Ok, where to start.
Greg showed up at about 2:00 on Saturday. At that time I have removed about all of the intake side of the engine, the battery, the wheel, and drianed the radiator and it was dangling in position. We pulled the fender well covers out (Greg showed me how to wedge a screw driver behind the stubborn ones to get them to thread out) and then we jumped back to the fuel filter for a bit. that went relatively easy. We then deleted my pruge canister for fuel tank fumes, and did a vacuum line reduction including the hard lines running by the passengers side of the engine. that's sweet. we then went back to the timing belt. we pulled covers and had a bitch of a time with the crank pulley. We tried three different air guns before one finally had enough snot to remove it.
We marked up the old timing belt and cam gears with white out. This is a really trick process that I would recomend to anyone. Greg's genious showed on that part of the project. Stopped of dinner. we transfered the marks to the new timing belt and started to put it on. As he wrapped it around the intake cam gear and started for the waterpump I asked him if he wanted to put the new one on first.
Stopped to replace old water pump. We fought with the water pump forever. if there is an easy way to pull that sob out someone enlighten me. then old timing belt looked really good, but the timing belt hydraulic tensioner looked like it was the original from the factory. SCARY. It was almost shot. If I had waited another 10 thousand miles it would have been valve train being replaced.
After replacing the belt, pulley and tensioner we waited around and talked about cars and checked to see if the belt had stretched and was still in spec. when it was Greg was very happy. dancing happy.
We went to the bars to celebrate. The first place we stopped the girls walked up to hit on us. I had never had this happen to me before, So I'm pretty sure it was Greg. We then got sick of being treated like objects and arm candy and swtiched bars.
A few beers and then greg got fed shots of apple pucker by a really hot bartender at ned kellys. I was trying to be her biggest fan. apparently she did not need one. To bed.
Wake up. breakfast. replace cam gear covers. start in on turbos. break down pipe loose. break front turbo loose. oil and water lines are butter. the manifold to turbo nuts are an absolute bitch. impact gun broke one 14 mil socket and an extension in a valant effort to free the nuts. car refuses to relinqish it's claim to glory. a torch and heat every thing up. no dukes. heat manifold and turbo "o2 housing" (lame name) while cooling bolt with ice. no dukes. get the skinny white boy bay out. decide that something is breaking today, be it a stud or something else.
reef on it until finally the nut breaks loose. two to go. equally a pain in the ass, but they all come out. work for a while with the front turbo and greg has it in his hands. transfer wastegate actuators. start to work on rear turbos. Precat eliminator can't come out with out removing the front drivers side drive shaft. BOO THAT.
We decide can get it out if we remove the turbo manifold bolts and feed lines and move it over. again feed and return lines are easy. top bolt is a bitch, but we win. I went under the car to get the other two bolts for the rear turbo to manifold. OMFG on tight.
Keep prying on skinny white boy bar until I see stars. wtf? my nose is wet. can't breathe. shimmy out. Greg goes "holy shit, we better get you to the hospital." (Side note. if your are ever doing a project with a group of males and this phrase is not heard, you have not been trying hard enough.) No, I'm okay. give me a cold beer. Greg gives me a paper towel and I make that one red. solid red. grab another one. hold the beer to my face. drink the beer and hold a different one(ones: beer and paper towel) to my face. still bleeding. Find out that I actually have "splatter marks" of the blood across my t-shirt.
Tell greg again that I'm fine, and get egged on by my freinds (they had showed up some time around when we started on the rear turbo) to man up and finish the job.
With the stupidy that only comes with a large group of males and peer pressure I "walk it off" (my dad was proud
) and crawl back under the car to break the last bolt loose. blast both my knuckle and my finger open. my finger is gushing blood worse than my nose. Greg again massages the turbos out of there hiding spot whilst I wander off to find more paper toweling. Greg transfers actuators and fun stuff to the new turbos.
Time for taco bell. The girl behind the counter actually laughed at me when she saw me.
After taco bell it was already 7:00 so Greg decided to head it home, which I completely agreed with as any more time spent on the car would have probably killed me.
Over all it was the best time I have had in about 6~10 months. Best time that I've had in a year or two standing up.
Greg has left a lot of skin on my car, me, not so much.
unless you count the nose thing.
It's swelled somwhere between "clown nose" big and "golf ball jammed up my nostril" big. Think arnold in that movie where he goes to mars as a secret agent, and there tracking him by a red thing in his skull and he pulls it out through his nose, only a little less red, but not much.
and we are pretty sure that the red ones(3S's) are special for creating havoc. Give me a week to heal up a bit, and we'll be putting the turbos on next week end, then buttoning her up, and starting her up to see if she'll piss coolant all over the floor.
I'm not worried. I haven't lost an eye yet...
yet.
