Hello mister fixit.

So the bulk of the work on the green monster has been done by the guys at DSG. Today, however, after being inspired by the bout of shit that got done when Tristan was here, I rolled up my sleeves and dismantled the passenger side door. The forecast called for rain, but the driveway was sunny and gorgeous, and it was a perfect day to install the new window holder thingies. Which I did. Sweet! I still don't know if I did it well enough, I imagine they should be tighter than they are, but we'll see. They haven't rattled out yet. I'm hoping that the pressure of gravity and repeated rolling up and down will actually press them in to the proper tightness. I've left the inside skin of the door off temporarily so I can gain instant access just in case something goes awry.

I bought some doohickeys and gunk to put in the cooling system to clean it out. Prestone branded everything. I was going to do that today but then the rain started. Lame. Maybe tomorrow will be less wet.

But yay for doing it myself!

A little more work to do.

So I ordered a car cover that doesn't fit. I'd be really annoyed by this, but I'm actually a little proud -- the reason it doesn't fit is that the cover is for a typical 1971 Morris 1000, but mine has had its stance widened by a couple inches ... bad ass! Frustrating though, so we'll see if the car cover company hooks me up with an alteration or replacement or something.


In other news, my passenger side window fell out of the thingies that hold it and carry it up and down with the winding mechanism. I pulled them out and they are rusted to hell. So I ordered new ones and will try to install them this weekend, though it might be raining all weekend.

Also, Tristan and I adjusted the seating position of the driver's seat by pulling out spacers and buying longer bolts and screwing. And we spend hours trying to figure out how to drain the cooling system only to find later that my motor never had the drain plug bored ( no wonder we couldn't find it! ), so I'll just have to
disconnect the hoses and let it rain.

I'm going to ask the MIT solar powered racing team to put one of those crazy bendie joints in my steering column so I can make the wheel angle less like a bus, and more like NASCAR!@!!111!!eleven I just want to say the car has SOMEthing to do with MIT racing because that's bad ass and nerdy at the same time.

Day 1 with the daily driven Green Monster

Last night Kate and I fetched little green from the garage and it spent its first night in our parking lot in Cambridge outside the house. It looked cute next to John's BMW.

This morning I stuck the EZPass in there, and applied the AAA sticker to the rear bumper (gotta have frigg'n AAA with this thing) and affixed some Magic Robots stickers to the windows and body. Why the fuck not. I need some DSG stickers and then a giant number sticker and then I should be good. I usually hate stickers and crap, but for some reason I feel like this car is so over the top that trying to keep it mellow is like trying to stick a cork in a Metallica concert. Maybe not that extreme but whatever. It's a race car. How many cupholders does it have? None.

The car drives wonderfully. It needs some serious tuning--it lags quite a bit in 2nd and 3rd gear. The gearbox is solid as hell though, and sounds absolutely fierce. Handles like a dream, of course, although going over the teeniest of bumps sends it into the stratosphere. BOING!

I got a thumbs up from a guy driving a Porsche Carrera in the Starbuck's parking lot, and another from a guy in a gorgeous Jag E-Type. Hello!

Now it's sitting cheerily in the office parking lot. Must sign up for track days. Hillclimbs. Anything.

Incoming!

Just bought a STACK ST8130 Instrument cluster. I've always thought the dash in the mini sucked, and it sucked even more when most of the guages didn't even work. So upgrading to 21st century tech for the display seemed like an awesome idea. I can't wait to install it!