So.. lets get this up2date:
As posted by Spectre before, in preparation for the latest trip, the backing plate was taken care of. Sadly not as cheap and easy as expected, but all in all $350 to fix that shit, what could have been bolting on a $20 part. If it had been the correct one. Oh well. On the plus side: I can confirm that the repair has worked and it is still rock solid many miles later. The detail of the exhaust hangers was also resolved in due time as he mentioned.
Forward 2 weeks, I arrive in Texas. What fell through? All scheduled attempts to replace some O-rings on the AC and recharge it via either some connections or some shop. So, no AC. Great! I had one day and a few things I wanted to do, before I headed for Atlanta. Eventually a shop was found that was willing and able to get the AC done that day. Say: fully evacuate the system, replace O-rings (AC->Firewall->evaporator), check for further leaks, recharge it. That sadly set me back $250, but I wasn't going to go on a 900 mile / 12 hours drive, twice, without that. Or 3 more weeks in Texas for that matter.
In addition to that, had 3 small fixes that I wanted to attempt, and all in all I was mostly successful.
#1: Window rollers! The front passenger window came off tracks several times or refused to move at all, so I knew I had at the very least broken rollers/guides. This is a very common issue, but the fix is in the end not all that hard. Required things: New OEM guides, or aftermarket rollers, some grease, a few tools. Looks like this:
Door panel off, water barrier out of the way, and limited access to the mechanics inside is granted.
There are 3 rollers, one on the bottom for vertical movement, but that one has basically no load and usually doesn't fail, and it is already a roller, so I ignored it...
And then you have the two upper ones that move horizontally.. and as expected, one was broken. But I ended up replacing both, just because. And I added all the grease (dupond white lithium something bla bla). I also inspected both rear windows, but all rollers were intact. The driver side works like a charm, I didn't check, but I suspect it was fixed at some point. The driver side also has the by far strongest window motor. The rear ones are meh, but ok. The passenger front motor is, as it turns out, basically dead. Even with the fixed rollers and plenty of grease, it has issues moving under its own power, requiring some help to start.. so note to self, and everyone driving it: Don't roll the passenger front window down all the way, but just far enough to have something to pull on to kickstart the motor...
The second project was an attempt to fix the driver door armrest, which is disintegrating and has annoying sharp plastic/leather bits poking into ones arm. The attempt made was: Take vinyl, spray a matching(ish) color, cut to shape(ish), spray-adhesive that shit on! The result: Lasted about 3 days before the lower part came off thanks to gravity. Plus getting the shape right was more guesswork than anything else on my end. BUT: It's comfy where it matters. It'll be either have to cut back a bit or redone, but in the long run I'll keep trying to buy a color matching door card that isn't ruined.
Project #3: Steering damper. Straight forward.. I never bothered to check its condition, but it didn't look new at a glance, and the repalcement was like $26. So I just ordered one and swapped it out. And just looking at old v new, it wasn't a bad call. Can I tell a difference? Not really. But then again, I hadn't driven it in 5 month..
And some random shots ..
In the end the car survived the trip without any noticable issues. The retrofitted Roadmaster AC control panel kinda came loose and its backlight failed, so that may need some attention (or another junkyard part, or the kept OEM part reinstalled again). The license plate light in the trunk lid failed and got me pulled over. Apparently 1 year is the lifespan of that cheap LED. I had spares with me and replaced it a day later. The car is still pretty good at drinking fuel in short distance and city driving.. I didn't dare calculate it, but it felt like I was filling up ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME while I was in Austin
. On the long trip to Atlanta and back I averaged 18-18.5 MPG going 75-85mph cruise controlled. In total I put about 4200-4300 miles on the car in 3.5 weeks and never had the feeling there is a chance that it'll leave me stranded.
Of course, just after I left, Spectre got unlucky and ran something over with the tires, and the pucture is in a spot where it's apparently not fixable.. there goes one tire after just 1 year and <15000 miles. And it turns out the spare wasn't all that great at holding air either. He sourced a replacement on the spot to get it roadworthy again, but the tire will be replaced matching the others eventually, making the current temp-fix the new spare.
Spectre also got an oil change done after I lefet, since someone put alllll of the miles on it..!?
And while I had the fullest intention to not spend ANY money on the car for the forseeable future, ... well you all know how that works. I have a bunch of caddy items on a dedicated list on amazon.com to check for price drops and warehouse deals, and a few days ago I noticed something: The silly fancy electronic distrubutor on the Gen2 LT1, called OptiSpark, is at least by all accounts known to fail. I assume mine is pretty low milage because 2009 crate engine and all, but given prices of $110+ for good OE-style aftermarket parts, $200 for the OEM one, and upwards of $500 for fancy aftermarket (MSD etc), I had a few on my watch list, just in case.. And a few days ago, the Cardone OptiSpark suddenly dropped from $115 to $50. Sold by amazon directly, not a warehouse deal. And the part in question is not just a new one and no refurb, but also the "Cardone Select" line, which comes with lifetime warranty! So.. yeah.. I jumped on that and ordered it. It'll be living in Spectres spare parts corner until it is needed.
And in the same spirit, just today, I spotted thast there was a warehouse deal to be hand on the one piece of front suspension that is not new yet.. a front upper control arm for the passenger side, in this case made by Moog, was listed as "Like new" condition for $40. New price is $86 for this specific one, $75-$100 for the other brands I was watching.
And because I just could not stop myself, I also ordered another item that was on my watchlist for a year today, because it dropped from $195 to $102 with only 1 in stock. And this isn't even something I'm likely to put to use too soon. But I just had to.. I couldn't resist.. What is it you're wondering? I even told Spectre that I spotted that last night.. but didn't buy it and went to bed.. but this morning it was still available, and I just pulled the trigger on it. He still doesn't know, so sshhh.. don't tell him!
It is a Motive Gear Ring and Pinion Set. Gear ratio 3.73, the "Performance" version, since it is allegedly quieter and stronger than the regular one. I picked 3.73 because based on the calculations I did, that will bump the rpm at 80mph from ~2000rpm to ~2400rpm, so not all that bad, while getting it up there noticably swifter. My plan with this though is to get a second full rear axle and rebuild that around this new set. I am not sure I want or need any form of locker in there, because that's a $500 addon that is probably never going to do anything.. outside of nicer burnouts
. For now the plan is either the cheapest or free rearaxle that can be found and just replace everything on it, or aquire a used low milage one with good axle shafts and reseal it while swapping the gears. A disc conversion is also a nice idea, but probably just as financially unviable (custom job required due to special ABS system) for the gained profit and the expected usage. I would like to have the rearend replaced for the next trip, which I hope to be able to do in the spring, but I am reasonably sure that won't happen.
That's it from me for now. The car is almost at 214000 miles now, and given the amount of parts and money invested, ideas of maybe selling it or replacing it with something else that came up just before the trip, are off the table. It's here to stay for a while longer. The next updates are probably going to be things Spectre does to it within the next few month.