Huh.....Looks Like Another Pigeon Or Two Showed Up.....

After I wrote the post last night, I went back out to the garage to stand and stare for a while.

Sometimes I'll get a flash of inspiration or an insight while just standing there looking at random things.

Since one of the long deferred maintenance items are the hoses that carry the coolant, I started checking them. The upper and lower radiator hoses have worm-drive clamps on them, along with most of the heater hoses, indicating that they've probably been replaced at some time in the past. The radiator looks newer than the rest of the things in the engine bay, so I'm SWAGGING that it and the upper/lower hoses are replacements.

I have new upper and lower hoses, so I'll replace them.

One of the heater hoses is a weird two-piece thing with a metal coupling joining the two sections. It's not a flow restrictor, just a coupling.Why on Earth Toyota did it this way is unknown, but there's a similar one piece hose used on the Tundra pickup truck that fits with trimming an inch off each end, so I bought one of those when I found out about it.


And there's the rub.....That hose is disconnected at one end!
 

And looking at the amount of glop on it, it's been disconnected for some time. I stumbled on this as I was doing the "Wiggle-and-Jiggle" on that hose to see where it went, and found out it goes......NOWHERE!


 Looking closely at the firewall reveals an empty hole where the pipe from the heater core is supposed to be.

The out-of-focus hose is the loose one, and the connected end is out of the picture. It's connected to the other heater core pipe, which is still there.

So while this is going to be a Royal PITA to fix, at least it explains the ruined carpet that I thought was caused by the clutch master cylinder failing and dumping the fluid inside the car. And in retrospect, it makes much more sense. The clutch master cylinder only holds a few ounces of fluid, and even if the seals blew, it's a contorted path for the fluid to actually get inside the car.

I've had heater cores let go before, even in well maintained vehicles. Some are fairly easy to change, and some aren't. This one isn't, requiring the removal of most of the dashboard. The heater cores are between $50 and $75 depending on where you buy it from, and nobody local stocks them. Rock Auto wanted $75 for the same "Spectre" core that O'Reilly's gets $51 for, so I ordered it from O'Reilly's. I doubt if I'll change it soon, as I don't need heat here in the summer, so It'll get deferred until Fall, and I'll do it when I pull the interior out to install the new carpet and have some of the interior parts refurbished/recovered. The tops of the door panels are completely disintegrated, and crunch when you slide your fingers along them, so the foam under the vinyl is shot, along with the vinyl being split in many places.

ANYWAY.....going to see Brandon Marsalis Quartet tonight at the Lincoln Center. Not sure if my wife likes Jazz or not. Guess I'll find out!

Somedays You're The Pigeon, and Somedays You're The Statue

And today I'm a statue.

I removed all the OEM air ducting on the Supra today to replace it with the Air Intake Tube I bought a couple of years ago. The story of this particular piece of kit is a tale of woe. It came from Canada, and somewhere along the way, it "broke open", the pipe disappeared, and it was taped back up, and sent on it's merry way.

It took the vendor and I SIX MONTHS to get it straightened out with the shipper, and I had to send everything I received to a special address where the shipper investigated it, admitted it had been stolen, and paid up.

In the mean time the vendor sent me this one, and it's been sitting on the shelf all this time. As part of the "5000' Elevation Adjustment Program" I'll be investigating ways to pick up a few "free" horsepower by making the engine breathe a bit better, and reducing Parasitic Drag.

So, after stripping off all the OEM air ducting and installing the new parts, I get this:

There are two "air taps" with hoses connected to them, so I keyed the position of the tube off where they connected to the OEM ducting. And notice I had to pull my strut tower brace to get even this far.

That's a 3" tube in the above picture, so to say they don't line up is being kind.

Pondering over this fitment issue during dinner, and remembering the vendor said he'd "get a kit right out so you don't have to wait", and our shared tale of woe in my even acquiring this item, I chuckled to myself and said "Gee....I wonder if they put the air fittings in the wrong place, and they thing is really meant to be flipped around".

Nawwwww...couldn't possibly be that simple, could it?

Considering the Air/Fuel Meter (the Nippondenso box) is loose, and the coupling on the other end is loose and sloppy, I'd say it fits pretty nicely when flipped around.

Sorry about those air tap fittings, though.......

And oh, man.....I really hate to contact the vendor about this. He bent over backwards to get me the first pipe out of the next batch that was being ceramic coated. And he's gone out of his way for me on other items, he's one of the few vendors to make anything for these cars, and he totally supports the car community. AFAIC, this is one of those "Let's Have A Few Beers Next Time", and I'll cut those fittings down, seal them up, and install the two fittings I have from when I was going to fab one of these from scratch.

My wife was wondering what I was having such a hoot about, and came out to the garage. I showed the "before" and "After" versions, and she said "You're taking this awfully well". Then I clued her in as to what this part was, and all the trouble it caused, and she said "OH NO.....That's the part you told me about? And now it doesn't fit? Because it was made wrong?".......

Yup. Call it irony, or Kar Karma, or what ever, I think it's hilarious because of the back story......

And I took about 50 detailed, well-lit photos of the engine compartment, the vacuum lines, electrical connections, the throttle and cruise control linkages, and some other details. I'll do the same when I start stripping the front of the engine down to replace the timing belt, tensioner and water pump. And I'll do the same when I strip down the intake side to replace the fuel injectors and give the throttle body and EGR passages a complete cleaning.

I was inspecting the hoses, and noticed one of the heater hoses is disconnected. That's NEVER a good sign, and usually indicates a bad heater core. I just checked Rock Auto, and they had ONE left in stock, so I ordered it. So far, none of the auto parts stores here have anything in stock for this car, compared to SoCal. Which I kinda knew in the back of my mind but never started appreciating until I got the car our here.

Swapping out the heater core in this cars is a Royal PITA. Most of the dash has to come out, at least as much as I had out when the car was apart before. And the destroyed carpet in the car, and the way it feels, leads me to believe that it was the heater core dumping coolant inside the car that ruined the carpet, and NOT the clutch master cylinder blowing out and dumping brake fluid inside. The carpet still has that sticky "antifreeze" feel, and from the area of the carper that was ruined, it would have taken more than the 5 or 6 Ozs of fluid in the clutch master.

Geez....and I wanted to drive the thing this summer!

Supra Is Now "Colorado Tagged".....Crazy Windy Today

Total cost including title transfer was $206.20 for FIVE years of registration. Add in the cost of the emissions test and VIN Verification and the total is $251.20.

The cost of registration is Kommiefornia was $130 PER YEAR.

The Jeep is about $77 per year here in Colorado, while it was well over $200 "back there".

They gave me a temporary paper tag in a nice holder until the other plates get mailed from Denver. It should take about 3 weeks to get them.

And I sent the paperwork to Denver to get my callsign plates for the Jeep. Those have to be "approved" before they get made, so they'll take about 8 weeks to get.

And it's crazy windy here again. We're having sustained winds of 40~45 MPH with "gusts" of 65+MPH.

The big double gate blew open again, this time ripping the latch clean out of the 4x4 post. I'm getting REALLY tired of fixing this damn thing every single time the winds get up over 40MPH.

I'm gonna nail the GD thing shut with some 2x4 bracing. Maybe I was nuts to get a 14' wide double gate put in there that MIGHT get used once every few years.

Whatever.....it needs to be repaired AGAIN after the wind dies down.

This is really making me rethink the antenna tower plans........

And the wind just blew over the 5' tripod with the Davis weather station on it AND my 8' satellite antenna tower, which landed in the yard with a pretty big THUD.

And three complete panels of fence just blew down in my neighbors yard! Ripped all three panels clean off the posts, and THUMP! they went down in his yard. I'll help him get them back up after the wind dies down. Three 8' sections of fence is a little too much 'sail area' to be fighting with in 50MPH winds....yep, FIFTY MPH sustained winds.

It's almost hard to walk out there. I'd hate to be on I-80 up by Cheyenne. Probably blow a big rig all over the road.

Supra Passed Smog "With Flying Colors"

Started this post last night, so what's below is from Sunday......

Took her out for about 2-1/2 hours today and put about 70 miles on her. Even got about 30 minutes of 75MPH highway time just to shake things out.

It's definitely down on power at 5000' compared to "sea level" in Long Beach, so I'm thinking of ways to free up some horsepower. In particular, the engine-driven clutch fan is notorious for sucking up to 18 HP at 6500 RPM! No, I don't drive around at 6500 RPM, but I do shift up there when I'm "In The Mood". Replacing the Old Skool engine-driven fan with thermostatically-controlled electric fans is crazy easy to do on these cars. If you don't want to go the aftermarket route, there are some Ford fans that bolt right in, and they  look like they came from Toyota! Plus, the clutch units on the OEM Toyota fan are know for failing catastrophically, allowing the sharp, spinning fan blades to violently contact the radiator.

Not pretty....

If she passes smog on Monday, I'm good for five years, so the Air Intake Pipe I bought from good old George at Raptor Racing will go on. This eliminates 3 molded, somewhat flexible rubber air couplings, the OEM "Silencer" in the intake tract, and the constricted, molded plastic air assembly that runs across the cam covers, and replaces it all with a mandrel-bent, ceramic-coated, aluminum tube. These are proven to be worth 8~10 HP at the rear wheels, as measured on a reputable chassis dyno. The Electronic Fuel Injection system has more than enough latitude to compensate for this, AND a hi-flow exhaust, AND a cold-air intake (outside air) for the air cleaner, AND a header, AND....that's about it, folks. Hey, it's a 1985 EFI system, has one "narrow band" (basically ON/OFF for RICH/LEAN) Oxygen sensor, and a "spring-loaded pot with a flapper valve" for an Air/Fuel Meter!

Quite primitive compared to the EFI systems of the late 2010's, but flexible enough to properly support the air flow needs of lightly modified engine.

Anyway.....the electric fan(s) and air intake tube are a gimmie; I already have the tube kit, and the fans are available at Rock Auto. Just have to go back to the celicasupra.com forum and see what I need to buy.



This Is From Today....

Yep, she passed. HC, CO, and NOx were all less than half of the allowable amounts. The staff at Air Care Colorado were surprised to see a 33 year old Japanese car in such good condition, as these cars have a remarkable tendency to dissolve before your eyes. The younger Techs were asking all kinds of questions about it, and I was happy to answer them.

I took her out for a good hour to get fully warmed up, including about 25 minutes on the highway up to Wellington and back.

There was NO line at the emissions testing place, and they got me in, tested, VIN verified, and out the door in about 30 minutes.

Not quite so rosy at the Courthouse, though. When I called my insurance company, Hagerty, back when we first got here, they told me they'd rewrite the policy after we had a residence, and the car was registered in Colorado. The DMV told me I can't register the car unless it has Proof of Insurance in Colorado. The POI card Hagerty just recently sent me is a "California" POI, and Colorado will not accept it.

Catch 22!!

So I went ahead and applied for the change of title, and came home a bit dejected at how to figure this out. I called Hagerty as soon as I got back home, and it turns out I misunderstood the first Hagerty agent I talked to. The agent I talked to today verified all my information, and sent the policy over to the Underwriter's for the required changes.

Everything went through, and I now have the required Colorado-specific documents.

SO.....back to the Larimer County Clerk's office in the courthouse tomorrow where I can finish the process of getting the car registered as a "Collector Vehicle", and duck the smog test for 5 years.

Both times I've been to the Courthouse have been pleasant, and the employees helpful. Both times I waited less than 15 minutes after I logged in at the kiosk, and so far it's been painless.

Waiting For The Electrician......

Or someone like him......

Just spent an hour going over the plans for Garage Electrification, along with adding some more circuits to the impending Radio Room.

The garage will get:

A new sub-panel fed from the main panel

Four, 20 Amp quad outlet boxes, each on it's own breaker

A duplex box for the garage door openers (they're plugged into one of the four available outlets now) on it's own breaker

A ceiling-mounted quad box for the over-the-workbench lights

And a 240 Volt/30 Amp circuit/outlet for an air compressor and/or MIG/TIG welder.

The Radio Room will get two additional 20 Amp duplex boxes on three of the four walls, and another 240 Volt/30 Amp circuit with outlet for use with my Collins 30L-1 linear amplifier. The 30L-1 is wired for 120 Volts now, but it's trivial to change a couple of  jumpers inside and swap out the power cord for one with an appropriate plug.

And I've been looking for either  a Heathkit SB-220, or a Drake L4-B so I can go to Ludicrous Speed if I need to.

The additional circuits for the Radio Room were added at the last minute. He was here, so I showed him the path from the garage, through the water heater area, and to Radio, and he agreed it would be pretty easy, and loss costly, to add those circuits while he was here doing the other work for the garage.

His rough SWAG was about $2k for all the work, but he won't get me a finished bid until later this weekend.....

Danish National Symphony Does "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly"

This is spectacular! Crank up the volume, or patch it in to a good stereo system, and let 'er rip!

The Resurrection Of Ms Swan.....

She's alive!!!!





Got the new battery properly installed, and added the Battery Tender 'pigtail' so I don't have to fart around with the big battery clips. Just plug it in when I get home, and the battery stays topped up regardless of how long she sits. I've been using Battery Tenders and the newer Battery Tender PLUS models for about 15 years now, and they work "As Advertised", with no worries about overcharging the battery. These are NOT 'trickle chargers', which are basically a small power supply, but are "Microprocessor Controlled", low-current chargers with a "Maintain" mode in them.

One good thing I did was to clean all the ground connections where the negative battery lead goes, and clean and grease the clamps and posts.

And wonder of wonders, my "No Charge At Idle" problem went away!

Before, the external voltmeter I have plugged into the cigarette lighter outlet would drop down to 13 Volts -or less- idling in traffic. A quick rev would bring it back to 14.1 Volts, but it was troubling. Now, the voltmeter reads 14.1 all the time, even with the headlights on high-beam, at idle. I'd thought maybe the alternator was dying, but it appears I just had some crummy connections.

But now the radio is dead. It worked fine, crummy speakers and all, when I parked the car at my son's place back in September. Now it's a brick in the dash. I popped the face plate off the head unit and cleaned the connectors, but no joy. I'll have to dig out my notes and see if I can pull the radio out with the console in place. Pulling the console starts to get involved, as there's 4 switches, and several sensors, mounted to the console, and putting it all back together is an exercise in frustration in getting the three wiring harnesses to lay in the space just right so the console can snuggle down to the floorpan.

ANYWHOO.....After I did my fluid checks, tire pressure checks, and verified all the air couplings in the fuel injection intake plumbing were tight, I cleaned the glass and took her out for a couple of hours.

Stopped for gas, and Sum Young Dude offered me $5k for her! I laughed and said I had more than that in her, and he came back with "Will you take $6500?", and that gave me real pause........but I smiled and said I wasn't done with her yet, and thanked him for his offer.

So, we headed out Drake Road, turned North on Taft Hill, and went all the way to Bellvue, where I turned South, and took the road that parallels the Horsetooth Reservoir.

Lots of nice twisty bits and elevation changes, but sadly a 35MPH speed limit. Still, a very pleasant drive after six months without her. And I (generally) obeyed the speed limit.....

Sunday is supposed to be mostly sunny with a high of 63*, and if the roads are dry, I'll take my wife out for a cruise. She's only had a couple of rides in the car, and that was before I did all the work.

I promise I won't scare her!

Two Down, One To Go

Went to the Larimer County Courthose today and got the Colorado plates for the Jeep. I wound up with standard green-and-white Colorado plates because they don't accept applications for personalized plates. I'll have to mail the forms to Denver, and then the Courthouse will call me when my Amateur Radio plates arrive. I'll go back up there, pay the $2 ( !! ), turn in my old plates, and get my new ones.

They do accept the application for Collector Vehicle plates, so after I get the Supra smogged and verified at least I'll walk out with the collector plates for the car.

Total cost was $140. $90 for license, title, and tax, and $50 in "Late Fees". I told them we bought a house November 1st, and they held me to it. Didn't matter I got my CDL on April 8th, I was on the title for the house, and that's pretty strong evidence of residency.

Oh, well, it was my fault. I dragged my feet and had to pay the price.

The staff was extremely helpful and friendly, but it took a bit longer than I expected because I brought my next proof-of-insurance card, and not the current one. I called my agent (two blocks away!), and they emailed the proof to the Larimer Courthouse.

And the nice young lady who handled it all was new (first week on job), so her supervisor helped her with some things she didn't know yet, and things went smoothly.

I'll take the Supra for smog next week. I want to spend some time going over a few specific items, and then drive her a bit so she gets limbered up again.

And tomorrow is supposed to be almost a carbon-copy of today. Windy and sunny and 74 degrees, so I'm going to back her out on the driveway and give her a good bath.

One and a Half Finished, One and a Half To Go

The first "One" is my Colorado Driver License. Went in last Friday with all my paperwork, and was out with my temporary CDL in under an hour. The snow we had Friday morning definitely made for fewer people at the office.

The first "and a Half" is getting the Jeep registered here. It flew through the smog test with flying colors, and the VIN verification was done at the same time. I'll fill out the paperwork for my "SCL" (Special Call Letters) personalized plates, and go to the Larimer County office in Old Town to turn all that in tomorrow. Yes, I'll get "paper plates" to use until the regular plates get here, but I don't mind.

The "Air Care Colorado" place I went to was well-run, the staff was friendly and helpful, and the shop and waiting areas were spotless. $45 out-the-door, and it took about 40 minutes.

Remains to be seen how things go at the County office, but my sweet little wife was in and out of there in under an hour, and under $100.

That leaves the Supra, which had a real bad habit of passing smog when it felt like it. The last time I smogged it, it passed by ONE part-per-million on HC according to the report from The Last Kommiefornia Smog Test. I was going over the smog test reports from when the car started requiring a smog test (1990; The original owner kept everything!), and you can see through the years how Kommiefornia had progressively tightened the limits up; i.e., what was a "legal" amount of smog in 1985 when the car was built was slowly made "illegal" over the last 20 years. It's getting to the point where older cars (and not just mine) can't pass the emissions test because the limits have gotten stricter than what the car was required to pass when new.

This is cause for uncountable Internet Forum discussions where a class-action lawsuit was mentioned. I'm sure it'll be like the majority of Internet Forum comments, and nothing will be done, but it's well-known in the auto hobby community that Kommiefornia has been pulling this crap for years, and they get away with it.

I spent some time talking to one of the Techs at the emissions testing place, and she said that Colorado smog limits aren't as tight as Kommiefornia, and that while she couldn't guarantee anything, if it was just squeaking by the limits in Kommiefornia, it might very well fly through the test here due to the different gasoline and the altitude.

If it does, then YAY, RAHRAHRAH, WHOOPEE! If it doesn't, I'll swap out the catalytic converter, and then I'm sure it will. The last place that smogged it was owned and operated by an older guy who knew older Japanese cars very well. He looked at all the smog records for when it failed (I have all the test reports courtesy of the original owner), and how it failed, and said he thought the converter was end-of-life. Since I'm no longer under the control of Brown The Magnificent in Kommiefornia, and am not required to buy a "CARB Compliant" catalytic converter, many more options open up. A new, HIGH PERFORMANCE converter for the car is around $120~$175, vs double that "Back There" for one that was legal, and had the laser-etched "E.O. Number" on it. The car already has a custom 2-1/2" "Cat Back" exhaust with a Walker DynoMax "Turbo" muffler, so a new high-flow converter would be icing on the cake.

Home Theater Rework

I finally got tired of the cabling MESS behind the Home Theater Center, so started cleaning it up yesterday afternoon after The Little Guy left. We have him from Friday evening until Saturday evening while the kids are at work. This gives Grandmomius Prime an extra 'day off', and lets us spend some time with him.

ANYWHOO.....the first order of business was to get some furniture glider pads under it so I could move it.

These simple little things are worth every penny you pay for them, and that goes double for us Olde Fartes that aren't 25 years old any more.

This was just going to be a "words only" post, but then a bit after I started it I figured it might be nice to kinda-sorta document it. The shot below was taken after I'd already cleaned up all the HDMI and neatened up the combined video/audio cabling for the Wii.

And a network verification test to the Oppo BluRay player and Denon A/V receiver. This took a while because both devices squawked there were firmware updates available, so I did the receiver first, and then the BluRay player. The big white box in the foreground is the Arris "SurfBoard" cable modem/Dual-Band WiFi router. The smaller white box in the background is our Wii game system. The silver box with the turquoise stripe on it is the D-Link 5-port 10/100 Ethernet switch that connects the A/V devices to the router, which has 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Annnnd......almost finished. Still have a few cable to clean up, the telephone base station to wire in, and then push the whole shebang back towards the wall.

I'll clean this up tomorrow.....

There's an auto race on now!

TWO HUNDRED!!!!

Pounds, that is, something I haven't seen on the bathroom scale in quite a while.

When we moved here six months ago (already six months?) I was 230~240, depending on what time of day, day of the week, season of the year, and probably the phase of the Moon. I was also having a double cheeseburger, small fries, and medium Diet Coke at least 4 times a week, and would have KFC, Jack In The Box, Taco Bell, or other junk food an additional several times a week.

I've had ONE drive-through burger (Burger King) since we moved here, and that was the night I drove to DIA to pick up my wife on her return from the trip she made to SoCal some weeks ago. I still loves me some cheeze-burgers, but now when I get a burger, it's in a sit-down place like Smashburger, or my favorite, Vern's Place, up in Laporte. My wife doesn't care for Vern's, but their burgers are about the best I've had here. Sorry, but the closest In-N-Out is in Utah, either SLC or Ogden.

My target weight is 185, per my Doctors back in Long Beach, and my new Doctor and Cardiologist agree that would be a good weight for me to be at. The charts say 175, but my previous Doctor thought that would be a bit light for my build, and when I told him I felt better when I weighed 185, he said to make that my goal.

And I'm slowly getting there. My A1c is down to 6.8~6.9, much better than the 7.4 it peaked at when I was at Maximum Gross Takeoff Weight back in Long Beach. My hips and knees appreciate less to carry around, and I'm finding it's now much easier to squeeze into tight spots on the car to work on it. I'm no longer the "Designated Under The Dashboard Guy" that I used to be, but I can still do that type of work, albeit a lot slower than I used to.

And even though we're expected maybe an inch of snow tomorrow, Spring is really getting cranked up here. Our neighbor Sarah's flowers have popped up and are blooming, and the Iris and Crocus bulbs that 'came with the house' are through the soil and growing like weeds.

The landscape guy was here this morning, and did the first Weed-and-Feed application. With the rain coming tonight, I'd say he made a good choice to do it today. I went out and talked to him for a few minutes, and he said he had a dozen yards to treat today, and that the rain tonight should let the treatment penetrate into the grass where it will help bring it back.

One thing I noticed in the backyard was the multitude of small holes everywhere there's just dirt. I thought maybe they were from birds browsing for insects, but SURPRISE, the holes are from all the earthworms we have.

I haven't seen really big earthworms since I left Illinois in 1982. The soil in SoCal is mostly 'black adobe', about the consistency of concrete, and the earthworms there are much smaller. They almost need tungsten carbide tips on their little heads to punch through what passes as "dirt" in SoCal.

I'm working on a "6 month AAR" post, and hopefully I've have it done in the next couple of days......