Interesting!!
Update: 10/28/2012
I should have posted this yesterday but was too tired to put the effort in. I got a lot of work done on my car that I recently caught issues about.
1st thing was that during Thunderhill my axle started clicking badly on hard right turns. I posted a pic awhile back of my outboard boot tearing and was meaning to replace it, but it was driving fine so I put it on the back burner. I bought a replacement boot but when working on it I saw that the inboard boot was thinning out and ready to tear also, so I just bought a reman axle.
Hub removed:
And that's all the pics I have of that before recharging the battery. I had a little trouble popping the axle off itself, took a good 20 minutes. After that the new one popped in with no issues. Threw everything back together and moved on to the next project: re-welding my front end. I couldn't do it alone and asked my brother for help with this.
Batteries charged!
Spot anything wrong here?
Here's the closeup:
The other side:
The issue was something I never uncovered and apparently has always been there when I bought the car. It was in a prior accident to me owning it and every time I jacked up the front with the USDM front end, I would never notice the flex. It wasn't until Dylan (Samurai_Blue) and I were swapping out the cat-converters that he noticed it since the JDM front exposes the the whole support and he spotted it as I was jacking it up. Gotta say thanks Dylan!
Took it to a shop and they told me it was fine so I left it as is. Little did I know, when jacking the car up front the front again it flexed even further and put the whole front end out of alignment. Gaps between the headlights and everything.
The fix: I drilled holes on the lower end of the radiator support, grabbed all my vice grips and clamped everything together and started spot-welding away. After all of that, I let it sit for a few hours and jacked it up, no more flex!
Holes drilled:
Clamped together before the welding:
This little line of rust was the only place on both sides of the support that the previous shop welded, the line is a result of the welding breaking from jacking the car up from the front. They never welded the lower end of it from the previous owner accident. I called the previous ownder and left him a message to ask about it but he never got back to me.
Welding away:
After all was said and done, I put the front end back together and everything lined up perfectly. I love my car all over again.
I also had the chance to install a replacement headlight due to my old headlight missing a tab that caused the beam to shake during night drives. Everything is now as it should be :thumbs up
Random pics from yesterday:
My GSR wheels on the right, and the Gram Lights on the left. You can see why I haven't installed them yet. I ordered new tires for them last Thursday but the shop said they hadn't come in. He'll call me tomorrow with an update but I'm pretty sure they'll be there. I really want to get them on ASAP.
A random shot of my dad's 06 Harley V-Rod SE. This thing screams.
I spent a lot of money on the car this year and really don't want to spend anymore for a long long while except for maintenance stuff. I have a vacation to save for after I complete my final class in March. So any updates to this post will probably just be more photoshoots and meetups. Thanks for reading guys.