I may have a front runner for my UAV Project. 1984 Mercedes G300 Diesel Old Mercedes diesel power plants are damn near unbreakable. Great classic looks, a wicked interior, and a shit ton of room out back for the pooch. I bet parts would be a bitch, right? Never owned a Mercedes so I have no idea how their parts availability is. Never even considered these before I stumbled across this beast.
If you're going to go that route, I'd go all-out and look into a Unimog. You can find them for roughly that same price, and there are tons of support groups around for them. And they are WAY fucking cooler.
Those are fucking cool. But I'll be taking this thing on the highway when I head up North. Not sure about a Unimog with a top speed of around 55mph. In other news, someone needs to buy this so I don't. I don't need another one of these fucking things. Mazda 323 GTX
Found some old pictures of one of the Jeeps I bought and put back together. This one started out as basically an empty tub and took the most amount of work. I bought it from a guy who tore it apart, mangled most of the parts, then lost interest. I had to re do most of the instrumentation and signal wiring, replace front axle seals, put the dash and interior back in, get a windshield frame and a bunch of other stuff. The doors were off an older CJ so I had to make my own door latches. I eventually went on to paint match the roll bar and rear bumper, remove the dumb front bumper you see and replace with a winch bumper, and weld in some patch panels right behind the front wheels. It had a 5" lift and some 33" tires with a rear locker. I wish I could have kept the original color since it's a rare one but it needed so much surface rust repair it would have needed a full paint job and it was easier to just go white.
FYI, this is one of the series we're racing in this year: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.9magazine.com/imsa-introduces-the-20th-porsche-one-make-series-the-porsche-gt3-cup-challenge-canada.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.9magazine.com/imsa-introduce ... anada.html</a>
if you're into racing at all, BBC Four just did a documentary called "Grand Prix: The Killer Years". Highly recommended. I had no idea that it was as dangerous as it was. -- As a driver, you had a 1 in 3 chance of dying in a race -- The races would continue on while they removed the dead bodies (spectator and driver) -- Sir Jackie said he counted 47 bodies in one race. Fuck. Now you see the shit that goes on, like Kubica's F1 accident, and it's amazing.
Brian Wong was one of our drivers at the 24hrs of Daytona. Here's part of a documentary that features my team. Part 2
Apparently it was the BWD PCV valve, from Autozone, that was causing the oil leaks. Since replacing the BWD with a Motorcraft valve and getting the last leak repaired, it hasn't leaked a drop. That's after 400ish miles of mixed driving, including pulling my atv/trailer to the hunting club. It had been springing a new leak within a day or two of just normal back and forth to work driving. Now it's time for a tune up...
I cannot imagine what I would do if that happened. The start of a race is so tense, so frantic, and you're amped up like you wouldn't believe. All you're doing in concentrating on that green flag/light, and doing everything you can to ensure your reaction time is as quick as it can be. And everyone in the pack makes the assumption that everyone is going WOT at the same time. They can all see the green flag, and have radio comms that scream "green green green" in their ears when it drops, but can't see the pace car. Damn.
I can't seem to get my evaporative emissions monitor to go into the ready state. I had my catalytic converter replaced by the shop and have since driven about 120 miles trying to set all of my monitors. 3 out of 4 have gone ready since the inspection place rejected me but the damn evap monitor won't set. It wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't doing this because I hadn't noticed my registration lapsed and didn't get my standard yearly letter from the county letting me know. So technically I'm unregistered and can't get the car inspected until the monitor is ready, but must drive around to set them... The state trooper who pulled me over on Friday was nice about it when I showed him the inspection result stating the 4 monitors needed to be reset but I'd rather not have to do that dance again. Is there a set of circumstances that the evap monitor needs to go to the ready state or do I just have to keep driving?
Watch it again... Now, I'm not too knowledgeable about GT racing, but isn't the yellow flag like a yellow light? Do they have a green flag? It looks like whoever controlled the lights fucked up... Or, the flag guy fucked up and the pace car saw the yellow flags and kept going. Am I mistaken?
I had a 2003 350Z that I sold just last summer. Like your GTO, it was a scary car to drive in the winter. I started off with the performance snow tires, but if you live somewhere where you get even moderate amounts of snow I'd avoid them. They're expensive, wear quickly, and generally compromise traction in snow for better handling. My go-to snow tire now is the Hankook Icebear W300. I had them on the Z and the STi. Good snow performer, good tread life and reasonably affordable. If you're doing a lot of driving in snow one school of thought is to go with a narrower winter tire vs. your OEM size. And don't worry about the TPMS sensors. The only issue is you'll be driving with the low tire pressure warning light on all winter. However, I have to be honest and say that even with snow tires the Z was such a shitty, scary car to drive in snow that I ended up buying an old Pathfinder for snow days. Later when I upgraded to the STi, the Z became the wife's car and she only took it when there was zero risk of snow that day. Otherwise it was the Pathfinder (which later became the Rogue).
When they do their form-up lap, they run a full-course yellow to ensure that people (drivers, spectators, track workers) realize they can't pass. The first yellow flag you see at the back of the pack is legit, and would still be waving even when the green lights go on to start the race. The cars cannot start to pass each other until they cross the start-finish line, which is well past that yellow flag. The front-of-the-pack yellow flag, I'd bet, only came about as a result of the shit that happened in the back. When something like that happens, Race Control would have called a "yellow flag - yellow flag" over the radio, and in my experience, the reaction times of the flag workers, especially at a known problem time like a start, would be almost immediate. The larger series, like Le Mans Series, use a green light system to start the race, and not a green flag, much like F1. It's controlled by Race Control, and is lit up when they assure themselves that everything is ready for a race start. (pack formation is acceptable, pace car is off the track, proper spacing between the LMP and GT cars, etc). Really, though, there are quite a few different ways that could have happened. If I had to guess, I'd say that it was a combination of problems. -- the pace car didn't come off the track -- the group didn't maintain a big enough gap behind the pace car -- race control didn't validate the pace car was off the track Really, it looks like the main issue was that the pace car didn't come off the track, and that's what started the chain reaction.
So I am fairly sure my old mechanic is fucking with me. Here is the story. Back Ground: Going into Mechanical Engineering, need a "new" car for school. Looked around, bought a 99 Jetta. Do the pre purchase inspection, among other things, the front ball joints are shot, need to be replaced, the front stabilizer bar needs adjustment, and new tires have to be put on the car. For the price I paid, not a bad deal. At this point, because the stabilizer is working and doesnt need attention, it does not get done. The tires, brakes, and ball joints get the required work done to them (replace or machined in the brakes case). This is where it gets a little fucked. I have had the car for ~10months now, and just noticed that the front tires are REALLY worn (only on the outside edges of the tire, both sides). Dead give away for alignment problems. Unfortunately, I did not see the problems until it was too late for the tires, as I A) Dont drive the car all that much (9,000k in 10 months, including a 1500km trip to school) and B) Didnt really see the car in good light until recently (go late studying and early mornings in winter). So I call up the shop, send them pictures of the tires, and they agree on the alignment problems. Tell me to take it into one of the NAPA shops in my new town to have the warranty work done on it (1 year, 10 or 20k warranty on their parts and labor). The new shop comes back and says that they did a rough measurement (by rough I mean a tape measure) and the toe on both tires is off by ~1/2", equally on both sides (hence no pull when driving it) So when I call the old shop up, they tell me that it is standard practice to not do an alignment when you replace the ball joints (I call BS on this) and that the only time they would do an alignment is if they worked on the stabilizer bar (I didnt think this would even affect the alignment). they also mentioned that they do not check the alignment when new tires are put on with new rims (once again, sounds fishy to me) I am right in my assumption that an alignment should have been done (they said that they quoted it, and that I declined it. I have the quote they gave me with no mention of a alignment was required). What this all leads to, is that the company is trying to get out of their fuck up, despite their being problems with their work, and I want to know if this sounds correct in terms of the requirement of an alignment
I believe that as long as the ball joints went bad after the last alignment (and assuming the rest of the front suspension was normal), then you don't need to get an alignment after replacing the ball joints. Also, new wheels and tires don't dictate an alignment, just a balance on the wheels. If a shop swaps tires/wheels though and notices uneven wear, then they should do something about it. Edit: That being said, since it's a mkIV Jetta it probably should have been aligned after the ball joint swap. The front end components (especially bushings) are known to fail in those cars over time.