November 7th weekend –
Saturday had us up with an alarm for coffee and to load up Tia into the car trailer for another track day. We had to stop for gas, lunch, and a donut on our way but otherwise went straight to the track. We arrived early enough to check in before the drivers meeting which was nice and parked next to a fellow Lemon’s driver David (he also drove on our team for the recent 24 hour race). David brought his team’s blue Miata which is like Scrappy but a lot rougher around the edges and not as quick. More of a true Lemons car if you will.
We drove the heck out of Tia all day long and had a great time. David offered me to drive their blue car and I couldn’t say no and put in a few laps. It was really fun but felt a bit wonky. Decisions were made with its build that I would have done differently. To each their own. Tia got a bit warm at mid-day and we had to run the heat at maximum to stave off overheating while we raced around the track.
David had brought a friend and future driver for their team out and he rode with me for a few laps. I scared him a little which was fun but I also showed him what their car is capable of and he found he was immediately quicker when he jumped back in their blue Miata. I love passengers so it was all good to me.
The clock in our trailer switched time zones at some point so we didn’t realize the track had closed. We were putting gas in Tia to go back out when David let us know. Whoops! We were having so much fun we really wanted to go back out.
There was still enough light in the sky to easily back in the trailer when we got home which was nice (I really hate doing that in the dark). We decided to be lazy and left Tia in the trailer and went inside to celebrate Biden’s victory. I BBQ’d for dinner which was yummy.
I woke up early on Sunday to take care of the dogs and head out to the garage. I had given myself the small list of tasks related to the new race car including the installation of the differential, engine, transmission, and drive shaft. Susan was up soon after I had the differential in and we had coffee together. I needed a specific part so she went out to buy it and a big sponge to clean “Ralphie” (what we named the CU Buffs’s car) while I installed a new clutch on our old engine.
Once Susan was home she helped me mate the engine and transmission and then to install both into Ralphie. Said installation went about as smoothly as one could hope for with minimal fuss. After going through this process several times I suppose we might be getting good at installing engines.
Susan spent much of the day cleaning and sanding the car while I toiled on with other things. After I installed the driveshaft I joined her and we sanded and scrapped the paint together. Eventually it was dark and got too cold for us to continue so we called it a night and went inside. We really hadn’t eaten much of anything all day so cooked pasta shells and meatballs for dinner which was fantastic. I don’t eat pasta often and enjoyed every bite. We finished the fantastic weekend on the couch watching SNL on YouTube.
November 14th weekend –
Saturday I woke up with my alarm, fed the dogs, and headed to the garage where Ralphie awaited. I began the process of installing and entire wiring harness. This took some time and maneuvering but, by the time Susan was up and made coffee, I had made good progress. It was very windy so I had to keep the doors closed which was a bummer as it limited my space and the natural light was nice.
In the early afternoon Manos (the guy interested facilitating the purchase the E30) came over to give our used BMW a thorough examination. He was a nice guy and we chatted while he did his thing. Manos stayed for well over an hour and thought the purchase would be a go but needed to talk with the ultimate buyers to make sure (he was going to fix the car and then pass it on to another team). We were elated by the prospect.
We stayed outside working on Ralphie for another few hours until the temperature started dropping which made everything more difficult. I managed to wire in the ignition though the car still wouldn’t start. The harness that came with the car was missing several things that were needed for it to function. This apparent setback and the cold had me calling it quits for the night.
Susan had brought wheels with tires to Discount to have the tires flipped on the rims earlier in the day. Right around 5:00 she received word that the work was finished and went to pick them up. Tia was up on jack stands at the time but we were tired from the day so decided to roll the tires in the garage and figure out the installation the next morning.
Sunday morning we were up with my alarm for some coffee before heading outside to finish preparing for another day at the track. I was really hoping to have Ralphie ready but Tia would have to do again. We mounted the freshly flipped tires on Tia and loaded it into the trailer. It wasn’t long before we were on our way to King Soopers for fuel and food and then on to the track.
We arrived nice and early and found the place largely empty. After parking and checking in we unloaded Tia and waiting for the drivers meeting to finish. We took our turns racing around the track and had a great time. Generally we rode together which added to the enjoyment. While some of the other drivers weren’t exactly courteous, most were and we had no issues doing our thing. We only stopped for gas and to switch drivers and put in a lot of laps.
We loaded up and left the track around 4:30 and made great time despite high headwinds all the way home. The pups were ecstatic to see us which was nice. We unloaded Tia and what we needed to from the day and made a frozen bag dinner thing for dinner. Somehow I managed to partially burn it on the stove but the result was still edible and mostly tasty. It was around this time that I received an offer to buy the E30. It was such a relief and we celebrated with some adult beverages. It was a great way to end a fun and productive weekend.
November 21st weekend –
Saturday we were up somewhat early to have our coffee. The plan was to finalize the sale of the E30 but an early message from the buyer delayed things until Sunday. So we went out to the garage to finish working on Ralphie only to find that the car would not go into gear. The clutch would not disengage far enough to allow shifting.
This was the beginning to a frustrating day. My first thought was that we needed to better bleed the clutch line so we did that for a time but the problem remained. I called and had a master cylinder ordered from our closest parts store. Around 2:00 the part arrived and we picked it up. The install was easy and we rebled the line to no avail. At this point I was questioning whether I installed the clutch correctly so I pulled the transmission off to check. Yes, the clutch was installed correctly. After some internet sleuthing I found out that non-OEM pressure plates sometimes didn’t work with Miatas. Because I had no other ideas I swapped out the new pressure plate I had purchased for an old one we had stored as a spare. After hefting the transmission back into place and bolting it in we tested the clutch and *bingo* the thing worked as expected. I’ve never had this problem before and will be sure to use OEM parts for the drivetrain going forward. It took essentially all day to figure out the problem and I was buttoning up the work around 8:00 that night. I went inside dirty and tired from the effort.
Sunday I woke up Susan early again to have coffee and help getting the E30 ready for pickup. I got to drive Ralphie into the trailer which we then drove down to the lower 40 to make space by the house. We moved things around in the garage to allow the E30 to be pushed up behind the large door and staged the other E30 stuff that was going with the car.
Manos (the buyer) drove up around the time we expected him in a smaller BMW SUV towing a little trailer. The rig was short enough he was able to turn around completely in our driveway which was pretty nice (no chance I could do that with our longer trailer and suburban). We pushed the E30 out of the garage and up to the base of the trailer. He had a winch which made the loading process simple and quick (I now want a winch for our trailer though Susan thinks it’ll be too enabling). Manos is an amiable fellow and we chatted about racing and race cars while we got the car secured. Before too long he went on his way and Susan and I had our sigh of relief.
We spent more time reorganizing and cleaning up the garage before deciding what other cars to pull in. We had a couple of car projects that we’d been putting off during the racing season and we decided to tackle the auto-to-manual swap for Betty first. “Betty” is what we decided to call the black NB Miata we bought last summer and parked shortly thereafter.
Betty had been parked long enough that its battery was dead so using the jump pack was in order. Susan then drove Betty into the spot recently vacated by the E30. Then we strained mightily to push Lil Red into the garage.
When last parked Lil Red was self-propelling (albeit with a badly knocking motor) but after me picking some parts off for Ralphie was now inoperable. The straining was due to the placement of the car as it was positioned on a slight downward angle which sloped down quickly. Thus our feet had little in the way of solid purchase when we started pushing. After some rocking back and forth and with a bit of effort we had Lil Red up and into the garage where it will reside until we’re done stripping it for parts to use for other Miata projects.
We had a few errands to run before calling it a day so left to get to them. We first drove to fellow-racer Chris Dorsey to buy more of his unneeded Miata parts (this time a front sway bar and ECU). Chris’ Miata project is coming along with custom cage work and whatnot. It was fun to talk about his plans.
We next went to Home Depot to return a wrench set I had purchased by accident. When we were walking up to the door we noticed a Mitsubishi Gallant VR-4 parked outside. This is a rare old car and we stopped to look at it. Susan noted that it had military plates and thought it could be Alvin’s. A quick message to Kari confirmed they were in the store looking at refrigerators. We met them inside to chat for a bit before we went on our way. Something about a small world and the wonders of timing.
Our final stop was Susan’s office where she had to do a few things. I elected to sit in the car and play on my phone when she went inside. I had caught up on a few internet things by the time Susan was finished and we went home.
It was getting cold but we decided to BBQ for dinner. The wind was blowing enough that we sat inside the garage between Scrappy and Betty. Luckily there was plenty of space.
The rest of the weekend was spent on the couch with the pups watching a live broadcast of a video game endurance race put on by some folks from the 24 Hours of Lemons. Such is the world we now live in.
Thanksgiving
Susan and I were up with an alarm to start preparing food. Kari and Alvin were coming over later in the morning to eat with us which makes us a bunch of hypocrites. I think we’re all pretty careful with the COVID-stuff but still. Such is. By the time they arrived most of the food was ready and we just had to wait on the turkey.
Alvin and Kari brought sweat potatoes and green bean casserole to go with our turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and orange jello. When we finally sat down to eat we found everything yummy and we thoroughly stuffed ourselves.
Ours was just the first of two stops for Kari and Alvin but they were in no rush so we hung out and chatted about all kinds of things while the food settled. We showed off our new racecar and Susan and Kari hung out with Oliver. We had a nice time.
Eventually Susan and I were alone with our pets again and spent time cleaning up and resetting our home. We enjoyed the day though we missed being with more people.
November 28th weekend –
This was the beginning to a week off for Susan and myself. Our original plan was to go up to Glenwood Springs for a few days but with the resent COVID escalations we decided to make it a staycation instead. We had some grand productivity-related plans but for the Saturday and Sunday largely didn’t do anything but hang out and eat leftovers. It was nice.
I turned 40 on Monday which was fine. I did virtually nothing and was happy for it.
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