It hasn't improved improved in the meantime either.
The last post could have aptly been named Nissan weekend #9/Daewoo weekend #1. All of the reasons I initially described for telling people that I would never recommend a person attempt to change transmission fluid in a malfunctioning tranny turned out to be exactly the case on mine; it got much worse (shock, fucking shock). I'm thinking that may need to be a story for another blog though. The bad news and the good news is that I may be writing more frequent "Nissan Weekend" posts in the nearer future if my health will let me.
I didn't waste a lot of time when I got back to the metroplex in finding a radiator shop to have a look at the radiator I had removed on the last trip. I had already looked around a bit at prices for a re-manufactured radiator, and found the prices to be a bit high ...and oddly enough, it was higher than I recalled when I visited the radiator shop even. I told him I had got a much lower quote than what the price really was, but it was purely unintentional on my part. The least expensive price was $159 at O'Reilley's and I thought it was $129. The radiator shop said it was $60 to clean up and rod out the radiator, so I was fine with paying that although I could remember when it was $30 (...and walking barefoot in the snow to school ...uphill ...both directions); when I took it out of the trunk ...I wasn't surprised by what the guy said, although I was hoping it would be otherwise.
He said that when they took it out of the cleaning vat, all those green corroded spots would most likely become itty-bitty holes if the car had been sitting for as long as I had said. The real pisser is that I actually had good anti-freeze in it while it was sitting up and everything, but I knew he was probably right. I told him what I had THOUGHT the price was at O'Reilley's, and he had to call around a bit to find someone to match the price, but I told him "thanks but no thanks" ...if all we were doing was price matching, he was an awfully long way off my beaten path to have to come back later. I felt a bit silly when I got back home and saw the real price, but I found the same brand and everything online at Rock Auto for $109, so I was cool with that since I wasn't exactly in any big hurries anyway.
Mom and I drove up to Winnsboro together in her car on the evening of the 23rd; it was loaded with Christmas cheer, lots of bags and the mutt & I; most of the car stuff had gone up with my sister. When we had finished loading the stuff in her truck, I remarked that she should wait a few ...I was pretty sure I might be able to wedge a toothpick or two in there. BOTH of our vehicles had pretty tight fits with all of our stuff; we would have made Santa proud. When Mom & I arrived, after getting everything unloaded I went ahead and got busy with throwing what I'm fairly sure will end up being an utterly futile coat of paint on all the exhaust shielding. I imagine all that paint will peel off from the heat within a hundred miles or so; at least it looks pretty NOW though! I think the real highlight was my dashboard cover though; on the last trip I had closely inspected the vinyl on the dash and found it to be pretty messed up with no real hope of a "pretty" repair, so I had ordered a fitted plastic "shell" cover.
Although I was a bit aggravated that it had holes for a nonexistent speaker, it really looked great once I put it into place. I'd need to disassemble part of the drivers side for a "snug" fit, and then it will take a bit of work to glue it down at a later time, but I was very impressed with how good it looked!I called it a night after doing only that little bit; I had quite a few days to work with ahead of me. The next morning (Christmas Eve), the BIL couldn't wait to try out his Christmas present from me; we had drawn names and had a separate Christmas for my father at his nursing home the week before, and I had been lucky enough to have drawn the BIL's name. It was a very self-serving present, but still one that he'll get a lot of mileage out of in the coming years I'm sure. I bought an industrial forced-air heater for him (well, for his shop) that cost a pretty penny; given my own tolerances to the cold (and it was in the 20's and 30's the whole time), it was money well spent and HE certainly got a kick out of it!
I began by comparing the old & new exhaust sections, and that seemed like as good of a place to get started as any. I looked high and I looked low, but there was a little something missing in all those gasket sets ...the gasket that goes between the pipe and the engine manifold. I had all this pretty new exhaust "stuff" but no gasket to attach it to the engine. To make the mood even worse ...I had this pile of all the OLD gaskets, and even the old one was nowhere to be found (this particular exhaust gasket would be no great tragedy to re-use, which may be why it wasn't included in the set; I'm guessing that JC Whitney probably just employs a bunch of frickin' asshats though); it seems that I had saved every old gasket EXCEPT the one I needed! I was at least able to compare and make sure all the exhaust parts were correct, but I have a slight bone to pick with the parts company. There were 4 sections to the exhaust: Engine manifold to catalytic converter, catalytic converter, catalytic converter to muffler, and then the muffler section. Was it really necessary to affix no less than 4 extremely large labels to each section using an adhesive that makes super glue look mild?! I started out with a razor trying to scrape it off, but ended up just using the drill and wire wheel attachment. We never got the snow up in Winnsboro, but after grinding off all those labels, it sure looked like we had in the shop.
After I attached the sheilding, one can truly appreciate how much I wish I could put a bullet into whomever stole the catalytic converter when it was parked in Waco ...undoing two little nuts rather than cutting off that three inches or so could have saved me $150 and a LOT of fucking grief. The good news was that all my foresight of dousing the PAIR (an obsolete emmisions part that attaches to the pipe to manifold section) output hose in penetrating oil the last umpteen trips paid off; I clamped it in the vice, and it broke loose on the first yank. I had tried numerous times to detach it after pulling the engine and on the "week 3" trip with no success; I elected to go the "slow and steady wins the race" approach, and simply gave it a nice shot of oil every time I remembered it.Day one of work was mostly just odds and ends aside from the fruitless exhaust endeavor; I was unwilling to attempt to bolt the engine to cat section without having the gasket ...the PAIR emissions line is just a bit too much of a pain to get at. I had replaced the muffler a few years ago, but it wasn't the actual muffler for the 300ZX, it was just extremely similar. The hookups apparently had to be improvised a bit, as I quickly discovered when I put the new muffler section into place; although I had ordered new hangers ...some of the brackets to attach them to were missing. I fashioned some new ones by guesswork mostly, but was at least able to get most of the rear two sections into place (although not tightened just yet). When I get the front gasket, I may have more troubles still depending on how much damage the theives did by cutting through the brackets for the cat. Although the new one is a "direct-fit replacement" ...it has no brackets for the hangers. There may still be some improvising to be done yet.
Most of my family is almost awestruck by my ability to remember how to put an engine together after all that time, but the mechanical stuff is actually the easiest part for me. The wiring, although my specialty, is the REAL pain in the ass; hooking it all up is actually very simple ...hooking it up in the right ORDER however, is not. I installed the fuel injection first, and what I later considered to be a huge mistake ...the wiring for it. I believe there are about three levels of wiring for the upper section of the engine, and they have to be installed in a certain order (not to mention a layer of vacuum lines in between). The probem with the fuel injection is that once you attach the electrical sockets ...it is a pain in the ass to take them back off (I seem to recall saying some stuff about how the lack of an impact driver to remove the plenum caused me a lot of undue problems with the injection when removing the engine during "week 2"). I installed the injection rails and a good deal of the vacuum routing (I only had to back up and start over 2-3 times due to getting the order wrong), and actually gave a somewhat early night. I had no intentions of doing a thing on Christmas day.
Christmas Day came and went, and I got back to work on the 26th: Saturday. Compared to the first day ...I got a LOT done this time. The wiring fought me on many occasions, but I slowly worked my way through everything and think that I was able to get nearly everything accomplished that I was willing to. I put the radiator back in, hooked all the wiring, belts and hoses, air intakes, shrouds, covers and heat shields. There were a few emmision hoses and vacuum lines that I was not able to re-use as I had hoped, but I wasn't really all that let down. I suppose that I could have plugged off those lines and started what would have been an extremely loud car without the exhaust attached, but I elected to wait on that score; it's waited this long ...when I do start it, I'd rather it start and run well if at all possible. Or at least without all the mitigating external factors that I KNOW are wrong. I also managed to get a bit of work done with the Jeep ...that was STILL squeaking!
Sunday was a fruitful day to an extent; I took apart the necessary dash sections for gluing down the cover, pulled the steering wheel off and took the steering column apart to find the short in my horn (which hadn't worked for a few years ..ssshhhhhh). I pulled a vacuum on the actual A/C system, and was also able to repair the damage to my climate control box ...I knew there were some loose screws, I just didn't know WHY they had loosened (I'm still only guessing that it was mechanic error, but fixed it with little problem). When I had parked the car, my defrost had been stuck partially open all the time. 
I replaced all the covers for my fuel tank filler hose and corrected some problems I had suspected I created when I re-installed the tank. I finally began knocking on some of the dents behind the passenger door and applied the first layer of filler on the "hole" in my front bumper cover. I took a few more pictures of course.
I had taken home an inoperative headlamp motor quite some time before. I had taken it apart and cleaned it, but found nothing glaringly wrong ...there had been a bunch of leaves crammed into where it opened and closed ...I suspected that may have been the only problem and that a cleaning might have been all that was necessary. After I had taken it apart and put it back together, I found what looked a lot like a BB on the table. I had no clue where it had come from ...I had done quite a bit of stuff on lots of different things (and my table wasn't the cleanest thing in the world to begin with). It took me re-installing the motor and initiating it to figure out what that tiny BB had been; it worked as a bearing on the shaft that wound the servo back and forth. I found a regular BB that was a bit too large, and started trying to modify the shaft to accept it.There is a pretty good reason why I've preferred to only work a couple of days at a time since I started this project. I know I'm a very intelligent person and that I was a damned good mechanic. I also know that one of the issues with my disability is that it often impairs my ability to think clearly, and I'll probably be kicking myself over this for quite some time. I took it apart and reinstalled it numerous times to test what I was doing as I was shortening the shaft. I accidently broke the spring that pulled the brushes together in the electric motor on Monday morning. I knew my rear wiper motor had to be replaced, and it used the same motor assembly, so I took it out and removed the spring from it. Brilliant thinking on my part except that I forgot to put the insulator on the spring ...the second I tried to initiate the servo ...it melted the spring in two and cooked the circuit board for the motor.
That was a $150 mistake that I never would have made had I been thinking a bit more clearly. I did a bit more "busy work" with the dent, but mostly just did a thorough clean-up of the shop and called it quits shortly after lunch. Three days of work had been pushing my luck ...four days was now costing money via perfectly avoidable botches.
Yeah ...I get those damned checks every month for a reason. Doesn't mean I like being reminded of why.
Weekend 11 is coming up soon, so it'll be interesting to see what gets done then ...hopefully no smoke will be involved, and definitely no ambulances! At least she's looking pretty good so far!
