The Competition

Here's a list of all the teams competing at the New England event. We're car number five.

Ten days to race weekend!

Facebook Page

We have a Facebook Page! I suggest you look there for updates, as it gets updated much quicker.

Eleven days until race weekend!

Daylight = Bad

At least when you're looking at the bottom of a car on a lift. This is a picture of the bottom of the car while on the lift after a attempt at drilling holes for a roll cage mount point.
Turns out there's a roughly six inch square section of rust in the floor. A patch was made and welded solidly to the car. Work proceeded and the roll cage is now completely mounted in the car.

Ballistics: Round Two

A update on our program to develop a device for the launching of lemons: After the success of the first device, a second one was devised that had a barrel 8 feet long and a combustion chamber made of 2 feet of four inch pipe. Sadly it was not meant to be. A shortage of materials and an error in production means that the current model is not what was originally designed. Not like that hinders it at all. In early tests it has shot a potatoes and lemons 150 feet further than the previous cannon, on the range of 500 feet overall on the best shots. Experimentation will continue, even while work progresses on the Ni-ssan.

Photos

Here are some photos from our May ninth work party.
This is the engine bay of the Ni-ssan, pre-headlight removal. There was a oil leak (A small one only visible when the car was on the lift) coming from the seal between the oil pan and engine block, but after tightening that up it seams to have gone away.
This is part of the original documentation that came with the car. The EPA estimate was 29 city, 39 highway.

Other documentation that we found includes:
The original bill of sale, complete owners manual, recent insurance registration (discarded), and the manual for the CD player.

Some money (21 cents, to be exact) we found while ripping gently removing the interior.

You can see more pictures (mostly of stuff we removed) here.

Fees Payed

The entrance fees were payed on Friday, and yesterday we started the brake lines. Roll cage, rear bearing caps, and rear brake parts have been bought or ordered. Tire hunting has been somewhat successful, but nothing has been found so far. We're also thinking about various banned technologies to try, but that's still classified.

"Tech Inspection: The Ugly"

Some photos taken a couple weekends ao when we first got the car on the lift.

Crunchy!

Didn't know you could paint cottage cheese. Or that it could rust, for that matter:



I like how the roof/trunk drain line is still there... drained straight into the rocker until it finally, uh, vented itself.



More images here.

We're In!

We have been officially accepted into the 24 Hours of Lemons New England! Now the hard work begins. We have workspace, but haven't ordered anything, or fixed any of the work the rust has done in "strategically lightening the car". The next steps are draining our bank accounts to buy safety equipment and pay the entry fees, fixing the leaks, and stripping down the interior.

Photos of the Chosen Car

Since there won't be any real progress until we get accepted or have our butts kicked and told never to come back, I have some photos of our rust bucket car. These were taken a little while ago, before it moved (Under it's own power!) to it's current residence in Bob's garage.
(above) A view from the passenger's side. Has quite a bit of rust and it doesn't get any better from there. Click for a larger version.
A view of the car from the driver's side. More rust.
Yet more rust around the back right wheel (passenger's side).
I wonder what we could get for those headlight assemblies...
Here's the only shot I have of the interior.

There's a gain of fifty chipmunks between the wing on the back, the wind deflectors for the windows and moonroof, and the highly-aerodynamical rust holes!

The car's former luxury features include:
Air conditioning, a cruise control system, and locks.

Mechanically the car:
leaks oil, has an odd noise on start up that could be a timing chain issue, could need a clutch adjustment or worse, really needs back brakes, a lot of rust prevention, and the rear suspension has a few "issues" that need to be resolved.

Sounds like a great race car doesn't it?

Registration

I've entered the team, now we have to wait while lemons chief instigator, Jay Lamm, decides who gets into the race.

We also had a successful work party over the weekend, and managed to get the Nissan up on the lift. We have a list of parts and leaks, thanks to Necoro. It needs rear brakes, brake lines, rear suspension linkage/bushing, rear wheel hub bearings, and front caliper slides. We should also change the oil, find the front oil leak, and check the clutch. Other than a lot of rust that doesn't seem to be terminal, it is in as good condition as a car valued at less than 500 dollars can be.