After the race weekend full of overheating, I had about 6 weeks 'til the next race. Plenty of time. Well, except I had a pesky 4 weeks of work/vacation in Australia in the middle. So the plan was simple: pull the head from the car, send it to a machine shop, go to Australia and come back, then reinstall the head in the week before the race. Things all went according to plan, sort of.
I pulled the head off the car and found a head gasket in pretty bad shape. Here's a coupla pics of the valve train and the cylinders:
For some reason I didn't take pictures of the head? Beats me, that was a while ago.
At the recommendation of Ramon at Bavarian Motorsport, I sent the head out to Memphis Motorwerks all the way across the country. Shipping 70lbs of aluminum across the country is no small task. Ramon recommended that I build a crate and ship it in that. I wasn't looking forward to that, so I decided to buy the biggest cooler I could find for $30, and ship it in that. It worked out surprisingly well, with the exception of UPS charing me $11 for non-standard packing (wtf? it had handles!). I wish I had taken a picture of my cooler pack job masterpiece, but I did not.
With the head shipped off to the machine shop, I went to Australia and did 2 weeks of work. I talked to the machine shop on the phone and got them to do what I wanted (new rocker arms), then I was de-stressed during a relaxing 2 weeks of vacation.
Here are few photos from Australia:
The Karmann Ghia was parked out on the end of a pier in Sydney, and the ambulance with the snorkel was super cool in downtown Sydney. I now have an affinity for taking pictures of ambulances while abroad. I guess ambulance ownership does that to you. Not bad pics for a
When I returned to the states, the rebuilt head was waiting for me inside a familiar looking cooler shaped package. In a bout of what may have been temporary insanity, I also took an oncall shift for work right after I got off a plane from Australia. This threw my week for a loop, delayed some stuff, and I ended up cleaning up the block and other things on Tuesday. Here are some pics of the cleaned up block (too much work) and the clean valve train (post head gasket install):
At the recommendation of Ramon at Bavarian Motorsport, I sent the head out to Memphis Motorwerks all the way across the country. Shipping 70lbs of aluminum across the country is no small task. Ramon recommended that I build a crate and ship it in that. I wasn't looking forward to that, so I decided to buy the biggest cooler I could find for $30, and ship it in that. It worked out surprisingly well, with the exception of UPS charing me $11 for non-standard packing (wtf? it had handles!). I wish I had taken a picture of my cooler pack job masterpiece, but I did not.
With the head shipped off to the machine shop, I went to Australia and did 2 weeks of work. I talked to the machine shop on the phone and got them to do what I wanted (new rocker arms), then I was de-stressed during a relaxing 2 weeks of vacation.
Here are few photos from Australia:
The Karmann Ghia was parked out on the end of a pier in Sydney, and the ambulance with the snorkel was super cool in downtown Sydney. I now have an affinity for taking pictures of ambulances while abroad. I guess ambulance ownership does that to you. Not bad pics for a
When I returned to the states, the rebuilt head was waiting for me inside a familiar looking cooler shaped package. In a bout of what may have been temporary insanity, I also took an oncall shift for work right after I got off a plane from Australia. This threw my week for a loop, delayed some stuff, and I ended up cleaning up the block and other things on Tuesday. Here are some pics of the cleaned up block (too much work) and the clean valve train (post head gasket install):
Of course, none of my projects can be done without a few hitches. The head came back missing one of the studs for the thermostat housing. A trip to Pick N Pull netted the stud I needed. Second, I wasted a ton of time looking for a 3M bristle disc. I eventually gave up on that and got a knock off from OSH. By this point it was Thursday, and the head wasn't on the car. I ended up installing it late into Thursday night, which then bled into Friday morning to try to make the race that weekend. Around 3pm on Friday I finally buttoned everything back up and was ready to fire up the car.
There's nothing like the anxiety of firing up the car after having done such invasive surgery on the motor. It's the climax of anticipation from a long project. That's when the little scared voice in the back of your head starts talking. Did I tighten every host clamp? Maybe I overtightened something? Did I reconnect every wire? There are so many little things that could go wrong... which one did I overlook?
I turned the key.
To my delight, the car fired right up. The idle was a little rough, but quickly evened out to a nice e30 bauble. I was extremely pleased.
I sprung from the driver's seat to survey my magnificent handiwork. The new exhaust manifold gaskets were smoking a little, not a big deal. Then I spotted it. Coolant dripping down the front of the block. "TURN THE CAR OFF NOW" I shouted in my head. My heart sunk as I killed the ignition. I looked around enough to ascertain it was "just the water pump". I guess I should have been happy that it wasn't something worse at that point, but I wasn't. The new water pump that I had just replaced was now leaking coolant. I was mad. It was 4pm on Friday, my car was pissing coolant, and I was mad. And exhausted. Definitely exhausted.
I gave it up, took a shower, and headed to a going away party for a collegue at work. On the way, I picked up a water pump gasket from the $tealer for $6. I hung out at the party, mighty grumpy, and I decided I wasn't going to race the next day. My head just wasn't in the right place, and there's no way I'd be in the physical shape required to race. I'd get a good night's rest, wake up in the morning renewed, sort out the water pump (hope it was just a gasket), and drive up to race on Sunday.
Saturday morning I woke up, took everything off the front of the motor to get to the water pump, and found that I was a bit careless in removing the old gasket 5 weeks prior. There was a piece of old gasket cemented to the block in a corner. I had to scrape it with a razor blade for a good 20 minutes to get it all off, and I probably went a little overboard making sure the surface was prepped, but in the end I reinstalled it all and my car was running around noon on Saturday.
I wish I could say I went to race on Sunday, but I didn't.
I ended up making one of those hard decisions that I hate making as a grown up. Early Saturday morning I spied a car on Craigslist that would be perfect for the 24Hrs of LeMons. I called the guy in between turning wrenches, and we agreed to meet up at 2. I knew that if I was going to buy that car, it'd be better to skip the race weekend altogether to maintain a sane racing budget. Long story short, I bought the car. I had to be responsible and skip a race I could've attended to do it.
I missed the spec e30 crew that weekend, and I hear everyone had a good time. But I've got a new car now:
It needs, of all things, a headgasket.
There's nothing like the anxiety of firing up the car after having done such invasive surgery on the motor. It's the climax of anticipation from a long project. That's when the little scared voice in the back of your head starts talking. Did I tighten every host clamp? Maybe I overtightened something? Did I reconnect every wire? There are so many little things that could go wrong... which one did I overlook?
I turned the key.
To my delight, the car fired right up. The idle was a little rough, but quickly evened out to a nice e30 bauble. I was extremely pleased.
I sprung from the driver's seat to survey my magnificent handiwork. The new exhaust manifold gaskets were smoking a little, not a big deal. Then I spotted it. Coolant dripping down the front of the block. "TURN THE CAR OFF NOW" I shouted in my head. My heart sunk as I killed the ignition. I looked around enough to ascertain it was "just the water pump". I guess I should have been happy that it wasn't something worse at that point, but I wasn't. The new water pump that I had just replaced was now leaking coolant. I was mad. It was 4pm on Friday, my car was pissing coolant, and I was mad. And exhausted. Definitely exhausted.
I gave it up, took a shower, and headed to a going away party for a collegue at work. On the way, I picked up a water pump gasket from the $tealer for $6. I hung out at the party, mighty grumpy, and I decided I wasn't going to race the next day. My head just wasn't in the right place, and there's no way I'd be in the physical shape required to race. I'd get a good night's rest, wake up in the morning renewed, sort out the water pump (hope it was just a gasket), and drive up to race on Sunday.
Saturday morning I woke up, took everything off the front of the motor to get to the water pump, and found that I was a bit careless in removing the old gasket 5 weeks prior. There was a piece of old gasket cemented to the block in a corner. I had to scrape it with a razor blade for a good 20 minutes to get it all off, and I probably went a little overboard making sure the surface was prepped, but in the end I reinstalled it all and my car was running around noon on Saturday.
I wish I could say I went to race on Sunday, but I didn't.
I ended up making one of those hard decisions that I hate making as a grown up. Early Saturday morning I spied a car on Craigslist that would be perfect for the 24Hrs of LeMons. I called the guy in between turning wrenches, and we agreed to meet up at 2. I knew that if I was going to buy that car, it'd be better to skip the race weekend altogether to maintain a sane racing budget. Long story short, I bought the car. I had to be responsible and skip a race I could've attended to do it.
I missed the spec e30 crew that weekend, and I hear everyone had a good time. But I've got a new car now:
It needs, of all things, a headgasket.
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