Getting ALL My Saturns in a Triangle

Ever notice that if you have three of anything, unless they are in a perfectly straight line, they always form a perfect triangle???

So, here we are, almost three months after I picked up Saturn 3. Before the first week was out, I'd made a couple of lists, the first of parts I was going to remove from Baby before bidding her a fond adieu, the second of things to fix on Saturn 3. Up to this past weekend, still hadn't gotten to everything. Over the weekend, finally put Baby back together, with the primary intent of just getting her out of the driveway to do an oil change, secondary intent to send her off to her final resting place. Registration is due next month. All that was required was to put the accessory drive belt back on, and the upper motor mount I'd removed to make that easier. Of course, I'd forgotten that it gave me a hard time and I'd loosened up the A/C compressor to make it easier, and after putting the belt and mount on, that was sitting cocked. While I was at it, I pulled off the driving lights I'd replaced the factory units with around six months ago, as well as the mounts I'd fabbed up. Both of them had cracked lenses already, which I didn't notice until I had them off!!! Also pulled out the radio, it's a pretty good one, the only one I've ever had with HD radio.

I think it was the first or second weekend I had her that I swapped the rims from Baby to 3, and got two of the tires on Scruffy (the name that actually kind of has stuck for the Family Truckster wagon) changed to the alloys that had been on 3. It was at least a month before I got the other two done, but that's done. Around a month after I'd got her, I also swapped the front rotors between Baby and 3, the ones on 3 were warped and it would shimmy like crazy under moderate to hard braking. Took the ceramic pads with about a year of wear on them, too. Around a month and a half in, I swapped the 512 Labs tailpipe onto 3, and WOW, it's a game changer in the mileage department!!! I'd been getting under 27 MPG, and the conversion has bumped it up to SOLID 30.5 MPG at least!!! I'd been wanting to fabricate a whole new one with a cool tip I'd made up years ago, and was doing the swap at my parent's house, but I couldn't get it to come together. Want to put one of 'em on Scruffy, it gets similar lackluster mileage. I'm fairly convinced it's the exhaust ports, which have been undersized in the last few years of production. I would love to find someone with the earlier engine and manual tranny who tracks their mileage and have them do one of these pipes and see how it does!!! That same day I was helping my dad put a disc brake conversion on his Studebaker. Took several weeks to get that done, too, but the results were similarly stellar.

Don't know if I've ever mentioned, but I got myself a dashcam with reverse camera with some birthday money around the end of last year, and had to pull that out, along with a halogen back up light I'd installed. The longer I drive it, the more I want that rig in 3. A few weeks back, I also swapped the rear drums from Baby to Scruffy, as she had one that was cut pretty deep. Let me see, what else??? Pretty early on, I swapped all the speakers out, and it sounds much better!!! The lock switch was another thing fixed early on. I had a K&N air filter element in Baby that I swapped over, but I've never been that impressed with it. Only two things I haven't gotten are the seat covers (which are pretty old, but I really like the style) and the sunroof. The sunroof on Baby works, but it's not smooth. There's a company that does a rebuild with aluminum glides on an exchange basis, not especially cheap, but I think it's money well spent, and will keep me from taking the roof apart twice. Got the keys changed to all on one, for a reasonable sum of $50. I replaced a burnt out driving light bulb, and swapped the map lights from Baby to 3, as well as the windshield wipers. I attempted to de-haze the headlights, but they're pretty bad. One of these days I'll try again, but I'm considering getting some reflective window tint and seeing how that looks on them. Window tint is another on the to-do list, still, but it doesn't bother me from inside, just looks bad from the outside. 3 has a rock chip right at the edge of the field of vision, and that's more of a bother. Not something that was on my original list, but it's there now. Scruffy and the Falcon both have rock chips, too, and I'm hoping I could get a multi discount.

Oh yeah, that oil change... went pretty smoothly, but while I was down there I discovered a brake fluid leak. Might be just a sealing washer where the hose connects to the caliper (that's kind of how it looked, so I replaced it to see how it does) but if it's not, I've got another... or, it's not that pricey to buy a rebuild.

We were driving Scruffy around last Friday, and she started shifting really hard, like a slam shift. Ugggggh, here we go again!!! Well, at least I've got my own parts car!!! A little looking around on the webs, and I discover that there is a solenoid in the valve body that wears out and causes this symptom. Well, Baby's trans has never had a hiccup (except the time the tensioner went out and the charging system wasn't getting enough juice) so I'm assuming it's good in her. On Sunday I yanked the whole valve body out of her, a not especially difficult task.

I wasn't aware that, of all those bolts, only 11 of them actually hold the valve body in!!! So, unfortunately, I ended up splitting the thing in two, and I though I lost one of the little balls between the bottom half and the plate in the middle. I'm pretty sure it just rolled to the wrong spot, and I think I got it back where it goes. There were two springs, and I think the balls go on top of these.

I hope.

Of course, had to work on Monday, but it occurred to me that I've got a bunch of unscheduled vacation days and the year is near half over. Being as it's not a huge vacation season right now, I should be able to get a day off this week to finish this off. My first choice was for today, and they came through with it, so that's what I did today. Pulled Scruffy apart and then put her back together, and then put Baby back together. Success!!!