dannyandeliza.com

I'm still waiting for my new car to arrive.  Above is what I've pre-ordered.  A Subaru BRZ in Galaxy Blue Silica with the Limited package.  Not bad huh?  I'm a little bit closer to having it.  I have a VON (Vehicle Order Number) from my dealer.  It's nothing more than numbers on a screen, but it's nice that things are progressing.  Lately, I've been thinking of a name for the car.  It will obviously need to start with the letter "B".  Brenda?  Betty?  Beatrice?

So, a few years ago I sold my project car.  A very bitter sweet day.  I received word on what it's been up to.  Due to various reasons, my project car was semi parted out and sold.  The B16 long block was built up into a screaming NA motor.  High compression pistons were added to the mix of aggressive cams, valves, retainers, & springs.  HP is just under 200 with a 10k rpm red line.  The shell apparently is being built up with a turbo K20.  I'm happy and sad...  I was kind of hoping that I'd see my hatch again some day.  Oh well, at least I have a cool car coming my way in the near future.

So, yesterday after using a trickle charger on my car battery and a fully charged jumper box, I was unable to start my car.  It's confirmed, the problem is my starter motor and not the battery as I had hoped.  Kind of sad...  I then jacked up my car and put the front end on jack stands to see just where the starter motor was on my car.  I had read that it's a bit of a pain to reach in this thread.  Boy were they right.

In the above photo, the center box is where the starter motor is.  Point of perspective, I'm lying under my car with my feet out the front of the car.  It's located to the left of the oil filter, above a half shaft (the black cylindrical bar going left to right), which is then above a frame member and an exhaust flex pipe that are physically next to each other.  The frame member is off camera on the left/other side of the flex pipe.  As you can see, my starter motor is pretty rusted.  The previous link contains well written instructions on how to remove this.  Save for this picture.  To remove the starter motor, you need to undo one electrical clip, lift the rubber boot seen on the end smaller cylinder, and then undo a nut.  After that, there are two bolts that can be accessed from under the hood that need to be removed.

Sadly, I lost my nerve and didn't remove it.  Whenever I touch my car, I almost always break something.  My car has seen some unreal amounts of salt in it's life.  Bolts tend to snap whenever I try remove them, no matter how much PB Blaster I use.  Add to this the fact that my floor jack doesn't raise the car very high.  That flex pipe on the left was about an inch from my face.  Normally, I'd just drive my car up my rhyno ramps...  A lot more clearance for this sort of thing.

I also noticed just how much rust there is on parts of the chassis.  There's a frame member that connects the front and rear cross members.  This center frame member also has a center jack point.  When I tried to use this center jack point, I was greeted with a crunching sound as flakes of rust came raining down on my jack.  The front cross member was horribly rusted and was giving while I jacked up the car.  Sigh...  12+ years & 183,000 miles of Chicago driving have sure done their work.

Not sure what I'm going to do.  If I donate my car they will tow it away for free and I'll ultimately get a tax write off.  I could try to fix it myself by changing or fixing the starter motor.  But I'd have to remove it first.  I dunno, when that flex pipe is right next to my head, it's pretty tight in there and I just lose my nerve.  Visions of the car falling and crushing me...  Don't worry I do take proper safe guards.  Wheels chocked with heavy bricks.  A pair of jack stands used and my 2 1/2 ton floor jack as a secondary device for a total of three lift points.  I did take a bar and gave it a few good taps to see if that would help a possibly stuck solenoid.  No change.  Should have sold the car to carmax right after going to the Subaru dealer...

As if on cue, my Sentra has broken down...  It's sad.  On Friday night, we had to push my car to the side of the driveway so we could pull Eliza's mini out of the garage.  I'm having either a battery problem or I'm having a starter motor problem.  Both of these were changed over four years ago.  So far, I'm hoping that it's a battery problem.  The battery for sure is a bit tired.  After removing the surface charge, the battery is below 12 volts.  Not great.  When trying to engage the starter, the voltage drops but not by the amount I should have seen.  So I'm now borrowing a jump box and a battery tender/charger.  Hopefully by the end of the work day I'll have a better diagnosis.  The Deltran Battery Tender Plus charges around 1.5amps.  That's about 15 amps in ten hours or so.  Not sure how many amps my car battery can store.  I may need to keep the battery tender connected for a day or two.

Updated list of things to do on the Sentra in order of importance.

• Diagnose non starting issue.  Replace battery or starter motor.
• Fix what sounds like an exhaust leak.
• Fix rear brakes.
  • Replace passenger side rear caliper, possibly driver side rear too.
  • Replace pads and rotors.
  • Brake fluid flush.
• Replace air filter.
• Full Tuneup.
• Stop the rest bubbles on the doors, hood, and trunk.
• Fix the sunroof.
• Change all struts.
• Replace power steering pump, not sure.
• Fix CD player.
• Fix CD Changer.

I took part of Saturday afternoon to vacuum and wipe down the interior.  I also cleared it out of most of my stuff as well.  All that remains is a lone box of emergency road side stuff in the trunk.  If I can get the car started again, I may just sell my car to Carmax this week and not worry about it anymore.  We'll see.  I have to say, I'm still rather attached to my car.  Maybe I'll just keep it around as a beater?  Makes no financial sense, but I'm finding it hard to let go as things start winding down.  I could keep it to learn how to fix things I'm normally too afraid to mess with.  We'll see.

I'm going to put myself on a self imposed wallet lock down for a while.  I hope nothing breaks or needs replacing anytime soon!  While I have enough money to put a very nice down payment on the car, it is still going to take a huge bite out of my wallet.  Time to build up the war chest and enjoy the toys I have.  Shouldn't be too hard to do that, but it's the things that we don't have that we often long for isn't it.  Ha ha!