We did get a couple more bolts out, and also removed the "X-brace" that was limiting access - sneakers in the shot to give it some scale! That brace is showing just a couple places with a tiny bit of surface rust, so I'll clean it up and treat them with POR-15 before reinstallation.
Then we started on the next of those big E14 Torx-head bolts, and it was a bear. Almost totally inaccessible, the bolt defied our attempts to break it loose. The only way we could get to it was a combination of extensions and universal joints, with me holding the socket on the bolt, and Kelly attempting to turn it. I did grab one shot of Kelly while I was up getting another tool:
That also gives another view of our Magnificent Transmission Jack Extension Tower - I promise it's much more sturdy and well-designed than it looks. The wrench I was up for was to remove the sound-deadening blanket on the trans tunnel, to try to improve access. We weren't able to totally remove it, but that exercise did give us more access. But then we ran out of time, and Kelly offered this sage observation: "Well, if it's going to take five hours to get that bolt out, we've gotten the first two done!"
THEN... the storms came. Days of dealing with snow and ice, and missed rehearsals, and general yuck. I finally made it back to the garage a couple of days ago, just to see what access was going to be like. I spent time digging out the small garage on the front of the building that I keep for my own car, but at the bottom of the knee-deep berm was three inches of hard ice that I couldn't chip away with my cheap shovel. That door on that one-car garage is really narrow, and if my brand new GTI squirmed on that ice and slipped into the door frame, I would be very perturbed. No parking for now.
That same day, I did get into the shop via the "man door" and snapped this shot from the inside through the overhead door:
Right - I ain't digging that out by hand! To make matters even worse, the side alley (Sherman St.) is not plowed by the city, and the only place the neighbors had to put the snow from the street was in my lot. No parking there either. That's a neighbor's VW in the lot, not mine.
One more insult - even though I have spent a ton of money on that roof trying to keep it from leaking, I found a generous puddle under the foam floor tiles I have on part of the garage floor, enough to float them. I left in disgust.
So, this morning I got Mary Ellen to drop me off at the garage, since I didn't really have a place to park. I took up about 80 square feet of the foam tiles, and set them aside to dry. Here's the puddle that was underneath:
I converted my shop vac to wet mode, and sucked it all up - about three gallons. The curious thing is that I can't figure out how it got in! No obvious wet spots on the ceiling, and no obvious trial on the wall or floor. This is seriously bumming me out.
So, I returned to the Z3 and tried again on that big bolt. I had an idea of a different path under the insulation we loosened, and it worked - I was able to get the socket firmly on the bolt without using a universal joint. I could even hammer the back of the extensions to ensure that the socket was firmly seated. But... the collection of six extensions I was using still had too much wobble and slack - I wasn't able to crack the bolt loose. I even tried my battery-powered impact wrench - it just jiggled the extensions around. I sprayed more penetrating oil on the bolt (without much hope that it will actually penetrate down the threads) and called it a morning. I'm going to Harbor Freight to try to find a one-piece super-long extension.
Then for the six-block walk home. As a city dweller, I know to walk on the north side of the streets that run east to west, because the sidewalks on the south side of the street never see the sun. Sure enough, just to add injury to insult, the south side of East Orange St was solid ice and as I stepped off the curb to cross the street I went down, cracking my head on the curb. That hurt. Left a tender goose egg on the crown of my head, but no concussion. No concussion. I don't think I have a concussion. Did I tell you I hit me head? That hurt.
I am SOOOOO done with this winter!
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