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Goodbye Neon

As of this afternoon, the Neon should be sold. :-D Cleared out all sorts of space in the garage, as you could tell from the below pics. Three boxes full of parts, plus a set of wheels and tires.

Golf and car repair

My weekend started out entirely too cold and early, I think I had to leave by 6:45 to be in Casa Grande by 7:30. Still, it's far easier to wake up to play golf than it is to work. I was hitting golf balls on the driving range at about 40°, and every shot that wasn't solid stung a fair amount. Swinging a club in four layers of clothing is a bit restricting as well.

As I mentioned the other day, Francisco Grande is known for it's Black tees at over 7500 yards, fairly long by any standards (except ice golf, perhaps). The allure of those tees was too great, so that's what we played. Even better, the course suited my game perfectly by not having any out-of-bounds. When you went beyond the grass there was nothing but dirt, so an errant tee shot is not only easy to find, but often quite playable.

Somehow I managed to have more luck during that round than just about any round I can remember (because it sure didn't feel like skill, or at least it shouldn't be). My sand wedge around the green was on fire. First hole, pitched it to six inches. Several other holes I put it to 3-4 feet. One of the later holes I flopped it over a tree, over a bunker, and landed it on the green with minimal space to work with. The one place it let me down was out of the actual sand! I was only in one trap all day, and my shot out caught a little ball and I hit it across the green. As I usually consider my sand game to be a strong point, that was disappointing.

I had a couple other good shots as well. One par 4, from 210 out, I had a tree in front of me that I couldn't go over. I managed to slice a 2-iron, moving the ball about 30 yards left-to-right, and landed it on the green. Another hole I was particularly happy with was the longeset par 4 on the course, at 486 yards. I put my tee shot behind a tree, and tried hitting a 3 wood around it from 240 yards. I clocked the tree hard, and the ball went straight sideways into the fairway. Still 240 yards out, I landed a soft 3 wood on the green to about 10 feet and made my par putt. :-D

When all was said and done, I missed my putt on the 18th for a 79, and ended up with an 80. Not bad at all given the length of the course. It was nice to use longer clubs from the fairway as well. Looking at my stats, the fact that I only hit 4 greens in regulation and still shot an 80 shows how well I was playing around the green. I even lipped out 3 putts, so the potential for lower was definitely there.

One point of interest, Hexcel actually has a manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, on the same road as the golf course. Who knew? :-P

My luck either continued or ran out on the way home however, depending on how you look at it. Another coolant hose broke about a mile from home. I ended up pushing it home later in the day with help from Teresa and Evan, as I wasn't able to change the hose there in the Olive Garden parking lot. :-P Since this is the second time a stupid little hose has broken, it's time to replace all of them. I made it to the dealer just before the parts department closed, and while they didn't have most of the hoses in stock, they should be here on Tuesday. Hopefully tonight I can try to take most of the old ones off so they'll be ready to go on the car and I can start driving it again.

I've been putting off replacing this coolant temp sensor in the Neon for a while now because the manual indicated it was going to be a pain to replace. Located on the back of the head, have to drain coolant, blah blah whatever. I just didn't feel like it. Yesterday I was certainly more motivated, as I wanted a car to drive to work on Monday, and I didn't want to drive it in the "lean when cold" condition it was in anymore. I felt incredibly stupid when I look around and find that the temp sensor not on the back of the head, but it's on the intake manifold on the front of the car, very easily accessible! A 2-minute fix, and here I've been putting it off for weeks. Car started up the first time and didn't stall, fantastic. Took it over to Napa for a test drive, and it certainly felt like it was running better when cold, plus it wasn't stalling.

That was yesterday afternoon though. :-P This morning I start it up, and it stalls right away. In fact, it won't hold an idle at all until the engine is fully warm, and then it's fine. So I guess I still have the same problem, but at least it's running a little better.

So hooray, I have to fix my car now, and the Neon still isn't really fixed. That's just how I wanted to start the week.

Moneypit Neon Strikes Again

It really struck a while back, but I finally got around to spending the money this weekend. $112 for a new driver's side door key cylinder and a coolant temperature sensor.

The car survived an attempted breakin a couple weeks ago, requiring the new cylinder. All sorts of fun getting the door apart, and I only lost one part! Well, I didn't really lose it, because it's still in the door somewhere, but it's not where it should be. ;-) Anyway, I can lock/unlock the door from the outside now, and that's what matters.

I think the coolant temp sensor is what's causing the car to stall, ever since I put the new head on. The symptoms seem right according to the service manual. Also, I have zero recollection of ever swapping the sensor from the old head to the new head, so maybe this one came with a sensor, and it was bad? I don't even know now. The first step in replacing the sensor reads "Drain the coolant below the level of the sensor." So...how do I know when to stop? The car has only seen about 600 miles of use since the head was replaced six months ago, that's pretty sad. So tempted to sell, but then I see an STS Neon setup page, and realize I have most of the necessary parts already...

Mmmm...brains...

Using the Mopar Peformance PCM I had sitting in a box, the Neon is now running again. Took it up to the dealership this morning, they plugged it in, and I guess it started right up. The gas light came on as I drove it home, so I guess that's the perfect time to fill it up with a tank of premium. ;-)

Like I said the other day, the PCM has very little in the way of cooling. I'm thinking of adding some RAM heatsinks to it or something, maybe that will help. :-D

When I thought it couldn't get worse...

Yes, the Neon is now having more problems. It has had a stalling problem ever since I got it back together in the spring, but it would only be when the engine was cold, particularly when the engine was cold but the car was warm (like sitting in the sun). Today it was worse. It stalled on me once with a fully-warm engine in traffic. After pulling into a parking lot I could get it restarted. Later I started up the car, and didn't even make it a mile before it just stopped working completely, this time as I was accelerating away from a light. I couldn't get it restarted, so off to the dealer it went.

Several hours later I get a call from the dealer, saying their equipment can't talk to the PCM, and I'll need a new one. Unfortunately the new one is on the other side of the country (odd how the parts I need are always on the other coast), and would be around $400ish. Fortunately, however, I have the Mopar PCM that one of the previous owners bought. I'll be driving that up to the dealer tomorrow morning for them to try, and hopefully that will work.

It might actually fix all of the stalling problems, as I can kind of see how that might explain the situation. After talking to Evan, he said the PCM on his Dodge Spirit ('92 maybe?) was replaced at least once, maybe twice, as it would overheat and fail. They have very little passive cooling, so I can sort of understand this.

I'll have to start running premium fuel, but it sounds like there's a decent power gain to be had, and it's a lot cheaper than buying a new PCM. At 25mpg and a $0.20/gal price difference between regular and premium, I'd have to drive 50k miles for it to be worthwhile to buy a new stock PCM. There's no way the rest of the car will last that long. :-P

The Neon moves

Put the intake back on the Neon yesterday, started it up, drove it around the block. Power seemed to be fine, the car got up to temp and the needle never moved after that. I let it run for a minute or so while checking for leaks, didn't really see any, and nothing was dripping on the floor, so that's promising. At least I can drive it now, as I won't be able to leave it parked in the garage any more.

Spent some time cleaning up the garage last night too, it was becoming a bit of a mess after working on both the Neon and Integra a fair amount in the last few weeks. Lots of trash, random nuts and bolts...I think I found about 4 bolts that probably came off the Neon at some point, but didn't make it back on. ;-) I actually have some surface area back now, that's nice. I have way too many Neon parts in general sitting around, that's for sure. :-P I forgot that I added a whole box of engine parts to the collection!

I wish I could forget

...what sodas used to taste like. (see the end of this post for background) But no, I still see soda coming out of the fountain, remembering how good it should taste, then I take a sip, and...nothing. Worthless. Bah.

The weather also hasn't helped my laziness any. The Neon has coolant in it again, but I'm an intake away from driving it around the block and checking for leaks. It's bad enough that the afternoon sun makes it pretty hot in the garage, but the increased humidity lately really kills any motivation to work in there. Five minutes and you're soaked. Sweat drips on everything. I'd consider a portable evap cooler or a/c unit, but then I'd have to close my garage door, and that's my only source of light. ;-) Garages with one outlet and no lights are awesome.

Events of Grandeur

Well, not so much.

I was invited to another poker night with some friends last week...turns out I only knew one person there, but whatever. Two of the people claimed to play regularly online, but whatever. My beginner's luck continued, and I won. :-D Unfortunately the rules for the night were that the top 3 positions were paid, so I only took home about half as much as I could have. That, and we weren't able to get 8 players, only 6. Had a good time though!

The joy that goes with working on cars didn't go unnoticed this weekend, oh no. Err, wait, perhaps it did. One thing went perfect, and that was replacing a trim piece on the passenger side grab handle in my car. :-P

First up, gasket between header and cat. Old one comes out ok, new one goes in, all is right with the world. Or not. When I eventually started up the car later that day, the exhaust sounded exactly as bad as it did before. So it seems that the gasket probably isn't the issue, but the header and cat are both enjoying the feel of a brand new $15+ gasket, I'm sure. Worse though, is my guess that the header has a crack in it somewhere near that flange, and if that's the case, then it has had a crack in it all this time! It always made a bit of noise, but it wasn't too bad until recently. I'll try to find a place that maybe can fix it, I don't know. I didn't really want to buy a shiny new SMSP header right now, but if I have to...

Next, clutch slave cylinder on the Integra. It wasn't too big a deal to replace this, but for some reason we (Evan had shown up by this point) must have been idiots when it came to bleeding the thing. It just wouldn't work for a while, then all of the sudden it worked. Fantastic. So that feels a little better, but I think the clutch really suffered hauling Teresa's stuff up the mountains to ABQ. :-\

Radiator hoses. Easy, right? Not when oem hoses seem WAY too small to actually fit. Woo. Oh, and I find out that my radiator cap is in about 6 pieces (which wasn't the case just a couple weeks earlier). Off to the dealership to see if they have another one. How about I drive the Neon over there? Sure! Add some coolant since I still hadn't replaced the slowly leaking coolant tank, and off we go. Driving, driving...temperature needle just goes up up up. Shut the car down right in front of the Acura dealer. Pop the hood, and coolant is bubbling out of the hose that goes to the heater core. Great. Keep in mind that the Acura dealer is less than a mile from my apartment. Evan has AAA, so he calls them up and they send out a tow truck to get it back to my place. Fortunately the Acura dealer was right there, and while the parts counter was closed, the refridgerator was not. :-D So it was a good place to hang out while waiting for the tow truck.

Back to the apartment. Push the Neon back in the garage, hop in the Camaro to pick up a cap from Autozone so that I at least have one working car. Replace that, then it's time to figure out what to do with the Neon. Out comes the airbox, as it's just in the way. I notice that the hose clamp for the line to the heater core really isn't all that tight. I knew the hose was too big (by a whopping 1mm), but I thought tightening it down sufficiently would be fine. Apparently it wasn't tight enough...of course, this is all assuming that the actual pipe into the heater core isn't cracked. Which would be wonderful, you know.

While the airbox is out, it's a good time to replace that coolant tank. Need to remove two nuts to take it out. First one? Lost. Second one? Fell to a visible but inaccessible place in the engine bay, and I don't have a magnet on a stick. Great. It looked oddly damaged though, so I may just be buying a couple of those.

So that's it for the weekend. Still have to go get the exhaust issue fixed on the Integra, and address the Neon issues. All sorts of fun. :-P

Money has changed hands

Much more than any previous transaction, at least. My first post in a week comes bearing news of a new vehicle in our garage...news that anyone who at least semi-regularly reads this probably knows already. ;-) We picked up a 2005 Saab 9-2X Aero, practically right off the truck. Manual transmission, Deep Blue Metallic with the cloth seats, and the non-optional cold weather package. We've put about 250 miles on it so far, with another 750 to go until break-in is complete. It's the first new vehicle for either of us, and the first time we've had car payments. With $7k in rebates, the dealer wasn't offering any kind of special financing, but fortunately we got a pretty decent rate through Costco.

So what happened to the Neon that is being replaced? Well, we're still going to hang on to it. It was giving a check engine light for the O2 sensor the day after we got it running, but the other day that stopped. Took it in for emissions testing today, and it thankfully passed (tags set to expire today). It still needs a new coolant overflow tank, but the part just arrived at the local dealer, so that should be taken care of soon. The a/c works now, so that's good. Once we're confident it's in good working order (or at least, close to it), the car should be back out for autocrossing, hopefully in time for the fall season.

Again with the unusually-large purchases, we bought a tv a couple weeks ago as well. Again, excellent deal through Costco (it's like I go there a lot or something). Panasonic 43" 16:9 LCD rear projection HDTV, 720p native res, lots of inputs. The day after we bought it I went to the Cox store to swap out cable box for the HD box, and now we're enjoying all that HDTV has to offer (and occasionally find it hard to go back to regular programming). Our dvd player does upconverting as well, so it's nice to take advantage of that, and get 480p/720p/1080i in the various video games that support those resolutions.

Now for some other random stuff that I just never posted earlier.

My grandparents in PA moved in January, and sent some of their stuff out to my parents. Of the truckload of stuff that was unloaded, we got two of the coolest things:
First, the largest pepper mill I have personally used. I think it's probably about 3 feet tall.

Second, this what we called a "smør bucket", where smør is Norwegian for butter. I believe it was last regularly used at the house my grandparents used to have in Norway. So now we have a place for butter.

Finally, pics of the free box I received to house all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movie. Come on, free! This came in the mail months ago, and I took pics, just never did anything with them.

Success!

The Neon started last night! Swapped out both cams, and it finally started (though it was a bit hesitant to do so). Got the car apart quickly last night, then compared the cams. The old ones were a little more worn than the new ones, but it wasn't too bad. At least it worked. It's running a bit rough now, and apparently this morning it gave a check engine light for the O2 sensor. I drove it around last night for a bit though, and it felt fine. I was very happy. :-)

Unfortunately, I now found out that the coolant tank seems to have a leak, and that needs to be replaced. :-(

Neon tire poker purple monkey dishwasher!

The Neon is not playing nice. Didn't really get to work on it last night, but the night before, the intake cam was rotated and such, then everything was put back together. It all looked right. Even had compression in all cylinders. Did it start? Of course not. >:-O

To add to my torment, I had to buy a new tire last night after getting a nail in mine.

But some better news! I really haven't wanted to get in on the current poker craze, but a friend was having a poker night and I was invited, so I went. Only a $10 buy-in, and he was supplying the beer. ;-) Started with 8 people, and I got off to a bit of a slow start. Didn't do much for a while, but a couple good hands put me and another guy out in front of everyone else by a good margin. It eventually got down to the two of us playing. I lost a few hands, and it wasn't looking particularly good. I finally won one again to get a bit of cash back, then I won probably the biggest hand of the night. We decided to cash out then, and I took home $53 out of the $90 total. :-D I credit it all to beginner's luck, as this was the first time I've played, and I know nothing of poker strategy. :-P

Purple monkey dishwasher, of course, comes from this episode.

One tooth off - a story of frustration

The Neon was completely back together Monday night - great, I thought. Start it up...and nothing. No signs of life, other than the few lights on the dash, and the starter cranking away. A compression check shows that 3 of the cylinders have no compression...wonderful. Timing seemed the most likely suspect, but we were sure we did it right. This afternoon/evening the timing gear was torn down again (a wonderful process involving ever poor design Dodge could come up with), thinking maybe one of the gears was a tooth off. Unfortunately...it looked fine!

So...what's going on here? Late in the evening we finally decided to take off the valve cover and see if there was anything odd about the cams. Sure enough, that was the problem. As mentioned earlier, I ended up having to get a new (rebuilt) head, and it looks like it came from a 96-98 model car, as evidenced by the threaded plugs instead of freeze plugs, among other things. It came complete with cams and such, but what we failed to notice is that the "new" intake cam is keyed for the cam gear 180° opposite the old cam, and we were still using the old cam gears! Thanks Dodge!

Tomorrow we're going to try it with the cam rotated 180° or so, and that better move us in the right direction.

Finally, for your viewing pleasure, the shiny rebuilt head.

Greasy fingernails

Worked on the Neon Friday afternoon and Saturday morning/afternoon. The head, intake/exhaust manifolds, timing gear, ps pump, and a/c compressor are all back on, and the head is just a cam seal away from being sealed up. The local Dodge dealer didn't have the seal, so I have to go to a different dealer this afternoon. After that, it's mostly small stuff...throttle body, airbox, and the various hoses, wires, and connectors. It's nice to see it getting so close to completion.

Got hit in the shin with a thrown softball at my game Saturday night, and I have a nice bruise to show for it. >:-O

Big update

So, since the last update....played a lot of Forza the other day - I think from about 4:30pm to 2am, with maybe an hour break for dinner. That put me up to about level 22 in single player, and now I'm up to 25 (haven't had the opportunity to play quite as much lately). Some notes:
- The fact that I can drop a 20B in my FD RX7 is awesome. Zero hp increase, but the torque curve got a LOT fatter.
- A big rear defuser and a proper front splitter look good on just about any reasonably fast car. I'm glad these can be added.
- My Peugeot 206 is still holding its own in Class D. I finished the Class D series last night, and won by quite a bit. The leaderboards seem to indicate that a CRX Si-R is the car to have, but I haven't checked that out yet.
- I don't like the unmodified pre-1975 races. The Stingray should be the car to have, as it is classed the highest, but I hate driving it. On courses like New York, it's hard to beat the Corvette's level of power.

One of these days I'll start playing online with the game, but as I'm all about completion %, I'm still doing that. Right now I'm almost 21% done, so I still have a ways to go in career mode.

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Went on vacation earlier this week - Teresa and I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain, leaving Sunday and returning Tuesday. Going to the park on a Monday meant it was pretty empty. We had to wait maybe an hour to ride X, but everything else, we rarely had to wait more than a couple turns to ride. The Ninja was closed, and that was disappointing, as it looks like a lot of fun going through the trees and all. It was closed the last time I went as well, and now I'm wondering if it's permanently closed, as the whole area seems somewhat vacated.

It's hard to say what my favorite ride is, as many are quite enjoyable. I've always liked the Batman ride for some reason, can't quite identify why. Goliath is good as well, with the huge drop at the beginning, and the circle that almost makes me black out. ;-) A surprise favorite, however, was Revolution. It's one of the oldest coasters in the park, and it just has one loop, but the surroundings make it seem so much cooler. While much of the coaster would have been exposed when it first opened, now trees have gone up around the coaster, and I think that really adds to the experience. You fly around all these sections, completely surrounded by trees, then you climb a hill, and all of the sudden you're above the trees - you can see the rest of the park, and further off in the distance - then you dive back down into the trees for more. Lots of fun.

Following the roller coasters, we ended the day with the water rides, so we wouldn't be walking around the park soaking wet. By the time we were done, we were both pretty thoroughly wet. Fortunately I was able to keep my phone and wallet somewhat dry. :-P

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Picked up the head for the Neon yesterday, and had a couple surprises. One, the rebuildable core they found for me was a complete head, and I expected just a bare head, where he would transfer over all of my stuff to this one. Two, it was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be, about $415 for everything. I think work on the car will start again tomorrow.

Senor Bob, and Neon costs rise

A happy Cinco de Mayo to all. I celebrated by going to Macayo's and filling up Senor Bob a couple times, along with a a baja chimi and a good number of chips. Good stuff. Between being full of chimichanga and margarita, and not getting much sleep this week, I think I fell asleep around 9pm, then woke up at 12:15 so I could go to bed. Hooray for 9+ hours of sleep on a weeknight. :-D

The cost of the Neon repair goes up once again - I took the head to a machine shop, and they determined that I needed a new head. The one we had was significantly warped, and it couldn't be machined any more than it already was. The guy at the shop found a rebuildable head for me, and is moving everything over from the old head (well, the stuff that was on it when I gave it go him). So I think I'm looking at about a $600 bill from the machine shop. :-( The car better last forever when I'm done with it. :-P

Forza is just ok. I really don't see how so many sites are rating it higher than GT4, other than the fact that it does a few things GT4 doesn't, so I suppose it's considered "innovative". I still haven't had time for a lot of the career mode, but one thing I've noticed, as was pointed out by someone else, is that you get so many cars early on that I don't really feel like I've earned them. I'm winning easy races in cheap cars, and often getting pretty decent cars in return.

I started out in a Peugeot 206, and left it completely stock for the first two series I won. For the next one, against some faster cars, I added a few mods that wouldn't change my class - minor suspension upgrade, small weight reduction, and an LSD (may have done something else, don't remember). Any change in power or tires would have changed my class, so I didn't feel like doing those. The car now behaves pretty much like I would expect it to, with those mods. Suspension feels a bit tighter, and I'm not getting nearly as much wheelspin around the course. I haven't messed with tire pressure yet, but I suppose if I have nothing better to do one day I may try that. :-P

Neon update

The Neon work continues. Bought all of my oem parts yesterday...ouch. This is apparently what $650 worth of parts should cost. Not nearly as cool and shiny as I'd like for that kind of money.

Looking at that picture, I'm thinking they sold me the wrong motor mount...that might be a lower mount, and I need the upper mount. That one looks too big. The other parts:
- head gasket kit (all the top end gaskets)
- timing belt
- water pump
- timing belt tensioner
- idler pulley
- head bolts
- water pump and throttle body gaskets
- sealant

I still have to buy the new a/c compressor, because I went to Autozone last night, and all the guy could find was an expensive one that wasn't in stock anywere. :-P I knew I had seen one cheaper online, it was just in an odd place - it seems that a compressor and clutch cost way less than a compressor alone!

The head is at a shop getting checked out and fixed right now. The person that recommended it said "don't be fooled by the exterior", and now I know why - it's a store that sells generators and chainsaws! A guy from the back of the store came out when I said what I needed to have done, and he seemed completely unrelated to the rest of the store. :-P He immediately noticed that the head had already been worked on at least once, and it had overheated at some point. At any rate, he should be able to fix the hole, then tell me what else is wrong with it. Won't be ready until Monday, unfortunately. :-(

More Neon work

Work on the Neon continued last night. Took off the a/c compressor, all of the timing stuff, and finally, the head. In addition to the parts I already planned to replace, it looks like I need a new motor mount as well.

Enough already - picture time (click for larger)!

Table of parts to be cleaned or replaced.

A lonely dipstick.

Mmm...blocky.

The cause of all these problems:

And his associates:

I tried taking two pictures of the plug that's being a problem, and neither came out well. I think I was just too close.

So that's it for now, halfway there. Now it's time to figure out how the head will be fixed/replaced, then everything goes back together. Fun! :-P

Neon work begins

My uncle agreed to help out with fixing the Neon's oil leak, so we got started on that the other day. He has plenty of extra garage space and lots of light, exactly what I lack. ;-)

The car is a huge pain to work on. Nothing is convenient. Of the maybe 30 nuts and bolts I removed last night, about 3 of them are what I would call "easily accessible". The rest require some odd combination of extensions and swivels, then once you finally get a socket on the head, you only get one or two clicks of the ratchet at a time. Most things are tight enough that you couldn't get an air ratchet in their, either. It's like the car was designed in such a way that it would be put together, driven until death, and nothing would ever need replacement. Oh, and it uses the Evil™-style hose clamps, the ones that require pliers to open. I think those will be replaced.

I'm thinking it might have been easier to just pull the whole engine. :-P

Next we need to remove the crank pulley, then the timing belt and associated parts, then it'll finally be time to start getting the head off. I really hope we can get all of this back together. ;-)

Onward, with pics! I didn't bring a regular camera with me, but I'll probably bring one today when I go over there. Excuse the blurriness.