as I could tonight on this thing – no where near where I wanted to be, but I can’t do too much without help from here out. I got all of the wiring harnesses and connective parts off the transmission and pulled out the splash guards and such… drained the transmission and pulled the axles. All that’s left is to actually drop the subframe off the car and then unbolt the transmission from the engine. A couple more hours of work, with help. Then it’s the long haul of putting it all back together. I really hate doing this out of necessity. I love doing things like this for fun, just not when I have to.

I must have destroyed this transmission. When I drained out the fluid, there were metal bits EVERYWHERE in the fluid. It would almost be pretty if it didn’t signify such destruction of an important piece of equipment. Once I resize some photo’s and clean up some of the pictures I’ll post some up.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at.

I’m gonna go take a shower. :/

ok… so I found a transmission *knock on wood*

I went and picked it up a little bit ago but it has a busted forward housing. This isn’t a huge issue seeing as how I just got a transmission for $300 that I need to swap my housing onto. I think I can deal with this. I am however frustrated that I have to add 2 hours to the workload, but hey, 2 hours for $200 not too bad. I was also able to score a part for Sharon’s car that will hopefully fix her issue with a noise in the front end. I got that for… FREE. Hey, if you’re gonna borrow someone’s car, at least return it in better shape than you got it right? 🙂

I’ve got to go out and clean the crap out of the garage now so I’ve got room to work. Then I need to go pick up some fluids and such for my tranny. It’s a shame I don’t have any more Redline… that stuff is awesome. I feel totally drained right now. I got jack for sleep last night and yeah… nothing like emotional stress on top having to figure out all this crap for the car. woo… friggin… hoo….

It’s okay though… If all goes well then here is my battle plan:

Tonight -> pull old trans (maybe swap housings)
Tomorrow -> swap housings if not done tonight, install new trans
Tomorrow Night -> drive again hopefully
Saturday -> final checks on bolts and stuff, work on Sharon’s car.

If all works out, I should be dead by Saturday evening, but the cars will run great.

ok… so after battling like mad with that blasted code, I think I’ve got this thing resolved. Personal and General posts alike will still appear to the public, however if marked “private” they will only appear to those users who have accounts within my blogsite. They may still be password protected however, so if you have passwords, you can use them on publically viewable secured posts and privately viewable secured posts alike. I may consider actually removing the register function on here however so that I can control who has access to the private sections all together. Either way at least I have some flexibility with this thing and can make some changes without having to worry if they will work or not. I’ve also resolved the posting crap so everything that should be up and viewable is. Sorry a couple of the posts were missing for a day or two. Gotta love it.

Anyway… going to go check the curing of the fiberglass resin on my front lip. 🙂 (repairing the busted front lip for my Rolla… nothing else to do… *shrug*)

later