It Moves!

This past weekend I had some help. I am never the one to turn down good help, but this time was my buddy from high school - dare I say my oldest and best friend and yes, I am sadly old enough to use those two words in succession (oldest and best). I have had some much welcomed help in the past - Rob (x2) and Denny and each one was extremely fun and helpful, but it was this weekend that I've been thinking about for months. (Rob I think about your visits for months too, but usually for other reasons...)

I had my frame all painted - heavy duty anti-rush (that was later mostly removed b/c I messed it up), 2 coats of rubberized undercoating, and 2 coats of rust encapsulate (internal and external x2). My frame was ready to receive the axles yet again.

Prepping the rear axle - following rust converter. The garage was still clean... 

I got the front axle all rubberized. The rear got done with Jarred's help. Once the axles were all cleaned and painted it was time to move them back into place and put the $2k in suspension parts to work - and Jarred. Thank you Old Man Emu for your Medium Duty Lift Kit - thank you, I say after I had to pay you a ton of money, but thank you anyway.

We first tackled the front suspension. Thank you Jarred for reading the instruction for the greasable front shackle assemblies. Ah, yea, they're not that bad I thought. I'll admit my shame when Jarred immediately grabbed the instructions while I just looked at the box of parts. I would've gotten to the instructions after about an hour or two, but Jarred grabbed them right away and read through. Didn't I just do a blog about the importance of reading instructions? Geez.

We rolled the front axle out and secured the spring to the rear perch. The plan was to roll the
suspension back in and then secure the spring to the front perch - good plan and it worked.
Note the blue tape on Jarred's shoes - genius. 

We look so professional with the nitrile gloves. The toughest part was getting all the
packing/shipping tape off my brand new springs. 

Good thing we started the day with a healthy breakfast - donuts! 

The front suspension went on without a hitch - pretty much. We had some trouble aligning the front shackles, but with a little pushing and pulling we got the bolts to line up right. Again - Read Your Directions! Thanks Jarred for the reminder.

Whoo-freakin-Hoo! The front suspension is in place! No busted hands or fingers! 

The bushing in the shock was the toughest part of the front or rear suspension. 

Still working on inserting the bushing into the shock. Why can't they insert them from the factory?!

My hands still hurt. 

Finally! One down, three to go! 

I think we were flying by the time we finished the front. It didn't take too long. I was learning suspension geometry from Jarred. Things were good, but the day was getting long after the side-tracking from painting the rear axle. We trugged along though and I am so thankful.

I needed to run out for some bolts, so Jarred kept busy assembling the rear greasable shackles. Again, first things first - read the directions thank you very much. I get back from my bolt run and we're ready for the rear!

Well, by this time our little 4hr work session was quickly turning into a good solid 6hrs, so I'm feeling the pressure. I don't want to keep Jarred working on my truck all day when he and his wife flew out to see us. I wanted to make sure that we could still show them a good time. Jarred and his wife were more than willing to chill at the house. I guess a house without their kids is something of a vacation in itself, so no need to fuss - awesome! Jarred and I kept working. My pants are quickly becoming dirty and my professional looking blue nitrile gloves have long since been abandoned - ungloved hands always work faster right?

We got the rear suspension in place - good, moving along. We did have considerable trouble with the shackles this time. The directions, however often they were referenced, were not clear for the rear. I'd already called my parts guy for help once, so I didn't want to call him again and I know the forums are ripe with incorrectly installed shackles. After installing them twice incorrectly we finally got it figured.

So glad the body was off for the rear install! 

Sooo, how does this shackle go? Ah, we'll figure it out eventually. 

The shocks only extend so far which wasn't far enough. I guess Old Man Emu didn't expect
that someone would install their shocks without the added weight of a body. Once the
body gets installed the suspension will settle, but in the mean time - I had to do some
jumping on the rear to compress the suspension to get the shocks to mount. 

I think we started around 10am and had it rolling by 4pm - not too bad. My having to run for some bolts set us back a good 45mins and those damn rear shackles added at least an hour to the job, but not bad overall.

I honestly wanted to cry I was so happy. It would've easily taken me a good 2-3 weeks with the rate that I work to have done all that alone. I was happy to get it rolling, but I think I was more happy that I finally got to turn some wrenches with my oldest and best friend. The wives were happy spending time together at the house - they didn't rush us and in fact they often told me to stop worrying about me commandeering our day with my truck. What an amazing display of support from our wives. I am so thankful and so blessed. I only wish we could do it more often. Everything just seemed to fall into place. We had the tools we needed (mostly). We had the parts we needed (mostly). We had some wonderful photographers (thanks Babe) and we had the support we needed to get the job done. I couldn't be happier.

Jarred suggested we strap some buckets to the frame and ride it down the driveway. 

Here's the photo to summarize their trip and it's going to get framed. 

Every now and again you have an experience you know you'll always remember... Ah, we live too far away from our family. I love you guys.

Make sure you read the directions

Before the wife and I left for home for the 4th of July I had a push to get the frame painted. I wire brushed and scraped and rust converted and rinse and repeated a few times over. We're good to go. Angie thought I should paint it in the garage, but I was hesitant. I knew (and still know) that she was right, but I didn't want to have to deal with protecting the garage from overspray, so I decided to spray it outside - it's just the frame, first mistake. It rained on it the day after.

I ended up spraying the frame with some heavy duty anti-rust (one pint of black, one pint of amber (should've read the label perhaps to make sure Eastwood send the right colors)) about an hour before having to finish packing for the flight home. In my rush to spray it, I had ran out of acetone so I had to use mineral spirits - second mistake.

You see, painting it in the garage wouldn't required me to do too much taping. I probably could've gotten all I needed done in less than an hour - an hour I didn't have before getting on the plane. And acetone is used to clean the metal of all dirt, dust, and grease before painting. Mineral spirits is good for grease, dirt, and dust, but it doesn't vaporize like acetone, it stays on the metal. I wiped the frame and left it sit in the sun for a good 15mins, ah that's good enough, besides I've still got some underwear to pack for the trip home. We're good. No worries. I don't need to put it in the garage and I can use mineral spirits.

So where did it go wrong? Let's see, it rained the next day for one. When we got back 4 days later the paint was still tacky to the touch. Damn. Perhaps the mineral spirits was still under the paint and didn't allow the paint to cure. Damn. Good thing mineral spirits takes off paint too. The paint never did cure. I ended up stripping all the paint I had just sprayed, while in the comfort of the garage.

Should've read those paint directions a bit more closely. Oh, so it's supposed to have a clean and DRY surface before spraying. Good to know.

About that Prius

So I didn't want to steal my LC post away too much by talking about the Prius purchase. I know it's very yuppy of me to talk about buying a Prius. Allow me to disclose - I am so not a yuppy, I don't have a trust fund, I don't like wearing polos with little horses on my chest, I don't know how to play croquet, and I'm quite terrible at golf, but I do like efficiency.

I've filled it up 4 times now and I have yet to put more than 8.5 gallons in the 10 gallon tank, which equates to less than $30 thank you. You can argue all about the environmental impacts of the batteries - I won't argue. You can argue all about buying a cheaper, used car that gets 40mpg - I won't argue. I wanted a Prius so I could have an extra battery pack installed and so I could run pure ev (electric vehicle). There's a local company that adds packs and then allows you to run many miles on just battery alone. I believe in diversification.

Once I get the truck done, I'll have a diesel that is capable of running on veggie oil, a Subaru for gasoline, and then a hybrid. Perhaps I'll start a Prius blog when I get the truck all done. I could talk about all the benefits of running pure ev for my 24 mile round trip commute. Maybe after that blog I could start one about the benefits of capturing rain water or canning or using natural deodorant (or none at all)...

So about that Prius, I'm at the dealership negotiating my poor, injured TSX. I'm an honest fellow, so I don't lie about anything. I tell them everything. I'm a firm believer in you bring goodness into your life by believing in the goodness in others, so I didn't lie about anything. I told them all about the problems I'd just learned.

• Them - $2900
• Me - Oh no. Gotta do better than that. 
• Them - Oh, we called around and we could do $3500
• Me - What if I bring it from the Acura dealership to you to check it out? 
• Them - Well we won't go below $3500, so it won't hurt you to bring it. 
• Me - Ok, I'll be back. 

I pay my bill at the Acura dealership. They washed it for me or more accurately for the Toyota dealership, nice. I remember seeing the car come around the lot looking all clean and shiny. I took the wife over to the Prius to give her a run though on the controls while the porter brought my pretty car to a spot, of course he backs it up. I'm a backer-upper, too. I think it always makes a car look good when it's backed into a space. I kinda respected the guy for backing it up for me. Meanwhile, I'm talking to to the wife about this button and that and here's how you adjust the seat and I hear a strange sound. It sounded like he drove the front valence over a curb, but he wasn't parking it facing a curb... 

I turn around and see him frantically pull the car forward. 

Ah, comon! Are you kidding me??! I was not quiet. 

Yea, he wrecked my car. The car that I was trading in, trying to get the highest trade-in value I could, and the damn porter backed my car, my beloved car, into a pole. The passenger tail light was busted and the bumper was scraped. The porter suggested that he could use some touch-up to cover the bumper scrapes - ah, no dude, you're done. Keys please. 

After some loud talking in the dealership - I didn't cuss, but geez did I want to - the general manager came outside to assess the damage. They were good. He offered to buy it from me. He offered $4000. 

I guess I could've really taken advantage of the two dealerships, but as I said, I just don't think that way. 

The Toyota dealership offered $100 more to beat the Acura dealership - good for us. 

I was a bit hot after the exchange, but it really did work out for the best for us. I don't know if we'd gotten $4100 for the Acura had the porter used the mirror when backing up. The Toyota general manager really liked it. He said it was nicer than he figured it would be, so that was a nice little validation for me. I was so sad to see the Acura go, but I'm happy with the new purchase.