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    1. Home
    2. lokerola
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    lokerola

    @lokerola

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    Best posts made by lokerola

    • So long GT, hello WRX

      As fast in a straight line as the Mustang was, I never really "jelled" with it. It was a bit too heavy, too cumbersome, and the seats never quite fit me right. I was always playing around with aftermarket backrests and couldn't find a good seating position.

      I decided to see what Carvana would offer for the GT. Holy smokes used car prices are crazy! I got a smoking offer from Carvana, but ended up heading to my local Honda and Subaru dealers to test drive some vehicles. I tried a Civic Sport. Again, my back said no bueno. Then I tried a Forrester premium. It was OK.

      Then. Then it happened.

      I test drove a base WRX manual. My God, where have you been all my life WRX?! This is the most fun, comfortable, and good looking car I've driven in a loooong time. Automotive love at first sight drive. Subaru matched the Carvana offer, and out the door I went with a Subue!

      It's a base WRX, so no fancy bits like heated seats, a sunroof, etc. But it has the great driving bits; all wheel drive, summer tires, great manual trans, decent radio. Oddly enough I've become less and less of a fan of electronic and other fancy tidbits over the years. And I like it just the way it is with great looking 17" wheels and a perfect stock stance.

      Anyway, that's all the news from Lake Woebegone. Be well, do good work, stay in touch, and save the manuals!

      wrx1.jpg
      wrx3.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • Short shifters, blood, ER, and life lessons. NSFW.

      Just so you know, there’s a couple of pics of my injury down below. That’s why I put NSFW in the title. It’s not terribly gory, but there is some blood. Unfortunately my own…..

      This is a tale of two stories. The first is a dive into the install of a short shifter for my 2021 WRX .The second is a tale of woe, blood, and the emergency room. Ye have been warned if you’re queasy.

      The day started out so perfect. I had the day off of work and the wife was out of town. The weather was perfect and I had all the time in the world to get this project done.

      WRX’s don’t have the most high-precision stock shifters. The throws are kind of long and the feel is a bit rubbery. To remedy this situation, I purchased a few tasty upgrades. I bought a Raceseng Stratos Aclantara heavy weight shift knob, and I bought a short shifter kit from Billetworkz. It consists of a new shifter, a new shift stop, and a brass bushing that goes on a cable link.

      Let me just tell you, for an amateur who doesn’t wrench very much this was a seriously daunting project. I could install a short shift kit on my old GTI in 15 mins. This install took 5 hours. Unless you add the 4 hours in the ER, then it was 9 hours total.

      Here’s the link from Billetworkz on how to install their shifters. I must have watched this 5 or 6 times, and had it up during the actual work. It was crucial to getting the install done.

      You have to get the car up on ramps and unbolt a bunch of stuff. Then you have to get inside the car and unbolt a fair amount of interior parts. Then you have to unbolt the shifter mechanism from the chassis, and then, and only then does the hard work start. The shifter mechanism has to be disassembled and the stock shift rod has to be removed. You reuse the stock housing and put the Billetworkz shifter into it. It ain’t no 15 minute GTI job, that’s for sure.

      There were so many bolts from the whole shebang that I was worried I would misplace them. I got a box of ziplock bags and labeled them for each step so I’d know what goes where.

      I hate getting under cars, but I had race ramps, wheel chocks, and I even backed up my wife’s Rogue right behind the rear bumper, in case it decided to roll off on its own. Which was silly because our driveway is pancake-flat.

      After a lot of cursing and slightly busted knuckles, I got the shifter out and inside the house for disassembly. Everything was going well until the step where you have to knock a pin out of the stock shifter. I could not get that damn thing out. It would come half-way out and get stuck. I finally just hack-sawed it in half and got the stock shifter out.

      Reassembly was the reverse of disassembly, as they say. I got it all put back together and I tested the gears in the car while it was still on the ramps. It all seemed good. I grabbed a few cans of Fluid Film to hit the underside again, because #winteriscoming and #rustysubaru keep me up at night. My hope is to hold off the rust demons as long as possible.

      I was DONE. Time to test drive! But wait. There was the matter of the brass bushing. I had not installed it yet. A small transmission plate has to be removed to access the linkage where the bushing goes. It needed a 12mm box wrench.

      And here’s where we segue into story two. The day was getting long, I hadn’t eaten lunch, and frankly I was tired. There was a little voice inside my head that said “Wait. Just wait until tomorrow to put the bushing on”. But no. The day had gone well, I had overcome any and all challenges. I could do this!

      Here is what the CDC says about Work and Fatigue:

      Fatigue has been broadly described as “a feeling of weariness, tiredness or lack of energy”...Fatigue can slow down reaction times, reduce attention or concentration, limit short-term memory and impair judgment.

      Impaired judgment. Yeppers. I grabbed my 12mm box wrench. It was awfully short, and trying to loosen the bolt tucked up against the transmission would put my hand in a dangerous spot. But, hey. I’m a smart guy! I don’t need to dig out the long 12mm wrench.

      I put the small wrench up there, pulled, pulled some more, and dammit if that bolt wasn’t on tight. I tried again and SLAM! The wrench practically flew out of my hand and my forearm smashed into the fine, sharp, edge of the heat shield. Sharp as the finest knife you have in your kitchen.

      Have you ever had a cut so clean and perfect that you don’t even notice it for a few seconds? Then the heat and burning starts. The heart beats faster and blood starts gushing.

      I rolled out from underneath the car. My right arm was soaked in blood and I looked like a prop from a horror movie. I pulled my sleeve down with my left hand and saw exposed flesh, muscle, and blood was everywhere.

      Ah panic mode. A certain calmness takes over in times of crisis. Maybe it’s the same gene EMT’s or nurses have. Blood, guts, fear…..the mind goes into survival mode. I grabbed the keys to my wife’s Rogue and drove to the hospital one-handed. You see, I was holding my right forearm together with my left hand as hard as possible to stop the bleeding - all the while steering with the bloody hell-hand. Thankfully it’s a short drive and there was almost no traffic.

      A funny thing happens when you bust into the ER with blood everywhere. The nurses call out ”Blood!” and they run over to check you out. You know, make sure I hadn’t hit an artery or nerve or anything. Once they determined I wasn’t going to bleed-out or die, they tied a towel around my arm and sent me off to have a seat in the waiting room. I had a funny vision of Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice sitting in death’s waiting room, with all the smashed up dead people waiting to find out what happens to them.

      Anyway, this story is getting long, so I’ll wrap it up. They gave me a tetanus shot, cleaned up the cut a bit, numbed me up, stitched me up, and sent me home.

      The nurses and doctors were nice and I even had a few different nurses come in to see the cut. It was perfect with no jagged edges. They were just amazed at how neatly a car had sliced me open. It looked like the fishmonger had fileted me with his sharpest knife.

      Moral of the story? Don’t bring a box wrench to a heat shield fight? No, no. You probably guessed it at the beginning. Safety third! No wait. Have healthcare before wrenching on your car! Or something like that. Well, maybe I’ll learn my lesson one day.

      In the meantime, the shifter is fantastic. I put the shift stop in as well. No more slop, short shifts. It’s quite lovely.

      The bushing is sitting here taunting me. But I think it can wait until spring….

      And now for the pics you’ve all been waiting for.

      The bloody sweatshirt has served me well for many a year. It is time to say goodbye!
      sweater.jpg

      The stitches. I counted 12!
      stiches.jpg

      The shifty shifter. Sorry for the dog hair. Labs gonna' lab.
      shifter.jpg

      Damn bushing.
      bush.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • As the Charger/Challenger sail off into the sunset, a reminder..

      I owned a 2011 Charger for a few years. It was loaded with heated seats/steering wheel, leather, etc.

      I put after-market exhaust on it, but kept the resonators so it had a louder burble, but wasn't obnoxious.

      It drove like a dream and was very comfortable. Easily one of my favorite cars.

      Except the reliability. The Nav unit kept going out and other electrical bugaloos kept popping up. I eventually got sick and tired of sitting the dealership, waiting for them to replace some electrical component. I traded it in for a 2014 Honda Accord Sport, which I hated and traded in for a GTI.

      But that's another story.

      Here's my son back in 2011 looking tentatively at the bubbles floating away.....

      The car floated out of my life.....

      My son's bubbles floated away.....

      And this weekend, I will take my now 18 year old son to college, and he will float away out of his childhood home into adulthood........

      Life is but a dream.......

      chrgr.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • Steeda - she low now!

      Steeda springs, struts, bumpstops, and camber plates installed. It handles sooo much better. And she is grounded to the ground.

      steeda1.jpg

      steeda2.jpg

      steeda4.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: Do I want a FREE W8 Passat?

      It’s free today.

      Your bank account however is probably humming with anticipation.

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • I wrenched today, and I never wrench

      Decided to replace my roof rack with a trailer hitch that will accept my bike rack. I don't use the rack that often and the roof rack was noisy and prevented me from easily washing the car. We already have a 1 1/4" bike rack that we use on the Rogue, so I decided to pull the Thule and install the Curt hitch.

      Summary of how it went:

      • Took three hours to do the initial install, and two hours to tweak it.

      • Jeez o' flip, now I remember now why I hate wrenching on cars. No garage, so between the heat and the multiple trips for tools, it's a giant pain in the patooty.

      • You have to drop the exhaust, pull heat shields, dill a hole in the heat shields, fish bolt hardware through frame rails, and man-handle rubber exhaust isolators to install the hitch. So much rolling around on the asphalt!

      • A small number of people in the review of the Curt complained that it rattled after install. Yep. Mine did too. Not a lot, but at low speed it had a bad rattle.

      • Back on the ramps and it was obvious that the inside-facing exhaust mount was the culprit. It was very close to the frame of the Curt hitch. Without an angle grinder, I decided to "Red-Green" a solution, and so far it seems to be working

      • I had some left-over 1/2" gym mat floor material from a previous project. I removed the rubber exhaust isolator to give me a little play in the exhaust (without dropping it all the way again), cut a strip of gym mat, put some contact cement on it and jammed it up between the hitch and exhaust hanger, securing the whole thing with a few zip ties.

      • I put it all back together and a test drive revealed good results! I think it's a borderline "JRITS" candidate, but it does seem to be working. If it fails at some point, I'll just go buy a cheap angle grinder, remove both mufflers, and grind down the mounts just a little bit.

      • Fearing rust, I also sprayed the freak out of the underside with Fluid Film. I did it last year and was impressed that there's still a lot left over from last spring. Pretty amazing stuff.

      • I now smell like grease, lanolin, and maybe some blood. It's not wrenching if there isn't blood, right??

      • The worst part of the this whole endeavor were the two plastic panels I had to pull to gain access to the exhaust, They're held on with a million plastic rivet-dammits and it took me a thousand curses to get them reinstalled, and I realized I did one of them wrong. I have no patience left to fix it today, so I'll deal with it next weekend.

      Have a few boring pics of a WRX with a roof rack and a hitch.

      hitch4.jpg

      hitch2.jpg

      hitch3.jpg

      hitch1.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • I washed the car. That is all.

      Despite it being cold outside, and despite me getting over a cold, I just had to wash the WRX. It was getting too dirty for my liking.

      2021 WRX base, manual.

      Boring-car silver with 2 mods; a roof rack which was supposed to carry bikes, but hasn't since my tennis elbow flared up and I haven't been riding outside, and four Michelin all season tires (or "tyres" as they say in England, or "tarz" as they say in the south).

      Washed with ONR rinseless wash and a bunch-o-microfiber. Loves me some ONR.
      https://optimumcarcare.com/product/optimum-no-rinse-wash-shine1

      Topped off with Meguiars quick wax.

      Quick vacuum and I was done and laying on the couch watching Lord of the Rings.

      Now I'm torn between having a vacation beer, because vacation dammit! Or not having a beer as I was just sick as a dog 2 days ago.

      Pics for you good people, or it didn't happen.

      wash1_12-22-21.jpg

      wash2_12-22-21.jpg

      wash3_12-22-21.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • Days of the week in unnecessary car shopping

      Monday: I love driving light Japanese cars! Builds a Civic R at Honda.

      Tuesday: I love pickups! Builds a manual Toyota Tacoma Off Road at Toyota.

      Wednesday: I love diesel Benz's! Shops ancient diesel MB's on Craigslist.

      Thursday: I love a comfy car! Shops used Lexus at Carmax.

      Friday: I love a cheap car! Shops lease deals for basic Subaru Impreza's at Bluebook.com

      Saturday: I love muscle cars! Shops superchargers for Mustang in driveway at American Muscle.

      Sunday: I just want something reliable! Shops Camry XLE's at Toyota.

      Monday: Repeat as needed! Add browsing Singer Porsche and BaT after buying lottery ticket at 7-11.

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • Detailing the Rex

      Amazing how much crud comes off of a new car with clay. I tossed the clay, so there's no exciting pic to show. But knowing that many cars are stored near rail yards before delivery, I guess it makes sense that a new car with almost no miles on it would be covered in dirt, dust, and rail road fall out.

      Anywhoo, after clay was a single pass with Wolfgang swirl remover, then Poorboy's black hole glaze, and topped with 2 coats of Collinite 476 wax.

      Then I mowed the lawn and cooked steak for dinner. I'm officially exhausted. Is it Friday yet?

      wrx_detail-5-31-21-01.jpg

      wrx_detail-5-31-21-02.jpg

      wrx_detail-5-31-21-04.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • Countertoppo & Wheels

      The weekend means house projects and this is the beast that's been taking up a lot of my time. Ten foot long, two inch thick maple countertop from Lowes. I'm building built-in's in our den and this will installed on top of a row of shallow cabinets. It's such a heavy beast that it wouldn't run through my Bosh portable table saw. I had to get out the circular saw and cut very slowly to rip it down. Maple is like iron.

      I got the summer wheels out the shed and used Sonax cleaner and Sonax rim protector on them. They're not perfect, but they still look pretty good after a couple seasons of three season daily use. Still rocking the stock Pirelli's, which are known for being kinda' crappy. I'll probably swap them out for Michelin AS3's this fall.

      CT.jpg

      wheels.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola

    Latest posts made by lokerola

    • RE: Ukraine: This is bad news for everyone.

      Screw Russia. Slava Ukraine.

      posted in OPPolitics
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: My family's $63,000 camper is built like a late 1970s car

      I really never gave it any thought about how bad these are. Interesting.
      I hope they get theirs fixed.

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: OPPO Challenge: what year is this Dart?

      ARTHUR: Camelot!

      SIR GALAHAD: Camelot!

      LANCELOT: Camelot!

      PATSY: It's only a model.

      ARTHUR: Shh! Knights, I bid you welcome to your new home. Let us ride... to... Camelot!

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: It was nice to drive something nice again

      I've loved those things since they came out!

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: My favorite JRitS posts of the week, Vol. 306

      I saw the post about the 19yo. As a Dad, I had stop reading there. Oof poor kid and poor family.

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: Remembering the "Good Times"

      Honestly, I don’t remember too much from Jalop.

      A lot of LeMons coverage sticks in my mind, but that’s about it.

      Then the ads and the terrible ending. Thank God oppo lives on.

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: I committed a terrible sin

      It happens.

      Now spend the next hours and $400 browsing autogeek.net, buying polish and ceramic coating, promising yourself you'll polish out all the swirls as soon as it warms up.

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: Neglected Cars Roll Call

      @JRC99 Oh man, turbo Buick! Drool!!!

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: No Door Roll Call

      My old Cannondale is doorless!

      thumbnail_F3828988-0861-40E5-A529-9DB84FA4AD87.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola
    • RE: Flat engine roll call

      Here's my 2021 WRX base model in all it's winter glory. I did recently add some LED low beams from Diode Electronics. My God, I can finally see where I'm going. And they're not ridiculously bright, so people are not flashing their brights at me. Yea.

      2-14-2023.jpg

      posted in Oppositelock
      lokerola
      lokerola