It’s been a while since I’ve written any car posts. Frankly I got to the point of really getting annoyed while working on the cars. Wes and his car-buds have a shop that they spend a good amount of time in with their Talon race car. Laziness keeps me from getting out and working on them.
However when things break you have to take the time to stop and fix them. As I pulled into the office yesterday morning it sounded as if I had driven over something such as a stick or similar and it was caught under the front-end. Once I parked and placed the car in park, the sound was still there.
Leaving it running I checked under the hood and found that the accessory belt partially shredded. Don’t you love those “Crap!” moments? By the end of the day I decided I would attempt to drive it home as it was to keep from working on it in the office parking lot. The belt was mostly intact and had just shredded on the edges. I made it home and began the arduous task.
The thoughtful engineers at GM thought it was a great idea to design the route of the one-and-only belt around the motor mount. Yes! You have to remove part of the motor mount to replace the belt. Joy-gasm! First it is best to remove the passenger side tire and place the car on a jack-stand. Then remove the plastic wheel well cover near the front of the wheel well. This will give you plenty of room to access the bottom motor mount nut/bolt. Remove the nut from the bolt and then place a floor jack under the motor (protecting it from damage) and lift the motor just a little. Then remove the bolt from the mount. (NOTE) I did not know that the GM star pattern bolts can be removed/inserted using a standard socket.
Once the bolt is removed you will need to remove the plug from the crank position sensor. This will give you room to remove the thick metal bolt spacer between the motor mount and the motor. This will take a little elbow grease to get out and back in. Bring it down to remove it. Once out then run the new belt though the opening you’ve made and reverse the process to install the spacer, bolt and nut back in place.
Now the easy part. Dress the new belt in position as indicated in the owners manual. Place your ratchet/socket on to the pulley tensioner and release the existing belt and install the new. Whew! Your done.
This time I’m going to be working on someone else car. I’ll be working on a friends Pontiac Grand Prix. I’m very familiar with the Supercharged 3800 Engine. Looks like we’ll be replacing an oil pump. Not fun as I believe it is mounted inside the oil pan. First have to get it to the house which they are delivering tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.
Wes 240 project is literally on hold as he depends on it as a daily driver and we have little or no time anymore to work on it. He works Saturdays. Hopefully we can work on it more this summer.
For $7 a ticket Wes and I were a little disappointed about this show. We found out after the show that some tickets were simply given away through various auto parts stores, etc. The biggest issue was that all of the cars batteries were disconnected. It’s a little hard to test feature’s of a car when you can’t play with them. Ford’s SYNC service could not be tested and neither could the NAV system on the Dodge Challenger.
There excuse was that “some” of the cars were available for a test drive. This much was true. Wes and I test drove the Dodge Challenger and got it up to 100MPH rather quickly. SWEET! We also test drove the Mazda 6. I am not a Mazda fan but I think I would buy this car if I didn’t already like the new Toyota Venza. We didn’t test drive it but will soon. I’m going to write MADA and suggest some things for next year.
FINALLY a worthwhile quality car show comes to Jackson! It starts Friday, January 23 and runs through Sunday, January 25, 2009. It is being held at the new Capital City Convention Center. It will feature a collection of exciting new-model and pre-production vehicles, concept cars, specialty vehicle displays, alternative fuel vehicles and family-style entertainment. All of this for only $8 a ticket. The tickets are $7 if you purchase online and you get a free 1 year subscription to Motor Trend magazine. This is certainly going to be better than the fiasco we paid $10 for last year.
Wes and I are taking off on Friday to see it first hand. Very excited.
FINALLY a worthwhile quality car show comes to Jackson! It starts Friday, January 23 and runs through Sunday, January 25, 2009. It is being held at the new Capital City Convention Center. It will feature a collection of exciting new-model and pre-production vehicles, concept cars, specialty vehicle displays, alternative fuel vehicles and family-style entertainment. All of this for only $8 a ticket. The tickets are $7 if you purchase online and you get a free 1 year subscription to Motor Trend magazine. This is certainly going to be better than the fiasco we paid $10 for last year.
Wes and I are taking off on Friday to see it first hand. Very excited.
This guy is probably the best driver I have ever seen! It is 4 1/2 minutes long but well worth it.
September 29th, 2008
Alex
My son and I went to see a group of racers performing in a transcontinental race called The Fireball Run. I read about them coming into town and knew it would be a great opportunity to take pictures and see some really nice cars we normally do not see in the Jackson area.
What caught my eye about this particular rally is their charity, Child Rescue Network. Each Fireball Run team is assigned a different missing child. Their mission is to distribute as many posters as possible along the 3500 mile journey from Baton Rouge LA to Grand Rapids MI. Upon arrival to the 2008 Fireball Run teams receive a full color removable decal of their missing child to apply on their vehicle. We were handed fliers from only one team but I think that was due to the lack of anyone really being there from the Jackson area. Even the TV crews left after 30 minutes.
What impressed me the most was last years results. “This three million dollar awareness campaign was hugely successful last year when the rally traveled from Orlando, FL to Beverly Hills, CA. Of the 65 children featured last year, 23 have since been rescued and reunited with their families and guardians.” WOW. Have you ever heard of a program having those kinds of results?
Next year the race is going to cover Route66. My son and I sure wish this was something we could do. It would be a blast! My “hats-off” to Judy Bardin of the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau for bringing the 2008 Fireball Run to Jackson.
September 15th, 2008
Alex
It’s been so long I haven’t had time to write anything. We haven’t really worked on any cars for a while until this weekend. My Son installed some GoodYear Gator-back belts on the 240 this weekend. He had a problem with the alternator tensioner bracket as the mounting bolt came off some how and was causing the belt to rub. He bought another bolt and got it corrected. But we had to order the belts as no one had all three in stock. The last one came in this past Saturday morning.
Putting it all back together and firing it up lead to a new noise coming from the fan clutch. So a new fan clutch has been ordered and should arrive today.
I should have known not being sponsored by a major player in the Auto biz that this show was going to be lame, and it was. I think my email to the promoters says it all.
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Jones"
To: mississippilivestatewide@gmail.com; matt@uholding.com; dunstonekehoe@hotmail.com
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 12:27 PM
Subject: LAME
Gentleman,
My son and I went to your Auto | Bike | Live Entertainment Showcase | Various Artists Concert Friday July 4th at 1:30PM. Our big draw was to see the Auto/Bike show. So since the schedule indicated that the "Cruise in auto & bike" started at 10:00 am - 1:00 pm with judging @ 2:00:pm we wanted to arrive just in time to see the judging going on. When we arrived the parking lot was near empty! There were few cars in the parking lot and after getting in and going into the stands there were 6 people there.
There were 5 cars and 1 bike to look at in the "show." One car depicted cocaine on the hood and roof. A bit of advice, when you advertise a family event you might want to keep the drug scene out. There was maybe one good quality car out of the 5 and the 1 bike was nice, but come on! Where was the Auto/Bike show?! I have seen some quality car shows around the United States and even the Dodge Event at the Coliseum (which sucks) was better than your show.
The guy at the front gate had no idea what to do with my ticket/card when I presented it to him. He asked me if I was "on the list." The security guard had to tell him what to do. I've said all that to say this, I want my money back! $20 went to you guys and you did not put on a show worth $20. I just need you to tell me how I go about getting my money back.
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I did get a reply from one of the guys I emailed apologizing for such a lame show. (Removed his email address from this post). He was hired to run the Auto/Bike Show during the event but had nothing to do with the event itself. He agreed with me that the show was not as advertised. I’m sure the other “thugs” will not reply and I will not get my money back but I’ll keep trying. Maybe one day Jackson will have a quality Auto show come to town.
