I rode into work this morning knowing the ride home would be hell. As expected hell was outside when I got off of work. The round trip ride is typically 110 miles back and forth but I had to take the backroads home so I would be in constant air movement. I pulled over to take a photo of my ambient air temperature, 108 is getting up there on a bike. I think the hottest temperature I’ve ever ridden was in the Mojave desert. There was stretch that had temps reaching 114F degrees.

This morning I went to a car show located at Micke Grove Park. The show was sponsored by the Franklin Syndicate car club. It was a well put together event in a nice family setting. 

I like the fact that there were several manufacture models from a wide range of “hot rod” years.  I’m not too much in the model T’s and horseless carriage era. 

The right side low beam bulb went out so I went ahead and replaced both of them with a brighter and whiter light model. Hopefully it will last a 20k miles or so. The original (as far as I can tell) lasted close to 40k miles. 

I’m about 42,800 miles right now. 

Measured the OBD2 code from the BMW 330ci.

Ever since I got back into messing with cars I’ve heard of this show held at the Alameda Fairgrounds call the Good Guys Car Show. This event is more geared towards the Hot Rod enthusiast and classic cars, mostly Hot Rods and man they have some awesome attendees. Anyone of the entrants would be eye catcher on the street so the level of work and craftsmanship is very high.

One area that always catches my attention is the detail and work put into the motor and motor bay. Since mine has areas caked in oil it amazes me to see the motors there with not even one drop. I’m sure a lot of them are occasional drivers and rightfully so.

I decided to lug around my big DSLR and glass this time. I thought the event warrant the pain in the shoulder I’d have later on in the evening.  Below are a few photos, you can see more at my photo gallery site Full photo gallery.

One cool chance meeting was with a couple from the Bay Area that owned a Thunderbird the same year as mine, repainted white with a blue pearl and has the hard top. It was great to actually look into the interior and see what mine should look like. I know my upholstery has been reworked during the years as none of it matched what I saw today, no surprises though.

I started removing the necessary parts that blocked access to the waterpump removal. What was odd the none of the bolts were torqued down or tightened. I was able to remove all of them with very little pressure. If it wasn’t for all the sealant used it would have been leaking like crazy.

At the same time I was able to examine the alternator but still could not find any marking indicating what model it was or how much current is was capable of delivering. I may have to get another alternator that I know what the specs are and not use this perfectly good alternator. One note, it is the single wire model which probably means it is a newer build.

As it turns out one of the bypass hoses for the waterpump has a small hole due to using a small pointy object to remove it from the barbed fitting. I had purchased a short leng5h of rubber hose not realizing the original hose is preformed. 

I can’t even remember the last time I was at Kingdon Drags located in Lodi, California. I used to go there as a kid watching the cars race. Today was part of the Memorial Day races. They have races there 4 times a year. This is one of the few venues where the spectators are damn near next to the cars when they launch. I was able to get some good video as well as photos because of this.

The Alpine R Series wasn’t getting enough power from the Alpine MV500 500 watt amp. I installed a Quantum 2000 watt amp and with the trunk volume it shakes the garage. This is with a single subwoofer. 

I had converted the third car garage into a room/studio. The motorcycles typically stayed in this spot but was a pain to get out since the garage door was sealed shut and a wall put in place.

I asked my son to help me (he did all the work) remove the wall and haul the material to the dump. My son is a one man wrecking crew. It’s best to just stay out of the way and help by cleaning up 🙂