June 2020

June really felt like the first month this year where Susan and I were our old productive selves.  Things got done and we went out and had some fun times every weekend.  Hopefully this is how the rest of the summer will go.  

June 5th weekend –

Thursday – I took Susan to work so I could pick her up on the way up to pick up a new NC Miata, the exchange went smoothly and Susan got to drive the new car home

Friday – both of us took the day off, I went to get the NC emissions done, lines were out onto the main road, took 1.5 hours to get through (I got lucky in my lane assignment or it would have been worse), went home and picked up Susan, dropped off DMV documents (the first step in doing DMV-stuff, then you wait for them to call weeks later to complete the DMV-stuff), swung by Walmart to find store closed (we were thinking it was because of the protesting), stopped at King Soopers to buy lunch food instead

Saturday – woke up to call the exhaust shop, told work would be finished, hung out waiting only to find out when I called back at noon that car would not be done (very disappointed), went to Walmart to buy food stuffs

Sunday – up early to go to an autocross up at FRA with the new NC, hot and windy all day, ran last so hung out in the shade for a heat before working cones for a heat, I happened to stand next to the most hit cone on the course so had to do a lot of running, new Miata did great, so much fun, finished up relatively early (1:00ish), after going home we went up to pick up a spare Miata rear end from Chris Dorsey (we’ve now bought most of what underpins his car)

Monday – slept in, finally got the call that Scrappy’s exhaust was done early in the afternoon, picked it up, got home and measured a mere 0.5 inches of clearance (it scrapped going into the trailer and into the garage), lifted suspension to have 2 inches of clearance, extended O2 sensor wire and installed, tested driving around neighborhood, soooo loud, not happy with exhaust work especially with the time it took to get done

June 12th weekend – 

Thursday – Susan helped install the oil pressure gauge in Scrappy, she did most all of the wiring while I looked on, everything worked great!

Friday – I spent a few hours installing heat shielding around the exhaust headers and wrapping some of the exhaust pipes, felt like an art project, it was fun and we were happy with the results

Saturday – very busy, slept in a little, finally got the Miata rear end out of the suburban and into the garage, worked on a stuck bolt for a couple of hours, managed to cut and hammer the bolt enough to break the mass of metal down a bit, moved most all of the spare Miata parts to the tire coup and fridge, changed the oil and swapped out tires on Flo, I mowed the yard while Susan cleaned the inside of the RV, went to King Soopers to get gas and buy lunch stuff for the next day, were very hot and tired

Sunday – we woke around 8:00 to have coffee and load up Scrappy to go to the track, out of the house and on our way by before 9:30, checked in and unloaded Scrappy, I drove for 15 glorious minutes before pulling over on the side of the track, after getting towed back to our pit spot we found that the power steering reservoir cap was missing and fluid was everywhere and that the fuel line had popped off the fuel rail (luckily there was no fire), I called the nearest part stores to see if they had what we needed but no one did so we went home, drove the NC down to Colorado Springs junk yard looking for the reservoir cap to no avail, went to look at another Miata (this one an automatic, black, and with a hardtop), decided to buy it, went home to relax for the rest of the weekend

Monday – I made a quick jaunt to the bank to get cash and then after work we went up to pick up the black Miata, discovered that the people selling the car had skipped title at this point but the title was valid so we went ahead and took the car, it’s very clean and I enjoyed driving it home enough that we’re going to swap the transmission to a manual and probably keep it

June 19th weekend – 

Friday – we both took the day off, up very early to drive up to SCR in Loveland to get Scrappy a race alignment, arrived just after they opened, after talking with the aligner we sat in waiting area to wait and pet a dog (Cruiser) one of the employees brings to work every day, customers came and went while we waited, took over four hours as I also had them swap out all the alignment bolts with new ones I had brought, car looked good coming off the rack, loaded up and went to Walmart to get lunch stuffs, got gas and headed to HPR, originally planned on testing all afternoon but it was after 3:00 when we arrived and checked-in, I drove first and only lasted three laps before coming in as the exhaust sounded wrong, turns out the nuts holding the exhaust to the header had worked themselves off and the exhaust had fallen off and was dragging on the track, also the top of the oil pan was coated in oil, good times, we hemmed and hawed as we waited for Alvin to arrive (he stopped at NAPA to pick up bolts and stuffs), were able to sort of reattach the exhaust and added oil so Susan and Alvin could drive the car, afterwards packed up and went back home to enact better repairs, ordered pizza and Alvin stopped at a parts store for a main seal, finished fixes and test drove the car up Lincoln, seemed fine so we loaded up and Alvin went home around 10:30

Saturday – up very early to pack up and head to the track for the inaugural Pony Express race, we stopped for gas and donuts and barely made it in time, there was a question as to whether Alvin could find his racing equipment but he did so that morning and arrived soon after us, the drivers meeting was short and we went back to our car to do final prep, eventually I suited up and belted in and was on my way, the car was not running well (slipping clutch, down on power) and I came back to our car port after 30 minutes so we could see what was going on, Tracey (one of our teammates driving a BMW) went out to continue the race, turned out that the intake temperatures were crazy-high and the ECU was turning down the power to compensate, we removed the headlight next to the intake filter and added spacers to the rear of the hood to allow better air flow, after waiting the required 30 minutes I went out to finish my stint, the car felt much better (even the clutch stopped slipping) and I was able to drive like I wanted, I did break out of our bracket once (this was a race where you had to drive no faster than your bracket) but fortunately it was only by a couple of hundredths of a second and the first infraction results in a warning, after my stint Tracey went back out to finish her stint, after Tracy was Alvin, then Friso (other BMW teammate), then Susan, then Friso to finish the day, somehow we managed to come in first place, after cheering the cars coming off the track we took pictures before accepting our trophies, then there were more pictures before we packed up and hung out for a time with an old rallycross pal, Ryan Dussex, who had purchased an RV to live a nomadic “racer-lifestyle” and was there watching the race, eventually we finished packing up and went home, twas a long and enjoyable day

Sunday – we slept in before our coffee ritual, hung out for a time discussing the race and what we needed to do to Scrappy so we could reinstall the headlight, ended up coming up with a plan to make hood vent louvers, went to the garage and spent next several hours cutting, drilling, bending, and attaching this and that until we had installed a center vent in the hood, Susan added some matching paint that we had to scour the garage to find and we called it good for now, was a fun project and we weren’t done until after 8:00, later that night we went out so Susan could add another coat of paint before bed, such a great weekend!

June 27th weekend – 

Saturday – I woke up with my alarm around 6:45 to take the new black Miata to get emissions done, first I fixed the driver’s window and tightened a belt, emissions line was crazy-long like before but went quicker, also got very lucky with my line assignment again, I was home by 9:00ish and woke up Susan for coffee, it was still relatively cool out so we headed to the garage to work on Scrappy, the day’s project was constructing ducting to better direct air through the radiator, this basically took all day between test fitting with cardboard, cutting and bending metal, bolting it together, and taping gaps where possible, came out better than expected, hopefully it helps keep the car cooler at the track, Oliver was hanging out with us most of the time we were in the garage, when we were done we BBQ’d for dinner and sat outside the garage enjoying the cooling evening before heading in to hang with the pups

Sunday – I woke up early to feed the dogs and eventually got Susan up for coffee, it was going to be a hot day but was another cool morning so we went out to get started on the day, first we moved most of the cars to the “front” of the house, then we started the RV for the first time since we brought it home in late 2019, it ran for 10 seconds or so before shutting down, we repeated this several times, after checking manuals we figured out that one of the major sensor was either not reading correctly or something was drastically wrong, laying on thick cardboard I shimmied under the engine and eventually saw what could be the problem, there was an active coolant leak, fortunately it was in an accessible location so I figured I could fiddle with it, diesel RVs use different coolant than gas engines so we went to Walmart to buy a bunch (six gallons) and we picked up some food stuffs while we were there, once home I got under the RV again and fixed the leak, it was a messy affair and my shirt was soaked in coolant by the time I was done, I changed and we spent the next 30 minutes or so filling and bleeding the cooling system (it needed four gallons of coolant), then the day really began as we drove the RV out of our driveway, I piloted the beast up E470 to I70 to one of the nicer truck stops east of Denver, after some confusion Susan discovered there are filling ports on both sides of the RV and we filled it to the brim with around 60 gallons of diesel (it has a 100 gallon capacity), then we drove back home, the RV drove fine with minimal issues besides it is huge and we had to deal with some narrow lanes due to construction on E470, once home I pulled into the driveway and backed it around to be essentially parallel with the house, Susan suggested we take time to fill the water tank so we did so, we also dewinterized and tested a whole bunch of other things like both AC units and the hot water heater, we spent a lot of time messing with this and that, also removed the broken front CRT TV before finally reversing it back into its spot next to the garage and moving all the cars back to their normal parking spots, after showering off the coolant from earlier we finished the productive weekend on the couch with the pups