The Return to the Junkyard

It's been a long while since I've made a junkyard run. The last time was when we'd just bought Kutcher. This time, I brought along surrogate son, it was his first time. He enjoyed it, there are a lot of cars to see, and in various states of disassembley.

The trip was prompted by our Catalina vacation. Last year, I'd borrowed my mom's car to be able to transport four, our luggage, and my wife's wheelchair. That plan was torpedoed by Gretchen's Automotive (where elder financial abuse is the name of the game, the epitome of shady mechanics) and we ended up having another friend give us a ride to the landing. This year, I'd checked with another friend who has a Honda Pilot to see if we could swap cars for the week, and that was the plan. Incidentally, it was the same friend who was going to take care of the cat while we were out. Around a week before, surrogate's mom offered to drive us, instead. She's got a mini van, so it shouldn't be a problem. The morning that we were leaving, her van was acting up, and unbeknownst to us, she contacted the friend with the Pilot to borrow it to take us, instead. Pulled up in the Pilot, and we were like, “huh, she's here to feed the cat kind of early”, then we got it figured out. Went out to load our stuff, and tried to open the hatch, and it wasn't opening. Pulled harder, and the handle came off!!! The junkyard had two on the lot that could have the correct handle, so that was the main objective.

First off, there were a couple of classics there, first up was a Olds Toronado!!! Always thought they were a cool car. A few days later I was driving with surrogate in the car, and he spotted one parked on the side of the road, and was able to identify it right off!!! It was a proud moment.

And a Ford Galaxie. Not much left, but that front bumper looks like it's in great shape, probably worth a good amount to the person who needs one!!! There was also a VW Squareback, and an old Ford truck that I didn't get a look at.

I've long had the idea to put a couple of white stripes on Scruffy, and call it the skunk mobile. My beard grows with black in the middle and white stripes on the outside, so I'm already Skunk Man!!! Anyway, someone beat me to it, and got the plates to go with it!!!

Found the first Pilot, and it was already missing the handle. I'd seen one on Ebay for something like $160, so I was thinking it was a hot item, and might be resellable for a decent amount. Found the second one, and it was still on it. Success!!!

The back glass and inside panel were already removed, so the hatch was up and wouldn't stay down without the extra weight. I was wondering how I was going to do it, but I was able to unscrew the two nuts, and stand up on the back through the window opening and pop the press in fasteners off. It was the wrong color, but the recipient is black, so I was able to color match it fairly well with a spray can.

Anyway, I was in the trucks, vans, and SUV area, and spotted a Pontiac front end. Core memory unlocked!!! I recalled that, when I was swapping gauges in 3, I'd read that the Pontiac Torrent, a rebadge of the Chevy Equinox, had another compatible instrument panel, with another different look!!!

Looking back, I realize that I didn't have any shots of the original Saturn gauges, so I took a day and night shot of it before it was removed this time.

The Torrent instrument panel has the chrome bezels like the white face Vue gauges had, but with black gauges with a gray perimeter. Goes nicely with the aesthetic of Scruffy, I think.

The night illumination is where it really shines, pun intended!!! Red glow. Bonus, no check engine light with this set up, only the ABS light is illuminated, since it doesn't have it. Unfortunately, didn't check the illumination before I had it all the way in, and the center sections weren't lighting up. After a bit of driving, though, one of the sides came on, so it's only got one un lit area now. I feel like there were never that many out there, so it's something of a rare instrument panel.

Another fairly high priority item, Scruffy had lost the driver's side plate that holds the bumper onto the pins. There wasn't the correct year there, but I got one off the second generation, hoping that it was a part that wasn't changed. It was.

Back when I had the instrument panel apart on Kutcher for the stupid check engine light, I had unknowingly somehow borked the second digit on the odometer. It had the segments for a backwards “7” that don't display. Also, a couple of the illumination LEDs weren't lighting up anymore. Got a replacement for it, too, and it's really nice having it back!!! Got rid of the bright white check engine light, too.

Something that's always bugged me on Kutcher, though, is the damned dent on the front of the hood. Compounded, the clear coat on the hood has started coming off, so it's looking pretty bad. I picked up a reasonably straight hood while we were there, too.

My original plan was to just primer it black and let it ride thus. I sanded it down, sprayed some gray high build primer, took some glazing putty to a couple of spots with bad rock dings and scrapes, primed some more, sanded it smooth (all the while doing similar with the Pilot handle). Finally got it to a pretty decent finish. At some point in there, I recalled that back when I had bought the second set of Ion rims for 3, I had bought a can of metallic charcoal paint to try and match the dark that the polished front rims have in the recessed area. It was gone before I ever got a chance to use it, so it was still around. Dug it out, and sprayed a test sample. The color isn't really close to the body panels, but it is very close to the faded bumpers!!! I surveyed the family, and they said I should go for it. Fortunately, there was enough in the can to cover it completely!!!

Another minor annoyance, one of the wheel center caps had gone missing not very long after we bought it. I was looking for the same style, but none of the Matrices (Matrii???) had the aluminum rims with them. I did find a cap that ended up fitting. Doesn't match the others, but it's decent!!!

One Headlight

When we got my wife's car (Kutcher) most of the systems worked fine. The dome lights worked for a little, but then stopped working. I picked up some replacements from the junkyard, and one of these days I'll get around to putting them in... If I can locate them again!!! I went looking for them a while ago, and didn't find them.

Not long after we'd got it, one of the headlight bulbs burned out. I pulled it out, it was a Sylvania Silver Star, and replaced it with one that I had from my bag of light bulbs, quite possibly one that had been in 3. A little after, the other one burned out, as well. It was also a Sylvania Silver Star, and I've made a mental note to never buy that brand!!! Replaced it, and went on for a while with no issues.

After a while, the driver's side burned out again... or so I thought. I tried a different bulb, and it wasn't working either. I messed with the socket, and it would work in certain positions, but not when it was just at rest. OK, bad socket. Picked up a replacement from Auto Zone, and soldered it in place, with heat shrink over the junction. It had heavier wire than the original, and looked like a quality piece. It worked again... once again, for a while.

A few weeks later, it started flickering on and off at random. I checked the bulb again, and the socket still looked fine. Cleaned the socket and contacts, and gave the contacts a little tweak to make better contact, and it was... no worse. I messed with it a little, and it looked like it had a break farther back in the loom. I'd wiggle it, and it would come on. I gave up, and drove it for more than a year with one eye.

Around 6 months ago, I had the idea to get a relay, and make it switched from the passenger side light. I could do both wires, but it's probably just a break on one side, so before I start in, I get my meter out to check which side is flaky. When I check, though, both sides seem like they're good. Huh, was it just another bad socket all this time??? Had a spare Saturn socket, albeit with fairly light gauge wire, and put that in, and once again, it's working fine!!!

For a while, anyway...

A couple months ago, it went out again. When I got around to pulling the bulb out and checking for a burnt out bulb, I discovered the plug was as seen here, burnt and melted!!! I had seen Rock Auto had a high temperature bulb extension socket for not much, so I ordered one. It was shown as a male-female extension, but what arrived was a pair of the plug ends. Soldered one on, and it's working again. Hopefully, it really is high temperature and takes care of the issue for good!!!

Conversely, when I got the Sky, it needed some things done. As I mentioned when I got it, there were several questionable “upgrades” done to Zonker. It had a lot of the lights changed out to LED or xenon bulbs, and other than the low beams, I'd changed 'em all back to conventional lights and got the turn signals working right. Also, the turn signal lever wasn't canceling when I got it, and I replaced it, as well. Also adjusted the coil overs up near stock height, added a bluetooth adapter, and as previously chronicled, got the exhaust quieted down some. Not mentioned, shortly after I'd got it, the check engine light came on, and clearing the codes didn't last, and I've just been driving it as it was and knowing I'd have to do something before smog check time (which is coming up). A little after I'd had the exhaust done, the light turned off on it's own!!! I checked, and the old codes were still in there, so I cleared them, and they haven't come back, so hopefully all it was was the exhaust leak.

The radio antenna was broken off when I got it, and it didn't tune very well because of it. Because of where it's positioned on the rear flank, it is apparently an issue with the Skys, so I got one of the short rubber antennas that had been popular back in the 80's. Made a world of difference in the radio quality. The Monsoon subwoofer speaker cone was detached from the foam surround, and I glued it back into place with some RTV to fix the speaker rattle.

Back to the time when we were having constant red flag days, and the Sky had been moved to the bottom of the hill, as I was getting ready to move it back, I noticed that one of the projector driving lights was missing. Really??? Just missing??? Did someone seriously manage to steal one of my lights???

I opened the hood, and it turned out the light had only been rotated off to the side, but the light bulb itself was just gone, with the plug dangling.

When I finally got some free time, I took the light out to see what happened. Turns out, of the three mounting points, only one was remaining. I checked another mounting point, and the plastic tab was still there. I epoxied it back on, and while I had the light out, I discovered that the bulb and it's metal base were still inside the light!!! The first outside picture shows a big black scrape right below the light hole, I'm pretty sure I smacked a tire tread, and that's probably what broke everything!!!

Upgrades

As with any used car we buy, there's usually a few things that it needed. When we bought it, the paperwork was a mess (honestly that was the thing that gave me the most pause about buying it) and it took quite a bit of going back and forth before it looked like it's squared away. Now that it appears that everything is in order and in process (we still don't have the title in hand, but it appears that we have it all sorted, and have mailed it in and payed it, and the web portal seems to have it cleared) I felt OK going ahead and starting in on a few things.

Last weekend I stopped by the junkyard to see if I could get some of the specific parts. There were 4 Matrixes (Matrii???) and 2 Vibes. The Matrixes were all fairly picked clean, the only thing I could find was a gear shift knob that's not split open. I think the XR designation that ours has, one of the things they come with is leather-wrapped steering wheel and gear shift. The wheel is OK (at least on the leather grip surface, the Toyota logo in the center is badly scratched up) but the gear shift knob is, as I said, split open. The replacement I found is rubberized instead, and worn a bit smooth, but still looks better. When I was pulling it off, it has a little button under the gear change knob to switch the overdrive on and off, and I ended up breaking the wire off figuring that it would have some kind of plug, but saw how to remove that portion and use the one from what's on there.

On to the Vibes, that seems to be the hot ticket if you're looking for parts!!! Found most of the other things on my list on the first one I looked at. The center console is a double unit, with a shallow storage area in the lid, and a deeper portion under that. The lid for the top was not only split open, too, but the hinge is broken. The one I got is in much better shape, but one of the 2 hinge ends is broken. Still better than what was on there. Also, the gear selection indicator was broken on ours, but the Pontiac had one that's still intact, albeit it has some stress cracks showing already. It's a pretty basic piece, so if it ends up going eventually I can probably fabricate something better up. Perhaps I'll have a 3D printer by then, and can do something very stylized. I also got the cover for over the 3rd brake light. It wasn't bad without it, but having it on there gives it a finished look.

It also had both of it's dome lights, something that has never worked on ours. They have the slider switch, which some of the others didn't have. Unfortunately, it didn't cure the problem, so I'm back to the drawing board for those. It also had a very clean steering wheel center that I grabbed. It has the Pontiac logo, of course, but I like the look better. Another thing that's missing is the grille logo. I couldn't find one, but even before I'd gone, I was telling my wife I'd like to find a Scion logo and slap that on the front, because they appear about the right size and it's a Toyota brand, so why not??? I also found out that they had sold the Pontiac styled ones in Japan as Toyota Voltz, with the Pontiac V replaced with a chrome V for Voltz. I looked around to see if I could find some of the badges online for the rear hatch, but no dice. ANyway, found a nice Scion badge, I've got to do a little modification, but the size is right.

I figured it wouldn't be too hard to swap the center console lid and gear shift knob, so I tried doing that last week after work one day. The center console lid was easy, but the shift knob didn't go so well. I was being careful to not break the wires to the switch, but I wasn't able to get it detached. I'm not sure how it's going to go, but I'm thinking of adding a plug under the shift. While I had everything apart, I changed the stereo. The one that was in there was a Dual that cycled through whorehouse colors. AM stations were always terrible on it, too. I might have been able to change the display, but I really don't care much for it, and I had the stereo from 3 that I really like, so in it went. The AM reception is no better, so a new antenna is probably in order. I had been thinking about grabbing a different mast from the junkyard, but never got it on my list, and didn't remember. If the thread is the same, I'll try the one from Scruffy on it sometime and see if it's any better.

Bought a bunch of stuff from Rock Auto, too. Not having had taken a look at the air filter, bought one sight unseen, as well as an activated charcoal cabin air filter. The engine filter looked pretty decent, so I've saved the old one, but the cabin one was filthy, and full of leaves and sticks. That was quite easy to change. Bought wiper blades, the one for the back glass is missing it's rubber completely. I'll probably wait until the weather starts turning to change them, lest they bake in the summer sun. The airbag light on the dash has always been on, and a bit of online sleuthing showed that it's often a part called the clockspring, located directly behind the steering wheel. I'll do that at some point and see if it fixes the issue, and do the center for the steering wheel at the same time. One of these days, we've got to get in touch with a Toyota dealer and see if the Takata air bag recall has been done for it!!! Under moderate to hard braking, it would give the warped rotors (or biuld up on the rotors) feeling, so I bought new rotors and ceramic brake pads. Those went in yesterday, as well as some new fasteners for the under engine panels and the rocker panel extensions. (The one on the passenger side felt like it was barely holding on) One thing that I forgot to mention having removed from Jade on her way out was the horn. I did this because the horn on the Matrix sounds like a little Japanese import car's horn, a little 'beep', while the one in Saturns sounds much bigger than the car it's from, a commanding 'HONK!!!'. I put that in at the same time. I've got a front and rear view dash cam to install someday, and I still need to come up with a decent phone holder!!!

Bool Hunt

All of my nonexistent readers are probably well aware that I end up going to the junkyard on a fairly regular basis. This post will cover a few of those trips, as well as filling in a bit of recent history.

About a month ago, I'd finally gotten Scruffy over to an alignment shop to get the rear tires pointed in the right direction. This is the only car I've ever had where I've had a rear tire wear and alignment issue, probably because nearly all of the cars I've owned have had solid rear axles where alignment isn't a thing. The others not in that category, I haven't messed with the ride height, so there's that. As you can see, they were REALLY worn down for about two years of wear!!! The alignment shop had told me that the camber was still a bit out, but to come back when I'd replaced the tires, with a little advance warning, and they would install a camber kit to correct it. Yesterday I finally got a replacement pair.

Prior to heading over there, on Friday evening, I opened up the back of the two machined look rims I'd picked up, with the idea of getting a full matching set on Scruffy, at which point I realized that the one had a significant abrasion on one opening, where it had peened the metal out, so I decided against using that one, for now. It also had quite a bit of scuffing on other areas, and I took some medium-fine sandpaper and 3M pads to one such area, to see if I could get it looking decent. Looks like all it is is through the clear coat or anodizing, whichever it has. About a half hour's work, and it came out looking quite good!!! Anyway, left that one off for now and now have 3 out of 4 the same.

Now, for a few weeks back background. The second to the last week I was working at the physical building, on Thursday they were doing Wuhan Flu testing. They were having us come in at the time of the testing, wait for the results, then, if negative, report for work. My appointment was for noon, so I got to go in a bit later. Oh yeah, spoiler alert, around 400 employees still working there, and not a single positive!!! Anyway, about a mile from home, it started running really rough, with not much power. I drove it almost to where I get on the freeway, and pulled into a gas station to see if I could see anything. Restarting it had done nothing, but plugging in the OBD scanner showed multiple misfires. I turned around to go home and switch cars, and getting to the uphill area discovered it didn't have enough juice to climb the hill. Called my wife and had her bring her car down. Used her car that day, and did a bit of research. There were several things, but the consensus was to start with the spark plugs and work your way down the systems. No idea when the plugs were last changed, but never hurts to have new ones (so long as they are OEM NGK copper core ones, not any exotic metal ones, as they have a high fail rate in Saturn 1.9 engines, due to the waste spark system they run). Also, while I was getting the plugs, I got a crankshaft position sensor, my reasoning being that the sudden failure seemed consistent with that. Replacing the plugs did nothing, so I headed back up the hill and took the plug wires, coils and ignition control module off 3, and went back down and replaced all the units on Scruffy. Viola!!! No cumbersome crankshaft position sensor replacement, which I was not looking forward to. Just to see what would happen, I put the units from Scruffy back on 3. Moved the issue to that one, as I figured it probably would. I figure it was likely the ignition control module, as I've had coils fail before, and the OBD will show the coil specific to two cylinders missing.

So, now 3 is fairly undriveable. Not like I'm driving it much anyway, but I want to be able to move her around, not to mention I'd rather have everything going if and when I swap the engine out. The ignition control module is around $85, and most of the consensus is that you are better off getting an OEM used replacement from the junkyard anyway, as most of the replacements have a high fail rate. Off to the junkyard!!! Coils are pretty reasonable, but control modules are supposed to be in the $50 to $60 range. Since the double coils mount to the module, I figured I'd pull the whole unit and try and pass it off as a coil array. I also was wondering if they were the same unit for the generation 2 and SHOC models. No one seemed to have that information, but I could probably look up different years and engines and figure that out if I wanted to. I took a look around at earlier SHOC models, and even a generation 1 SC2 and they all appear the same. Anyway, to be safe, I got them off the same year and engine SL2. Funny thing, there didn't seem to be much body damage at all, but both of the airbags had been deployed!!!

When I got to the checkout, the cashier was questioning the pricing, noting that an array would be more expensive, and it was actually two coils, which would be cheaper. He called over a supervisor, who told him to ring it up as two coils, and put the module as a bracket. He noticed it had the wire connector socket, so rang it as a electrical connector. Two coils at around $13.50 (plus $1 core charge) and $2.75 for the ignition control module!!! Score!!! The exhaust manifold was removed from the SL2 I got the goods from, which gave me a chance to get a better shot of the exhaust air injection ports. They look equally as plugged up as Scruffy's had been!!!

And there's that 1st generation SC2. While very little is common to the later ones, they weigh less, and the style is growing on me. I actually like the SC and SC1 front ends with the fixed headlights, which I believe are the same from the doors forward as the sedans.

Now, from quite a while ago when I'd gone to a junkyard near my work, and they had almost exactly the same as 3 on the other side of the wall, I imagine pre being put in the yard, but possibly to be sold. Even has the same rims as 3 originally had!!! In other news, I came across an ad for the same year, color and wheels as 3 with 95K miles, and a busted up front bumper and driver's side fender and mirror, plus a check engine light, asking $1800. I sent them a message that, considering the condition it seemed about $500 to $800 too high. I'd take that deal, if it seemed OK and could pass smog, which of course it won't with that light on.

A couple of the cars of interest there that time were this 60's Mustang with little left but the firewall and the undesirable 6 cylinder engine. It's very rare to see anything that old anymore.

Up next is a early 70's Celica, another of those you never see anywhere anymore!!! Someone had done a terrible job of putting a whale tail spoiler on the trunk, looking like it's about 20 degrees from where it should be. Has the distinction of being similar to the one we had. Of course, it has the unique pull out handles. The steering wheel was removed, but still inside, so I was also reminded of the style of the horn buttons, double circles on each of the three spokes, cheaply made so the ones rotated around it end up upside down!!!

And finally, the junkyard I went to this weekend, a while back there was this pretty nice '64-'66 Suburban in the lot. I noted it because it's similar to my GMC panel truck.

I know I've used the phrase "bool hunt" in previous posts, but I'm not sure I've ever explained it. It's from the Stephen King story, "Lisey's Story". It's where something will be hidden and the other person has to find it. Also in the story is the mention of a "blood bool", so take that for what it's worth. It's been years since I've read that one, maybe I'll dig it out, I quite enjoyed it. Stephen King is a very talented writer, but he's also an old crank who keeps yelling at the Commander in Chief to get off his lawn.

Car Stuff

Some car stuff that's happened. First up, the previously mentioned radiator replacement on Jade. This was back in December, it started losing water pretty regularly. Gave it an inspection, and it had coolant ooze on the driver's side tank of the radiator between the transmission cooler lines, so I figured that was it.

Put a replacement in, and while I was doing that, discovered some damage to the bottom edge and the air conditioning condenser (as well as the radiator, but I took care of that!!!), probably from the time it fell off the jack!!! Fortunately, the extra clearance on both of those components doesn't appear to have affected the functionality of either of them.

So, went through all that, flushed the cooling system, and then noticed the underside of the fill cap didn't look right. That may have been all it needed.

Got myself another set of Ion rims to put on 3, as I've been wanting to do. The rims on 3 were the ones from Baby, and the tires on there were a couple years old when I swapped them on, so I've got my money's worth out of them. There's a whole story on those where they ended up costing too much, suffice it to say don't waste your money on those Goodyear mileage maximizing tires, they have such hard compound to them as to be dangerous, and I ended up getting even worse mileage with them than I'd had with a set of Chinese cheapies.

Anyway, I'd ended up getting two on the Thanksgiving weekend 40% off day, and two on the New Year's sale. Same deal as last time, I was only able to find two machined face ones, and two other painted. As you can see, one was in way worse condition!!! I was telling my dad I'd like to get the painted ones machined to match, and he made the comment, "Well, we know how to polish..." Yeah, that used to be a fair amount of my previous career. Planted the idea in my head, and I bought the discs and wheels and compound to polish, and went to work. It's too much work, but it's getting there. Still need to get an alignment from when I replaced the rod ends. Additionally, it looks like I've got one of the rear wheels on Scruffy that needs work, probably a camber kit, as it's wearing the tire back there prematurely.

And finally, that cool flat exhaust tip I made up??? The dip down to clear the emergency brake cable became the low point, and as with most lowered cars, occasionally you scrape a little. It appears it's done a bit of tweaking it up some, to where it's into the rocker panel, and it's melted it down a little. If I'm able, I'll get some aluminum tubing the same diameter and make up a metal piece with a cutout around it to give it some clearance.

Double Mount Duty

Last weekend was a wrenching on the cars weekend. I've posted shot motor mount pictures before, so I had to keep the tradition going!!! This instance differs from previous times in that I did two different cars in one round!!!

First up were the mounts from 3. She's developed a low roar noise at cruising speed. My first thought was wheel bearings, but not long after Jade started making quite a bit of noise when put into gear, and I recalled that Saturn motor mounts are prone to failure. There seemed to be a lot of motion, so they needed doing anyway, and if that fixed the roar, so much the better. The top mount has what has been coined the "sad face" design. The bottom mounts were still in serviceable shape, but by the time I discovered that, it's not much more to replace them.

On to Jade, the top mount was in much worse shape, barely hanging on together, only slightly better than the ones I'd replaced on Baby way back. The lower ones were better, but still up for replacement. Made a nice improvement on her!!!

On back to 3, around a month back I'd done an oil change, and while I was at it I rotated the tires. While I was removing one of the rear wheels, one of the already loose lug nuts stopped spinning freely. I put my breaker bar on it to spin it the rest of the way, and snapped off the stud!!! Since I was already suspecting a bad bearing (another thing I'd done while I was rotating the tires, gave 'em a spin to see if any of them seemed to have a bad bearing) I replaced the whole hub assembly instead of trying to get a new stud pressed in. Anyway, the motor mounts and one rear wheel bearing haven't fixed the roar noise, and I have a feeling it's the front right that's the cause. Thought it might be tire noise I was hearing, and that had prompted me to think about getting another set of Ion rims for 3, if I'm buying new tires, might as well get something a bit bigger and badder. When I went to the junkyard over the long weekend (one of the ones in Wilmington is closing down, and instead of 40% they were up to 70% off!!!) there wasn't a single one of the three that had the alloys still on them. Started looking around, and realized none of the cars have any wheels on them!!!

Oh, and while I had the air filter box out to do a lower mount, I saw that the transmission temperature sensor plug was missing half of the holding tab. checked it out, and the other one broke off, too!!! I've got it held in place with shrink tube and tape right now, but will replace it soon enough.

Scruffy has had occasional check engine lights for a while, one of the codes being temperature related, and sometimes the gauge would go out. Got a new engine coolant temperature sensor with all the other stuff, and went ahead and replaced that, too. Turned out to have a length of bare area!!!

And, for a final touch, I modified the air intake tube as I've done to other Saturns. Cut out a good portion of the top of the tube to facilitate better airflow!!!

Hits & Misses

So if you recall my last post about Scruffy, I ended it up with the tale of the dash lights having issue. I ordered a pack of LED light bulbs that were supposed to fit my panel. Come to find out, GM in their infinite wisdom made the light sockets hard wired to the lights. I was able to change them out, but it is a rather time consuming task, and for some reason, the outside gauge lights would not work. Got the odometer light working, and the top lights and center gauge lights, and they all look really good, but those outer ones... grrr....

Somewhere in there, I came across this bit of information: some of the later model L series and Vues use the same arrangement of gauges, but with white faces!!! I had been looking at white gauge face overlays and considering doing that, but this sounded even better!!! I considered, and decided that I didn't think that aesthetic would go as well as what I'm heading towards with Scruffy, but with the silver shade of 3, I think it will go quite well. I went to the junkyard last Saturday after work for another of their 40% off days in search of some 16" Ion factory alloys (more on that later), and picked up this cluster out of a Vue, with the nice chrome look bezels to the gauges. Figure I'll swap the one from 3 into scruffy, and hopefully all the lights in that one will work in there. Also picked up another set of visors for Scruffy (ever since we bought her, she came with what looked like pillow case material stitched over the visors; rendered the mirror on the passenger visor unusable, and more recently the clip on part of the drivers' side broke off) as well as the window switch panel to work in the new style console. I'm thinking of buying myself a pair of headlights for 3. Found out there's a place that sells them with blacked out area between the reflector areas, and they look pretty good, but I think the factory style will go better with the silver body.

Way back before the transmission incident, I had taken Scruffy down to my parents' house with a glasspack muffler and a set of flanges. I've been running the original replacement from baby since she found her voice, but it's a bit loud with that deal. Besides, Jade has that same canister style, and it leaks like crazy!!! I'm actually surprised she passed smog with that big of a leak, and I want to put the old one from baby in her next. ANyway, I managed to get one end welded up, and realized it was coming out too short. Ah well, I've got more pipe from the other taken off systems around, I'll finish that off later. Transmission intervened, and it had been a while. A couple weeks back I got back over there and finished off the task. Once again, I'm happy with the results and new, slightly quieter note.

Way back when I got that system made up, I'd made mention of the crappy hanger they'd put on the end. Well, last Thursday it came apart!!! Going out of a driveway it scraped a little, then the rest of the drive you'd hear it scrape when you'd hit a dip. Finally got it detached from the suspension!!! I was glad to have it loose from there, but I'd mothballed her until I could come up with something.

That something was this!!! Bought a rubber insulator mount clamp and some bracketry from my work, and with much modding I managed to come up with this hanger for now. Already better than what was there, but I want to weld on longer bars to the pipe and have a better mounting. A few days before, also made up some bracketery to mount the rear facing camera in both Jade and Scruffy. Also picked up a new battery to replace the slow cranking one, saving $15 getting a Die Hard from K-Mart instead of Sears!!!

Also found a real nice looking pair of headlights for Scruffy at the junkyard. Really improves the look from the front!!!

So about those wheels... Saturday last week after work I go to a pick your part searching for them, and found they only have one with 2 of what I'm looking for. Front left and rear right, both with only one lug nut holding them on. Tried jamming stuff under that front wheel to keep it from turning, and finally see a slot the right size on the brake caliper, jam a screwdriver in there, and succeed in loosening the lug nut!!! Sweet, the back should be easy, just set the parking brake and go to work!!! I go back there, and it's happening just like I planned, got my breaker bar on the nut, and it feels like it's loosening. Nice!!! Until I realize it's rounded off the nut. Forget it, I'll go to another one on Monday and get 'em. Took the younger with me again so he could stand on the brakes while I loosen. Find two there, with four on one and two on the other. For some reason, the one with two, they'd put 65 series tires on them instead of 55's, so it looked strange and I'd be searching for tires real soon if I got those, so I head to the other one. I have the boy stand on the brakes (which wasn't too effective, it was low on fluid) and go to loosen the front one. It spins a bit, but I already know it's secret and still it with a screwdriver again. Start leaning on my breaker bar, and it feels like it's loosening, then I hear a cracking noise... I had a 1/2" to 3/8" adapter on my bar, and the small end was twisting off!!! Grrrr.... I'm done. Found a window regulator for Jade and called it on that one, too.

A Sign From God

You may have noticed I haven't posted in quite a while about any sort of progress with Scruffy. Back a couple months ago, my shadetree mechanic had charged the air conditioning in her, and when I got home from there, I'd attempted to back up whilst parking, and lo and behold, reverse wouldn't go!!! Grrrr.... I've had more transmission problems with her than any other of the Saturns I've owned!!! I've had the idea for a while of buying up a running parts car to get the engine out of to do a build on, as well as to have a transmission, just in case. That was something of the impetus for this post. It was a very terse ad for it, and the outside picture looked real good. Very low miles, 67,000 I think, and it looked well optioned, and was a year newer than 3. I had the thought of, if it was as good in the flesh and had the ABS option, swapping it to my daily and sacrificing 3. Getting in touch, turns out it had no current smog check or title, so the $1,300 asking price started sounding less good. In the meantime, I used one day off to check the resistance on the valve body solenoids in Scruffy (an issue I've seen before), as I could buy a rebuilt valve body for under $300. No dice, but I had also found that the main bore in the valve body can become worn and cause this symptom. Finally got the cash together and made it over to take a look, and found it to be a single cam model, and nowhere near as good as the pictures appeared. Sad trombone. Also came across an ad for another low mileage one that had a similar fate to Scruffy's nose (first shot was of the engine, kind of rare to have ANY shot of the engine, and then I noticed it appeared to not have a hood!!!) but it was gone before I was able to make it out there.

Come to the following weekend, Memorial day, and the junkyard is doing their 40% off days. I'll try my luck there!!! There are two in the age range to have the late model head with the roller valve train and undersized exhaust ports. Both are a year newer than either of mine. My first pick was a sedan with front end damage, I reasoned was running fine right until said front end damage occurred. Found it, and started looking into it, only to discover several mounting points on the engine block had also been damaged in the collision. Located the second choice, a dead ringer for 3, and it looked kind of better... someone had attempted to mount a early exhaust manifold to the late head, and that did not go well. By the way, there's my shadetree mechanic friend, Chad. He was also in search of a transmission.

I had wanted to try and determine the mileage by powering up the instruments, and had a couple things to try that with. Powering up the circuit for them with a power tool battery, or using the key switch with that battery to the terminals under the hood. The key was there, albeit in two segments, but still was able to turn. Did not work, though.

In the process of trying to get the engine ready to yank, we had the idea to take off the drive belt. The crank pulley was easily accessible, so we tried loosening that. It did not want to turn, then we had the thought to try rotating the crank, and it didn't move either way at all!!! Also not a good sign for an engine, so gave up on that idea. Went ahead and took the transmission out of it.

And there it is!!! It wasn't real easy to get out, but we got it!!! Ended up dropping to engine cradle to get it out. Ended up doing the same thing to get the transmission out of the other one that Chad wanted, too. Left it in the back of my dad's truck until the next weekend. Figured I'd drive Scruffy down for one last run with that transmission then do the deed. Got about a mile, and it stopped upshifting out of first gear. Another possible symptom of that worn cylinder in the valve body. Took her back, then drove to my parents' house and pulled the valve body out of the junkyard transmission, just to see if that's all it needed. Put it into Scruffy's transmission the next day, but I kind of knew it wasn't going to work. Took the pan off (by the way, if I haven't mentioned previously, the pan is on the top of the transmission in S series Saturns, and the filter is an external spin on) and right away could smell that the clutches had been burning. Did it anyway, and at first reverse actually worked, but in short order it was as it had been before.

So I have yet to get it put in. Spent a while yesterday cleaning it off, and while it's not 100% spotless, it'll still probably be the cleanest thing under the hood once I do get it put in.

Meanwhile, I picked up a few other things while I was there. The visors in Jade were looking pretty bad, so I found a pair in the front end wrecked one, and my wife had caught the passenger side mirror and cracked a piece out of the outer shell, so I got that off the same one. The center console in Jade has a cover on it that the plastic is cracked out under the top pad, and the early body style console has a design flaw. It has two cup holders at the front, one directly behind the cigarette lighter socket, so if you're charging your phone, one is unusable. The later style has one in front, and one towards the back, and it's offset from the lighter. Also, the covered box at the back on the early style is somewhat rare, so I took the console from the same one I got the transmission from. It looks like the back end mounts a little differently, but I should be able to adapt it.

Clipped to one of the visors was this cross with Proverbs 3:5-6 on it. Up on the cowl of the coupe was this reflector with a blinky red LED from Mount Moriah 62nd anniversary.

I'm taking it as a sign from God.