Balance & Alignment

I went to Belle Tire today to get my wheels both balanced because I'm tired of having my butt massaged as I drive down the road. Since my steering wheel is off center while driving straight I figured I would get the car aligned as well since I was there. As is customary with this car one thing led to another. It turns out that my car cannot be aligned because my outer tie rods are cooked.

This makes a lot of sense. When I feel a slight vibration during driving and I attempt to brake my entire front end goes nuts. I think this tie rod issue is going to fix a lot of the issues I've been having with my front end.

I'll make some calls tomorrow to figure out the best course of action.

Oil Change & Underside Inspection

Well The Chiseled Brick has hit 201,000 miles. This means two things. One, the journey to 300,000 miles has begun and two, I'm about 2,000 miles overdue for an oil change (I like to change the oil every 3,000 miles). It's not that bad because the recommended interval is 5,000.

On Saturday I changed the oil. This went fine except for after taking the car for a quick spin I noticed that I was loosing oil. I put the car back up on the ramps and noticed that oil was leaking from both the drain plug and the oil filter. I tightened the oil filter a bit and then checked the torque on the drain plug. As it turns out 26 Nm is not the same as 26 Ft-Lbs. The leak has since been remedied.

I figured that since I was back under the car I should take a look around and take some pictures. Overall everything looks alright. The only thing I could find was some kind of oil/fluid leak as seen in the picture. I'll have to investigate this further.

New Project Idea

As we all know the summer months can be great for being outdoors; however, the interior of our cars don't like it nearly as much. The sun heats the interior of our cars to extreme temperatures and is unsafe for both humans and other devices such as electronics that one might leave in a car. This extreme environment has got me thinking of ways to cool the interior of the car. Now the obvious solution is to open the windows. This works well for the most part but there are instances in which this doesn't work.

• High crime areas
• Areas prone to rain
• Lack of security for items left in car (as well as the car itself)
  

One could argue that if you only crack the windows rain won't be too much of an issue but after seeing several storms blow through Michigan this year I don't feel like chancing it.

Cars are by no means air tight this is one of the reasons that you can close your door without expending a lot of force. Modern cars are equipped with a vent. In the case of my 855 this vent is located on the right side of the car near the tailgate between sheetmetal so you can't see it from he outside as opposed to the 245 I have.

My idea is to force air through the vent while the car isn't running. I plan on using a 120mm cooling fan from a computer. If that fan proves to be too big I'll use 80 mm fans. If the fan is too small I'll use multiple fans. The problem that I'm currently having is sourcing the power. I was thinking that I could just run the fan array off of the car battery, but after mulling that around in my head for a bit I don't think that will be the best idea. There are plenty of times where I don't use my car for several days such as the weekend or when I'm home. This means that I need to find an alternate power source. I've got two options the way I see it.

1. An auxiliary battery system
2. Solar power

I'd like to use solar power; however that could be expensive or just not look right, whereas I could hide auxiliary batteries else where in the car. I'll keep you all posted...

Back in MI

I got The Chiseled Brick back without having the wheel bearing replaced because my indy wasn't confident that it was the bearing. He did find a caliper that was hanging up, as well as adjust the E-Brake. I swear I'm going to rip my arm off because it barley comes up anymore. I like it though because it can actually hold my car in place.

Next: an oil change...

Wheel bearing

The Chiseled Brick is in for service to have the left front (driver's side front) wheel bearing replaced. This isn't a major repair and I'm fully capable of doing it; however, as one may have noticed simple things seem to blow up in my face, and seeing as how I have to go back out to Michigan on Saturday it's best that I just get it fixed by someone else.

I'll also have them look at my E-brake.