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This is Molly.


This is Molly's worklog.

I got my car a few weeks ago for $1500, and the former owner was kind enough to drive it Mackinaw City for me. She's got 209,000 on the body and about 90,000 on the motor. No idea why the motor was replaced. So anyway, the previous owner insists that she hadn't been sitting, but after playing with the car, all evidence points to yeah, yeah it has. At the moment, this is the list of stuff that I want/need to do to get the car running safely and, eventually, awesomely.

• 
  Replace thermostat (stuck open)Done!
  New brakesDone!
  New passenger caliperDone!
  New timing beltDone!
  Fix power steering leakDone!
  New shifterDone!
  New passenger CV shaftDone!
  
  Replace driver's side CV shaft
  New P/S beltDone!
  Fix driver's side seatbelt
  Fix ripped driver's seat
  New oil pan/seal?
  Plastidip car (it's pretty rust free and it seems like a good way to keep it that way. Also this stuff looks fun!)
  Undercoat wheel wells
  New headlights! I really want some like these.Done!
  New stereo. I can't stand not having an aux port on my car. I was thinking about snagging this onefor myself as an early Christmas present.Done!
  Doing an LED dashboard or under-the-seat project. Planning a project to use an Arduino to have a bank of LEDs change color dynamically with movement of the car.
  Replace idler pulley
  Figure out wtf is wrong with my driver's seat belt
  Fix the now-broken E-brake
  Fix passenger window control
  Get sunroof to actually open and close without a fight
  Replace intakeDone! Now with shiny cold air intake

This weekend or next (hard to tell when I have time) will be devoted to timing belt/CV shaft and maybe some other stuff. Photos and such will follow!

Mackinaw City, michigan?

if so wow! on the rust free part

Yup! It lived in Grand Haven and will now be driving around in Marquette, Michigan. There are a few tiny surface rust bubbles on the top of it that I'm going to take care of now, before it gets worse. I figure I should maintain how freakishly rust-free it is as best I can.

EDIT: Some of my pile-o-car-parts have arrived! My timing belt is still in California, apparently, so there's a wait. Just found a good coupon for the auto parts store, so I'll likely be picking up my CV shaft soon.

All my parts are in. Still waiting on access to the garage. In the meantime, I handled my taillight problem, as they were hideous and much too "vintage Fast and the Furious (a friend's quote)" for me. I think it turned out okay, especially as I've never Nite-shaded anything or have really spray painted anything ever. It's certainly better than the old tail lights. I have no idea why some of these images are refusing to resize, btw. I've done it about 1000 times.

Before:




After:



On car. I think it turned out okay! :

looks alot better. I also love the bow tie license plate lol.

kulluminati777 wrote:looks alot better. I also love the bow tie license plate lol.

Haha thanks! I thought it was a nice touch.

Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill waiting for garage space. Since my car is the car that works the most right now, it's being the daily driver while waiting to be fixed. In the meantime, I was gifted a sticker and so at least it looks cool. (I think)

Finally got garage time! All jacked up and ready to go.


CV removal proved a bit of a pain. Also the caliper was seized beyond repair. Had to make an emergency run to Advance to grab another...all the clerks there are super familiar with me now if they hadn't been before.

Took about a half hour of this to finally get the thing off.


Old CV vs new. It looks like someone had just tried replacing the boot cover at some point.


Pulled the bumper to fix my leaky P/S coolant loop. It was about here that SO's dad decided that he needed the garage for something and was asking if the car was "rollable."

Got the inside stuff pulled to fix the shifter. The Monster can is mine, sorry 'bout that. Also sorry about the weird hairy center console area; ew. I've had the car for maybe a month now and really it's been sitting around most of that time. I think I'm going to have it detailed, since it seems so grungy. After we got it jacked up we discovered that the shift linkages were really rusted out. So that was tacked onto the list of stuff to do. Also, a weird rusty area from where it seems that it was jacked up improperly and just, you know, left all cracked. Much ahead.



I started pulling all the things that were in the way of my timing belt. Discovered bonus pliers. Cleaned up that area a lot. There was lots of P/S fluid everywhere and it was coating things in goo.



I'm having a harder and harder time buying that this car was driven, "Like every other day. I wouldn't let my car sit." Found an actual nest on the other side of the engine bay. Like 6 inches deep of fluff and leaves and stuff.



Bonus cat deciding it was high time to help out:


Sadly, I had to go to work in the middle of all this, but luckily SO offered to finish up timing belt and start on shift linkages while I am tech support-ing. Going to undercoat my wheel wells and fix up some rust, and hopefully wrap up the new shifter/brakes/CV tomorrow.

yeah i had like 20 years of dirt and leaves and nests in my front fender area like that too. I also had tons of dirt behind my fenders near the doors. I bet 100 dollars you have alot of dirt there as well

I'm not going to take you up on that, because then I would likely be out $100

Back on the road! Oh my god I can't even begin to describe how happy I am to have my OWN VEHICLE again. I've pretty much always had a car since I was 16 (minus a couple weeks here and there) and I can't stand having to depend on others for rides and not having the ability to just...go somewhere. I was definitely starting to go a bit over it.

There are still some small things here and there, most notably bolting up a different exhaust, as I HATE the weird little tailpipes I had going on.

Some progress photos:

Got that section in the front wire wheeled and painted. There was some rust so we figured since we were there we should take care of it.
This was my first time using a wire wheel and really spray painting anything on a car. So I think it turned out okay.

Drying:


Radiator cover had some gnarly spots, too, so rust treated and painted


All done with the painting! Got some under-bumper bits sanded down and treated/painted. Trying to stop winter as much as possible.


Shiny new rotor and brake pads! That caliper and that CV are likely next.


Shiny new everything on the passenger side! That CV was a pile of suck.


Close up of the new caliper. It's not particularly interesting, but I see it as a victory that we were able to run to Advance before they closed and grab it. The old one was so bad that nothing could really be done with it.


Shift linkage, I believe. This was pretty rusty and gross so there were some hours dumped into sanding it down, rust treating it, then painting it. It's not pretty but it's under the car so I don't care too much. It's hanging on a salt spreader project that is being worked on.

Bonus video of how my car sounds currently. Sorry about the awkward shot, I didn't really know where to point it. We took off the ugly muffler/tailpipe combo, (which contained the hangers) and will be slapping SO's old exhaust from his Del Sol onto it. So it's obnoxious and has bonus rattling until this weekend.

Also you can see my shiny new short shifter that makes me not hate driving my car! Assuming I'll ever get to drive it, of course. SO's winter vehicle is now this enormous Nissan Pathfinder and he is continually asking to drive my car because he misses his MX-3 and the Pathfinder is an automatic, which he hates. I suppose I will let him, since he helped so much with the latest projects .

Also, with the power steering, it was fixed by pulling the rusted cooling loop and replacing it with the old one from SO's car. It took a little reworking, but it seems to be holding fine and I can drive the car one-handed!

oh shiny!!! The revival continues. Very Cool!!

looks fantastic!