FBC rides the town bike

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Sounds like normal to me. 

Glad you are back to the home town. 

Glad you made it, any photos of the carnage? 

Battery out of car. Charging. Hopefully I can get it to run enough to get it off the trailer. 

Pixtures adter a couple work calls and some food 

There's a guy that it encourages everybody to swap a 60 degree GM V6 into things. You probably shouldn't listen to him.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

im hoping this motor isn’t lunched.   It did get hot and put some fluid on the road  but the rad is still fulll and no cross contamination   

If I can’t get this motor to work then it’s swapsies time  

If

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Made it to my wife’s school to go give her a hug. She sends me out to get afternoon snack for kids. So awesome. 

par for the course around here. 

"hi babe, i just survived this wacky ordeal and thought i'd share it with you." 

"mmm hmmm, can you go to _______ and pick up __________?"

Well. She started sounded good and ran into the garage. Discovered the towing company damaged my r lip.  

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Well. She started sounded good and ran into the garage. Discovered the towing company damaged my r lip.  

Some epoxy could likely fix the lip. But they damage easy regardless, unfortunately. 

In reply to mtn 

luckily they are 50 on Amazon.  

now I think it pulled the bumper cover to fender gap.pit as well. I'll work on that after I get it running and driving again. 

If everything was easy the other car forums would do it.

Glad you made it home.

Hey, you didn’t happen to stay at the AmericInn did you? My I just realized my wife and I stayed there when we were too tired to make it home from... somewhere, not sure where. They were the only place in Tomah we could get a reasonable rate in considering it was 1am when we checked in. 

OK.. So here's the story..

Wednesday 5/29, I WFH in the morning and take the 12:30 flight from MSP to ORD.  MTN picks me up in the miata.  I drive it back to his place and check it out, albeit briefly.....  Should probably have done more, but I've scheduled my timeline so tight, I need to get on the road.  Mtn is  fantastic guy..  Wish I could have stayed to enjoy a beverage or three..  Anyways...  

the car is as described.

We load up the extra wheels and hit the road for my in-laws..

14x6 BBS wheels fit nicely in the passenger seat.

So..  I get the car to my inlaws.. Who laugh at me...  They are graciously letting me store a set of hollow spokes and some other items in their garage until my wife goes to get them later this summer.  

Load up in car.. 

Gas it up...  Get some popeyes chicken..  Which I regret. 

Start driving and things are going well.   I realize I should have washed the windshield and possibly also gotten new wipers..  These are roooooooached.

Then I really regret not washing the windshield as the sun goes down...  little did I know this would be the least of my worries.

And then... My right foot cramps up and I pass a cheese shop( I know hard to do in Wisconsin) and I  think to myself I wish this car had working cruise control..   Then I hear a bang..  The car is lowered, so I don't know I hit something.. or..   

Charge light comes on..

Then.. Check engine light..

Then..  the temp gague is pegged..

Feels like it happened instantly.. WTF..

Pull over, call the wife..

Me: Something happened it's bad...  

Her:  I knew I should have married that peurto rican guy named Juice..  

Me:  love you.. call you when I know more.

Steams coming out of the overflow, not bad.. I've had much worse..  Just a little bit.  I see the crank pulley laying in the undertray and go... ohh crap.. 

Call triple A

"Your hold time is 20 minutes"

Get the truck scheduled... It's 8:20pm..  I got daylight for an hour.. I'm good..  

After three calls to triple A it's around 10 pm.. Pitch black, i'm on the side of 94 outside Tomah Wisconsin.. No tow truck.  My wife gets angry.. Calls triple A..  Now, if anyone knows my wife, You will understand she is the kindest and sweetest person in the whole world.. However, She cannot tolerate poor service and goes from zero to very angry quickly.  She never yells, is very polite, never curses.. but she has a way of ensuring people understand they are on very thin ice.

Dosen't work.

4 way flashers start to dim badly..  

I think two things.. 

1: I'm glad I have this giant lion external battery for my phone...  Always buy the biggest allowable by the TSA people..   I have this one. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075LBHQVZ  It's heavy as sin, but I never run out of juice.  

2: AAA is worthless

It's 11..  more escalations with AAA..  about  10pm I call the state patrol to ask if they can get a car to sit behind me so I dont become a pancake.  The trooper has to come from LaCrosse.  He was a super great guy.. We laughed about my poor life choices and he was happy to help me out until the tow truck came at 12:15 or so..  Which takes an inordinate ammount of yelling at AAA.  They really screwed up here.  I'm done with paying their fees and will use USAA for Roadside or Hagerty..  My wife chews threw three AAA supervisors..  They all appologize, admit they dropped the ball..  Finally authorize an "out of contract tow".. Which we get for free.  

Yes.. thats coolant on the ground.  I find out later its not dry, but I did boil out enough that the top hose is mostly dry, not completely.. The rad is still mostly full and the block has coolant in it.  Fingers crossed the head isn't warped...

Middle of the night tow truck drivers are interesting.. I'll leave it at that.  All in all he was cool and I made AAA pay for the whole tow.

I had previously arranged for a hotel room through booking.com and a UHAUL from Uhaul.com.  The hampton INN in town was full.  I try to use my gold status to leverage a room.. no dice.  So I stay here.  https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/microtel/tomah-wisconsin/microtel-inn-suites-tomah/overview  It was $80 a night and not terrible.  I wouldn't do it again...  The coffee in the morning was more amber than black..  Such disapointment.

I don't really sleep much...  

Wake up.. Call wife.. Everythings OK at home..  Call my admin.. Cancel all meetings...  She laughs at me...  Get a call from Uhaul.. Hey..  We don't have a truck and trailer for you in Tomah.. It's 20-30 miles away..  Heart sinks...   So I go eat breakfast, drink some horrible coffee...  Temporarily lose my phone under the hood of the car..  I left it there then go in.. then I start asking everyone where I put it in the lobby..  I'm obviously seriously sleep deprived.

It's 8am the local uhauls start opening.  I start calling them.  Wind up calling this place http://www.restwellinn.com/.  Once the guy hear my story he admits someone dropped a truck off last night with a trailer and its not in the system.. SCORE!  So..  I  get a ride from a taxi service (no uber in Tomah) to the place and realize I should have stayed at this place. Owner is super cool, He moved up to Tomah from Chicago years ago to retire and just fish.  We talk chicago and baseball for a bit.  He's got a giant picture of Kirby Puckett on the wall.  Instantly, I regret not staying at his Inn last night.  

I get the truck, drive to walmart and buy some jumper cables and a come-a-long.  In my sleep deprived stupor, I realize I charge myself for two sets of jumper cables at the self check out.  Unfortunately, This comes after I've left the store and am already 10 miles down the road.  Most expensive set of tools I never bought.  

Get back to the hotel. Back up the truck.  It's been 10 years since I've backed up a trailer, but do it with only one pull forward..  In my defence there is a dumpster directly across from the miata so it wasn't a straight back up.

Get ready to get out the come along to pull the car on the trailer and a man appears from this large shed next to the miata.  Paul, owns a heavy wrecker company, and was at the shop doing some maintenace on his rig.  If you ever need a giant tow.. call this dude http://towingandrecoverytomahwi.com/  So Paul helps me push the miata onto the trailer.  I offer to buy him a 6 pack for his help.. He declines and disappears to his shop.

Thanks Paul!

Strap it down and GO!

Get home at 2pm the next day.  the uhaul is slow.  I'm consistently doing 10mph under the 70mph speed limit.  I grab the battery out of the car and throw it on the charger and go make a couple work calls.  Work ends at 4:30..  Grab the battery off the charger.  Unstrap the car..  Throw the battery in the car and it starts.. I drive it into the garage..

yes, that's my kid in his underwear running in the front yard.. What you dont see is his big brother chasing him with a hose..

Now the Carnage.

My gut says two of the bolts snapped or backed out and the other two were trying to hold on for dear life for some time.  You can see the two out of round holes with shiny impressions denoting the vibration..  I think I can clean up the pulley, use some easy outs on the bolt stubs, if they are in there.. (or grab the big ones with vise grips..) then put it back together..  Compression test soon to determine the head gasket situation...

I ordered new bolts today.. Mcmaster carr will only sell 10.9 grade bolts in black phosphate coating at 100 pcs..  Fastenal wanted a dollar a piece for the bolts + $12/shipping.  So I for the same price I have a few extra. Anyone need some.. M6x1.0 flange head 10.9 grade 16mm length. I bought 10.9 over 8.8 grade bolts for extra ooomph..  A Google search shows that these bolts can get loose, the pulley wobbles and then the little bolts snap.  Not uncommon.. It is uncommon for someone to be going 75 mph when it happens.. hence the over heating..  

And Its soccer time for the boys.. I'm out!

Congrats on the purchase!  It feels like you have been considering a fun car purchase for years and now you have it! Must feel good.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/this-is-my-build-thread-its-a-build-thread/154353/page1/

I have build thread.

In reply to MrJoshua :

Yes I have.  Thanks...  Now, I need to convince work to not move me for some time.

Wait, didn’t this car used to have black racing stripes? Not sure when it lost those but I like it better without them. I think I sold Pete that front lip.

In reply to karplus2 :

This car did not have black stripes, at least not since it came into the GRM family in 2007. Though it had been resprayed at some point. 

It’s been so long now since I had it that I don’t remember who I got the lip from, or even if I bought it new or used. But I’ll trust your memory on that...and it’s certainly more likely that I got a used one. 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

My memory isn’t great. I remember a red Miata that you and Dan owned. Don’t know where I am getting the stripes from. Must have been a different Miata.

karplus2 said:

In reply to Pete Gossett :

My memory isn’t great. I remember a red Miata that you and Dan owned. Don’t know where I am getting the stripes from. Must have been a different Miata.

 

I think that was a different one, but I do recall a red miata with black stripes back around 09-11ish. 

Quick follow up here.  Parts on order to fix and it looks like I can submit up to$600 for trip interruption insurance to triple a.  So I should be reimbursed for my uhaul.