Dear Valentina...

...thanks for adorning our refrigerator this month.

OUCH!

Disaster struck this morning as a lady in a 1998 Grand Am smashed into Fang Fang and Gertie as they sat innocently parked on the street. Fang Fang took most of the burden for her distant German cousin, sparing Gertie from what certainly would've been life-ending damage. Fang Fang however, will most likely be sent on to her Greater Reward.

More posts on this to follow.

Getting to Know You

Gertrude got a full tune-up awhile back. This encompasses (among other things) adjusting the valves, timing the engine, changing the spark plugs, and changing the oil. It went not so great, because I found out things about Gertie I'd rather not've come across.

Tater Tot was banned from the workplace (too many cars speeding by), but supervised from the other side of the door.

The badness I found right away. I popped off the passenger side valve cover (cylinders 1 & 2) and at least a quart of gas/oil ran out and onto the just-cleaned street. Gas in the crankcase! Gertie has a bad injector. Exhaust #1 was also pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty tight. Another 200 miles and I'll get in there again to see if it tightened up again. If so, it'll be sooner rather than later that she needs her heads rebuilt.

Also bad was that I couldn't do the dwell or idle with my dwell/tach meter, as those functions have apparently died. 

I did manage to put all new spark plugs and spark plug wires on her. Melissa says she runs better now but I think she runs about the same to slightly worse. I'll have to check the timing and dwell again after I get a new meter.

Later I replaced the hinge that allows the middle windows to pop open; the old one was loose and wired shut. Unfortunately I busted off a little circlip that holds the hinge to the window. The window went back in with some wire, but it's a little rattly. 

I'm confident that I can get this stuff fixed, though the tight valve does worry me a bit. Sometimes I forget that these cars aren't really supposed to be around anymore.

From the Archives

Very early August 2004 at 499A Cannon Green Drive.

Boomerang Exhaust No More

For those worried that Ludwig has been left in the lurch in favor of Gertrude, fear not. This came for him a couple weeks back:
Ludwig has pretty sloppy steering and until Colin visited last "Summer", I was thinking he'd need a $350 steering box. It turns out all he needs is this $30 center pin kit. Look for a post after I get around to
putting it in. This job complete, Ludwig's suspension system will be finished and I daresay better than stock.


Until then, we had time last Wednesday to take care of Gertie's awful exhaust problem. Esmé was a great help, picking out the tools we'd need, though the Torx driver she tossed me (above) didn't come in handy.

I love our house but I don't love not being able to use the garage.

It was much easier to remove the bumper overriders with the whole bumper taken off.

We love the look of the overriders, but the exhaust was shooting right into the one on the driver's side rear, taking a tight u-turn and baking itself right into the car. The hatch seal needs to be replaced as well, and a lot of exhaust was getting in the cabin, making for a stinky and potentially dangerous ride. Now it's free to dump into the atmosphere and contribute to our ill health more indirectly. As soon as we figure out how the exhaust is supposed to be routed, we'll put the overriders back on.

Gertie gets put to work

We found a swingset on freecycle (that means it was free) and since we have a backyard for the time being, we snapped it up.
I've lamented the fact that Ludwig ain't so good for hauling freight before, and I didn't want to subject him and his cloth upholstery to a muddy ol' swingset. It's still cold and snowing here, and he takes so long to warm up to boot. Also, Fang Fang is full of baby stuff, most awkward of which is a carseat, making her less than perfect for toting longish cargo.

Folding up Gertrude's back seat makes for an incredible amount of space, so we drove her over to the swingset's home and disassembled it. After getting back home we forgot to take a picture before the slide came out. (We see that soot on the driver's side and one of our first orders of business will be taking care of it.)

All this fit inside, but Melissa had to ride in the back with it because the front seat had to be flopped forward. Without Melissa back there, I think we could've easily stuffed in another whole set. And put a week's groceries in the trunk.

(I'd list the miles here but Gertie's odometer doesn't work yet.)