Reheated Spaghetti

Strange title for this one, but holy geez is it accurate. My buddy Jarred said it best that cars of the '84 vintage were held together by vacuum lines and check valves. My response to that text was that I hate vacuum lines and their families. Those damn things were everywhere. I think I saw vacuum lines hidden in the tailgate - come-on!

I don't know what the hell to do with those things. Do I tape/label them? Do I just expect that whoever buys the parts will reference the Haynes or Chiltons? Do I simply pull the hoses off the hard lines, put them all in a bucket, light them on fire then pee on them as the fire gets too big? I think, after today, I'm leaning towards the latter.

Are you serious? 

I did try to keep them all together, but some of them just had to be zip tied to each other and pulled off the hard line to make room for a wrench.

My goal was to pull off the carburetor today, but yea, that didn't happen. I just didn't have to room with the radiator support being so close and all. In a round about way, one thing lead to another and the radiator support, radiator, and all emission-related nonsense had to come off to give me room around the carburetor.

Dad, firmly thrown under the bus, is quick to proclaim his loathsome, discontent for engineers. They never think about the guy who has to work in it, he would say. I have engineers in my family and while I understand the need for their neurotic-way of considering every minor, seemingly completely useless, detail I can respect his point of view. I now firmly believe that when Toyota designed the 2F in my truck, they first thought, 'let's figure out where we want the 2 barrel carburetor first then build the motor around it and let's put every vacuum line, every hard line, every heater and power steering hose around the carburetor after we mount it to the yet-to-be-determined engine block'. A newly hired production engineer stood up from the back of the 2F design conference room and objected to the designing of the motor around the carburetor and he was fired, his house was repossessed, he lost his newly bought car, and his wife left him. I thank you, unknown engineer who must've considered the person who would attempt to remove the carburetor some 28 years after the build date, thank you for your recognition of future builders - sorry about the loss of the house, car, and wife btw.

Radiator support off and mess cleaned up. 

I was dreading pulling the radiator support, because I did not want to drain the damn thing. Another feat in designing on the radiator drain. It would be nice if there was a hose connected to the drain plug. It would be nice if the drain plug didn't point directly at a frame support. I don't even know why I tried to catch the antifreeze. Once I got the drain plug out, yea, I made a mess.

I'm not going into it, but I made a mess. Thankfully, I was able to position a drain pan under most of the flow, but most of it was lost to the concrete. Out came the kitty litter. I had antifreeze going everywhere under the truck, underneath the garage door - open the door! Make a kitty litter dam! It's flowing around the dam! Damn! Out of kitty litter! I had a rolled up bit of carpet padding nearby I'd been using for dirty parts. Unroll the padding! The padding doesn't soak up the antifreeze! Step on it to try and smash the padding into the puddling, flowing antifreeze. Geez, I hope Angie doesn't come out right now! My head hurts, antifreeze always gives me a headache, it's only been a couple minutes. How much antifreeze is in this thing? Alright, I am done. I am done. We are done for today. I am done, but I'm not done.

I've got to clean this all up. We've got dogs. Neighbors have dogs. And I've got a sweetly, toxic liquid all over my driveway and inside my garage. I had some pressure washer Special Green detergent, a pressure washer would be good right about now, too bad the thing didn't work when I bought the detergent. Garden hose out, it's about 35F by the way oh and it's ridiculously windy too. Water down, detergent down, shop brush making the detergent soapy. Lots of water. It's cold. You know, my TSX is filthy. I'm filthy. My hands are cold. Yup, I washed it.

Getting by with a little help from my friends

I've been picking a bit since the last update.

In order for me to pull the fenders, first I had to remove the hood. Not fun. Not fun because I hate calling my wife to help me. No I wasn't wearing steel toes. No I wasn't wearing even shoes. I was wearing slippers. I was off work, still in my semi-nice cloths. I slipped off my work shoes and slipped on my slippers. I did not want to call my wife to help me. She didn't know that I did not put on solid soled shoes. I know for most slippers isn't that big a deal, but we're talking about my wife. We are both in health and safety, mind you, and she's better than me. I knew that she would spot my slippers so fast. Not so fast, though because I figured a way to use my extensive automotive experience to prop up the hood.

I opened the hood and assessed the bolts that would have to be removed. I had 4 bolts on each side - 2 for the coiled spring which assists the lifting and 2 for the hinge. The hood propped open and removed 2 bolts. Okay, easy part done now on to the other 2 bolts.

I slide a 2x4 across the open bay. A 1x6 goes on top of the 2x4. Of course I don't secure the boards together or secure them to the engine bay. In hindsight, I could've used a series of zip ties to keep them together and in place. Naw, takes too long. On top of the 1x6 I place a couple 2 ton jack stands, fully extended. I removed the hood prop then lowered the hood on the jack stands. Oh yea, those stands were secure., they weren't going anywhere.

Alright, one side completely removed with no problems. At this point I'm thinking how in the hell am I going to remove the last 2 bolts without the hood shifting off the jack stands and slamming onto my sturdy boards and potentially crushing my hand which was not attempting to hold the hood steady. Oh and the fact that I'm wearing slippers is starting to seem like a bad idea. I start removing the first of the two remaining bolts and the hood shifts. No, in case you were wondering, now was not the time to call the wife to help hold the other side to balance the load. My Popeye-like, strong arm was not enough to steady the hood and a jack stand falls to the concrete ground.

I repositioned it to face the garage to give the
cherry picker some room.

That ringing sound wasn't the stand hitting the concrete it was my diminished manhood. Each time that stand bounced on the concrete I could feel my barrel chested, busted knuckle pride ring away. Oh and I was wearing slippers. Lucky for me, I pulled the grill, bumper, and headlight trim, so the jack didn't break anything, but it did call my wife from her ignorant, tv-watching slumber. The door cracked. I think she opened the door so slowly on purpose.

Yup, she helped out. Nope, the hood wasn't too heavy for her to steady as I removed the last bolt. Yup, she noticed the slippers. She held the door for me as I sheepishly carried the hood to the basement.

The lighting was horrible even with the flash,
so I went black/white.

On Sunday, I had a buddy drop by to help me wrench for a bit. I got off the driver side fender off before he got to the house. It was nice having someone help out. I was, admittedly, a bit concerned that he would mess up my labeling and bolt bagging method. Thankfully, I was wrong. If anything, he merely reassured me that I was doing a good job keeping track of everything. We ended up getting off the passenger side fender and inner fender before we knocked off for the day.

I got the motor and transmission posted on the forum that I frequent. I'm afraid that I'm asking too much. I put as much information as I could in the post. I posted photos and a few video links with it running. After 2 days I have yet to even get one question about it. I think I'm asking too much, which I absolutely hate. I think it's worth more to get it sold quickly, so I can keep the project going and perhaps not get top dollar than hanging on to it for months and getting a bit more. I priced it based off my mechanic's recommendation, but I think he was propping up my ego.

My plan is to keep the motor/transmission/radiator in the truck until I get it sold. I've got some space in the garage, but not enough to pull everything out and I don't want to have to keep everything straight. We'll see how it goes, but as of now my plan is to leave it in until it's sold. Geez, I hope I set the price right.

It has begun

Well today was the day that I've been thinking about for a long time. As a graduate student I felt so close to being able to afford a project truck that I was more distracted than focused, go figure. I have always been conservative with my money, so I would not buy something until I felt we could afford it. My other obstacle was getting over my wife's permission. Are you kidding me? I actually get to get one now?

That was back in September '10. I've had dreams and distractions with this thing and now, today, I started turning wrenches. I've got buddies who have projects and I think they're going about the build all wrong. They get parts/equipment/materials and install completely out of order. I understand getting excited and wanting to wrench on it, but not at the expense of having to remove it later when you're rebuilding it.

This is my third vehicle, so I have the luxury of doing it right. I did some minor gasket changing and carb cleaning. I got compression numbers on it, so I can list it for sale on the forum I frequent. I'm really trying to do this right. I cleaned it up alright, but I didn't put any lipstick on the pig though. I don't see any reason to rattle can something with 235k on it. I degreased it. I'll let the next guy spend time on a rebuild and to make it pretty. I'm happy with my progress thus far cleaning it up.

So, back to the progress!

Today, I pulled the front bumper, valence, head light washers, head light buckets, head light trim, parking lights, grill, and horns. I got some cloth baggies for Christmas '10 and finally put them to use. I used a black marker to label the contents and whether the bolts/screws needed to be replaced or if any were missing. It's a pretty good system I think.

I think it's so important to keep track as you go. I know it's fun and it's exciting pulling off parts, but if you just go hog wild you're gonna hit a wall when you lose a part. We've got some space in the basement with some wooden shelves that I already plan to take down in the summer, so it won't matter if they get a bit gummed up. I'm zip-tying things together and labeling each part with driver vs. passenger side with painters masking tape. I'm going to have to get a new grill. The passenger side mounts are busted.

No busted fingers, hands, or knuckles.

The next step will be removing the hood, outer fender, inner fender, and anything else bolted to either one. I sprayed every bolt I could find with PB Blaster. I hate busting bolts that I'll need later.