stripethree

Go to SIR for autox this morning at it-way-too-early-on-Sunday (630 am departure).
Work the first heat.
Run the second heat.
First run, come back, front driver tire is holding less pressure than I set it at before going out. No way this should happen with temps in the 90s.
Then I hear it. The ominous hissing of air escaping the tire. I ran over something on that run that punctured it, dead center of the tread. That’s a wrap, one and done.
I also happened not to have a spare with me, which will never happen again, now.

Managed to limp the car home, thank goodness this event was in Tucson. Now time to see what one of the Monte Carlo wheels looks like on the car. At least the AZBR SCCA folks were kind enough to offer a refund of my entry fee as well as multiple offers to codrive. Good people.

Since it seems I can’t get through a month’s worth of events without something going wrong, I am thinking I might take a break from autocross and sleep in on more Sundays because this is just frustrating and it’s outweighing the fun. At least the Phoenix event two weekends ago went well, aside from getting my ass handed to me.

Being the awesome boyfriend that I am, I went out Sunday afternoon to take care of the 5k service on Kharissa’s car so she didn’t have to worry about it when she gets back. Oil change and tire rotation, simple enough.

Hahahaha, wait, we’re working on a Volkswagen right? Murphy’s Law bitch!

Needless to say, I’d heard stories of over-torqued 1.8T oil filters from the factory, especially on the first change where the original filter is torqued by fucking Mothra at the assembly plant. I can now say I’ve experience this phenomenon to its fullest effect. Removing it by hand, ha, I wish. Even had Ted ‘you’ll be a better man that I if you can get this off’ curse and throw muscle at it, no go. Got Advance Auto parts in on the show, but the best tool they had started to shred the filter before it would move it. Since we were at ‘no turning back’ defcon 3 phase now that the filter was leaking, it was time for the tried and true method of driving a screw driver into the damn thing with a hammer. The oil filter laughed at me, and owned my screw driver.

Put in a call to the Uber Matt. He brings, and I quote, ‘tools of destruction’, and we eventually get the fucker undone. It ends up mangled.

Moral of the story?

That is all.

To say yesterday did not go well, would be an understatement. The goal was to get brake lines and a skid plate on my car, the same aftermarket brake lines, a Haldex upgrade, and control arms on another R32, and help fix a headlight switch in a Scirocco if needed.

First thing to go wrong: me, being a dumbass, missed the jack point and screw up my passenger side pinch rail. Ooops. Get the car in the air, figure out how to put in all the brake lines; took a lot of time, but went okay. It’d get done a lot quicker know that we know what to do. Car stays up while we go to put in the skid plate. Get all the supports and rivnuts in, plate doesn’t line up. Spent way too long trying to figure out what was the deal, and it looks like one of the rivnuts is partially stripped and needs to be drilled out. Fabulous. So we bleed the brakes, put the wheels on and bring the car down. Oh wait, but the floor jack broke, so getting the car down, took an hour of ingenuity that involved the stock jack, a ramp, and some concrete slabs from the garden. Then while testing the brakes in the driveway, I notice the pedal goes to the floor, not good. This is soon followed by a ‘STOP, Brake Failure’ message flashing before me. Great. The driver’s side rear line wasn’t tight enough and so the car pissed brake fluid like an untrained puppy. Tighten the line, re-bleed the rears (which is a pain when the car is down) and all is well. Driving around I hear a repetitive clicking, a nail in my passenger front tire. Oh, and I forgot that while trying to do the skid plate, I discovered my car is leaking oil at the drain plug. It’s very slow, I lost less than a half-quart over 6k miles, but still, one more thing to have to address later.

Due to the floor jack not working properly, we could not do control arms or brake lines on the other car. That sucked. The Haldex got in, and the light switch on the Rocco got fixed, so the the day was not a total wash. That entire fiasco took 7 hours though. S-e-v-e-n. Today I get to work on a project for a useless class in the grad program I am thinking of leaving.

This weekend needs a do-over.