Jane's Makeover

After a long wait, I finally got around to getting something done I'd wanted done for a long time.

The paint on Jane has been battered and bruised, and being over 20 years old since the factory laid it, I thought it was high time she gets some new gloss. Previously I had laid plasti-dip after I had done a lot of the prep for paint. Repaired dings and scratches, filled with bondo when needed, and sanded. That was a terrible idea. I'm pretty sure, although nobody says so, that plasti-dip was made to go over a gloss coat. If it's not on a gloss, it does not peel off like it advertises.

It took quite a bit of time to get it all off. Here's where we picked up from last years repairs.

Beginning to sand

Shout out to my amazing sponsor Vinyl By Trevor. Please look him up and follow him on facebook and twitter. He's been amazing to not only me but my car club.

 After all the plasti-dip was off the car we had to sand everything down again, and again with multiple different grit of sand paper.

Mopar or no car

 I found this on the door near the window while sanding and thought it was cool.

Taping

 There are some parts of the car you don't want to paint. I got this plastic shield stuff that we used to cover all the carbon fiber elements of the car so they didn't get painted.

getting ready for paint

almost there

Here we are in the booth after some paint has been laid.

paint booth

 Another shout out to my sponsor KMB Auto Service in Midland for letting me use their shop to paint my car.

KMB Auto Service

 Jane on the beach, soaking up the sun.

beach shot

The finished product is a white pearl paint. It shimmers slightly in the sun.

bridge shot

Although it's not perfect, she's still got a soft spot in my heart.

Terrible

The point in time where you haven't so much as looked at your blog in months...

That's me, right now.

It is a constant struggle to juggle all the things in the summertime, between the car, the kids, the work and the other work, and the other, other work. Add a boyfriend in the mix too, and well, there you have it. Non productive in the writing department.

Things to come, or topics to write about in the (hopefully) near future:

• Halloween
• Thanksgiving (maybe)
• TayTay in TO
• Big News
• Other, other job
• Gushy mushy shit
• Sing It All The Way
• Beta
• Jane
• Camping!

That's a pretty long list... stay tuned!

Warm Thoughts

What's good back to back posting? HOT and COLD. Well, actually it's just a bit of warm and cold to be honest.

We recently had some pretty cold temperatures, which have finally let up, and hopefully the last we'll see until next winter. Today I believe was a whopping 5c outside.

BUT HOLY SHIT DOES IT FEEL WARM. I mean, by no means is it really warm but it's a start. Compared to the temperatures we had only a week ago, it's amazing. It really helps the ole noggin, I'll tell ya, so I do. The constant cold and darkness really gets to someone. I'm sure the time change helped a bit as well.

Boy am I happy to see the snow melt. I wish it would go faster.

Today I met up with an acquaintance in the drive-thru at Tim Hortons. He was two cars up, and I heard bass, looked around and spotted him. Oh dear bass. How I miss thee! I caught his attention in his mirror and waved. Then motioned to turn up the volume. That was just GREAT! He did so, and we started rocking out. Laughing I gave him the thumbs up, and he responded in kind.

I returned home tonight after dinner out and decided I wanted to finish getting the snow off Jane. Which turned into starting her up (first try yo!), and then turned into moving her into a more motivating spot in the driveway. I have much work to do.

So, as the signs of spring begin, March Break around the corner, I hope this fog in my head lifts. Cuz damn this biting my tongue shit is starting to hurt.

Raceland Coilovers

I really wasn't sure what to expect when I actually clicked "purchase" online. I had buyers remorse, immediately. I regretted not spending the money on other things, things that I actually need. I then told myself: You know what, self? (yes?) You deserve it. When was the last time you did something for you? Sure, you need new tires, or a new windshield, but that can wait till next month. This month is the time to spoil yourself for working so hard all summer. Self,  you deserve this. (Okay.) So I promptly forgot about the whole experience.

Until the day they showed up, and wanted sixty-fucking-dollars for duty (heh yeah, DOOOTYYYY). So I had to pay that shit. I was kind of pissed off to find out that a friend who purchased them only weeks before, from the same company, and lives not far from me, was not charged any duty. (heh) What in the actual fuck? Why is he so special?

Now the plan was to do these over winter... but they were just sitting here, in my living room, calling my name.... They were mocking me. Heyyyyyy.... you! Look over here! Aren't I so shiny? And pretty? So I caved, and decided I was going to get 'er done. I called a few friends and after some slight mishaps, they are now installed on Jane.

It pretty much took all week to figure them out. ALL. FUCKING. WEEK. fuck. I had major issues with rubbing the top of my rear fender when turning or bumps. I'm not entirely sure I like the ride. What's done is done though.

Work in progress

Next? Windshield, new tires, fix some shit (steering column, leaky tail lights, I can't even brain right now as to what else), a good cleaning, then she goes to sleep for another winter.

FUCK. That means I need to start the work on the beater. Ugghh lol

Better get to work.

Neon Nats

New Hood

This year CNN was really on me. The Prez and DCO were really unavailable at all to help or attend. I luckily had a friend willing to help out and managed to pull things together.

I had a brilliant idea this year, that I would introduce secret judges. With cell phones being such a big thing, people are always on them. Facebook, texting, twitter, email. I got a couple of helpers and got them to download an app that would help me achieve my goal.

I have got quite a few good comments on my way of doing things. It was a little tricky at the end when I was waiting for one judge to finish up so I could tally up the scores. I definitely have some ideas on what can be done better next year. I mean, we have this technology, why not use it?

Cruise down to SPARTA, ON

All in all, I had a good weekend. I heard a lot of positive feedback from people (even some first timers), so that really helps me feel like I did a good job.

We did our quarter mile foot race again this year down the track, and a newbie took the title. We finally had another chapter win the participation award, and we had a pretty epic marshmallow battle. I'll share a few pics.

Battle aftermath

Car Stuff

I bitch a lot. I know. You don't have to lie to me about it. I know. But this is my place of bitching, I shall bitch how I wish.

I bitch about my car. I bitch about my life. I bitch about everything, because bitching about it, makes me feel better. Sometimes I write things out that are bothering me and it helps get it off your mind a bit so you can somehow clear your head and think a bit better about it.

I know I bitch about my car a lot, but really it's not so bad. A lot of the time it's all circumstances. Like the whole alignment thing. Due to my crazy schedule it was hard to work on the car. If it weren't for that, things would have gotten done so much faster and would not have been such a long drawn out process.

Sometimes it can be really discouraging when you're set on doing something and other things get in your way. Things can be, work, knowledge, tools etc. It gets really frustrating when things get in your way and then you end up not getting what you want done.

To conclude the ball joint and control arm bushing story:

I got the ball joint tool from work and ordered in a stock bushing. I was upset because all the bushings in my car are all polyurethane and a stock replacement is not. The tool didn't even get used because we could not get the one bolt out. I had a friend over to lend a hand and he brought his compressor but forgot the correct fitting for the impact gun. Which would probably solved this problem for us. We tried a lot of things to get that ball joint off.

In the end I said "fuck it" and drove it to the shop for the alignment. I asked them to do the work to the car and align it. They ended up doing the work and "couldn't" do the alignment. That was a frustrating day. They were trying to tell me that it was not the correct rack for my car. The actual problem was that the ring gear in the steering rack was put in one tooth off. I ended up going down to PDP's shop and he fixed the rack and did an alignment. The pisser is that I only paid the shop to do the work because I was out of time and wanted the alignment done. So I wasted my money because they "couldn't" do it.

Next up: Coilovers..... heh