Just back from Lemons at Thunderhill

Just got back (well, last night...) from the annual Arse-Freeze-A-Palooza at Thunderhill.  Wow, that was entertaining.  I was with the Faster Farms team and their lovely '66 Plymouth Belvedere.  Unfortunately, our weekend was cut short by a rollover on Sunday morning.  Lemons rules state that if you scratch the roof, you're out.  We did, and we were.  Dang.  Not much we could do about it, though.  The driver walked away with a scratch on his hat and some dirt on his sleeve, and the car will race again.  In fact, the car was driven home from Thunderhill to Pleasanton!

Also, we've been informed that since Altamont Raceway is no longer, the spring Lemons race will be at Reno-Fernley Raceway near Reno, Nevada.  Hmmm, racing, cheap buffets, and really nasty strip joints.  I love Reno!!!

The rest of the 24 Hours of Lemons season has been set, and depending on how Reno goes, we may be competing at the Buttonwillow event as well.

I spent a few minutes talking with some other Lemons competitors this weekend about the possibility of joining our team; negotiations are under way.

J and I will have lots of time in the next week or so to work on the car; we hope to have it ready for the cage within another two weeks.

Matt paid a visit to the shop today!

Matt had a rare afternoon off work today, so he went to the shop and worked on the car. Lots of Oil Eater and rags later, the firewall is ready for patching and painting.
Got a bit more interior paint stripped, cleaning things up in preparation for the cage install.
We're stretching the "must have a cage" and "unlimited safety budget" rules as far as we can with this cage... Incorporating some ideas cribbed from Joezeeuw (http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerouser?cmd=viewprofile&id=85991) over on VWVortex, we'll be doing a combination strut brace/tower support/radiator support. I can see it now: "Really, Jay (Lamm, chief perpetrator of Lemons), it's for safety!!!"

Yappy Turkey Day!!

Moar! Because, moar!

Got more work done over the past couple of weeks, and J was smart enough to bring a real camera to our super-secret Bunny Cave Workshop Location (?) so that we could have some real shots.

When the term "door skin" really does = door skin! We've removed all glass, mechanisms, doo-dads, hoo-has, thingybobs, etc. We're left with the appearance of a door, without all that pesky weight.

Tim has a parts washer. We use it. Clean parts are our friend. I don't think I'll ever understand putting dirty parts back onto a car, even if it is a Lemons car...


If you rotate your screen 90° to the right, you'll see some of Tim's plasma torch skillz. Yeah, you heard me, s-k-i-l-l-z, fool! More weight loss in the non-structural areas of the shell.


Because undercoating/Snot of Satan glue/seam sealer are heavy, we're removing them. Regardless of what Boris the Blade says, heavy is not always good.

We've a long way to go, but plenty of time to get there. Interior is being further stripped of sound deadening, undercoating, wire, etc. that we don't need. Since I think that J was born with a soldering iron in his hand (ouch!), he's doing the wiring parts and losing lots of weight there. Just the basics left in the wiring harness now.

Oh but but wait, it gets worse!!!

This:



Should be here:



But it's not. In fact, there's not much there at all.

Quick shot of the exterior:



Not many changes, just some fresh "stock-type" suspension...

Office:



Not a heck of a lot going on there, either. While Tim was off visiting with Danny Moal (http://www.moal.com/), I was pulling the motor/trans. OK, Kevin helped... Got the rest of the raintray out, took another few pounds out of the doors, got rid of the "Dynamat" stuff on the front floor, and got a load of parts into the parts washer. Once the interior is cleaned up a bit more, it can go out for a cage. w00t!

A little bit of work done today

Tim and I spent the better part of the afternoon removing weight from the car (down to undercoating now...) and getting ready to remove the engine/trans.
All of the wiring harnesses are out, fuel is disconnected, axles are off (yes, we put stubs in, J!), just side and rear mounts holding the powertrain in place.
Spent a little time on J's square tubing/radiator support idea.
May be working on the car tomorrow if there's time.
Car should be ready to go for the cage by the end of next week. We'd like to give the cage guy an empty shell to work with.

The day we got the car

24 Hours of Lemons, here we come!!!



Craptacular, innit? Free is good, though.
Ryan set us up with this car. 1982 VW Rabbit More-Door, bone stock 1.7l engine, 4-speed, no fenders, "suspension", no rear glass, seat not bolted to the floor.
Hell yeah.