Lots of work, but im sure it was worth it in the end. At least that's what i keep telling myself. Really bummed I missed hanging with you all at IA yesterday. Still dont have mine running yet.
Lots of work, but im sure it was worth it in the end. At least that's what i keep telling myself. Really bummed I missed hanging with you all at IA yesterday. Still dont have mine running yet.
I kept looking for you. You could've showed up in whatever you brung; we had a Hatch and a Del Sol with us all day. I know you wanted to have the Wagon running by then, though.
Well, it's that time of year again. That joyous time of year when the state assesses it's annual penalty for owning a car. So in belated preparation for renewing Dory 's registration I got her tested for emissions. And failed. Same thing as last year; high numbers for NOX. So the universal catalytic converter I bought last year is toasted. Time for another.
But since this is the last year I'll need to get her tested (yay for 25 year old cars!) I don't want to spend a lot of money on a catalytic converter that I'll only "need" for a few more months. As it happens, bam-bam has a slightly used catalytic converter and I'm hoping that she'll test "clean" (or at least clean enough).
ETA: The converter bam installed is from an automagic EG so it's about 1 3/8" too long. My research suggests the manual trans EG specs a converter that's got the same dimensions. (The MagnaFlow website specs the same part number for a manual EF and manual EG.) It's kind of straining the exhaust hangers so I might just have to relieve that pressure somehow...
My mailbox post rotted away so I jumped in the wagon and after a quick trip to Home Despot and <$10 in supplies I was back to digging a hole.
Plumb...
...and trimmed and ready to go!
Dory took us to Cub Scout camp (Spook-O-Ree) and I had to drive through a ditch to park. Try that in your lowered wagos!
I found myself at BamTech through circumstance and finally took care of the nagging coolant leak I've been limping around with all summer. bam-bam, doing the skilled labor, replaced the water pump, Alternator belt, Power Steering belt, and timing belt. I changed the oil.
While we were working on the other end of the car Kali, Destroyer of Worlds, curled up for a nap on the quilt in the hatch.
Winter precipitation happened in Atlanta. I was lucky in that my boss sent us home at mid day. One sister-in-law (pebbles) spent 8.5 hours getting home and another sister-in-law spent 13.5 hours getting home.
This is the ski jump that my driveway turns into. The last time it was like this I was driving a 1.5 ton minivan and had no traction from the far right of this picture until where you can see pavement out there in the cul de sac. This is just part of why I like to park pointing out toward the street.
3rd4ce was telling me I ought to post a picture of my wagon covered in snow. So here's a picture of my wagon, covered, in snow. Covered parking does not suck!
i hope everyone is safe up there .... I wish i was there with Scrappy the last big snow storm up in Virginia i was running a shuttle service .... (no joke ) no one ever laughed @ my multicolored rt again as i passed everyone taking/rescuing coworkers to safety..
and of coarse having fun doing it most of the time side ways .... LoL
We ended up having to pull insane shifts at work. I personally did 34 hours straight. All spent in a FWD Taurus. We helped get a lot of people get back on their way. Definitely the worst I've seen in the ~12 years I've been here.
Out and about during our recent winter weather follies.
Getting groceries.
Planning a little road trip with the kids, I picked up a power inverter to run their electronic goodies. Reading up on its care and feeding gave me to understand that if one were planning to run more than one item at a time it should be connected to the battery instead of the cigarette lighter. After checking several sources I couldnt find a good length of heavy gauge wire meant to handle power (not audio) for a reasonable price.
So where do you find heavy gauge wire made to handle a stiff power draw? This brand new set of 10 gauge booster cables were $15. This was cheaper than the speaker wire and tailor made for carrying electrons.
So what will we need? Wire stripping pliers, 10 gauge terminals to fit the posts of the inverter and larger terminals to connect to larger bolts under the hood. Somewhere on the table is my soldering iron to go with the solder, etc.
This is always the hardest part of modifying a product to suit your purposes: cutting up a perfectly good set of jumper cables. In fact, I think this is a better set of cables than I carry in the back of the wagon. But cut them I did and the only way through is forward!
I mustve gotten my hands full because I didnt take any pictures of putting on the terminals. I crimped them on tight and followed with solder. And even though these terminals are insulated I knew I was going to be heating them up so I had planned to wrap the connections with heat-shrink tubing. Its green because thats what I had on hand and available.
And thats as far as I got last night.
After another search for a wire hanger I bent it straight and taped the end to the wire.
I chose a spot where other cables are going through the firewall.
I also realize now I didnt get pictures of where I routed the cable under the carpet. It runs along the side of the center tunnel and out the hole at the right seat post. Here we go with my clever color-coding. Red goes to red, black to black.
Back under the hood, the red wire connects to the positive side of the battery,,,
and the black to the negative side. Rather than connect to the battery posts I tied onto posts that are tied directly to the battery. The red wire is connected to the starter where it gets its power from the battery and the black wire is tied to the clutch cable bracket where the battery is grounded,
And the green light means Ive left all the smoke inside the wires!
dude that is a really good idea.
where did you get the converter from?
My trips are constantly dad can I have the battery back up for my phone.
My wife and I keep a duracell battery back up that has a usb out for quick charges on the phones.
Thanks guys! This inverter was one of two at Walmart but when I was buying the booster cables at Northern I saw a comparable unit for $5 less ($35 instead of $40). If I had it to do over I'd get the inverter at Northern because they have a MUCH wider selection. They have units up through at least 1200W and everything else I ended up needing to complete the install. Turns out bam has all the bits and bobs I needed but he's road tripping and I need to be going North about the time he returns from the South. All told, this install was about $66 including materials. [$40 inverter, $15 booster cables, $11 terminal connectors]
Is your battery back up just for the electronics or one of those battery packs you can use to give yourself a boost if your battery is too flat to start the car? I've always been curious about those considering how many times I've had bum a boost.
I know folks will say I'm jumping on the bandWAGON here but I swear DRMORTY and I had a conversation about this at IA last year. But he did beat me to the punch in actually getting it done, so hats off to him!
My idea of oversized wheels and tires is bucking the trend for road-going wagons. Most want to scrape over bumps and risk damage to their nether regions. So I while I "want" an RT4WD I realize that it's not what I need for the driving I do. That leaves me with a slightly tall wagon and I figured that called for custom decals. So I contacted the best source for custom wagon decals: prennro. Thanks for hooking me up with the custom cut vinyl!
Comments
Rocking the on-curb parking at the school open house. Tall tires, FTW!
Well, it's that time of year again. That joyous time of year when the state assesses it's annual penalty for owning a car. So in belated preparation for renewing Dory 's registration I got her tested for emissions. And failed. Same thing as last year; high numbers for NOX. So the universal catalytic converter I bought last year is toasted. Time for another.
But since this is the last year I'll need to get her tested (yay for 25 year old cars!) I don't want to spend a lot of money on a catalytic converter that I'll only "need" for a few more months. As it happens, bam-bam has a slightly used catalytic converter and I'm hoping that she'll test "clean" (or at least clean enough).
ETA: The converter bam installed is from an automagic EG so it's about 1 3/8" too long. My research suggests the manual trans EG specs a converter that's got the same dimensions. (The MagnaFlow website specs the same part number for a manual EF and manual EG.) It's kind of straining the exhaust hangers so I might just have to relieve that pressure somehow...
And here's the proof of the pudding! Dory's legal again and has passed her last emissions test!
That is what I'm gonna do with mine.
I just need to smash the middle out of it.
One Hi-Flow cat, coming up!
It was pretty much dark when I got done.
Now, I just need to get it re-installed.
My mailbox post rotted away so I jumped in the wagon and after a quick trip to Home Despot and <$10 in supplies I was back to digging a hole.
Plumb...
...and trimmed and ready to go!
Dory took us to Cub Scout camp (Spook-O-Ree) and I had to drive through a ditch to park. Try that in your lowered wagos!
I found myself at BamTech through circumstance and finally took care of the nagging coolant leak I've been limping around with all summer. bam-bam, doing the skilled labor, replaced the water pump, Alternator belt, Power Steering belt, and timing belt. I changed the oil.
While we were working on the other end of the car Kali, Destroyer of Worlds, curled up for a nap on the quilt in the hatch.
They wont pick it up without correct stamps.
It was higher...
This is the ski jump that my driveway turns into. The last time it was like this I was driving a 1.5 ton minivan and had no traction from the far right of this picture until where you can see pavement out there in the cul de sac. This is just part of why I like to park pointing out toward the street.
3rd4ce was telling me I ought to post a picture of my wagon covered in snow. So here's a picture of my wagon, covered, in snow. Covered parking does not suck!
Ended up crashing at a buddies house in Alpharetta.
Left her house at noon yesterday to drive down hwy92. Looked like walkingdead scene with all the cars littered along the road.
Wagon did great just idled along. Saw cars spinning out etc. Wished for an RT version on the icy hills where guys were spinning their big truck tires.
and of coarse having fun doing it most of the time side ways .... LoL
Out and about during our recent winter weather follies.
Getting groceries.
Planning a little road trip with the kids, I picked up a power inverter to run their electronic goodies. Reading up on its care and feeding gave me to understand that if one were planning to run more than one item at a time it should be connected to the battery instead of the cigarette lighter. After checking several sources I couldnt find a good length of heavy gauge wire meant to handle power (not audio) for a reasonable price.
So where do you find heavy gauge wire made to handle a stiff power draw? This brand new set of 10 gauge booster cables were $15. This was cheaper than the speaker wire and tailor made for carrying electrons.
So what will we need? Wire stripping pliers, 10 gauge terminals to fit the posts of the inverter and larger terminals to connect to larger bolts under the hood. Somewhere on the table is my soldering iron to go with the solder, etc.
This is always the hardest part of modifying a product to suit your purposes: cutting up a perfectly good set of jumper cables. In fact, I think this is a better set of cables than I carry in the back of the wagon. But cut them I did and the only way through is forward!
I mustve gotten my hands full because I didnt take any pictures of putting on the terminals. I crimped them on tight and followed with solder. And even though these terminals are insulated I knew I was going to be heating them up so I had planned to wrap the connections with heat-shrink tubing. Its green because thats what I had on hand and available.
And thats as far as I got last night.
After another search for a wire hanger I bent it straight and taped the end to the wire.
I chose a spot where other cables are going through the firewall.
I also realize now I didnt get pictures of where I routed the cable under the carpet. It runs along the side of the center tunnel and out the hole at the right seat post. Here we go with my clever color-coding. Red goes to red, black to black.
Back under the hood, the red wire connects to the positive side of the battery,,,
and the black to the negative side. Rather than connect to the battery posts I tied onto posts that are tied directly to the battery. The red wire is connected to the starter where it gets its power from the battery and the black wire is tied to the clutch cable bracket where the battery is grounded,
And the green light means Ive left all the smoke inside the wires!
where did you get the converter from?
My trips are constantly dad can I have the battery back up for my phone.
My wife and I keep a duracell battery back up that has a usb out for quick charges on the phones.
Is your battery back up just for the electronics or one of those battery packs you can use to give yourself a boost if your battery is too flat to start the car? I've always been curious about those considering how many times I've had bum a boost.
ETA: cost break down; my wording was misleading.
Sent ya a text about the battery pack.
My idea of oversized wheels and tires is bucking the trend for road-going wagons. Most want to scrape over bumps and risk damage to their nether regions. So I while I "want" an RT4WD I realize that it's not what I need for the driving I do. That leaves me with a slightly tall wagon and I figured that called for custom decals. So I contacted the best source for custom wagon decals: prennro. Thanks for hooking me up with the custom cut vinyl!
Just saying.....
they look really good.
But, Sure Looks Good...