Road Trip!!! (part 1)

Formerly known as the "Iron-Man" of college/fraternity road trips,
you can imagine how I felt not having an entirely reliable car and being stuck in my small town in Southwest Michigan...it was nothing for me to put 1,000 miles on my old car during a weekend road trip (Saturday/Sunday...no 3 day weekends for me), and at my most awesome (read: brain-dead from too much time in the car), 1,000 miles in 12 hours, and 2,000 in 29 hours.


That's been part of the motivation for fixing up Ulla...I wouldn't be able to survive until I could flat out afford a newer car again.

So, with all of the work that's been done, including the recently acquired tires, it was time to head out for Ulla's inaugural (reborn) road trip, and who better to do it with than my girlfriend, Ally. And when better to do it, than when neither of us has anything to do (right before she gets too busy to do ANYTHING), and where better to go than Northern Michigan?! Well...I can think of other places to go of course, but I was certainly excited nonetheless.

Saturday morning, Ally and I finished loading up Ulla for the weekend, got breakfast, and were on our way, making a brief stop a few miles down the highway to pick up bagels from Panera for Ally's family. The drive up was fairly uneventful, especially south of Clare (the lower Michigan definition of "Up North"). We stopped for gas an Jimmy John's around lunch time, check fluids and tires, and headed back onto the freeway. After some more driving, we hit our first unplanned scenic stop, a rest stop on I-75, just south of Mackinac City. First off, when we pulled into the rest stop to stretch and use the bathroom, a man in a late model Volvo stopped me to say soemthing.

"That's a nice looking car you've got there. I used to have one just like it. I gave it to my son with 140,000 miles on it, and he put another 30,000 on it before selling it. Best car I ever had."

So of course, I took this chance to tell him about restoring her and this being the first major trip, and the new tires the day before and such and such, and I felt proud to be there at that moment. Here I was, next to this 22 year old car that I bought for $500, taking compliments on it. It was certainly a highlight of the weekend.

After Using the restroom, we notice a drive up scenic overlook in the rest area, so we pulled up there, parked Ulla, and get out to look around and take pictures. It was a beautiful sight, and it was only the first of many in the beautiful northern section of the state.

Back on the freeway, we stopped next in Mackinac City for my first true tourist moment. Ally had mentioned a shopping center called Mackinac Crossings, which consisted of the main outdoors outfitter store (like a Cabela's or Gander Mountain), and several smaller shops, including the Made in Michigan store, which had products from around the state, like maple syrup and cherries, and even Oberon, a summer ale from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, MI (My area of the state).

As much as this weekend was for Ally to see her mom and get some stuff for school, it was a weekend for us to get away and do pretty much whatever we wanted, and for her to show me around Northern Michigan. So, like I said, I was doing my best to be as much of a tourist as possible, or a "fudgie" as it were (people from lower Michigan that head "North" for fudge-and tourist-y things-, which the northern part of the state is oddly well known for).

My next awesome event (and last for this half of the weekend) was coming up shortly after leaving Mackinac City; crossing the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula. I had crossed the bridge before, New Year's Eve and New Years Day, when bringing Ally to a party, and taking her home to next day, but that hardly counted...I picked her up at night, and took her back in a snow storm. Even if I hadn't been scared to death and wanted to, I couldn't have seen anything.

Heading onto the bridge was an experience, let me tell you. Watching it rise in front of me, and driving onto the roadway...seeing the clean waters and clear skies, beautiful landscape infront of me, the island to the right, the ferry chugging along...I even drove on the metal grated lane, just because I could. I didn't do that for long though, cause it freaked me out.

After crossing the bridge and paying the toll, I did something that was probably not the best idea, but I stopped on the other side to take a picture (first, at top of post). There I was, in the middle of what was still a freeway, around 5pm, stopped to take a picture.

The next hour was vast trees and nearly empty highway, cruising along with the cruise on. We got off at Ally's home town, made our way to her house, and pulled up out front, and Ulla had made it roughly 400 miles straight north, without a single issue.

*note* additional pictures from the trip can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leersobie1986/sets/72157606701337943/

Detour: Car Show

Heading back home from getting new tires, I decided to stop in and see my mother for a few minutes. Too bad for her, My girlfriend (Ally) and I were detained by a Detour sign in the middle of downtown Battle Creek. The detour was around a 2 block section of the street that had a cruise in car show, so, of course, we had to stop. I will have you know though, this was Ally's idea...I just simply had no objections whatsoever.

We parked Ulla in a nearby parking lot and headed down to the street, camera in hand. These are just a couple of pictures we took, but damn was there a lot to see in such a small area.

It was nice to see so many beautiful cars and to share this with my girlfriend, and it was even better to watch her get excited about some of the cars...be it the Dodge Dart Stinger with the bee on the grill that grabbed her attention, the VW Beetle that was "just so cute", or the Jaguar E-Type that she would have fought the owner for in a cage match, she had just as good of a time as I did.

I decided that by next summer, I want to have Ulla to the point where I'm not embarrassed to show her off and drive her up tot he St. Ignace car show. I don't plan on her being a show car, or having her judged, but something that looks and drives nice, and has one hell of a story.

We also decided officially that Ally wants a little eurocar, too...maybe a Saab, maybe a Beamer or a Benz, or even a Volvo, but what she really wants is a VW, maybe a Golf, or a GTI, or a Jetta, or something that strikes her. I'm so proud.

Who knew so many things can be fixed at once?

This morning, I finally was able to get new tires for Ulla. The old ones (first picture) were as bald as a naked mole rat, and were just as worrisome to have around.

Only two of them matched (in make, but not tread), nothing was balanced, and one of the rims had a bend in it. She shook over 55mph, squealed around corners at 10mph, hated stopping, and one of them had to be pumped up every other day to avoid going flat. I'd make jokes about having racing slicks, but i think those would have been safer to drive on.

I've had several estimates over the last month, and no matter what I did, I couldn't find anything that could be my old tire shop back home, run by a friend of the family. Boland Tire of Sturgis, MI was where my last tires came from (paid for by my parents, years ago), so when they gave me a price of $275 (out the door, lifetime rotations, etc) for a Bridgestone made tire, and none of the "discount" places could come close, I went there without hesitation. The money I spent on gas driving an hour to Sturgis still put me under the other estimates, and I felt more comfortable going there.

An hour after I dropped it off, I came back from visiting people I hadn't seen in a while, and my car was already done. After paying the bill and going outside, I found a shiny new set of rubber (second picture), and to my surprise...they fixed my bent rim. It wasn't anything serious, jsut a bent outside lip a couple of inches long, probably from where someone hit a curb, but...they fixed it, and I couldn't even figure out which rim it had been on (until i did...third picture).

Needless to say, when I finish her up and decide to put a set of proper touring tires on Ulla, I'll go back to them, no question.

On my way back home that evening (with my girlfriend riding next to me), we realized something that I knew would happen to an extent, but we never could have imagined the impact these new tires would have. Ulla handled like a new roadster! smooth ride, less road noise, straighter tracking, and most importantly, no more shaking at higher speeds! I drove part way home on a freeway, just to try her out, and the ease of acceleration and top speed was astounding! Never again will I neglect tires. Never.

Finally, Front Speaks

After putting the Pioneer 6x9's in the back, I basically had everything faded to the back to avoid the popping from the front speakers. Last weekend, after a wedding, I headed to Wal*Mart for a late night "dammit, I forgot to pack THAT?" run. While wandering around the automotive section, I decided to look at speakers, and found a badly damaged box of a pair of 5-1/4" Pioneer speakers...box was beaten, but the speakers looked ok, so I tried something out.

I found an employee and asked for a discount for the damaged box.

15% later, I had a new set of speakers to put in the dash.

Practically as soon as I got back the next day from the wedding, I had the speaker grilles out and the old speakers removed...I was in awe of the fact that these speakers were, literally, made of paper...britle, cracked, paper.

After measuring and finagling, I took out my trusty rotary tool and started hacking away at the plastic on the back of the grilles until it was all gone and I had an essentially flat piece of plastic, lined up and rilled a couple of holes, and attached the rather large Pioneer speakers to the grille...it was all I could do to avoid hitting things in the dash with the speakers, but I made them fit. I did have to add a couple of screws that can be seen once they're in teh dash, but they're black screws, so they blend, and i plan to recess them in sometime, just not right now...I'm not terribly worried about it.

After fitting the speakers and reinstalling the grilles, I tested the new and improved stereo, adjsuted the fade, and cranked her up, blaring the local classic rock station for all to hear.

My stereo is now complete (until I decide to run new wiring, and maybe add an amp and sub box), consisting of a Blaupunkt head unit, 2 Pioneer 6x9's, and 2 Pioneer 5-1/4's, and all of the speakers fit the original designs, leaving it visually untouched.

My First Performance Upgrade!

That pile of plastic under the hood where a something less restrictive should be was starting to bother me, especially after reading about the cool custom intakes others have done, the K&N Intakes not made for Ulla, and the Swedish Dynamics intakes that I couldn't justify spending money on at this point when so many other things need work...like the tires...and a lot of other areas.

That said, I went down to the local Auto Zone to spend a few bucks. If I couldn't justify the Swedish Dynamics kit right now (both for lack of money and lack of certainty that it would be worth it), I couldn't see spending the money on a K&N filter for my little experiment. So, I went over to the isle with intake parts for the rice burners, and picked up a black rubber connector/clamp, and a Spectre Cotton Fiber cone filter.

After paying for my elaborate list of parts, I headed back home, pulled Ulla up into the yard under the tree (giving me shade for the next 20 minutes), and started pulling the plastic tub, air horn, and gigantic cylinder air filter from under the bonnet. I still can't believe that the 2 inch wide opening on that pipe went into an air box twice the size of my first fish tank.

Now came the hard part...the black rubber clamp was used to strap the cone filter to the MAF.

Ok, install done.

All in all, i think I still had 5 minutes of shade by time I started Ulla back up.

I'm not going to lie, more than anything, I feel cool for doing this. It's neat to look at when you open her up and I got rid of a fair deal of plastic under the bonnet. That said, I have noticed some improvement in performance. The new intake (loose term for "filter on throttle") is significantly less restrictive, and allows itself to be considered a "cold air" type. From what I understand, More Air = Better. Also, even though I don't have the added benefit of hearing neat sounds from a turbo through the filter, there is a decidedly different sound from the engine now. Not better, not worse, just different, and I like different.

Even after a couple of weeks now (remember, I don't always type these when I do the work), I haven't noticed any problems with the intake, and nothing has shifted since I installed it. One day, I may go for the Swedish Dynamics kit, but for now, my $20 Spectre "kit" is all I need, and still looks jsut as impressive when I open the hood as the day I put it in.

WD-40 is a fantastic product

I've known this for years from my father, but WD-40 is awesome.

A healthy dose over pretty much everything makes things move/work better.

Switches, keys, connectors, anything.

On a cold winter in August.

The most frustrating part of fixing up the engine was when I changed the AIC valve and replaced the bolt on the throttle, she developed a new problem. When I would turn her over after the engine cooling, she would hunt and stall idle extremely rough for a honest 15 minutes, or a good 5 rough minutes of low stress driving, before finally warming up and being friendly. It's like having another me without my morning coffee.

Since, I had decided to replace a number of parts anyway, I found a MAF sensor on eBay and purchased it (also came with a Jetronic box from an '86 SPG) for $20, figuring that if nothing else, I'd have a newer one on the engine. Turns out, it seems that's exactly what I needed for my little warm up issue. I kept an eye on it for the next day, seeing how Ulla responded to cold starts, warm starts, starting up after going into the store...no problems. Now, after sitting overnight, she takes a mere minute to warm up and be ready to go, and I couldn't be happier.

On a personal note, the eBay user I bought the MAf from has been an wealthspring of knowledge and parts for me, and I'm working on purchasing a shipment of parts from him for my baby. I cannot recommend eBay user 1redaero enough.