What Did You Do This Weekend?

I dug up some filters and parts for the 84 escort diesel I picked up a few weeks ago that you blogged about! (PartsAmerica/Advance and RockAuto had the best prices for them, given shipping and availability.) I’ve put 300mi on it so far…can’t wait to see how your project goes.

Had a yard sale. (garage fell over 2 years ago)

The only cool thing was meeting an old Hippie who was driving a Fiat Convertible from the 60’s. Nice car. for a FIat.

Installed a white face cluster in my 1999 ford ranger

I went to Europe’s biggest American car event – Power Big Meet in Sweden. It was fantastic. 14,000+ cars in 3 days. I wanted to post some pictures on this site but noone has gotten back to me. daztin@yahoo.com if anyone wants to see some.

Well i raced my Hornet at Evergreen Speedway here in Monroe Washington and got 4th! But then the stupid 1987 Honda Prelude Si blew up. It got oil srtarved and blew an inch and a half size hold in the block. We are thinking about doing a b18 swap in it.

I passed 3 nice Firebirds parked in a row, in a cemetary while coming home from shopping. I knew something was up and just for the hell of it turned around and introduced myself.
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Turns out among the drivers was the president of the philly trans am club, and members. I ended up meeting them for lunch and found out that their leader lives about 1500 feet from my front door.
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Also, I changed the spark plugs and wires in my ‘bird. Turned out to be a bloody mess, literally when I was fighting the passenger side plugs. The EGR couldn’t have been in a worse place of course. The passenger side plugs I removed were FINGER TIGHT! In went double platinums hooked up with Bosch’s premium wires.
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Apparently the car needed new plugs. The bottom electrodes were down to the insulators and begging to be replaced. Relatively huge difference in performance afterward, too. Getting full compression because the plugs were snugged is a great freaking thing…

Its not necessarily car related, but I changed the rear end on a prehistoric John Deere lawnmower.

Lets start from the beginning.
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My Grandfathers 70 Buick LeSabre that was just “refresed” started acting up last week. It would die while accellerating and couldn’t restart. My grandfather thought he found the culprit with the coil wire on the distributor sliding ever so slightly off the top of the coil. Also he noticed the ground wire that goes from the negative on the coil to the points had gotten wedged in the plate along the bottom of the distributor. Thinking that might also be the problem he made a special distributor cap. He drilled a hole in the door on the cap used to adjust the points and installed a grommet. He then made a external wire that went from the points, through the cap door to the coil. (the original routs under the distributor plate and through the bottom of the distributor). He made this figuring if by chance the wire decided to break he wouldn’t be stuck.
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Fast forward to Sunday. We went to a car show in Pittsfield Mass. and had a wonderfull day. The Bu’Hog ran like a gem the whole hour ride out. Half way through coming home on desolate RT-66 (yes there’s a RT-66 in NY) we stalled. The car then decided to knock and run backwards untill it came to a complete stop on the edge of the road. This road is windy with no shoulder. From there my 80 year old Grandfather hopped out of the car that was practically still moving and popped the hood, wiggled the wires while I cranked. VROOM, she fired and we were off… for about 5 miles. Long enough though to get us to a pull off where we could change the cap. Pop darted for the trunk like there was a million dollars in it and I went under the hood to start disassembling the cap. Within 5 minutes the wires on the cap were switched and I was reciting our firing order like it was a prayer in a bible. Crack of the key and the Bu’Hog fired like a champ. We made it home in time for dinner but the fun didnt stop there.
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After dinner when the motor finally cooled we decided to tackle the wire and perminantly fix it. I thought using a piece of mechanics wire we could start a new wire and fish it through the grommet. Oh no… that wasnt gonna happen. The hole in the grommet we later found out was the same diameter as a 14 guage wire. To small to thread anything but the wire through. The distributor had to come out. Not a big task on a old Buick because the distibutors right up front. Thank god it is too. I popped the distributor out, put it on the bench and took the wire out. The root cause of the problem. The wire was burnt and the copper had lost its color it had gotten so hot. This caused greater resistance when the wire got hot and basically acted like a broken wire. I used the ends off of 2 older condensers we had laying around and solderd a new wire together. Reinstalled it all and wow what a difference. Now that the coil had a better ground the power off the line was at least 80% better than before. Who’d a guessed that a 14 guage wire would give us at least 40 hp back.

I blew up some toilets , found a converter, and a 1984 license plate.