Piles of Parts and the Left Shoe

It has been a long and bumpy road (not unlike the many long and bumpy roads we will be on this summer) in dealing with our Left Shoe.  The quick and dirty – this car was beyond lemon, it was a ticking time bomb of rotten lemons.  At some point the “check engine” light had been disconnected, several senors bypassed and a host of other “minor” issues.  Luckily, our superhero mechanic Al was able to diagnose and FIX our issues.  When tackling this, Al and I thought it was probably some bad sensors, leaky seals…a decent amount of work, but nothing mind-blowing.  How wrong we were.  There was an aftermarket oil cooler installed and oil was leaking into the coolant system from here.  This led to an awesome oatmeal-looking mix of dirty oil and coolant caked all along the inside of the coolant system.  There were improperly torqued bolts…some 5-7 times what they should be, others were hand tightened.  Behind the engine looked as if nothing short of an RTV sealant orgy had occurred.  The best was of course saved for last…when it was realized that there was play in the pistons, with scoring along the piston skirts.  It was at this point that the decision was made to essentially get a whole new engine.

We were able grab an engine in Petersburg, VA from a slightly racist gentleman.  He did not seem thrilled at the idea that we were driving these cars overseas.  He felt that there were “too many foreigners” in other countries.  With the help of my friend Richard, we were able to transport the engine to Al in Richard’s aptly named vehicle, “Green Piss.”

The engine of Left Shoe is now a franken-engine made up of a block and rotating assembly off of an ’05, heads off of a ’99, and the intake manifold off of the original ’98.  The best part about this engine is that IT RUNS…and runs well.  So hopefully we have somewhat limited the probability of the engine exploding.

Having the Left Shoe back, we have been able to start “shoeing” it up.  We’ve also begun the arduous task of procuring all of the odds and ends that we will need for our trip.  The folks at the various auto parts stores have definitely given strange looks when we purchase 8 oil filters, 10 gallons of oil, 6 air filters, etc. We’ve got some fun things in store over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

(Sorry I was an idiot and had the white balance set incorrectly…it was sunny out and I didn’t notice it was set wrong! Doh!)