Marriage

OK, this isn't about cars.
I got married last week, to my awesome Lisa.
She's no longer my girlfriend, no longer my fiancee.
She's now my WIFE.
My kind of crazy, I look forward to making her happy for the rest of our lives and beyond :)

Happy Birthday to me!

That's right, it's my birthday.
Where did the time go? A few days ago I was a young kid playing in the streets with my friends, and now I'm quickly getting to my mid-40's, with pains in all kinds of places.
But.
I have a beautiful fiancee, a beautiful house, a 700-horsepower Mustang in the garage, and I just finished a Web Design certificate program at the local college, so now I'm back in the job market.
So, today is the first day of the rest of my life.
Bring it on!

Washed away the rust

Nothing like driving through a puddle and having the water wash away whatever rust was holding your exhaust together.
That's exactly what happened to my fiancee and I a few days ago, as we were driving our '03 Subaru Forested, 186,000 miles on it and counting, original exhaust apparently waiting for the right puddle to wash it off the car!
Car's quiet, go through the puddle, car's loud. We both look at each other with the most awesome "WTF?" looks on our faces. When it's safe to do so, we pull over, look under the car, nothing hanging low, so we can at least get it home and check it out the next morning.
That time comes, I start it cold, THREE leaks make their existence known.
Pretty much every connection point from the catalytic converter back, plus an extra hole in the side of a pipe, just for good measure.
Good thing I'm crafty and don't mind turning wrenches!
A quick search on craigslist and I find someone selling a brand-new Subaru exhaust for $150, and it was even the RIGHT ONE for the car!
A little more hardware from the local auto parts store, a few hours of battling 14-year-old rusted hardware under the car, and the car's quiet again, and for a fraction of the cost that would've been if we had gone to a muffler shop or the dealer (we had gotten quotes before and the lowest one was about $700, parts/labor total).
Woo-hoo!

Make it whine!

Supercharger whine at full throttle. It can be an intoxicating sound, something you just want to keep making happen, especially when it's accompanied by fierce acceleration, tires scrambling for traction, and that awesome sensation of being pushed into the seat.
Got to enjoy all of this yesterday morning on the way back from school, in my Whipple-supercharged '13 Mustang GT:

And I'm now here looking at the video, wishing that I was doing that again instead of looking out the window at the snow coming down. Oh well, there'll be another dry day again soon, and for sure there will be some more Whipple whine going on :)

Little bit of rust

I recently did a little bit of maintenance on my fiancee's 2003 Subaru Forester.
The front and rear stabilizer bar bushings had seen some better days, but after 13 tough New England winters they were loose, worn, and dry-rotted, which all combined for some nice clunks over bumps.
Decision was made to put in some new ones.
Easy job in the back of the car, where one bolt per side gets removed to remove/replace each bushing.
In the front ..... well ..... Subaru had a different idea.
Apparently, blocking access to the bolts/nuts that hold the front bushing brackets in place with some long subframe connectors that each is secured with EIGHT long bolts, apparently that was the winning idea of how to arrange that area under the car.
So yeah ... lots of penetrating oil, lots of swears, lots of time backing out each bolt a little, screwing it back in, cleaning up rust off threads, spraying more penetrating oil, and more out/in with each bolt.
Couple of hours later the new bushings were in and I was ready to do the rears.
The rear bushing replacement was not originally part of the plan, but thanks to the "awesome" computer system that the local auto parts store has, we ended up with rear bushings when we asked for fronts. So, in the middle of working on the front, I had to take a quick run over to the local Subaru dealer for actual FRONT bushings.
A blessing in disguise, as it turns out, since upon removal I found that the rear bushings had basically become petrified rubber, that had rust caked into it by this point.
A picture's always worth a gazillion words, so here's an old and a new front bushings, clearly showing how worn the old one had become, compared to the tight new piece:

And my favorite ... one of the rears shortly after removal, next to its bracket, with some of the rust that I brushed off from inside the bracket and off the old bushing:

So, new bushings installed, the car rides beautiful, nice and quiet again, with newfound cornering prowess, totally fooling anyone that just looks at it as just a 14-year old wagon.
And after the engine rebuild I did on it a year ago, it seems ready for another 180,000 miles.

Do YOU have an older car you keep wrenching on?