Author: xpbr2000

I’ve been unable to update on the car because haven’t really finished anything else to post about. what I have been working on though is just as or more exciting because it will make working on the car much easier.

So, some of you may remember this shed from 3 or so years ago. It was built because working out of the house sucks. I needed space for tools, parts and anything that would make a mess in the house. It served its purposed well.

Well with the addition of this little guy to the family, I had no choice but to add even more space to the house. Who knew one little person can take up so much space. :-\

So I drew up the plans for adding onto the house and decided it was time to get out of the driveway and into a garage as well. This is what I came to.

The past few weeks have been full of construction. We are almost ready to pour a slab.

2 months and its been a little hard to post updates. The weather has killed a lot of weeks, but we are blacked in. I’m pretty much all late nights and caffeine at this point. Garage doors are coming in soon and the roof will follow in a couple weeks. Siding some after that. Hopefully posts won’t be months apart again but it just depends on my free time.

My idea for the garage is to get everything insulated and when I install the HVAC, I dual zone the garage and house to have a nice comfortable garage to work in. It all depends on what I have left at the end. Right now it looks like I’m going to have to wait till the first of the year for all that.

If i haven’t mentioned it, there is a whole Master Bedroom and Bath plus a Multipurpose room that is being added during all this as well. So the wifey is getting a little bit of love with this as well.

Blacked in

Garage (center bay for the lift)

Paint Booth

House construction is still moving well. I’ve got power to the shop. I just have to get everything connected. The doors are installed so I can officially move in without concern of things being exposed to the weather and prying eyes.

Unfortunately, the Car just can’t wait for me to have a good place to work on stuff. The Power Steering pump decided to take a dump and spew fluid everywhere. I believe it is a parts house pump which I’ll probably go ahead and pay for an OEM so I don’t have to do this every few years. The PS fluid has been leaking down for a while and I couldn’t figure out where but I guess it was this.

Through the unpacking I’ve ran across the parts that need to get on the car. The list has grown. I haven’t been able to post about some of it. I’ll get an update on the car soon. The house has gotten plenty of attention. 😀

Recent photos of the shop progress…

Doors installed

Moving in (Feels good to see all my tools again lol)

Unfortunately a couple weeks ago I was returning home from work and 1 mile from the house I began to smell some fluid hitting exhaust. It was not an oil smell but it was sudden and pretty strong so I panicked. I looked behind me and there was a plume of smoke trailing behind me so I cut the car off and coasted into the driveway.

Turns out the Power Steering Pump took a dump and made a mess. Since I’m in the middle of house construction I didn’t fix it right away. Eventually, I wanted to get it back on the road and I’m pretty sure that was a parts house Pump. So I ordered a reman’d AcDelco PS Pump in the hopes it lasts more than a couple years.

I’m still not able to use the shop…. bummer. But the good news is that I’m about ready to get a floor coating to put on it so I can work with messy fluids and not stain the floor. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can post about that.

The mess

Pool of fluid on the K member

Covered the hood

Not a drop left in the reservoir

It took a minute to get that pulley off the pump. I had to get a hose clamp around the pulley tool to keep it from slipping off and then an impact drill to try and break it loose. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to wrench it by hand. It was tight.

A couple hours later I finally had a pulley free and a new pump ready to go in.

The rest is SOP. Its back on the road and I’m happy to have my car back 😀

Its filthy from just 2 weeks on sitting…. :-\ Maybe today’s rain tsunami will knock off all that and make it look half way decent.

I saw some stuff sitting on the shelf and thought to myself “why am ” waiting to install these?” I think I was waiting for the SC build originally. But I changed my mind and started putting stuff that I had collected on the car just to clean off the shelves.

You may remember a failed project that I goofed a couple years ago. I still have the parts and have tried a couple times to find another lens that fits to no avail.

But recently I purchased a new set, giving up on trying to fix those old ones. However, I really wished I could have.

I also bought a few other pieces to get the car back up to par. My tails were leaking, the dear had messed up the driver side front blinker housing and my homemade LED 3rd brake light was getting a little rough.

Off with the old

Requires the 98+ sockets and a new flasher (electronic)

Now before you get all grossed out, I understand that most old school car guys hate this look. And I can’t agree more. lol

And whats the proper way to fit ugly taillights? lol Night Shade of course!

My curing station

Now a pesky problem with the ABS and the 3rd brake light. I don’t know why but you have to have a load that is greater than the LEDs to make the ABS shutup.

Relay wired parallel to the trigger leads (85, 86). (it literally does nothing beside create a load)

All better

I think I’ve officially gotten to the “mad scientist” crazy with my ideas. I’ve integrated a tablet into the dash, automated the door locks and ignition, and plan to install a small computer or something that I can code to for custom stuff. But now I’m flirting with one now that effects the drive-ability of the car. (Still safe just different) Its a normal problem but my solution is not. I wouldn’t spoil anything just yet but it does effect the rear glass. You can make a few assumptions based on that. I had to strip the GoPro mounts and the V6FB logo(again). This is more of an experiment. This week I should be able to post a full explanation with photos.

Well it’s been 8 months of working on a house but it’s done. It’s time to get back to all the projects I left unfinished. That includes OperationX. There are several things I’ve done during this 8 months that just haven’t been posted except little hints and vague references. I’m sorry for not getting everything posted. I’ll be catching up on the Car and get back to rolling on posts as well.

The Garage is a complete mess but its pretty much ready for me to do what ever I want inside. I’ll be posting a little bit of that but only if its relates to the car. Overall I’m pretty stoked about the garage. But I still haven’t been able to park in it yet, which is a bummer. I also haven’t been taking good care of the car either. It’s way over due on an oil change and probably several other things as well as a good wash. You can tell in this photo just how filthy it got. Its rained since so the layer of dust is gone but the filth just sticks to it.

I finally can get back to business as usual. I have lots of big tasks on going. The car is literally in pieces. I’ve been driving it with half a dash since the first of the year. None of my new gauges are hooked up. All my electronics are disabled. I was in the middle of redoing all my wiring and the house happened. So, I’ll be very happy to get my push button start, autolock and unlock, and the gauges back. Using keys are just boring now lol. I even managed to ditch the keys on the house with some nifty coded deadbolts. I’m liking it.

Yesterday I was on a 200 mile trip and noticed that I would pass my 300,000 mile mark during the trip. I would definitely have missed it if it had happened during my daily drive. About 10 miles from 300k, I started to get nervous that I would miss it driving on the highway. LOL

Not much is left from the original car but the chassis itself. It sits on all new or used replacements. even the motor has 100,000 less miles. But the number means the same to me. Since 2003 I’ve put 140,000 of those miles on this car myself and loved every minute of it. I look forward to the Half-a-Million club. At my current pace of 10k per year it will be 2040 before I get there lol

More maintenance required before I can even pull into the garage. Yet another repair in the gravel. This wasn’t super difficult or long to fix. It’s just that I have a garage to do this stuff on smooth comfortable concrete and I’m still stuck in the gravel lol.

I’m afraid its going to be a minute before I can bring in some more dirt and gravel to raise the drive to the garage to pull in anyway. I have to move the metal carport and build a french drain for when I raise the drive it doesn’t try to go through the garage to get away. So, this work in the gravel may still be the case even after the first of the year. By the time I get into the garage I wont have anything regular to fix so maybe that will line me to to start the SC build straight away. 😀

Anyway, I heard some metal on metal in the rear brakes. I knew what was up. these are the same pads I’ve been rocking since I swapped to this rear end. They weren’t new then either lol.

I’ll have to get these rotors turned at some point too.

I also found my first casualty from the construction zone. Gotta get that fixed too. :-\

And always torque to spec lol

The holidays brought some much needed time off and also time to mod a little bit. I’m still working on the house here and there, mostly shelving etc. My car however hasn’t been so lucky. I did find time to work on something productive though.

My car has looked like this for months, the glare from the speedo is just awful.

Here is my speedo bezel…. and what I did to it lol.

I tried to cut as little as possible because I plan to rearrange a few things once I have time to work on stuff.

The result 😀

My plan is to match up the bezel by reprinting these pieces adding material to meet the bezel. It wont look completely factory but it will be pretty nice if it looks how I envision it. I hope to blend it in to the factory pieces.

I also have a bit of wire management and a bunch of rewiring to do.

Now I can have a speedo that doesn’t blind me in the day or cast light on the windshield at night.

I’m still not in the garage yet. So much work could get done if I was. I would at least be motivated to work, if its not out in the cold. 2020 is looking good so far. Just got to get over the hump lol.