Monday, February 26, 2007
Zzub Racso
I haven't done a reverse title in a while.
Scorsese finally won for best director and also picked up best picture. Nice, congrats Marty. It's been a long time coming. The Lives of Others beat out Pan's Labyrinth for best foreign film, which means I will wait until I see Lives of Others to make any judgements, but I really like Pan's Labyrinth. We picked up Flags of Our Fathers at the local mega chain rental place last night. I hear the other side of the story, Letters from Iwo Jima, is better, but that one isn't out on DVD yet. It took me a while to get into Clint Eastwood, but I think around 12 or 13 I finally caught on. He's a badass and is probably one of the coolest grandpas in the world. The same can be said for Scorsese.
Just added a few past foreign film winners to my Queue. I still can't believe J has never seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And has anyone not seen Life is Beautiful (La Vita e Bella)? It is one of the few movies that has been able to draw a tear from my stone soul. So amazing.
Well, we finally got Subaru's Subaru back together! Hooray! Go Team! The problem turned out to be that we couldn't get the throw out bearing onto the pressure plate. So we pulled the tranny off some and we put the bearing into the plate. Then as we slowly moved the tranny back into position, we dropped the clutch fork (that moves the bearing in and out when you press on the clutch pedal) onto the bearing and made super sure that it was in the right position. We started throwing everything back together but I was so confident that the problem was fixed that I left before we had a running/moving car. But I knew it was fixed and an email this morning confirmed it.
So it's official, we're at least intermediate auto mechanics. The next biggest jobs would be wiring (which I equate to black magic) and a complete engine overhaul. That and actually opening a differential or tranny and fixing gears, but most people trust guys with lots of experience for jobs as important as those. It feels good to have overcome our difficulties. And we saved Subaru at least $500 doing the clutch install ourselves.
Scorsese finally won for best director and also picked up best picture. Nice, congrats Marty. It's been a long time coming. The Lives of Others beat out Pan's Labyrinth for best foreign film, which means I will wait until I see Lives of Others to make any judgements, but I really like Pan's Labyrinth. We picked up Flags of Our Fathers at the local mega chain rental place last night. I hear the other side of the story, Letters from Iwo Jima, is better, but that one isn't out on DVD yet. It took me a while to get into Clint Eastwood, but I think around 12 or 13 I finally caught on. He's a badass and is probably one of the coolest grandpas in the world. The same can be said for Scorsese.
Just added a few past foreign film winners to my Queue. I still can't believe J has never seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And has anyone not seen Life is Beautiful (La Vita e Bella)? It is one of the few movies that has been able to draw a tear from my stone soul. So amazing.
Well, we finally got Subaru's Subaru back together! Hooray! Go Team! The problem turned out to be that we couldn't get the throw out bearing onto the pressure plate. So we pulled the tranny off some and we put the bearing into the plate. Then as we slowly moved the tranny back into position, we dropped the clutch fork (that moves the bearing in and out when you press on the clutch pedal) onto the bearing and made super sure that it was in the right position. We started throwing everything back together but I was so confident that the problem was fixed that I left before we had a running/moving car. But I knew it was fixed and an email this morning confirmed it.
So it's official, we're at least intermediate auto mechanics. The next biggest jobs would be wiring (which I equate to black magic) and a complete engine overhaul. That and actually opening a differential or tranny and fixing gears, but most people trust guys with lots of experience for jobs as important as those. It feels good to have overcome our difficulties. And we saved Subaru at least $500 doing the clutch install ourselves.
Labels: clutch, Martin Scorsese, Subaru
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Tranny woes
I try and support transgendered people but I don't really know how. I am a good listener though so that's a start. I knew if I was trapped in a woman's body I would a) want out, and b) play with myself way too much.
We were helping Subaru out with installing a new clutch. On the way back from Sandblast whenever he got on the throttle and the turbo spooled up, the clutch would slip for a few seconds and then engage. Not good. So he decided that he would try and install a clutch this week, and hopefully get it done, before the autocross on Saturday. So he overnighted a new clutch and all the components that go with that. He talked to another Suby guy who said that 3 guys could do it in about 3 hours. Right. But we were fairly confident that we could get it done. Since he's on sabbatical for the week, he had pretty much everything taken apart, all that was needed was a 10mm hex wrench (which I stole from another group at the research park, I'll bring it back, don't worry) and then to take the transmission out, replace the clutch, put tranny back in and then he could finish up the rest by himself today. Good plan but of course we ran into a few issues.
First issue, that transmission is a behemoth. At least 3 feet long and a good 150-200 lbs. So not something one person can really handle. Second issue, we had some trouble getting the clutch out, but we finally did. Third issue, there was something called a pilot bearing that is right in the middle of the flywheel. The new clutch came with a new one so Subaru wanted to replace it but we could not get it out. Couldn't even get it to budge. I would've said fuck it and put the new clutch on and start wiggling that tranny back into place. He likes to be thorough and wants it replaced, so we call it a night and all head our separate ways.
I felt so down-trodden. I hate doing multi-day installs. Protege's turbo install we knew would be a multi-day job right from the start and we weren't on any deadlines, so no biggie. But we "need" to get Suby back together so that it can race on Saturday. It's tough for us to do mid-week installs because of work and familial obligations, but hopefully we can get it done in the very small window we have tonight. Theoretically Subaru should be able to install the clutch and that stupid pilot bearing today so all we have to do is show up and throw the tranny in there. I just wish it was that easy.
So today the first thing I searched for was transmission jacks. I plan to still work on cars in the future and am not sure if I'll always have an extra set of hands to help out, so I'll have to rely on better tools.
Ooooh, that's nice. And only $180 + shipping. Here's one for $150 + shipping. Not bad and would help out immensely. I foresee one being in my garage in the future, assuming there is a garage in my future.
Another search was for Renegade Hybrids. They're some crazy guys that jam strange engines into a variety of Porsches in search for more power and reliability. In this month's Sport Compact Car (magazine), they featured a Porsche 914, this one actually:
It's a 914 with a nice widebody kit on it. I'm a sucker for widebodies if you were wondering. But it's powered by the exact same engine we were wrenching near last night, the Subaru WRX's turbocharged EJ20.
Turns out the power to weight ratio is better than the Lotus Exige S, which is the big brother to my current dream car, the Lotus Elise.
So of course I went to Renegade and priced their conversion kit. It's right at $7500. Then went over to ebay and priced some Porsche 914s, $2000 - $7000. And then all you would need is an engine from a Subaru WRX which I can't imagine is more than $3000. So even if we take the higher end of the 914 range, and add in a few thousand for incidentals, we're only at around $20,000, a full $12-15 thousand less than a used Elise, and a much faster and more unique car. Hmmmmm. Sounds like a definite possibility. Assuming I have a garage and 20k laying around that I can blow on a car.
Here is a video of the Porscharu in action. It's an .avi file so it will probably open in Quicktime.
I'll let you know if we got Subaru's Subaru back together tomorrow.
We were helping Subaru out with installing a new clutch. On the way back from Sandblast whenever he got on the throttle and the turbo spooled up, the clutch would slip for a few seconds and then engage. Not good. So he decided that he would try and install a clutch this week, and hopefully get it done, before the autocross on Saturday. So he overnighted a new clutch and all the components that go with that. He talked to another Suby guy who said that 3 guys could do it in about 3 hours. Right. But we were fairly confident that we could get it done. Since he's on sabbatical for the week, he had pretty much everything taken apart, all that was needed was a 10mm hex wrench (which I stole from another group at the research park, I'll bring it back, don't worry) and then to take the transmission out, replace the clutch, put tranny back in and then he could finish up the rest by himself today. Good plan but of course we ran into a few issues.
First issue, that transmission is a behemoth. At least 3 feet long and a good 150-200 lbs. So not something one person can really handle. Second issue, we had some trouble getting the clutch out, but we finally did. Third issue, there was something called a pilot bearing that is right in the middle of the flywheel. The new clutch came with a new one so Subaru wanted to replace it but we could not get it out. Couldn't even get it to budge. I would've said fuck it and put the new clutch on and start wiggling that tranny back into place. He likes to be thorough and wants it replaced, so we call it a night and all head our separate ways.
I felt so down-trodden. I hate doing multi-day installs. Protege's turbo install we knew would be a multi-day job right from the start and we weren't on any deadlines, so no biggie. But we "need" to get Suby back together so that it can race on Saturday. It's tough for us to do mid-week installs because of work and familial obligations, but hopefully we can get it done in the very small window we have tonight. Theoretically Subaru should be able to install the clutch and that stupid pilot bearing today so all we have to do is show up and throw the tranny in there. I just wish it was that easy.
So today the first thing I searched for was transmission jacks. I plan to still work on cars in the future and am not sure if I'll always have an extra set of hands to help out, so I'll have to rely on better tools.
Ooooh, that's nice. And only $180 + shipping. Here's one for $150 + shipping. Not bad and would help out immensely. I foresee one being in my garage in the future, assuming there is a garage in my future.
Another search was for Renegade Hybrids. They're some crazy guys that jam strange engines into a variety of Porsches in search for more power and reliability. In this month's Sport Compact Car (magazine), they featured a Porsche 914, this one actually:
It's a 914 with a nice widebody kit on it. I'm a sucker for widebodies if you were wondering. But it's powered by the exact same engine we were wrenching near last night, the Subaru WRX's turbocharged EJ20.
Turns out the power to weight ratio is better than the Lotus Exige S, which is the big brother to my current dream car, the Lotus Elise.
So of course I went to Renegade and priced their conversion kit. It's right at $7500. Then went over to ebay and priced some Porsche 914s, $2000 - $7000. And then all you would need is an engine from a Subaru WRX which I can't imagine is more than $3000. So even if we take the higher end of the 914 range, and add in a few thousand for incidentals, we're only at around $20,000, a full $12-15 thousand less than a used Elise, and a much faster and more unique car. Hmmmmm. Sounds like a definite possibility. Assuming I have a garage and 20k laying around that I can blow on a car.
Here is a video of the Porscharu in action. It's an .avi file so it will probably open in Quicktime.
I'll let you know if we got Subaru's Subaru back together tomorrow.
Labels: clutch, Porsche, Subaru, tranny, transmission jack
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