Oh no!
I finally got to see the car in person. Man oh man did the pics make the car look good! Overall, it is not too bad, but the thing is pretty dented up. It looks like it had a pretty good fron end collision and some marching band did some practice on the roof. Anyway, here is a rundown on the progress that Dave and I made on the car on 12/23:
So with the work done I was all pumped up to get this asphalt peeling beast on the road. Everything seemed to be working well. I stopped by Greenback and picked up the jack. Called a buddy of mine, Nick, that does a lot of work on C5 vettes and told him I was stopping by to show him a real performance vehicle, and made my way towards Knoxville.
I was tearing ass down I-40 with all 1.3 liters pumping so hard that the torque was almost unbearable. I was between Campbell Station Rd. and Lovell Rd. when I heard a slight pop noise. I was passing a semi and I thought it was just something knocking around on its trailer. I passed the semi and I heard the pop again, which was immediately followed by a whine of death coming from the passenger rear hub. I looked in the passenger mirror and saw some smoke coming from the hub. I immediately took the Lovell Rd. exit, which was about 1/2 a mile away, and pulled into a gas station to survey the damage.
I got out and made the mistake of touching the dust cap on the hub. Got a nice burn on my thumb. (Sweet, 1st BABErally injury). I called Dave and he was already on the other side of Knoxville on his way to Asheville. I knew the bearings were obviously shot so I decided to limp over to Advance Auto Parts and pick up some wheel bearings and then AAA the car over to Nick's, who agreed to let me use his tools to change out the wheel bearings.
So I got the car over to Nick's and in addition to his own twin-turbo Z06, there was another C5 on the lift above his, another twin-turbo on a trailer in the driveway and another one that was being delivered on a trailer. The place looked like a vette hospital and all the vettes were scared of the mighty festiva. If you have a vette or some other LSx car and it is too slow check out www.highpressuremotorsports.com and for the right money Nick will not only make 1st and 2nd gear almost useless but 3rd as well.
Nick and his family were on their way out to some family holiday festivities but he gladly let me use his tools to work on the car. I got the car up and on jackstands and popped off the dust cap AKA "The Thumb Griddle". This is where things went from bad to worse. Inside the dust cap was... well dust or ash, or what remained of the grease that was in the bearings. Those things were shot. I have seen some pretty impressive wheel bearing failures but this took the cake. The bearing was completely seized and the drum was rotaing around the outer race of the bearing. The thing had gotten so hot that the threads on the axle nut had siezed so bad that the spindle stripped when I took the nut off. The hub was done.
I called Dave and told him the good news. He said he could pick up the car Tuesday morning whe he got back to town. I called Nick and asked if I could leave the car at his place until then. He said my car was scaring the vettes too much, which was bad for business, and the car had to go. Seriously, he lives in a real nice neighborhood and his HOA probably already has him on their radar screen. Living in a neghborhood with an HOA myself, I understood completely.
Now let me back up a bit, while I was working on the car I called my wife to touch base with her. I can't remember the whole conversation, but the important part it that she had to call AAA earlier that day because she locked her keys in the van. So to summarize, we had already used AAA twice that day so I was hesitant to call them a third time. I asked her to ask our friends if they would mind if I left the car at their place for a few days. They didn't mind. However, I was stuck with the dilemma of how I was going to get the car over there. It was approximately 6-7 miles away down Northshore Dr. I was thinking, "Well, this could be some good practice run for the BABErally". Keep in mind the axle nut is stripped so it is not there, and the wheel is being held on by the brake drum which is held on to the hub by who knows what. All I know is I could not remove the wheel know matter how hard I kicked it. I figured, "Why not I'll drive it over there and pull over at every nieborhood on the way there and check the hub to see if the wheel is about to fall off." If it got to the point I thought it would fall off I would call another tow truck.
So off I went, the hub was screaming in agony the whole way there, while I cruised ever so slowly down the road. I stopped about 6 times on the way over and the wheel never felt like it was going to fall off. Well, I finally made it. I called Dave and gave him an update. He asked me if I drove the car over there. I said , "maybe".
Fast forward to 12/26. Dave has the car picked up and a replacement hub source from a junkyard. Wednesday the car was fixed. Now the worse part was I was planning to drive the car to Nashville and ultimately back home. I needed to get back for work but my wife wated to stay and visit longer with the inlaws. After checking into several transpotation options it looked like it was going to be an 11 hour pleasure cruise on a Greyhound Bus from Nashville back to Columbia.
All in all, I am glad things went wrong when they did. It would have been worse if it broke down between Knoxville and Nashville or Nashville and Columbia, or even worse, during the rally. Also, Dave found the junkyard which will probably yield us a replacement turn signal housing and lens, an A/C line (after reading some of last year's competitor's websites, A/C may be a nice thing to have), and a backseat (will come in handy if we end up with another team member). So although the car is not in Columbia yet, some positives have come out of the adventure so far. Hopefully we have gotten any major failures out of the way.
- Rear brake shoes are about toast -Changed the shoes
- One of the rear brake slave cylinders is shot -Changed the cylinder, apparently the piston was slightly longer than the factory one and caused some fitment issues with the shoes. It was nothing a bench grinder couldn't handle
- The axle nuts have about had it -These had to come off in order to remove the drums, there was some drama here more on that later.
- The heater isn’t working -As with some cars we discovered that the heat does not work through the main vents. It only blows through the floor and defroster vents.
- It may possibly need a new thermostat as it appears it may be stuck open or is missing altogether (may be contributing to the heat not working) -May or may not have been a problem here. The coolant was very nasty so the thermostat was changed and the block and the heater core were flushed.
- One of the motor mounts is done -Think they are OK. Something to keep an eye on though.
- Windows aren’t rolling up and down very easily -Need some new cranks. Driver window may be off of its track. We may fix it or we may just live with it.
- Clutch pedal needs to be adjusted -Once we figured out which way to turn the bolt it was fine.
- Needs an oil change -No problemo. Done
- May need some plug wires -Looked all right. We'll leave them be for now.
So with the work done I was all pumped up to get this asphalt peeling beast on the road. Everything seemed to be working well. I stopped by Greenback and picked up the jack. Called a buddy of mine, Nick, that does a lot of work on C5 vettes and told him I was stopping by to show him a real performance vehicle, and made my way towards Knoxville.
I was tearing ass down I-40 with all 1.3 liters pumping so hard that the torque was almost unbearable. I was between Campbell Station Rd. and Lovell Rd. when I heard a slight pop noise. I was passing a semi and I thought it was just something knocking around on its trailer. I passed the semi and I heard the pop again, which was immediately followed by a whine of death coming from the passenger rear hub. I looked in the passenger mirror and saw some smoke coming from the hub. I immediately took the Lovell Rd. exit, which was about 1/2 a mile away, and pulled into a gas station to survey the damage.
I got out and made the mistake of touching the dust cap on the hub. Got a nice burn on my thumb. (Sweet, 1st BABErally injury). I called Dave and he was already on the other side of Knoxville on his way to Asheville. I knew the bearings were obviously shot so I decided to limp over to Advance Auto Parts and pick up some wheel bearings and then AAA the car over to Nick's, who agreed to let me use his tools to change out the wheel bearings.
So I got the car over to Nick's and in addition to his own twin-turbo Z06, there was another C5 on the lift above his, another twin-turbo on a trailer in the driveway and another one that was being delivered on a trailer. The place looked like a vette hospital and all the vettes were scared of the mighty festiva. If you have a vette or some other LSx car and it is too slow check out www.highpressuremotorsports.com and for the right money Nick will not only make 1st and 2nd gear almost useless but 3rd as well.
Nick and his family were on their way out to some family holiday festivities but he gladly let me use his tools to work on the car. I got the car up and on jackstands and popped off the dust cap AKA "The Thumb Griddle". This is where things went from bad to worse. Inside the dust cap was... well dust or ash, or what remained of the grease that was in the bearings. Those things were shot. I have seen some pretty impressive wheel bearing failures but this took the cake. The bearing was completely seized and the drum was rotaing around the outer race of the bearing. The thing had gotten so hot that the threads on the axle nut had siezed so bad that the spindle stripped when I took the nut off. The hub was done.
I called Dave and told him the good news. He said he could pick up the car Tuesday morning whe he got back to town. I called Nick and asked if I could leave the car at his place until then. He said my car was scaring the vettes too much, which was bad for business, and the car had to go. Seriously, he lives in a real nice neighborhood and his HOA probably already has him on their radar screen. Living in a neghborhood with an HOA myself, I understood completely.
Now let me back up a bit, while I was working on the car I called my wife to touch base with her. I can't remember the whole conversation, but the important part it that she had to call AAA earlier that day because she locked her keys in the van. So to summarize, we had already used AAA twice that day so I was hesitant to call them a third time. I asked her to ask our friends if they would mind if I left the car at their place for a few days. They didn't mind. However, I was stuck with the dilemma of how I was going to get the car over there. It was approximately 6-7 miles away down Northshore Dr. I was thinking, "Well, this could be some good practice run for the BABErally". Keep in mind the axle nut is stripped so it is not there, and the wheel is being held on by the brake drum which is held on to the hub by who knows what. All I know is I could not remove the wheel know matter how hard I kicked it. I figured, "Why not I'll drive it over there and pull over at every nieborhood on the way there and check the hub to see if the wheel is about to fall off." If it got to the point I thought it would fall off I would call another tow truck.
So off I went, the hub was screaming in agony the whole way there, while I cruised ever so slowly down the road. I stopped about 6 times on the way over and the wheel never felt like it was going to fall off. Well, I finally made it. I called Dave and gave him an update. He asked me if I drove the car over there. I said , "maybe".
Fast forward to 12/26. Dave has the car picked up and a replacement hub source from a junkyard. Wednesday the car was fixed. Now the worse part was I was planning to drive the car to Nashville and ultimately back home. I needed to get back for work but my wife wated to stay and visit longer with the inlaws. After checking into several transpotation options it looked like it was going to be an 11 hour pleasure cruise on a Greyhound Bus from Nashville back to Columbia.
All in all, I am glad things went wrong when they did. It would have been worse if it broke down between Knoxville and Nashville or Nashville and Columbia, or even worse, during the rally. Also, Dave found the junkyard which will probably yield us a replacement turn signal housing and lens, an A/C line (after reading some of last year's competitor's websites, A/C may be a nice thing to have), and a backseat (will come in handy if we end up with another team member). So although the car is not in Columbia yet, some positives have come out of the adventure so far. Hopefully we have gotten any major failures out of the way.
posted by LOHAN at 8:48 AM
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