The 7 Bays of Glory...

So this is something I'm stealing off of a car forum that I peruse called the 7 bays of glory. You need to pick vehicles that match the criteria for each bay, money is no issue, and it's kinda fun.

#1 - Daily Driver

#2 - All Corners (must be AWD)

#3 - High Speed Heaven (luxury & power)
#4 - Mid or Rear (engine behind occupants)
#5 - Off the Beaten Trail (4x4 & such...)

#6 - Track Time (track vehicle)
#7 - WILD CARD (just fill the bay - balls, class, style, prestige ... whatever)

#1 - Daily Driver = Subaru Forester STI - Think Wagon with insane performance

#2 - All Corners (must be AWD) = Porsche 911 Targa 4S

Explanation - Porsche = rear boxer engine, 911 = Performance, Targa = panoramic glass roof, 4 = drive wheels, S = Super Awesome

#3 - High Speed Heaven (luxury & power) - Bugatti Veyron cuz everyone needs a car with 1001 horsepower.

#4 - Mid or Rear (engine behind occupants) = Toyota Mark 1.5 MR2 a tricked out version of what I drive now... i'd need about 15000 to dump into it...

#5 - Off the Beaten Trail (4x4 & such...) - Toyota FJ Cruiser - because I work at toyota and these things are hilarious to drive!

#6 - Track Time (track vehicle) = Lotus Elise - Cuz nothing handles quite like a lotus.

#7 - WILD CARD (just fill the bay - balls, class, style, prestige ... whatever) = The Campagna T-Rex, this one is heavily modified but I'd take a stock one ;)

Well that was fun. Wanted to make a blog entry the first thing I did now that I've gotten the Mac back up and running. had a hard drive die on us so we lost most things. Used it as a chance to upgrade so now have a Seagate 7200.11 1TB 32mb buffer hard drive inside, and have become a HUGE proponent of backing up!

Made me Laugh a LOT!

More of what I've been up to!

So tonight I got home at 12:15 a.m. because I was working on that car again. ;) I love it!

Anyway tonights project was giving the engine a really good cleaning b/c it is filthy, and we're trying to establish where an oil leak is coming from. B/c it is the easiest to change we started with the valve cover gasket, also this is a chance to look inside where the cams and valves are and look to see what condition these things are in. They are in good condition! :) Little bit of gunk buildup but nothing serious. So after taking off the covers, doing a little painting here and there of everything from windshield wipers to the center part you see beloy. (used to be black and nasty looking!) cleaning cleaning cleaning we got the new covers back in and went to fire it up. No dice WOULD NOT START! Problem? Well lets see we got it wet so prolly distributor. Which it was after blowing it out and getting it all dried up started up with a mighty backfire and away we went.

It's been a ton of fun learning all this stuff first hand on my $800 mr2 and the more I understand about vehicles the more I'm enjoying them. I'm not saying I'll become a mechanic. But it's putting meat on the bones of my love of cars.

Things that still need doing on the MR2? Need new wiper blades, possibly new distributor and cap, some more gaskets, some soldering for the headlights (so they'll stay on at night :*). These are on my to do in the next few months.

As far as my goal of purchasing and having a vehicle running for under $1650 (the selling price of my motorcycle) I'm quite pleased to say I'm still 150 dollars underbudget, and I have a reliable city runabout.

What I've been up to Lately...

Some new pictures.

INTERIOR - SEAT REMOVED NO CLEAN.

CLEANED INSIDE

SEAT BACK IN

To Expand upon the car thing - Kind of an annoying table but if it says TRUE TRUE it means that I've bought it and installed it, if one true then I've purchased it.

FALSE	FALSE	HANDLING COMPONENTS:
TRUE	TRUE	New Struts (KYBGR2’s)
TRUE	TRUE	Tire Balance
TRUE	TRUE	Nitro
FALSE	FALSE	New Rotors and Pads
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE	ENGINE/POWER COMPONENTS:
TRUE	TRUE	Spark Plugs x4
TRUE	TRUE	Air Filter
FALSE	FALSE	Block Heater Cord
TRUE	TRUE	Oil Change
TRUE	TRUE	Coolant flush
TRUE	TRUE	New Coolant Cap
FALSE	FALSE	Gasket
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE	AESTHETICS:
FALSE	FALSE	Gold Clean
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE	SAFETY/SECURITY
FALSE	FALSE	Ebrake (5-8 clicks)
TRUE	TRUE	Door Lock
FALSE	FALSE	Handle
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE	GENERAL MAINTENANCE ITEMS:
TRUE	TRUE	Windshield Crack Fix
TRUE	TRUE	Washer Fluid
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE	CAR AUDIO AND VIDEO
TRUE	TRUE	Stereo (From Danilo?)
TRUE	TRUE	Speakers = JL TR400-CXi
TRUE	TRUE	Wiring Harness
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE
FALSE	FALSE	NON CASH PAYMENT FOR SERVICES RENDERED:
FALSE	FALSE
TRUE	TRUE	Pizza

1985 Toyota MR2

So I bought a new car today. Well, new to me. It's a 1985 Toyota MR2 with 180,000 km's on it. It's got some rust on it but I'll be talking about the restoration process on here as well as on my cardomain page which I'll be creating on another site.

I LOVE cars, I have loved cars since I've been sixteen. I have not, however, ever purchased a car I've wanted but rather have always purchased a car out of extreme need. So I've owned an 88 B2200 mazda which was an unexciting truck who's only upside was decent fuel mileage and red colored gauges. When that was written off by a drunk motorcyclist doing 120 down my side road I had to purchase a 1994 Nissan Axxess mini-mini van which had a little more pep, and a sunroof, but was ugly and had so many holes in it that if you turned the heat off it took exactly 3 seconds to evacuate all warm air from the vehicle.

But tonight comes the culmination of 3 weeks of research, a plan to use the benefits of being a lethbridge toyota employee to the max, and 800 dollars + restoration money stored away. The purchase of a 1982 Toyota MR2. For those that don't know the MR2 is a mid engine rear wheel drive car which means the engine sits behind you in the vehicle. Makes the vehicle very nimble and very unique if a little harder to work on. They were Toyota's first foray into the world of sporty cars and it payed off. The MR2 was rated the #8 best sports car of the 80's behind a few names such as porsche, ferrari, audi, and BMW. Not to bad!

The car I've purchased is quite rusty, needs some engine work, tires balanced, fan fixed, oil changed, and a lot of TLC to the interior. But it's mine, it's an authentic project car, and the first manifestation of 8 years of vehicular passion. I'm stoked!

So yesterday was relatively dissapointing. I went and looked at three cars that I was thinking might be a good inexpencive way to get into a toyota. Unfortunately they were all in much worse condition than advertised so kinda blew all of yesterday evening on vehicles that 2 of which I definitely won't own and one of which I'd have to fall much deeper in love with in order to buy.

I'm so torn up because I want a project car, I want something unique. I am into the vehicle stuff but I've neither to community, the personal skills, or the bank in order to do these things (the first two directly affecting the amount of the third needed)

And so I've been grumpy since getting home yesterday...

So I had big plans on doing absolutely nothing yesterday when I got home from work as a good start to my 3 day weekend. But when I got home I got a call from Jeff a guy who was very interested in purchasing my motorbike and wanted it insured by the weekend. There were 3 major problems to this:
a)The fairings for my motorbike were at my parents farm 1 hour drive away.
b)It was raining cats and dogs out
c)Jeff wanted to put the fairings back on the bike with me before final sale.

So 6:00 I leave the apartment on the Ninja which I'm going to sell that night. I ride it in the sleet to my wife's work where I drop it off and pick up the truck, after changing clothes in the front seat in the parking lot I go get some gas, pick up some A&W and leave for the farm. Arriving there I pick up the 4 pounds of plastic, a bucket of screws, and a water bottle I'd forgotten there at Christmas and turn around and head directly back into Lethbridge. At about 9:00 I show up at the UFA where I'm meeting Jeff. He then follows me to my wife's work where we transfer the fairings and screws into his vehicle and I suit up again to follow him to his house on the motorbike through a little more rain. We arrive at his house and he has me drive up his grass, through a gate, and into a garden shed. He had mentioned on the phone he had a place we could work on the bike, I didn't realize it was going to be a 5x7 tin garden shed, the bike fit in at an angle with about 3 inches clearance in the front and you had to walk out the door to get around the back. The only issue now was lighting...

Hopping into this strangers truck we proceed to drive to Wal-Mart to find a coleman lantern to use, these are 60 dollars and to expensive. We then look for halogen lights which are also to expensive. We settle on a 150 watt bulb and a connector. Arriving back at his home his wife holds back there very excitable puppy whilst Jeff proceeds to cut apart an extension cord to use the wires to connect to the bulb. We take this outside and hang it in the shed, and there was light!

What you need to understand about the 1986 zx1000R ninja is that it was the first full fairing motorcycle released, and the first production sportbike to break 250km/h in the world. Despite these facts it was a first attempt and so the fairings unlike newer models come in 8 pieces and require about 400 screws to assemble. I have dissasembled this motorcycle once never intending to reassemble it and now here I am, on an 8 degree night, in a garden shed, pouring rain outside, lit by a bare 150 watt bulb, armed with 2 hex drivers and a philips head and attempting to put it all back together.

3 hours pass

The bike is together, it took some forcing, some sanding, and there are exactly 5 washers and 3 nuts left over whose home is unbeknownst to me. Jeff isn't to concerned, he's a great guy, the exact kind of guy I wanted to sell this bike to. He knows it's 24 years old, that it's not going to be perfect, that it needs some TLC.

We sign the papers and he hands me the cash and the Ninja is out of my life. Bittersweet.