TegSox Springtime Shot of Love for the Teg, running log, plenty pics

TegSox

Super Duper Moderator
My car sat in the backyard all winter, as it does every year, but still didn't escape the particularly brutal 2014 winter unscathed. I finally shovel the snow, chop the ice (which was so thick it reached the undercarriage), get inside and boom, there's an inch of water on the floor. So, I instantly realize what my first project of the year is gonna be.
I pull the entire interior, and mind you, I have to do this while the car is still in the yard mostly surrounded by ice, mud and/or a virtual lake of water, she's trapped back there as the ground is still too wet to attempt to drive it out.
Tonneau cover removed, then the stereo system, then rear carpet, rear seat, rear panel, side panels, center console and front seats, then finally the floor carpet. Interior parts to the attic for now, floor carpet to the porch roof to lay in the sun as I step on it, area by area with a towel, to draw as much water as I can manually from it, and let the sun and the warm dry early spring breeze take care of the rest.
All set after about 3 days.

I can get the car out of the yard now, very thankful that all that water didn't eff up the electrical somewhere and kill it. At first I bail out the water on the floor with a plastic mug, then start soaking it up with a towel. Soak, wring, repeat. After all standing water is out, the entire floor gets a wipe down with dry towels till she's dry and clean. Then a vacuum of the entire interior.
I give the carpet a super vacuuming, and it goes back in, along with the driver seat and center console, and we are once again street drivable. And no funky smells in the carpet, yay.

System hangin out in the living room corner.




Now onto the projects.

I've been getting water in my hatch area on the driver side the last couple years. It's not getting down into the spare tire area, just basically pooling up below where the antenna is. Turns out it's most likely coming through the dang taillight gasket - and I've already replaced them once in the time I've owned the car. I think back in 2010 when I had some accident damage fixed on the drivers QP, the shop may have pulled the tail on that side and broke the origional seal. So I picked up these Detroit Muscle gaskets on Ebay:


But it'll be a few more weeks before I can put those in, I'll explain later....

Tomorrow I plan to install a new rear bumper reinforcement bar I picked up a couple weeks ago.
 
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TegSox

Super Duper Moderator
I bought a new rear bumper reinforcement bar a few weeks back. I had failed an inspection last summer because of it, among other reasons the garage came up with, (so I took it somewhere else and it passed with zero problems, but I digest...).
Here you can see what the problem was....

This is the bottom, the only area they can see from up under the car naturally:



The top's not so bad:



So here's the new one, I got it for $50 on Ebay (though it's not OEM), and that includes the shipping, and it came already primered.

I also painted it with some clear coat spray paint. I've got 4 cans (3 now) of the stuff taking up space in my car closet anyway:



It oughta take a hell of a long time before this one rusts!


I stripped down the ass of my baby:

And cleaned it good! Ooh, just look at it.



I checked the sunroof drain tubes while I had access to them, the pass side had some gunk built up at the end, so I dug all that out:



The driver's side tube was clear.
I also took out this flap thingy and cleaned it up, and cleaned the panel underneath where it mounts:




I actually took the old bar off a few weeks ago. I wanted to make sure I could get it out before I went and bought a new one. 19 year old (oooh) bolts can be quite stubborn to remove. It wasn't easy, but they indeed did come out after some PB Blaster and a 2 foot breaker bar went at them.
I threw out the two bolts whose heads were exposed to the outside, I had to grab a pick tool and scrape the rust off those heads just to get the socket onto them - they were awful. I kept the origional two whose heads were inside the car and fine, I took a wire brush to them to remove some rust buildup on the lower threads, and bought two new ones:

I also painted the heads of the two new ones with clear coat so they won't corrode.



And there she is now:



add the styrofoam thingies with the black thingies in them:



Bolt locations in the hatch:



Bolt cover back on:



She all back together now, sorry I didn't grab a pic of that.
So that was today's project. I also vacuumed the interior, and this is what it's looking like nowadays:









A little bit of a louder ride now, but that's some weight reduction for ya! I'll enjoy this trade-off for a while.
 
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Aussie

Zoom-Zoom
That sound system is still going strong, awesome such a sweet setup.
 


TegSox

Super Duper Moderator
16 years old and still going, Made in the USA, can't find those around anymore.
 

Aussie

Zoom-Zoom
My old JL slash was awesome, I had alpine Rs and they never gave me trouble either.

That's awesome that it's that old!
 

TegSox

Super Duper Moderator
New tires!

I got the new Falken Ziex ZE 950's, although they are all seasons and not exclusivley summer tires like I usually get, what sealed the deal on me choosing these was the 600 tread wear. :shock:



I went through my last set of tires really fast, got eaten up on the inside edge in no time. I'd gone too long in between alignments. So I got that done soon after getting these Falken's mounted.

Here's the before and after:



After:


The toe was terrible. But we're all better now, what a relief. :)
 


TegSox

Super Duper Moderator
Thanks guys.

Now, antenna fix.
Last fall, it rained, and then it dropped below freezing, my antenna then tried to extend itself and made some bad noises instead, and the mast would only go halfway up, and wouldn't retract all the way unless I pushed hard on it while the motor tried pulling it down. So...

Took out the antenna assembly:



Took it apart to see if I could find the problem. There it is, the typical snapped gear strip:



Set it all over in the corner.



Then, got this on Ebay for $12 shipped:



A few weeks later, the weather finally cooperates on my days off, and I got it installed yesterday:



Not happy with the install though. I had to dremel down around the edge of the top of the mast to get it to fit through. It also retracts about a half inch too far down into the base, I imagine alot of water is going to get in there. And it still grinds some when the antenna is done extending, and done retracting. I may just take it all out, buy a delete plug, and install this powered window mount antenna I got laying around instead:



Thing is, I do listen to the radio, so good reception matters to me, not sure how well this powered antenna would perform, and I'm not sure I'll like how that delete plug will look. And from the pics I've seen, I'm not a fan of how the S2000 antenna looks on our cars.
 

TegSox

Super Duper Moderator
Latest project, fixing minor accident damage, and more! A white BMW SUV bumped into my rear passenger QP, a couple months ago now - less than a week after I got it out of the backyard, actually. Slightly dented it in, and left plenty of scratches and scuffs on the QP and side of the rear bumper:





Nothing too major. It was her fault, so I got a $720 check from her ins company to fix/paint the QP and repaint the bumper. But instead of fixing the bumper, which isn't too bad, I want to have the rear hatch and wing painted instead. The wing just has some minor scratches here and there, but the hatch looks really bad up under the rear window:





It's all terribly faded and cloudy. And those cutoff lines are from a bodyshop when they were doing past work. I claybar'd the hell out of it, polished it and waxed it, and just couldn't get rid of those lines or eliminate the cloudiness. So that'll be taken care of as well.

Also, the ACURA badge is getting shaved off, I've wanted to do that forever:



And one more thing. I'm having all the rust repaired on that side of the car. It's minor, but getting slowly worse, and now's the time to nip it in the bud. It's worst at each point of the wheel well, and there some starting up under the side panel:





I don't need a whole new rocker panel, all the rust in confined just to the back area here:



After pics coming soon.....
 

TegSox

Super Duper Moderator
The body shop said the same thing, heh. Like I told them, the car hasn't been driven in the winter since 2002, and the couple of times I've taken off the long plastic side panels over the years, naturally I gotta clean under there while I have the opportunity being the anal freak I am about the car. The driver side looks basically the same as the pass. side seen in the pics I posted, not really any better or worse. It added around $600 to the job to fix the rust, it's gonna be $1,470 for everything.
 
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