Pujo! and the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys

Is it possible?

2011-11-14T12:22:00.001-08:00

Is it true? LeMons has published their preliminary list of dates for 2012 One of those dates is in the new Ridge Motorsports Park in our own backyard of Shelton, WA. A beautiful shiny new track, I would adore the excuse to go take a look at it.My personal biggest concern? That SCCA National Office uses that same weekend for our local Packwood National Tour. The schedule hasn't been released yet, in fact, I'm sure it's still under negotiation. But I can think of a few teams that would certainly have a hard time choosing between the two events. OK, maybe 3 at the most. ;) But it's worth a shot.

Announcement: A Cessation of April Fools Tomfoolery

2011-04-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

I've been flattered and charmed by the response I received over the years to my April Fools gags. It has been fun writing them and seeing who, each year, falls for the www.looflirpa.it link. However, I need to call an end to the fun tradition due to a new professional commitment. Some of you may have read the announcement posted yesterday to Jalopnik that Ray Wert has left the site following its acquisition by the Huffington Post. Well, I'm proud to say that starting next week I'm going to be stepping in as Editor-in-Chief of Jalopnik. I've been freelancing under a pseudonym for a few years and am excited to step out from behind the mask of anonymity.

Currently posted to Jalopnik is a snarky post with a mashup of Huffington Post's AutoBlog logo melded with the Jalopnik logo. The post implies Jalopnik is going away. This is not the case at all, Jalopnik will continue and is going to get even better. Not to worry, AutoBlog will continue informing the world about the exciting new shades of silver and beige available on the new Camry and Accord. Jalopnik will not. Huffington Post is freeing Jalopnik to be strictly an enthusiast site.

Jalopnik is rolling up its sleeves and baring it knuckles. We won't post any reviews of new crossover SUVs or the next Chrysler Sebring. You can probably tell I'm not heartbroken by this. Jalopnik will be where enthusiasts find reviews of new Porsches, Ferraris, and enthusiast cars like the Fiat 500 Abarth or Focus ST. We're going to differentiate Jalopnik reviews from the rest of the pack by actually reviewing the performance of the press fleet cars by throwing sets of Hoosiers on them and entering them in SCCA Divisionals, National Tours, ProSolos, or even track days.

We are not likely be invited to the luxurious PR flack controlled product intros where the manufacturers shower high end experiences on auto writers in exchange for favorable reviews. My integrity is worth more than a trip to a French chateau with a group of folks who say positive things about crap cars. We will call BS on the car companies that deserve it (plastic cladding and oversize wheels do not a sport package make) and laud the few companies that deserve it.

Jalopnik will be participating in events, not just watching and reporting. An example is an adventure we're taking this summer. I'm going to enter a 24 Hours of LeMons car in the Targa Newfoundland. That's right, Pujo!, the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys' Peugeot 505 turbo is going to run an international tarmac rally. The right seat is currently open... (I'm driving). If you can read pace notes, or can learn by September, and want to join us in Newfoundland, drop me a line.

We're also going to feature, in Huffington Post tradition, user submitted content. Are you not seeing content on the web you want? Here's your chance, send me your ideas or even your articles. If it's good, we'll publish it.

I'm not allowed to post anything to Jalopnik until Monday, when the transfer from Gawker to Huffington Post is finalized. I want to hit the ground running. Please send me any ideas you have, even if it's the location of Abe's milk producing goat.

Cheers,
-Bret "a LeMons Monkey in Arianna's Court" Dodson

Street Parked: Solid Axle TR4A

2011-03-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

This TR4A materialized one day just down the street from my office.

The TR4 and TR4A are instantly recognizable by their hooded headlights and cool fighter plane-esque hood blister.

This appears to be a solid axle TR4A. Most TR4As have independent rear suspension. To appease traditionalist customers and dealers Triumph offered an optional live axle. Is there any other car that offered solid or independent rear suspension as a line item option?. This must have been a frustration to the chassis engineers since the TR4A has a different chassis from the TR4. You identify the live axle cars by the absence of an "IRS" badge on the boot lid and no discernible camber in the rear wheels.

Elegant features abound, check out the side marker light!

The headlight styling has never really worked for me. It's unique and stands out, but I have always preferred the look of the TR5 and TR6 headlights.

The dash is classic British sports car - Smiths guages scattered across a wood dash.

The profile of this car lived on in the TR5 and TR6. The blister on the door works well with both body styles.

I've only seen this car once and I'm glad I had my camera and caught some picture of it. I love that it is not over-restored to the point of being not drivable. As it sits, it car looks ready to drive to the coast for some surfing.

Street Parked: 1973 Dodge Dart winter driver

2011-03-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

Seattle is blessed with relatively mild winters. The occasional paralytic light dusting of snow we get completely shuts down the city. The average Seattleite will only venture onto the road cloaked in airbags, traction control, antilock brakes, and all wheel drive, peering from the ~~precariously fall-overy~~ commanding view of their SUV. This makes today's feature car stand out even more! I spotted this lovely brown Dodge Dart on a sleet-filled trip to the video store.

From the battering ram 5mph front bumper and the tight chrome panty of a rear bumper, I'm betting this is a 1973 Dodge Dart. You'll notice this impeccably kept survivor has a Michigan plate. Has it migrated west for a rust free retirement?

This is an honest, standard car; the sort we don't see anymore. Purposefully capable with no overt pretense of luxury. Gold kit Accord, I'm looking at you...

This is a Dodge Dart Custom, a mid-level model in the Dart range. The vinyl roof "Vinyl Roof Topper" in Mopar-ese was a dealer installed accessory.

My suspicion is the full wheel covers come with the Custom package, rather than the dog dish hub caps that would probably be seen on a base model car.

Also part of the Custom package was the snazzy vinyl and cloth bench seating. The cloth seating surface makes this a great winter car. There is no way to make a person more uncomfortably chilled than by forcing them to plop onto a freezing cold leather seat.

This Dart was born with the legendary slant six backed by a Torqueflight automatic. In 1973 it made 95 horsepower from its 198 cubic inches (that's 3.2 seriously unstressed liters). This car is so original looking that I bet that same slant six is still living underhood. This car looks new, I'd love to know its story. Is it a survivor? Has it been restored? Is it a Hemi-packing Q-ship?

Regardless of its backstory, this is a very cool car to see being used - especially on a day that chased most drivers into hiding.

Street Parked: Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival

2010-09-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

Washington's Olympic Peninsula is famous for being infested with vampires and werewolves. These creatures of the night apparently have good taste in cars. My lovely wife and I ~~recently visited~~ went last September to the scenic seaside town Port Townsend - PT is a must see for any visitor to the Olympic Peninsula. Our day trip happened to coincide with Port Townsend's wooden boat festival; we came for the quaintness, stayed for the boats, and I was distracted by the Street Parked classics.

No werewolf can catch this cat:

These cars are as strong performers as they are stunningly beautiful. What a great car; it's not too perfect to keep it off the streets. However it is clearly well loved and maintained to a good standard. The wheels look like newer 72 spoke chrome jobs - when new, this car likely had painted wire wheels. The shiny knock-off spinner nut is original, notice how it's a left hand thread? That's to keep the forward motion friction from loosening the wheels on the right side (the left side has normal right hand threads). How scary would it be to take a left turn and see a right wheel keep going straight?

MGA driver: Jacob's sports car?
Half a block from the Jaaaag this innocent white MGA was dwarfed by its neighbors.

This a 1959 or 1960 MGA with a 1600 cc engine and wing mirrors that appear to be from an late '60s AMC Ambassador.

With its rollbar car looks like it could have just come from hooning on Grizzly Peak. This is an MGA that is true to what having a sports car is all about. Hint: it's not about preserving the car's concourse "provenance". Need wing mirrors? This pair from an old AMC in the junkyard will do the job. Give yourself a scare halfway through a decreasing radius turn? Whip out the hole saw and weld in a roll bar.

The cockpit of this car features handy captions for the various bits and pieces. It has a "Strangler", "Starter", and a "Piddler" among others. Click the image for a ginormous version.

A bundle of snakes gathered by the curb:

This Honda CB550 presents my favorite form of motorbike. The engine is visible and beautiful in its functionality with the most elegant headers this side of a Cosworth DFV. The rider sits upright and comfortable, not crouched like a croissant wrapped around a giant Skittle as on a present day superbike.

BRGMGB:

Early MGBs much lighter and more elemental than their later, taller, big rubber bumper shod brethren. This B, with its spots of primer, looks to be getting some cosmetic attention. These pre-smog-era cars are only slightly more complex than a hammer, which makes them great at being reliable old cars. No computers or byzantine vacuum systems means most problems can be fixed by the side of the road with a simple tool kit.

Rollup side screens and a heater are the only nods to luxury on this car. Ever have a car with one speaker?

The low back seats give this car a really clean profile. An early MGB is probably the best low buck entry into a cool classic that can be driven regularly.

Who let this guy in here?!?:

Compared to these cars, my R package Miata is a luxury car!

Here's a slideshow of the day:
There be pictures of boats ahead.

It's official, Packwood National Tour

2010-07-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

The following letter is being emailed today to teams we actually have contact information for. There's no guarantee we have contact info for your team, feel free to include yourselves if your captain did not get this letter, we do not intend to leave anyone out intentionally. Please bear in mind this is still an "invitational" event and don't want to open it up to just everyone with a cheap-ass car, new or partially complete builds are, um, graciously discouraged.

-----
Hello LeMons competitor!

We’re Sean and Brianne Green, captain (and wife) of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys’ Peugeot 505. We got your name from the Powers That Be at the 24 Hours of LeMons HQ, but beyond that, we in no way speak for them nor do we have any official sanction beyond a “have fun and try not to run anyone over.”

For the Monkeys, autocrossing was our first love; for several of us, it still is. Therefore, when we discovered that the 2010 Arse-Sweat-Apalooza was being held the same weekend as the SCCA Solo National Tour in Packwood, WA, it was easy for us to choose to autocross in our own backyard instead of towing to Thunderhill. This is where you come in.

We have been able to arrange through SCCA National office an exclusive LeMons Invitational Class, where we current and former LeMons competitors can play at a non-endurance event straight up against each other, and only each other. This is good for the Packwood National tour ONLY: the weekend of August 6-8th. Pujo! and the Monkeys will be represented by our own Bret Dodson, whom you may have seen in the gorilla suit at tech inspection. We’re ready to remind the SCCA crowd that we don't all have to be uptight glory hounds and can actually have fun at a race. Of course, if you’re already going to Thunderhill, we wish you the best of luck.

“Sounds like fun, what do I have to do?” Well, if you’re like us, you probably need to work on your car. You’ll need to present your car in a form that would pass BOTH a LeMons tech inspection (all requirements) and an SCCA Solo tech inspection. Remember, the folks teching your car in Packwood aren’t familiar with LeMons cars, and will need even more assurance than usual that your car will not eject large amounts of debris, fluid, or parts in high-g maneuvers. Watch especially for leaks, wheel bearings, and anything that might be loose in the cabin. Good throttle return springs, battery safely bolted to the car (no bungee cords), good brakes, good wheel bearings (mentioned twice because they really look at these). Same tire requirements as a LeMons race, etc. Like any race, failing tech results in being unable to compete. That would be bad after bringing your car all that way, wouldn’t it? So make sure your car is actually in good working order. They take tech seriously at the National level.

Second, if you’re not already familiar with the sport of autocrossing, make sure you at least browse the rulebook available online at http://scca.com/contentpage.aspx?content=61, particularly tech and driver requirements. Remember that autocrossing is not a road race or endurance event, you’ll be getting a grand total of about 6 minutes of racing, and still perform a work assignment, probably on course.

Third, please make sure you send an email signaling your interest in competing to Brianne, who is coordinating the efforts: Helltygr@aol.com, this will ensure that you are kept apprised of any additional details as they come to our attention. If you’re on Facebook, be sure to “like” our car Pujo! and we’ll also update with news bulletins there. Those less familiar with autocrossing should be sure to ask for more links to videos and the various “what to expect at your first autocross” articles that abound on the internet. (Of course, your friendly search engines can help with that, too)

Lastly, the details for the event as well as on-line registration will be available at http://scca.com/event.aspx?hub=3&event=15170 as well as on the Northwest Region website http://www.nwr-scca.org/solo/index.asp Register for the event as an “A Modified” car, then specify in the “notes to the registrar” section that you are a “LeMons Invitational Class.” Please note that only two drivers per car will be allowed, due to the event format and SCCA’s rules. If you’re not already an SCCA member, you will need to become one to enter, but weekend temporary memberships are available at the race site, it will just add to the cost of entry.

Participants are strongly encouraged to come in with all LeMony costumes and themes. We will probably have additional prizes just within “our” class that the rest of the event will not be eligible for. And we even promise not to crush someone’s car.

You’re welcome to pass this along to any other teams you know personally that might be interested and are not already competing at Thunderhill. We are, however, keeping this to an “invitational” level, and are trying to strongly discourage folks that aren’t already LeMons competitors. We needed to reassure SCCA that it’s not just a bunch of hoons coming up to leak fluids and jettison large car parts and plywood bits. So, this is not really a good place to test an unknown build. Thanks for your understanding.

Sean & Brianne Green

A LeMons Monkey in SCCA's Court

2010-06-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

What is the most non-LeMons-esque motorsport? National level SCCA autocrossing. While Pujo! has been to a few autocrosses in his life as a racing car, autocrossing was used as a ~~tuning tool~~ chance to discover failure points close to home.

No LeMons car would ever be seen at an SCCA National autocross event. Until now. SCCA Solo Czar Howard Duncan recently suffered a bout of temporary insanity and approved an invitational class for LeMons cars at the upcoming SCCA National Tour event in Packwood, WA in early August.

Pujo! is entered and will be lowering the resale values of the best autocross cars in the country. stay tuned to this spot as we embark on this adventure. Will Howard come to his senses? Will we get the People's Curse? What sort of bribery works best in this arena?

Street Parked: 190SL

2010-06-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

This head turner grabbed my attention one morning on the automotive portion of my commute. I yammered on about its coolness to my lovely bride until we reached our parking spot, and then beat feet up to Fairview to see if it was still there. It was; parked across the street from Inner Chapters Books.

These cars look like the iconic 300SL. Those rain gutter-like fender flares never cease to grab my attention with thoughts of Stirling Moss, John Fitch, and stories of racing glory in the Mille Miglia. However, comparison to the legendary 300SL is not fair to this car. This little fellow is a stylish grand tourer in its own right.

Wide and low, it presented an aggressive and modern face compared to its European contemporaries, the Jaguar XK140 and MGA. It is perhaps similar in market mission to the Ford Thunderbird, as a personal luxury car. I think the styling of the 190SL roadster presents a more sporting flair than the Thunderbird, and more modern performance than was offered by the British.

The sleek 190SL shares its chassis with the upright and dowdy Ponton benzes instead of the bespoke tube-frame 300SL exotics. That doesn't stop these cars from having an arresting presence, perhaps in spite of the level of performance they offered.

This car was not particularly athletic with a 1.9 liter 104 horsepower 4 cylinder engine saddled with toting 2600 lbs across Bavarian hills and dales. For its time (1955 to 1963) this level of performance was acceptable.

This car is the quintessential sports model. Built on a sedan's running gear, it put its best face forward. And does so quite well. I can imagine this car idling stylishly through the pedestrian traffic of Florence, carting some ersatz supermodel to a gig.

Even with its saloon car roots, this nonchalant grand tourer is worthy of a longing glance when seen parked on the street.

Street Parked: Mercedes W111 250SE Cabriolet

2010-05-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

My daily work commute includes a 12 minute (each way) stroll through Seattle's hip and newly Amazonified neighborhood, South Lake Union. As I dodge SLUTs and try to avoid being squashed crossing Mercer, I sometimes notice interesting cars parked on the streets.

This car, a Mercedes Benz 250SE Cabriolet, was spotted in the parking lot of the Seattle Tesla dealership.

Even for an old an Mercedes our subject is a unique car, being one of 954 250SE cabriolets made from 1965 to 1967. These W111 chassis 220/250/280SE coupes and convertibles were the last hand built Mercedes.

Beneath the curvaceous hood lurked a 150hp inline six backed by a four speed automatic transmission. Although this car is a boulevardier with no pretense of sporting intentions at all, it can cruise the autobahn (or I-90) comfortably at just over 100 mile per hour.

I've long been a fan of these Heckflosse (that's German for "fintail") Mercedes. I find the little tail fins to be a charming nod to the car style of 1959, when the first W111s appeared.

The interiors of this era of Mercedes are wonderful places, with real wood adorning the dash and doors. The thin rim steering wheel is classy with its padded hub and chrome horn ring.

While this car looks to have been bumped (the rear bumper is slightly askew) a few times in its life. I have no doubt this car will be motoring luxuriously along in another 40+ years as Mercedes of this era were built to survive a zombie apocalypse.

Street Parked: The first GT350

2010-05-19T19:58:00.001-07:00

The conventional wisdom among Seattle folk is that Opening Day of boating season heralds the start of summer, with the apogee of summer in the great northwet being Seafair. In my house, summer doesn't begin until the third weekend of May, when the University District Street Fair crowds "The Ave" with more blindingly white people in shorts and t-shirts than mankind was ever meant to see. My lovely wife and I always visit the Street Fair on Saturday morning in an attempt to beat the crowds. We make a point to devour the best Piroshky in the world and look for our favorite vendors before escaping the crowds.

Typically, we park our Miata and stroll through quiet streets to the freshly pitched easy-ups of the vendors. This year was different. As we were strolling down Roosevelt, approaching Scarecrow Video, I noticed an unusual car parked on the street.

My first thought was that this was a vintage race car out for a weekend joy ride. As we walked past, I slowed to check this car out. It quickly became evident this was a unique Mustang.

While Carroll Shelby has done other things, the 1965 Ford Mustang GT350 stands out in my mind as an icon in his portfolio. The GT350 is a more usable car for the average person to own than was Shelby's other project of the time, the AC Cobra. The GT350 enhances the great looks of the Mustang fastback with suspension tuning by Ken Miles (yes, the Ken Miles of GT40 fame at Daytona, Sebring, and Le Mans), a package of weight reduction and redistribution, and some good old hot rod improvements (big carb with Cobra intake and headers) which gave this pony 35 extra ponies to take dancing on a race track or curvy road near you.

This particular car is the first GT350 street car that was built, number 5S003.

Wait, shouldn't this car be '5S001'? Well, it is, sort of. The first three Mustangs given to Shelby for the GT350 program had their numbers written on their firewalls. The plan was to build two factory racing cars and one street car. The street car was built using the chassis with '5S001' written on its firewall. However, when it came time to apply the number tags to the cars, the firewall markings were long gone. It has only been through the research of the car's current owner, who is a great steward of these cars' history that this story has been unraveled and this car verified as truly the first of its kind. Early photos taken at the Shelby shops show the first GT350 with a unique rear view mirror mounted forward of typical on the driver's door. While 5S003 currently has its mirror in the standard location, there are visible patch marks (awesomely of race car quality) on the inner side of the door that reveal this car's birth story.

This first street car was used to develop marketing material by Pete Brock. In addition to his work producing marketing material for Shelby American, Mr Brock is know for having designed the world's most beautiful racing car. I was not aware of Pete Brock's involvement with the GT350 program. He also has signed 5S003's hood.

Another interesting Pete Brock touch on this GT350 is the vented back window. This is an aerodynamic device aimed at venting the cockpit and reducing the negative pressure, and ultimately lift, behind the car at speed. Note how the window dips down beneath the roof of the car.

This car has seen some significant race track experience. At one point it was a racing car and later, in 1985, as a vintage race car, participated in the Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca.

I was at the 1985 Monterey Historics and saw this car racing on track. I remember it vividly, as I loved the GT350 then as I do now. Small world? The roll bar's collection of event tech inspection stickers reveal a little bit of this car's story.

This car is a piece of history. I feel lucky to have encountered it and gotten a chance to understand what it is. As a bonus, the owner started it up for us to hear its unmuffled, 12:1 compression voice. What a treat! This car idles with a deep cackle and revs with the quickness of a racing engine. The side exit exhaust smells lightly of racing fuel, some streetable fuel mixture clearly used to balance the engine's thirst with this car's occasional jaunts around town. The owner takes it out to give his kids rides, setting off car alarms along the way. He gets it; this car is loved and shared with the world.

On a serious note

2010-04-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys are dismayed to pass along this link:
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100412/NEWS01/4120321/1002/NEWS01

Peugeot Holm is where we've gotten a good deal of both new and used parts for Pujo!, to see his garage burn down is the worst thing that can happen. We applaud Brian Holm for supporting quirky cars, and being a genuinely nice guy to talk to on the phone and via email. We're glad nobody was hurt, and are devastated by this news.

Back to the drawing, er, writing board

2010-04-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

Whoooo, wheee, has it been a long time since a meaningful blog post was written. And as I can’t stand reading blog posts about how or why a blog is inactive, I’ll just jump right in with current events. We will get to the past, race wrap-ups, things like that … eventually. But for now, lest the trend in non-blogging continues, we must simply write what must be written.

The biggest news for the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys for the upcoming “Goin’ for Broken” Thunderhill race is the change in team dynamics. You may have heard (from other sources, as we’ve been neglectful) that many of our team members also serve duty on the Autosport Labrats team that was originally put together for a ChumpCar race at Portland Raceway. Captain Brent is continuing the Labrat build with a new car which should be ready to debut at Goin’ for Broken. (follow their details at http://www.autosportlabs.org/blog/) Several team members may do double duty driving and wrenching for both teams. If all goes well, it should be easy to do, but come on, this is LeMons, the whole concept of which is how well you can deal with random monkey wrenches. We knew we had to assemble a core backbone for each team in case both cars are in the pit at the same time. So, team captain Sean is putting together a new batting order.

Bret, the perennial family man, will not be able to join us in May; the joys of having a college-age daughter returning home from far across the mountains outweigh the opportunity to swill wine with his friends. C’est la vie. (Kidding, Bret, I’m sure most folks would rather spend a weekend with Kate than with just about anyone else, and who can blame them?) Alan will be back, and we look forward to the return of Monkey Rick from California, who filled in at our last visit to Thunderhill. The newest Monkey on the team is our buddy Drew, a fellow autocrosser who discovered the joy of road racing on that first LabRat ChumpCar team last Halloween. Welcome to the team! Drew got to spend some time getting to know Pujo! this past weekend at the penultimate wrenching party. We’ll write about what’s going on with the car soon.

Another interesting development is the absence (from the strictly Monkey perspective) of supporting women for this race. Neither Drew’s wife, Kim, nor I will be able to attend this race. Much to the disappointment of fans everywhere, this does NOT necessarily mean that Alan and Drew will be dressing up as burlesque dancers or French maids for this race. Sorry. I’m sure the gang will be able to juggle all the myriad things the women usually do at the event, like … like … well, I’m sure there’s something we do besides hold down valuable folding chairs.

Sears Pointless

2010-03-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a compilation of some of the excitement we captured on our in car camera at Infineon Raceway. The driver of the Cavalier towards the end of the video is OK, but he will be wearing a neck brace for awhile. He fractured his C2 vertebra in the wreck.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AutosportLabs#p/a/u/0/SbeaXT-TVfo

Sorry about posting this a "cut and paste" instead of a handy link. Blogger isn't letting me insert a link for some reason.

Braking news

2010-02-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

Saturday Sean, Bret and I got the brakes back together and the car on the wheels. The only glitch was that our bigger caliper shims meant that our bolts were too short necessitating a run to the only open bolt shop 20 miles away in Tacoma. The car looks great on the ground with the new paint job and rotors but an unfortunate electrical glitch courtesy of our rebuilt alternator installation prevented us from testing our work. Hopefully the electrical problem is just a reversed wire and we'll have the car on the street later this week!

Monday update: The wires were reversed and the light's now out when the car is off and on when it's running even with the new alternator. Time to get out the service manual again!

Thursday update: The rebuilt alternator is no good so we've sourced one rebuilt by a Peugeot mechanic which should hopefully solve the charging problem. It also turns out that there wasn't enough clearance between the rotors and the calipers on one side so we toasted one. Since the race is in two weeks Sean just had the old Peugeot rotors turned (they had plenty of metal left) and we're going back to them for this race and we'll fiddle with the Porsche rotors again before the next race.

Braking without breaking the bank

2010-02-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

As those of you who have followed us on the track know the Peugeot has awesome brakes (and from the factory no less). The cost of all the awesomeness is brake rotor wear however so we decided that rather than take a chance we'd put new rotors on for Infineon/Sears Point.

A quick check of the few remaining Peugeot parts suppliers in the USA revealed that 505 Turbo S brake rotors are a) as scarce as hen's teeth and b) cost as much as some fairly sizable jewels, about $350-$400 each. To top it off there are exactly two of them in the USA and if we want extras it's going to cost even more to have them shipped from France.

On to The Google. Hmm, early Porsche 944's had similar calipers/rotors to the 505. After much more research I found someone who had claimed to make the conversion with only light machining and a few extra holes to mount the 5-hole 944 rotor on the 8-hole 505 hub.

Off to NAPA to get a 944 rotor to measure. There are two choices, a $110 Chinese knock-off or the "value" rotors for $58 each. Being LeMons racers we chose the $58 ones of course and we opened the box to see "Made in Italy" and "Brembo" stamped on them! WTF, the Brembos are cheaper than the Chinese knock-offs???

Sean got to machining them and the results are beautiful, we needed caliper spacers about 4 times thicker than stock and 7 extra holes drilled but that was it! 505 owners have sweated for years the expense of Peugeot rotors and we just replaced $700-$800 of Peugeot parts with $116 worth of Brembos, cool!

Pujo! and the Technicolor dreamcoat.

2010-02-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

After all the abuse that's been heaped on Pujo! over the last 2 years, we decided to be nice to him for a change and give him a new paint job. The best way to describe the last paint job I did is "Epic Fail". Those of you who have been reading for awhile and following our exploits know that in trying to replicate the Peugeot Rally Team stripe scheme, I may have accidentally painted the car like T.C.'s helicopter from Magnum P.I.

As you can see, a new paint scheme has been desperately needed for quite some time. Unfortunately, we've been spending more time sorting out mechanical problems than decorative problems and we never seemed to have the time to paint before a race. This time we have everything almost done and we could no longer ignore "Magnum".
See what I mean? You can't ignore Magnum. Especially with those shorts. Yow.

Initial sanding and masking comlpete.

Prime time! That means it's 9pm and I'm missing my shows!

If this were a '69 Camaro, I'd be done!

Paint that funky Peugeot white, boy.

Scott has the blues. He's trying to fix my catastrophic paint run. Good luck Scott. When I f*** up, I do it properly.

Red backside. Like a baboon, no?

There, much better. As long as you're over 25 feet away.

Ce qui, encore?

2009-12-27T16:44:00.000-08:00

Je devine que nous devons de façon ou d'autre être d'une manière amusante aux organisateurs de CiTrons. Ils ont accepté notre demande encore! Quel est le problème avec ces camarades? Ne nous connaissent-ils pas enfoncent-ils un pieu français dangereux de merde et est-ce que quelqu'un pourrait être tué??

What, again?

2009-12-27T15:58:00.000-08:00

I guess we must somehow be amusing to the LeMons organizers. They accepted our application again! What's wrong with these guys? Don't they know we're driving a dangerous French heap and someone could be killed??

Electron redistribution

2009-12-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

Peugeot is a company with a long and storied history of racing. From rally to Le Mans to LeMons, Peugeots have been tearing things up. Pujo!'s 505 brethren were very successfully raced in SCCA showroom stock in the 80's. With this sort of pedigree, Pujo! is rightfully considered a racing thoroughbred. If this is the case, why did Peugeot place the 505's battery on the driver's side in the very front of the engine compartment? Clearly, we needed to rectify this design oversight.

A saucy little minx we know provided an informative guide to battery relocatification using the cable from an e30 chassis BMW 3 series car. The 6 cylinder versions of these cars come with a trunk mounted battery (it's even mounted on the passenger side!) and a long-ass battery cable that an impecunious monkey can score for the cheap price of $6.00.

Off to the self service junkyard!

Of the two e30 Bimmers in the junkyard, one was a 6 cylinder. It was quite a rat of a car. The fact that we were experiencing an unusually strong downpour helped by providing shivering cold to distract from the skankiness of this particular car. Pictured is the positive battery cable after I freed it from a pile of assorted wet garbage in the trunk. It snakes through a tight little hole behind the back seat and runs up along the floor on the passengers side of the car, secured with several hundred little plastic clips.

After stuffing the cable through the trunk and into the passenger compartment, the cable was fairly easily freed from its hiding place in the floor. In the picture you can see part of the cable coiled up in the passenger compartment, along with the speaker grill / kick panel that was liberated to allow the other end of the cable to come through firewall from the engine compartment. Notice the hammer perched on top of the toolbox? That's a BMW special tool for interior trim removal.

With the cable removed from the scheiße BMW, insertion into Pujo! commenced.

This involved ~~relaxing~~ contorting oneself into a shape that allows working amongst the racing seat mounts, roll cage, and pointy sharp crap on the floor of the car.

A bunch of ~~pleasant discussion~~ cursing allowed an installation solution to be found.

We had enough cable length to stretch from Pujo!'s original battery connection to the trunk, where the battery resides in cozy flammability next to the fuel tank. Note that Doug did build a really nice battery enclosure, it's just not pictured here (it's shy).

Another 15 minutes of fame?

2009-11-30T18:36:00.000-08:00

And so, we left for Willows. We'll sum up each day of the race, but first, a quick side note.

As we got back to the hotel Friday night after a very fun team dinner at Casa Ramos (big thumbs up, by the way), a few of us began to get a photo message on our phones. Apparently, hitting mailboxes that day was the December issue of Grassroots Motorsports. A good friend of ours (hi, Laura!) took a picture of the cover. Who could that be? Why, that's Pujo! on the front cover, right by the banner, the representative photo for the article inside about LeMons racing. Our very own Reverend Scott, there in all his glory coming down "The Slide" at Reno-Fernley raceway.

On the Frickin' Cover of Grassroots Motorsports.

Representing $500 racing to everyone who lives under a rock and hadn't heard of it yet.

We're giddy. But if you've met us, that's really not a change from the normal, is it?

We have some catching up to do!

2009-11-29T15:31:00.000-08:00

Yes, we just got back from Thunderhill.
Yes, the car finished the race.

But... we'd be doing a disservice if we told the story out of order. So we'll blast through the next couple of chapters and get all caught up.

After fixing the transmission (hooray for ingenuity and persistence!), the next few work parties addressed various issues with the car. The shocks were easily rebuilt with new seals and fresh oil (lighter weight, as the heavy weight we'd used before was probably the cause of shock failure). We relocated the battery to the trunk to make it easier to work on the engine, a little elbow room under the hood can make up valuable minutes at a LeMons race. Relocation made easy by a BMW 325 battery cable from our local junkyard. We decided we liked the spring performance with the clamps we'd used, so decided to clip the springs to make the change more permanent and prevent clamp failure. Basic maintenance of course, fluids, all that good stuff. During the course of this, we discovered that we'd need new axle nuts. Contacting our source for Peugeot parts, however, proved frustrating. The Turbo S model is, of course, different from your standard 505 in almost every way that matters, very little is interchangeable. Yes, he "could" get us the correct axle nuts, but like so many of the other parts we've asked him about, they would be about the "very last in the country" and Pug enthusiasts cry when they hear it would be going to a race car. This forced Sean to take the cheaper option. Owning your own aerospace machine shop makes it easy to replicate certain types of parts. A little 2" hex bar, some measurements, a couple hours, and only minimal swearing later, a brand new set of replacement nuts for less than we could have bought them.

We installed a more permanent location for our transponder, not that zip ties are a bad thing...

Time began to run short before the race. It was now less than a week to go, and our big ideas for redecorating would just have to be put aside. There's always another race, right? We had a team meeting to discuss trip logistics and strategies, and our youngest Monkey stepped in to ensure that our art theme would happen as planned, if not on the original scale.

We showed off the work we'd done to a tough audience, Doug's dad who was up from Nebraska, a wonderful man with many years of racing expertise under his belt. He was, to say the least, a bit dubious about our choice of a Peugeot.

The meeting was as good as a 6-person meeting can be with 2 people absent. Sadly, one of our drivers was feeling the effects of a cold, and another had been hit earlier in the week with swine flu. It was now Sunday night, and we were hopeful for quick recoveries from both guys. Our hopes turned to worry as Bret's fever continued, and by Tuesday, he was officially not going on the trip. At the last race, going from a 6-man team to a 5-man did not hurt us in anything other than the fun quotient. But even though we knew we'd have less daylight, this time was different. One of Doug's good friends from the Rally circuits was going to be coming up from San Diego to watch and support us in the pits. Would he be interested in taking a turn behind the wheel since he was going to be there anyway? After just a few questions which proved he wasn't completely mental, he agreed. We welcomed temporary Monkey Rick onto the team, and couldn't wait to meet him on Friday.

Garbled Transmissions Part Trois

2009-11-19T21:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, that didn't work. We were able to select 1st through 4th and occasionally 5th, but reverse was out of the question. It would appear that some mechanic, the name of whom we cannot disclose, made an error in reassembling the transmission.

Back to the workbench!

We determined that the motion of the linkage that moves to reverse/5th was limited. Why?

Ah hah! The spring and plastic limiter that keeps you from selecting 6th and 7th gears was installed wrong! A ~~quick bit~~ hair-pulling session of puzzling what the correct order is for the spring, shim, washer, plastic chingus, other shim ensued.

The linkage resorted, we reassembled the transmission for the last time. We were sure to use plenty of assembly lube to make sure things went together well.

We properly torqued all the fasteners...

And tossed it back in the car. We've gotten really fast at this.

Where... IT WORKED! WE FIXED IT!!! And it cost absolutely nothing!

Garbled Transmissions Part Deux

2009-11-16T10:50:00.000-08:00

Since we ~~have no idea what we're doing~~ care so much about doing the job right, especially when it ~~involves the dark magic of transmissions~~ is a complex job, we thoroughly washed all the pieces of the transmission.

We initially couldn't determine what was wrong. But, with the gearset out, we noticed the shift selector forks behaving poorly. Turns out that when Hercules made that last shift to third, he managed to send the shifter fork too far along its allowed travel and the little pin that tells the rest of the works, "Hey! I'm in third!" fell out. Here's a shot of the selector forks, the center one is tilted to show the hole that the little pin rides in.

And here's a shot of our troublesome little friend the pin.

With the little pin returned to its home, we put our transmission back together again.

We were very careful to make sure we got the shifting linkage reconnected. It would be a shame to have to take this thing apart again...

All sealed up, we threw the transmission back in the car in about 20 minutes.

Now to test it to confirm our repair worked!

Garbled Transmissions - Part Un

2009-10-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

Pujo! finished the Reno LeMons event stuck in third gear. Actually, Pujo! proved to be quite capable as an automatique, setting our fastest lap time with just third gear. We decided that even though the single speed transmission was clearly a performance improvement, having multiple gears from which to choose would be good for loading on and off the trailer. Last weekend, the transmission was extracted from our brave patient.

Today, we decided to crack open the tranny and see what secrets lie underneath its aluminum skirt. With the transmission repair skills of 16th century blacksmiths, we set to work.

Being stuck in third gear, the gearbox proved reluctant to share its inner workings with us. Being Surrender Monkeys, we ~~never give up~~ umm ~~valiantly continue~~ are too cheap to take it somewhere to be fixed, so blindly continue forward. (Having a budget of pocket lint and unused postage stamps helps with our DIY work ethic).

We eventually prevailed in opening the transmission. But not without the dreaded sound of pieces falling apart inside. This is where we finished for the day. We've got fifth gear (or is it reverse?) out. The selector fork is still immobile. Today we want to find out why the shifter mechanism is stuck; hopefull it's something obvious.

Then there is the ~~simple~~ frighteningly complex task of putting this thing back together. There was no shouting and only minimal cursing during this session. Stay tuned for part deux.

Lifting old Pugs, 2 schools of thought.

2009-10-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

The story so far...

When we left Reno, Pujo! had some issues. The major one was the (thankfully) jammed-in-third-gear transmission. We were able to finish the race with nothing but 3rd. Ironically setting our fastest lap times with the broken transmission. We actually debated whether or not to fix it, but soon came to the conclusion that even though we get by just fine with the one gear, it really sucks not having reverse. Not being able to let up the clutch pedal while the engine is idling also is kind of inconvenient.

This weekend we removed the knackered transmission from Pujo!. We'll be installing the spare transmission from the donor car (Pugly) later this week. Pujo! is showing some substantial oil leakage from multiple places. We might spend the money on a tube of RTV to try to keep some of the vital fluid inside the engine block. Fortunately the leaks aren't large, there's just a lot of them. We'd like to avoid having to fill the crank case at every pit stop if possible.

The Forklift. My tool of choice for moving dead French iron. Good for cracking walnuts and opening locked doors too.

Doug has the goods to please both sexes. Who doesn't appreciate a nice pair of lifts?

"How did we get an oil leak back here??" Wonders Alan. Sorry Alan, that's one of those inscrutable French trade secrets.

Dark matter? We have that. Who knew it was gunky and slippery too. Astrophysicists are wasting their time using telescopes to find the stuff.

The old transmission standing ready to begin its new life as a paper weight or a boat anchor.

Project Pujo!: Begins

2009-09-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

Hi Pujo! fans! Your Spritemare is finally over and work on Pujo! begins! There's a bunch of broken stuff to fix, but we'll easily be ready for Arse-Freeze-Apalooza in November. We need to fix the transmission, which is still jammed in 3rd gear. Probably not a huge concern since we set our fastest lap times in Reno with just the one gear. Monkeys apparently drive better without the distraction of deciding what gear to be in. Our barely opposable digits are better suited for grasping bananas (and cheese) than cranky Peugeot gear shift levers anyway.

Let the two-steps-forward-three-steps-back posts begin!

Project Sprite: Completeted

2009-09-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

The Sprite is done! It's tuned and running perfectly. Now all we need is some good weather to put some miles on it. The forecast looks like it'll be sunny and in the mid 70s by about Wednesday. We drove it between thunderstorms on Sunday, there was even a report of a funnel cloud about 10 miles south of where we were. Not optimal weather for breaking in an engine on an open car. Currently there are about two hours on the engine. There was just some minor blue smoke out of the tailpipe during our drive but once the rings wore in a little, that went away and the exhaust has been clear ever since. I'll post some pictures later, we forgot to bring the camera on our quick drives between downpours.

Forecast: Sunny and warm... unless you need to drive a car with no top.

2009-09-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

We have almost everything done on the Sprite. Oil leaks are fixed and the engine has gone through initial break-in with the break-in oil. I used Joe Gibbs BR-30 Break-in oil. Very good stuff. Lots of zinc and other goodies in it. Don't use it for more than about 40 minutes though. The additives act like a fine polishing compound, we don't want it to start wearing our new engine out before we even drive it.

Once we change to fresh, clean oil and put the hood back on, we'll start driving. Except, it's now September in Western Washington and that means we can expect heavy rain every time we stick the key in the ignition. Like it's doing right now. And for the foreseeable future. Until June.

We'll keep watching the skies and keep our fingers crossed. :-)

Return of the Sprite

2009-08-31T18:22:00.000-07:00

We're almost ready to get back to Pujo!. But first, one of the last few updates on the Sprite.

We found a great engine in Oregon. It's been rebuilt but never installed in a car even though it's about 10 years old. It was definitely assembled by someone who knew what they were doing. It's the proper shade of Austin agricultural green too. Over the last few weeks we've been rebuilding most things on the car. Every bolt and nut we could find was loose. It's been a far bigger project than we first anticipated. Last night we finished installing the engine and started it for the first time. Once we sorted out some strange electrical problems, the engine fired up and ran perfectly. Oil pressure is a little high, 70 psi at 1500 rpm. Fortunately we can adjust the regulator to fix that. The only oil leak seems to be from the oil pressure gauge fitting. The car is going to be fantastic when we're done.

Footloose and engine free!

Adding the transmission to the new engine.

Engine in place with almost everything attached.

It started on the second crank after we primed the oil pump and found the electrical problem. This is where I noticed a prodigious quantity of oil pouring from a bad fitting.

Tomorrow we'll fix the oil leaks and finish breaking in the engine.

Fun photos

2009-07-28T12:34:00.001-07:00

No idea how we forgot to get this up on our blog. Jalopnik lists their all-time costumed favorites, and we made the list!? And here we were worried about being underthemed... something we're definitely improving upon if we make it to Thunderhill this year.

http://jalopnik.com/5317990/a-treasury-of-24-hours-of-lemons-team-costumes/gallery/

Sprite/Pujo! update

2009-07-01T21:20:00.000-07:00

Been awhile since I last posted. It's not that I've forgotten, it's just that I don't want the blog to become like FaceBook.

Right now Sean is...
Clipping his fingernails.

Right now Sean is...
Enjoying the sound of an air conditioner.

Sean has sent you a quiz!
Do you like blue?

You have a friend request from someone you were happy to forget about from high school.

Bleah.

I'm just not cut out for FaceBook. I'd rather write nothing than let everyone know how much nothing is going on in my life at any given moment.

But I digress.

Now about the Sprite. No, it's not going to become a LeMons car. It's my dads car. My brothers and I gave it to him for his 80th birthday last November. And we've been trying to get it fixed ever since it's engine blew up a month ago. Sadly, rebuilding the engine is proving to be time and cost prohibitive. It's rebuildable, but just barely. It's really bad. Literally the worst engine I've ever seen that didn't have a rod sticking through the block. And yet it ran great until it... didn't. So, rather than spend a lot of the Summer trying to rebuild (my dad isn't getting any younger and the Northwest has limited good weather for driving an open car) we started looking for a good used or rebuilt replacement. It's taken a couple of weeks, but we found one. A rebuild, but never installed 948cc popped up in Oregon. The owner bought it with a couple of race engines and since it was rebuilt as a street engine he's never used it. I'm going down to pull the pan off it next Tuesday and if it looks good I'll bring it home and we'll drop it into the waiting engine bay. More on that as it developes.

For you Pujo! fans out there, no you haven't been forgotten (all 2 of you. Hi mom!). After the Sprite is done and I have a couple of weekend races out of the way in July and a vacation in early August, we'll be back working on Pujo!. There are some issues to fix. For one the gearbox is jammed in 3rd. Another is the electrical system. The alternator failed in Reno and we were running on battery for about half the race. Fortunately we brought a spare battery and kept charging and swapping. We have a blown shock. Not a really big deal, but rebuild kits are about $20 to do a pair, so we might as well fix it. Other than that and an oil change, Pujo! will be ready to race in November. The only really time consuming part of the whole project will be redecorating the car. It needs something more stylish. More bold. More artful.

More.... French.

Reno highlights

2009-06-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Step away from the Sprite for a weekend. Ahhhhh.
No, we're still not fortified enough to dive back into Pujo! for a while yet, wives are enjoying this small respite of actually seeing our husbands during daylight hours, except for Scott. He's been hiding in the basement for weeks assembling a "best of" video from our hours and hours of in-car footage. Recently, he finally emerged, blinking in the sunlight, and shared this with the rest of us.

Enjoy.

24 Hours of LeMons Reno-Fernley Scrapes and Spins

This features 2 quick minutes of the fun stuff our drivers got to see (and even participate in) behind the wheel.

Sprite interrupted

2009-06-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

I think I found one of the contributing factors for our engine failure. The oil filter remote was sealed with a bunch of silicone against the block. Not that that's generally a bad thing, but you don't need to use half a tube. The main artery to the oil filter was nearly completely blocked with a sphincter of clear silicone. Some oil could still get through, but really not enough to effectively lubricate an engine running at freeway speed. The oil pan was filled with bronze shavings and an unidentifiable hunk of metal about an inch long. I also found what appears to be a worn out rod end bearing inside the oil filter can. I have no idea how something like that could have gotten in there. None of the oil channels are big enough to allow something like that through. The rod bearings for pistons 1 and 4 are completely shot. The rods clunk back and forth easily. Curiously, cylinders 2 and 3 are the ones with bad compression. I also noticed that the engine had been painted while assembled. There was conspicuous overspray on surfaces that aren't easily visible when the engine is in the car. It looks like whoever did the restoration ran out of enthusiasm after completing the body work and had decided to sell the car before he got around to the engine and transmission rebuild and just painted the engine to make it look pretty. There's also plenty of Stop-Leak in the water jacket.

Oooo, sparkly!

Not much oil can get through there.

More broken things. Color me surprised.

On your left, from the deepest, darkest corners of an oil filter can, the metal with mettle... A Semi Cylindrical Chunk of Bronze!

And on the right, brimming with random destructive potential, the oilpan annihilator... A Bent Hunk of Steel!

Shockingly clean for how bad most of the individual parts are.

Everything that I touch, starts to melt... like my clutch.

2009-06-08T19:57:00.000-07:00

I started tearing down the engine today. I haven't gotten too far into it, just as far as removing the gearbox and looking at the clutch and pressure plate. If the rest of this engine has been put together with as much care and attention to detail as everything else has so far, it's going to be an adventure of epically bad proportions. The clutch was (barely) held on with 3 different length bolts. Most of them were finger tight. The teeth on the flywheel are about half way worn off and it looks like the flywheel was resurfaced with a die grinder equipped with a 36 grit pad. It's not even close to flat, you can see where it was only being touched in 2 places by the clutch. The clutch itself is the cheapest piece of crap I've ever seen. It looks like compressed cardboard. The bolts holding the bellhousing had no lock washers or even flat washers. Just bolt heads right up against the aluminum. I hope it wasn't a professional shop that did this work. Some doof in his garage I can forgive, sort of. But any shop that does work like this needs to not be in business.

This is what happens to a clutch...

...and a flywheel...

...when you let this guy work on your car.

Caveat Emptor

2009-06-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

My brothers and I bought this Sprite for my dad for his 80th birthday last November. It's a very handsome little car and seemingly in very good shape. We knew that the syncros weren't working as well as they should, but that wasn't a deal breaker. The previous owner had the car for about a year and really hadn't cracked into it very far. He had the brakes done, which work very well by the way for 4 wheel drums. But hadn't done anything else. He purchased it as a very nice older restoration. Which is what we purchased it as. We bought it for a very reasonable price. For the last 6 months it's been a fun and reliable car. However last weekend on the way to a car show in Shelton, WA it started smoking and some alarming noises began issuing from the engine bay. Having owned British cars for years we swiftly came to the realization that we'd be rebuilding this engine very soon. The compression test showed that cylinders 1 and 4 had good compression, 130. 2 and 3 were below 100. Minimum is 120. Sounds like bad rings.

Hmm, blue haze in the air and a fluid stripe on the ground. Sadly, par for the course in a 50 year old British car.

It doesn't take very long to remove an engine from a car that only has a handful of moving parts.

Oliver may be in pieces all over the garage, but he still puts on a happy face.

It has the proper smooth side gearbox, but this big missing chunk of the bell housing is not so proper.

Uh, I thought you drained the gearbox.

Ick. Pretty nasty looking exhaust gasket for a "recently rebuilt" engine.

Tomorrow I'm going to start the engine teardown. Judging from the lovely pearlescent oil that turned completely black and gross in 3 (yes, 3) miles, it's not going to be pretty. Should be fun though. :-)

A little diversion

2009-06-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

We signed up for Arse-Freeze-Apalooza in November at Thunderhill raceway. You might remember that this was the event we originally signed up for and didn't make it to. Naturally we feel compelled to conquer this event. However this is still some months off and Pujo! needs surprisingly little work to get him ready for this event. Mostly we just need to transplant the less f**ked up transmission and alternater from the parts car and we'll be doing a major redecorating job on the car (we'll keep the theme secret for now). Plenty to do, but also plenty of time.

Good thing too. My dad's '61 Austin Healy Sprite decided it needed some attention and blew its engine. From the sounds coming out of the block, I'd say there's plenty o' bearings and rings just itchin' for replacement. So, for the next couple of weeks I'll be chronicling a full engine rebuild on cutest little engine you ever did see. 948cc's of fury. 42 raging horsepower. Doesn't sound like much, but it only has to move 1400lbs of car. It's pretty peppy.

Oliver and Shannon, almost too much cuteness for one picture.

Good Morning America!

2009-05-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

So Good Morning America was at Reno all weekend, filming a segment on the whole race. We got some good interview time, we may even be in the segment. Look for the guy in the gorilla suit. ;) Sorry for the short notice, though, it airs tomorrow (Saturday) morning, check your local listings, but usually about 7AM.

:::Saturday morning update/edit::: for those that missed it, the link is
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7714415
and we did get our air time, this very shot above! :)

Now on FB

2009-05-28T15:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, you too can become a fan of Pujo! on Facebook. Search for Pujo! (the exclamation point is included) and you should find him under Celebrities-sports teams.

Shock and awwwww....

2009-05-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

What an incredible weekend. A year after we started this project, we finally got to experience the 24 Hours of LeMons. We met some really cool people, had some really good competition and Pujo! miraculously survived the entire race. Not without incident, but he'll be fixed up and ready for another LeMons event in no time.

On Friday during the practice our oil cooler lines proved to be too short and were loosened up by the engine torqueing. Pujo! left about a quart of oil on the track and we started scrambling to fix the problem. Fortunately NAPA in Fernley is geared towards farm vehicles and built us a couple of 8AN hydralic line extentions to make sure we had enough slack in the oil lines to prevent them being pulled on by the engine again. Pujo! really needs his oil cooler. This engine quickly heats up to fusion temperatures if it has to rely on the factory cooling system. Once the oil cooler was sorted out we could run the engine as hard as we wanted and the temp gauges never climbed into the danger zone at all.

Saturday had its share of downtime too. The shift linkage broke during Doug's session and we had to lock wire one of the push-pull rod back onto its lever. This took about 20 minutes to diagnose and repair. Doug went back out on track and was black flagged about 40 minutes later for passing under yellow. This apparently used up our Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card we bribed the judges for and we didn't have to do any of the embarrassing punishments, but we did have to replace Doug with another driver. Alan had an altercation with a Mustang during his session and got the DMV punishment. He had to wait around while one of the judges located the proper forms to fill out and slowly made his way over to us. We took turns filling out the 4 obnoxiously complex forms and were in the penalty box for about 25 or 30 minutes. The Mustang driver denied running into Alan initially then argued with the judge about the it being "unfair" that he was being punished for something that was "obviously" not his fault at all. The judge deemed him a whiner and ordered him to eat a jar of baby food, then he had to go get his entire team and return to the penalty box. I'm not sure what they did to them but I later saw the same Mustang on the track with a pig welded to the roof and a rat welded to the hood.

Sunday was a little more interesting in the breakdown department. During Alan's session first thing in the morning the shifter arm for 3rd gear jammed up and couldn't be unjammed. We actually bent some of the linkage trying to get the transmission out of 3rd. After about 40ish minutes of trying to fix the problem we threw our hands in the air and said, "Hell with this, just drive it in third." And we did. For the next 4 hours. No shifting. No neutral. 3rd gear only. And do you know what? Pujo! was brilliant. That car toughed it out and finished the race. 33rd overall with nearly 2 hours spent off the track for various issues. Looking at the results showed that we set one of the 5 fastest laps of the day with a broken transmission. I believe that if we had spent the whole time on the track, we might have finished in the top ten.

Even I originally thought that racing a Peugeot in an endurance race was a bit of a joke. I certainly don't think that now. What a brilliant car. It did everything we asked of it and more. It shrugged off an impact with a much heavier Mustang (we heard the hit all the way over in the pits) and has very little damage to show for it. It spent 4 hours with its transmission jammed in 3rd and didn't complain, it actually sped up. I'll be proud to pilot this car in another LeMons race. I know the other Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys will be too.

The competition started early with the CESM. Alan and Scott are seen here playing iPhone air hockey in the tow rig on the way.

*&%$#@*!!!! Shift %$#@#$ linkage!!! Owww! @#$&*$!! I broke a nail!!

Would you believe this little scuff...

...Was caused by this titanic chunk of American iron?

'Nuff said.

1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and reverse are for sissies!

"Hey guys! I'm waving this thing around and a Peugeot just drove under it! Are they skiing in hell, or what??"

To finish 33rd, first one must finish. And that's a victory in itself.

We're home.

2009-05-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

As I feared, we had no internet connection at the lovely Lazy Inn in Fernley, NV. Ah well. I tried once to get into the blog via my cell phone, but as it's Sprint instead of one of *your* fancy iPhones, I couldn't even get to a sign-in page to post, and as verbose as we Cheese Eaters tend to be, I imagine that thumbing our daily novels would have gotten old quickly.

So, for those of you sitting on the end of your seats, we actually finished the race. Yes, really. Plenty of drama, a few breaks, one penalty, but we finished with 171 laps, in the top third overall. Full details will be posted by the many drivers, over the next week or so as we decompress, there are many many stories to share.

I'll leave you with this.

Here we go!

2009-05-21T04:31:00.001-07:00

No photo at the moment, it's officially Oh-Dark-Thirty. (yes, 4:30 in the morning) and we're off to miss one of the most historic events in history today. I can't sleep.
Yes, you read that right, I said "miss." It's Memorial Day Weekend in Seattle, and there's no rain in the forecast for Monday. They say it rains here all the time, but locals know that isn't true. You can, however, count on rain on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July pretty regularly.
So anyway, here we are at Monkey Central,sometime later today our crew will arrive to finish loading the truck with suitcases, beer, easy-up tents and other necessities, and we'll be off just as soon as we can. I am bringing the laptop with me in the hopes of providing (how did Karina put it?) amusing anecdotes from trackside, or at least summaries in the evenings. No guarantees. Heck, based on what happened last December, there's probably an official Nevada State Gambling line on the odds we'll even make it to Reno!
But, the car is on the trailer, we have the hotel address and directions to the track, and the glamorous part of the adventure begins today. Wish us luck!

The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys Kick It Nerd Core.

2009-05-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

We Cheese Eaters take our motorsport enthusiasm seriously and we never choose the easy path. We favor unusual and difficult to love cars. But our enthusiasm has always been about the car, not ourselves. We've decided we're not a team. Not really. We're more like a tribe. What better way of showing tribal membership than enduring a rite of passage? I'm not talking about getting naked, painting ourselves with mud and chicken feathers and dancing around a bonfire (though that does sound like fun) until we feel one with the Universe. We went for simple and direct. Bret, Scott and I all got tattoos yesterday. And not just any tattoo, but the nerdiest kind possible. The three of us now proudly bear the periodic table symbol for lead on our right feet.

Bret, brave man that he is, went first.

Apparently, getting a tattoo tastes like lemons. How ironically appropriate!

...and the results are in.

Scott is stoically awaiting his turn in the chair.

The look on his face and the fact he only has one butt cheek on the bench tells me that everything is fine and I have nothing to fear.

My turn! Yay!

Feels so good, I think I'll go have some teeth drilled next!

Nerd core all the way!!

Pujo! attacks the track! Then the track counter attacks...

2009-04-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Pujo! finally got a chance to see what a real race track is like. Sadly only I was able to see what Pujo! is like on the track. Initially everything seemed pretty good, but I became concerned about a distinct lack of power. Handling is nice and neutral, braking is excellent, but the power just wasn't there. After about 15 minutes I noticed the temp gauge start to climb, I reduced my speed to right around freeway speed to see if it would cool off, and it did for about a lap, then it began to climb again. I wasn't overly concerned but through my ridiculously padded and insulated helmet (I'm rendered effectively deaf in the damned thing) I began to hear an alarming rattling sound from the engine compartment. Right about this time a '64 Mustang with a dry sump ruptured a line and dumped about 30,000 barrels of oil on the track. Fortunately I'd already slowed to about 30mph by the time I reached the Mustang Valdez oil spill and stayed on the track. Sadly the same couldn't be said of an Acura and an E30 (S**t, those things are friggin' everywhere) some sea otters and about a dozen arctic terns. Once I'd passed the environmental disaster and climbed the hill back towards the paddock, Pujo! decided he'd had enough and passed out by the side of the track. The radiator overflow then boiled over and clouds of steam billowed from beneath the hood. I tried to restart to keep coolant flowing but Pujo! refused to wake up. Once we rolled him back into the pits and gave him a chance to cool off, he restarted normally. Except for the disturbing rattling noise. We figured at that point we had a bad connecting rod bearing. I was glad we brought the trailer. After a 2 hour delay while hundreds of volunteers scrubbed the otters, terns and track with loving hands and Dawn liquid dish detergent, we finished the rest of the day in Bret's Miata and Brent's M3.

The next day Scott and I got to work on Pujo!. Embarrassingly the overheating appeared to be caused by an improperly burped cooling system. There was plenty of water left in the overflow bottle, but the radiator was several inches down. Since I was the last one to drain and fill the thing, the blame rests squarely on me. The lack of power turned out to be from a crack in the accordion hose between the MAFS and the turbo. Most cars won't run at all if that happens, Pujo! simply gets tired. Luckily, the old black car (remember Pugly from way back when we started all this?)had a good one it wasn't using any more. What about the alarming rattle from the engine, you ask? We pulled the oil pan and discovered the chain driving the oil pump was loose and could clatter against the timing chain cover. Thankfully all really simple and quick fixes.

Pujo! lives to drive another day.

Pujo! leading a 911. Well, ok, running away from Germans. At least he's not hiding in the sewers yet.

Pujo! being held by the Axis powers after he'd surrendered for the day.

Battle of the Banned (F1 technology)

2009-04-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

During a team meeting a few weeks ago we came to the conclusion that what this car really needs to give it the edge is some banned F1 technology. Active aerodynamics, that's what we need. I think the Faster Farms guys were clucking in the right direction with their bowling ball actuated ironing board wing. Brilliantly hillbilly that was. We're going with a more sophisticated approach. Brent (the artful) Picasso gave me a napkin sketch of his idea for a control unit.

Seemed too simple at first glance. My daughter disliked the flow of the drawing and betterized it.

This was starting to show promise. A few more tweaks and we had a working sketch.

I love it when a plan comes together! Now we just have to build it before Reno.

Ha! Suckers!

2009-04-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

We're taking Pujo! to Pacific Raceways in scenic Kent WA for the Northwest Alfa Romeo club track day on the 23rd. While I was signing up I noticed the "tech form" link. This tech form must be filled out by an ASE certified mechanic. Uh-oh, I thought. So, rather than click the "unregister" button, I figured what's to lose?

Last Friday I drove Pujo! to the nearest ASE certified shop and handed over the form with an explanation of what the car was built for.

"Really." said the man behind the counter "An endurance race for $500 cars? You mean like a demolition derby?"

"Well, I hope not." I replied "Anything short of a Caprice Classic is going to get seriously injured if it hits this thing."

"Ooookay..." said the man.

Seriously, this car has been rear ended harder than Elton John. Rolled, dropped, lifted by a giant forklift. There's Bondo on the roof. I personally do body work on it with a sledgehammer because any lesser tool just isn't sufficient. This thing has survived situations that would make Superman squeal with terror. A Honda or VW would just bounce right off and not leave a mark.

But, I digress...

After a short wait a nice young man named Carlos took my keys and headed for the parking lot. It took him a moment to figure out how to get in over the anti-intrusion bars. He even put a nice, clean paper floor mat on the floor. Two other technicians looked on in disbelief as Pujo! rolled into the shop followed by a subtle cloud of blue smoke. Soon Pujo! was up on a lift for all to see, displaying more evidence of past impacts than your average moon.

Carlos looked at the damage and said, "You race this, man?"

"Yes. Yes, I do." I said proudly.

He looked again at the crumpled floor pans and wrinkled frame rails and then looked at me as though I were obviously dangerously insane.

"F--k.... you're crazy, man." He said, shaking his head.

"Yes. Yes, I am." I said proudly.

Rather than argue with me, he signed off on the car and sent me on my way.

I hope the Alfa guys have a sense of humor.

Join the Comprehensive Reinvestment in Autocross Program!

2009-04-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
Here's an only semi-simian post from your old pal Breauxt. I have found the recent discussion about public policy and economic impacts of legislation on a number of racing lists I'm on coincidentally amusing given the work I've been doing recently on a personal project I'm sharing with Ed Montgomery. I shouldn't be sharing this information just yet, as the PR roll-out is not scheduled to start moving until next week. Ed is, I guess I need to now refer to him as "Mr Montgomery" now; anyway Ed is the new Car Czar for the US government.

This is kind of weird in that Ed is just a dude I happen to know from Maryland with no more experience with the auto industry than you or me. But he's an enthusiast and loves cars and driving fast. He had an SS 396 Nova for a while as a young guy, and then moved on to more realistic machines as he pursued his doctorate, got married, and had kids. We all know the drill. He's got a Pontiac G8 now and is a cool guy.

I happened to meet him through work, oddly enough. I work with clinical research data and early last year was visiting Johns Hopkins in Baltimore on business. After my last data model review session, I was walking around the historic campus with my camera and spied Ed's G8 in a parking lot. I hadn't seen a G8 yet, so was giving his car a good bit of attention. He came out to his car to go home and couldn't help but notice me laying on the ground looking at the suspension of his car. This of course sparked a conversation. It turns out he has been a user of some research administration software my team built and we've, by now, become pretty good friends.

A few months ago, Ed and his family (he's got adorable kids, twins!) were visiting my family in Italy. On this visit I knew I'd be playing tour guide to the Montgomery clan and so had rented a 'big' car - in this case a 5 series BMW. I typically rent the cheapest buzz-bomb I can get, knowing I'll be mostly driving my parents' Peugeot (a perfectly adequate 308 diesel). The big Bimmer was the perfect ride for touring around northern Italy. My family and Ed's would caravan from restaurant to winery to historic race track in the Bimmer and the Pug, each time flipping a coin to see who would have to suffer the indignity of riding in the Peugeot for the next leg.

At one point, on the superstrada near Lucca at just over 190 kph (that's about 115 mph), I commented to Ed, "How come GM can't make a car like this? We're cruising along at a ridiculous speed and the people in the back seat are asleep". He piped back, "Bret, GM does make cars like this. My G8 is a prime example, as is any Cadillac". I initially scoffed at Ed as being a GM apologist, but then remembered that his dad has an S class Benz. Ed is no stranger to quality motoring. The conversation shifted to the power perception holds over even an educated public (myself being an example - a fan of the G8 assuming it was an order of magnitude less "good" than my 5 series rental).

Skip forward a few months and Ed and I have been chatting with increased seriousness about how a manufacturer can bridge the "perception gap" that exists with the American car companies. I had since taken test drives in a variety of American cars: G8, Malibu, CTS (and CTS-V Whoa Nelly!), Fusion, Mustang, etc. I found these all to be decent cars. There is no reason these cars and their stablemates should be being outsold by foreign products. In particular, not a car as boring and uninvolving as a the Camry.

As the financial apocalypse settled in, and the North American car manufacturers became the pariah of the national media, I became incensed. The news readers on CNN, FOX, and MSNBC would talk about how the "Big 3" weren't building efficient cars and I would scream at my television, "I just got a real world 50mpg in a week long test of a mid-size Ford Fusion Hybrid! Toyota's large SUV's are so inefficient that they might as well be clubbing baby seals in comparison to the domestic SUV's!"

A plan hatched in my mind. What if the domestic manufacturers took a grassroots approach to grabbing control of the perceptions of their products? After all, who does a person ask for car advice? A car guy, of course. What if the most prolific car guys (and car girls!) were privy to the real quality and performance of domestically manufactured vehicles? These folks would be evangelists unclouded by public perception or marketing influences, because they'd be driving the real products, right now.

I had written little more than an executive summary of the concept of seeding perception among the "car intelligentsia", when Ed started getting calls from the Obama Administration about a "high level" position. Ed had been helping me craft my proposal as a behavioral marketing experiment that I'd hoped to see conducted at Wharton or Harvard's business schools. However, as Ed started being vetted as a candidate for "Car Czar", we started thinking about the real and immediate market influence a program like ours could have by being federally funded. What if we gave 1 year free leases of America's greatest cars to America's biggest real world car fans? These are the thought leaders who impact the average Joe's buying decisions.

Now that Ed is Car Czar, our idea has been given a green light! We have 10,000 slots open for a one year lease of a premiere American car. I'm driving a CTS-V (and loving it, by the way) and am doing my part to show the country that American cars are just as good as anything in the market!

Here's where I get in trouble: I'd love to see as many "drivers" get handed keys to these cars as possible. Who really cares what some fashionista is driving anyway? I contend that racing enthusiasts and participants in autocross will have a bigger impact on public perception.

Want to get your name on the roster of candidate drivers early? You'll get the pick of the best cars available to the program: including Corvettes (yes Z06 is included), Mustangs of all varieties, the new Camaro, all the V series Cadillacs, as well as the hybrid offerings of the domestics (I don't think those will have much pull with this crowd). Click the link below to go to the website for this new program. This is a new site and it hasn't been announced yet. You'll want to act fast as the PR machine will kick in probably next week.

looflirpa.net

Top 10

2009-03-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

Yet another compilation of the best car chase movies of all time had me thinking of the team today.
Blah blah, lots of lists, lots of cool movies. But in the number 2 spot: Ronin.
I quote, in part (emphasis mine):

#2 Ronin (1998) | Video Clip

Although it will never be regarded as Robert de Niro's best dramatic performance, 1998's Ronin doesn't land on our list for its dialogue. In unbelievable realism, viewers are treated to chase scenes with sport sedans such as a BMW M5, Peugeot 406 and, perhaps most famously, an Audi S8.

....

There are few actors that can capture the mixture of terror and exhilaration involved in a car chase quite like De Niro, while Jean Reno is the only actor who could make driving a Peugeot an exercise in steely manhood. Director John Frankenheimer pretty nearly perfected the art of filming gritty car chase sequences in 1966's Grand Prix.

Whew! I'm anonymous so this doesn't count against my 15 minutes of fame.

2009-03-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

Jonny Lieberman from speedsportlife.com and Judge extraordinaire for 24 Hours of LeMons interviewed us about our adventures in Peugeot Hell. Like Dante before us, we gave him an earful.

Click.

However, he forgot my name by the time he posted it. Perhaps he'll also forget about all the crap wrong with our car when he's Judging it at Goin' for Broken.

-Sean "Other Guy" Green

Aunt Bea lives on!

2009-03-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

So we got a call on our answering machine last week.

"Hi, this is Russell from Spokane, I think you're the previous owner of my truck, I found some... well, it's financial information in it, would you please give me a call back? I have a few questions about the truck"

Yikes. We thought we got every last scrap of paper out of it before signing over the title to the insurance company. Whatever did he find? What questions does he have on the truck? Is this possibly a scam? Well, after several attempts, we finally made contact the other day.

Aunt Bea definitely lives on with a salvage title, she is not being parted out. She's *sniff* living on a farm in her dotage! No really, this guy's brother found Aunt Bea at a local auto auction for apparently a good enough deal that he bought the truck sight unseen. He wanted to know the mechanical details, what had been worked on recently and so on. Sean was able to make this Spokane farmer a very happy man by telling him what a new truck it was under that poor smashed body, new engine at 60,000 miles, new tranny at 70,000, how strict we were at taking care of that truck because we relied on it to tow us over many mountain passes. So, that Silverado is now a "plow truck" ... sounds like a nice good working life. :) We even told him that we'd named the truck, and he felt it was a good name, told Sean he'd keep using it, LOL.

So, our anthropomorphized truck lives on, and has not been parted out for mechanical bits. That makes us happy. :) We even gave him the web address to this blog, so if you're reading this, hello!

(oh, and the financial thing was apparently a life insurance policy statement, and not a paystub or anything tooooo personal)

We're Goin' for Broken!

2009-03-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

We've been accepted into Goin' for Broken in May! With any luck, we'll actually make it to the event in one piece. Hopefully it'll stop snowing by then. We have a new tow vehicle, Aunt Faye, to replace our dearly departed Aunt Bea and I'd rather not risk her health on an icy road to Reno.

Speaking of snow, we were snowed out of a Bremerton Sports Car Club autocross last Sunday (3/15/09, beware the ides of March)fortunately we got a look at the WDOT traffic cams before we bothered leaving the driveway. It was snowing hard at my house, but it wasn't sticking. Bremerton on the other hand got 3 1/2 inches in about an hour and a half. Does Bing Crosby dream of a White St. Patricks day?

Pujo! looses his racing virginity

2009-03-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

We took Pujo! out some development flogging at an autocross event in Bremerton.

We found the handling to be ~~surprisingly good~~ tolerable and at no point did we scrape any of the door handles on pavement. We did, however, notice a bit of rubbing still happening on the back wheels. They make a loud screeching noise when cornering hard. More sledgehammer and cutting work is called for in the rear.

This was a ~~unbelievably freaking~~ cold weather event - yes, that is snow in the picture below. It was part of the WWSCC's Winter Slush Series and you can see that we didn't do too poorly. The inconsistent times tell the tale of intermittent fuel delivery, intermittent electron flow, and screechy tire to fender contact induced throttle lifting. The little penalty numbers? Those speak to driving mistakes.

As regular readers of this blog [are there any?] know, we Cheese Eaters are not big fans of snow. This event allowed us to, as they say, get back on the ~~bouncey, unstable french POS~~ horse.
.

Our horse showed off its Franco-Bastardly nature by starving for fuel at inopportune times. We believe the fuel pickup in the ~~réservoir d'essence~~ gas tank was bent in the trailer tumble into the ditch on Christmas Day. A frightening drive to the second nearest gas station temporarily resolved the starvation issue. However, we still had ~~myriad~~ a few electrical gremlins interrupting our combustion events. We enlisted the aid of an English driver to assist in sorting some of these issues. Some say his nipples are positive ground points and he speaks fluent reverse Swahili, all I know is he's called the Stig.

Now that the first event butterflies is out of the Pujo!'s system, we are looking forward to tuning him for endurance racing success. Team Captain Sean is on top of things and leading the way.

One Peugeot, over easy

2009-03-01T21:52:00.001-08:00

Turns out that we were very lucky and the only damage to Pujo! was superficial. A few well-placed whacks with a big sledgehammer took care of the dents that were keeping the door closed and a few more got the trunk closing normally again.

That taken care of Doug and Sean replaced the broken out rear window, driver's door window and rear quarter window with lexan which not only is almost invisible but is indestructible and lighter to boot!

Next up on the to-do list was to figure out why the passenger-side rear tire was rubbing. Our best guess is that when the trunk was welded back on after the last accident (before we bought the car) that something wasn't perfectly straight. Sean solved the problem by cutting out some of the fender liner and the pounding out the fender lip with the big sledgehammer (which is getting to be our favorite tool these days). That made a mess of the paint on the already damaged right rear but a little touch up of Krylon Cherry Red made things as good as new (well if you are looking at the car from 50 feet away and have bad eyesight).

One funny thing that happened is that when Sean took the wheel off he smelled gasoline and saw that some fluid was leaking from the general area of the gas tank. Worried, we emptied the trunk (which was still full of our spares for the race) and discovered that a couple of quarts of diff fluid in the trunk had sprung a leak in the accident and had made a big gooey mess of things. But in a twist of fate the rollover had also liberated a big pile of fine dirt which had been trapped in the bottom of the driver's side rear fender and that made an excellent oil dry!

Next week we're planning to look at a few more small issues and then the plan is to take it to the March 15th autocross at Bremerton for a shakedown cruise!

LeMons is not a car race

2009-02-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

On the LeMons email list "Mario" summed the event up this way and I couldn't agree more:

I think everyone is missing the point. This is not a race for Race Cars. It's a race for Idiots.

Just call us the "équipe d'imbéciles"!

New Sponsor!

2009-01-17T12:41:00.000-08:00

Battle damage

2009-01-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

Here are some shots of Pujo! apres trailer tumble. This is a tough car; we all expected a wadded up ball of metal to be inside the trailer, most certainly not an angry French Bulldog, ready to drive!

After breaking free of the tie downs, Pujo! appears to have impacted his roof against something solid. Trailer wall against ground? Even though the roof is deformed, and the door is pinned shut, the rollcage is not touching any metal it shouldn't.

A quarter window didn't survive, and a valuable piece of exterior trim was damaged.

The ride height is a bit funky in the rear. We'll need to see what's going on here, I'd hate to have the suspension let go during the race. Welding rod is cheap, right?

While Pujo! did not make it to ThunderHill, he did drive home. Sean reported that the car was a bit on the chilly side as he drove through the snow back to the Monkey House. You can see the missing back window (no it's not just clean) and the dangling right side mirror. We'll need to resolve the mirror - those are handy. I think I saw a couple busted off mirror housings on the express lanes entrance...

The trip from Olympia-ish back to the shop was the longest distance the car has traveled in years and it didn't blow up or catch on fire. We're hopeful that the damage sustained bouncing around the trailer like a mixing ball in a can of Krylon hasn't messed things up too much.

It begins again...

2009-01-13T22:14:00.000-08:00

I registered us for Going for Broken in Reno in May yesterday. 5 months should be sufficient to fix our busted up pug.

Brent and Scott actually made it to Arse-Freeze-Apalooza and were offered a ride in the Dead Smurfs Miata. Many thanks to those guys for adopting our orphaned Monkeys. Sadly they didn't have a chance to win because of an enormous lap penalty. 1200 laps. Wow. Only one car got more and that was only because the owners of the offending Acura demanded it.

Anyway, time for us to dig into Pujo! and see exactly what the damage is. I drove it home but it was obvious it didn't escape unscathed. The suspension definitely suffered. It was noticed on the way home that none of the tires were actually pointing in the same direction. Plenty of negative camber on the drivers front, but the passenger front was showing significant positive camber. The passenger rear for some reason is an inch lower than the drivers rear.

Whatever the diagnosis is, we'll get Pujo! back on his feet.

And then, hopefully, win the index of effluency in Reno. :-)

Road Tripped

2008-12-25T22:05:00.000-08:00

Had a little trouble on the way to Thunderhill this morning. Hit some black ice near Dupont on I-5 and spun off the freeway into a gully. We rolled at least once. The truck is almost certainly totaled. The trailer looks like a refugee from trailer park attacked by a tornado. The race car looks like it's been beaten with baseball bats and crowbars, but it survived. It ripped free of all of it's straps and landed on its wheels on the wall of the trailer. It wasn't fun, but I limped it home under its own power after the wreckers towed the remnants of the truck and trailer away.

Crap.

Somewhere underneath this wreckage is a rather startled little French car. Notice the checker board "wall" that used to be the "floor".

Nice lift kit, huh? I'll be all but invisible in Kent now!

Broken and battered, Aunt Bea held onto her dignity, refused all assistance and drove out of the ditch under her own power. No kidding, that is one seriously tough truck.

Ignoring the law, Bea hitched a ride anyway.

The trailer was a little spartan, so we spruced it up with this festive mobile made of fuel jugs!

Red paint smears from Pujo! are on every interior surface of the trailer except the floor. Pujo! must have felt like a drumstick in a bag of Shake-n-Bake. (credit to Bret Dodson for the comparison)

"Open other end"

Don't worry about being gentle, guys. WE'VE ONLY WORKED ON THAT CAR EVERY WEEKEND FOR THE LAST 6 MONTHS!!!

"For sale, 0ne pace convertible car hauler. Minor cosmetic work required. A real bargain!"

No humans were harmed in the making of this film.

Ok, this isn't funny any more

2008-12-24T09:02:00.000-08:00

We're going to be on the road to Thunderhill in less than 24 hours and there's currently 12" of snow on the ground. Getting to California shouldn't be too difficult, returning to a city that's under a mile of ice and overrun with marauding hordes of Cro-magnon cannibals and herds of mastodon is going to suck though.

There's a frozen raccoon under there somewhere. I know it.

Shannon was very nearly an avalanche casualty, fortunately there was a St. Bernard on hand to dig her out.

Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty apes!

2008-12-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

We started this venture as wee little Rhesus monkeys, not even worthy of shampoo testing. But through this adventure, blessed with moxy and opposable digits, we have matured into ApeRacers.

Did you know Old Man Winter was a Peugeot club member? I didn't.

2008-12-22T08:39:00.000-08:00

It would seem that Winter is conspiring against us. Over the last week we have seen, as the weather forecasters put it, "snow event" after "snow event". Temperatures have been in the mid-twenties for 8 days. WTF? We haven't had snow like this in 10 or 15 years! In the Seattle area Summer = warm rain, Winter = cold rain. The forecast is for more of the same through this week.

I'd like to take a moment from my Winter ranting to thank some our sponsors. ACE (Autocross and convertible enthusiasts) have generously donated 3 tires to our cause. Full Throttle Bottles has donated $100 towards race car fuel and a generous discount for whatever be(er)verages we purchase for the trip. ChaseRace built a most excellent roll cage, provided most of the labor on the build and put up with this piece d'resistance taking up huge amounts of shop space for months at a time. Autosport Labs for the lovely racing seat. Sea West Products, Inc. for providing all of the fuel for the tow vehicle. Thanks guys, you've made this project a lot less painful on the pocket book!

A special thank you to the womenfolk for tolerating and abetting this time sucking monster known as Pujo!.

And thank you to all of the Monkeys that have worked their tails off for the past 6-ish months. I guess that makes us apes now. :-)

Brianne's Jetta is resplendent in a lovely thick blanket of snow. Notice the 18" wheels buried almost to the axles.

I thought I parked Sally around here somewhere? Where'd she go?

Praise the lowered!

2008-12-16T21:21:00.000-08:00

Scott designed us some spring clamps to effectively cut a coil out of our suspension. The result is about 2" taken out of the ride height.

I'm going to have to do some more pounding on the rear fenders. The tires are rubbing again.

We were so happy with the results of the lowering that we went for a drive in the Canadian Arctic.

After the successful cold weather testing we stopped in a random parking lot in Bothell to take pictures, sign autographs and answer the questions of our adoring fans.

The T.V. was my baby-sitter.

2008-12-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

It's been a couple of days since we painted the stripes on Pujo! To my surprise a song popped into my head as soon as I walked into Doug's shop the other night. It was the theme song to Magnum, P.I.. For about a half hour it was stuck in my head and I couldn't figure out why until I looked at the car again. In trying to make our piece of junk a little more flashy for the track, I'd unwittingly painted it like T.C.'s helicopter from Magnum. That proves I spent way too much time in front of the T.V. as a kid!

Here are some other concept paint jobs that we considered before settling on our final version...

My daughter, Shannon, didn't like any of these and suggested we paint it like this...

I liked it, but I didn't have the skill to paint it.

Logo idea

2008-12-14T23:50:00.001-08:00

Now that I've found a material that I can print bumper stickers on Sean suggested that I make up something with a monkey-fied Peugeot logo but I wasn't sure my artistic skills were good enough to do that so I did a little Googling, found a monkey waving a white flag, pasted it on top of a French flag, added a little text and instant logo! Ok it wasn't instant, it actually took me over an hour to do but I think the results are pretty nice. Opinions?

So you CAN polish a turd!

2008-12-14T12:49:00.000-08:00

Here's some photo evidence to demonstrate...

We had some inspiration from a Peugeot 405 Rallye car.

Then we broke out the well aged cans of Krylon.

Ta-Da! Turd polished!

Flair for the dramatic.

2008-12-11T21:32:00.000-08:00

We discovered some clearance issues with the rear tires today. Doug heard a pretty solid scrape when he hit a pothole in a corner. We figured a little body work was in order.

Here's the result.

I did it with this. No kidding. :-)

Sadly, the other side looks like it was done by spastic chimpanzee with no depth perception.

Oops, a moment of clarity

2008-12-10T23:03:00.000-08:00

We were so excited to have the car running for a change that we forgot one minor detail.

Hood pins. Those are important, aren't they?

Oh, well. Nothing a little contortion and brute force can't handle!

That'll polish out.

The joys of Peugeotnership

2008-12-10T22:44:00.000-08:00

This question goes out to all of the Peugeot enthusiasts out there, you know who you are.

It's normal to find a river of brake fluid flowing from under a 505, yes?

Scott, in a valiant attempt to staunch the flow, intercepted the stream of fluid with his surprisingly absorbent beanie.

Fortunately it turns out that the Mystery Sphere is sub-reservoir that holds brake fluid under pressure to ensure the failure of this banjo fitting and was actually pretty easy to fix with a new O-ring.

Truth in Advertising

2008-12-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

After working on the Peugeot for what seems like a lifetime I've come to realize that the original Craigslist ad was not so accurate and that even at $500 we still got ~~taken to the cleaners~~ a not-so-good deal. This got me to thinking what the ad should really have looked like if the seller had been totally honest:

1988 Peugeot 505 Turbo. In massive rear-end collision a few years ago, floorboards severely bent under the (soggy) carpet. To hide the affects of the collision a new trunk was shoddily welded on but not attached everywhere so it's loose. Worn out rear brakes, floppy front shocks and leaky clutch slave cylindar. Engine appears to run well once warmed up but the gaskets are shot, the PCV system is clogged, the turbo is only making 4 pounds of boost and the water pump is leaking profusely.

If you are absolutely bonkers or a masochist then this is the car for you! Sure it's only $700 but guess what it's still a rip-off at that price because this car will suck your wallet dry no matter how big it is. I might accept a little less but I'll still be laughing all the way to the bank. Suckers!

The French Solution to Plugging a Hole

2008-12-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

Since Pujo! has such a fragile trunk, we want to keep any water from getting in and causing even more damage back there.

Junk is the trunk

2008-12-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons for Pujo! being acquired cheaply was the presence of past crash damage. We're not talking "Oh, it got banged into by a kid in a Civic" type of damage. This Peugeot looks to have been rammed at 60 miles per hour by a brakeless Peterbilt driven by a longhauler trucker coming down from a Benzedrine fueled cross country marathon. This damage has given Pujo! an articulated hind end.

Sean demonstrated this to me by grabbing the back bumper and lifting up and down. The crack in the picture would visibly open and close! Not good. One tap from an amorous Audi could tuck Pujo!'s tail like a scolded dog. Fortunately we have some good welding skills on our team.

The other side wasn't as obvious. But beneath the body filler lurked a similar crack.

Sploosh!

2008-12-05T15:30:00.000-08:00

Untold years spent ~~as yard art~~ waiting for LeMons glory has a tendancy to ~~rot the freaking hell out of~~ degrade the brake and clutch systems of any car. During the hibernation, Pujo! developed a thirst for brake fluid. Unfortunately, no one could find where the fluid was going. Chief Hydraulic Monkey Scott attacked the problem with ~~tearful resignation~~ spunky optimism. While poking and prodding around the dashboard's nether regions, he dropped a nut and heard a hydraulic fluid-ey "Sploosh".

A ~~torturously long~~ brief bit of wrenching produced an oozing Rube Goldberg-inspired brake and clutch hydraulic system.

The fine folks at Peugeot have devised a way to tell any mechanic in the world to regardez the documentation before tearing into a mystery sphere.

Fortunately, we will be able to reuse the ~~truffles~~ fasteners that hold the brake and clutch systems to the rest of the car.

Peugeot Sugar Daddy

2008-12-05T14:29:00.000-08:00

Over the past 6 months I've come to build a picture in my head of the average Peugeot owner. It's not pretty. Most of them have been... well... eccentric to say the least. Some of them in a good way, like the gruff lovable old guy who gladly shares his knowledge with the younger generation. And some in a bad way, like the gruff not-so-lovable old guys who seem to think a Peugeot should be hermetically sealed and placed on display in the Louvre. Like the old guys chronicled in my last post. The one unifying element between the two groups is great age. Young Peugeot owners seem to be in their late 60's.

Last weekend I had my picture of Peugeot owners shattered. Alan had posted an ad on Craigslist for all of the bits we'd removed from Pujo. Interior trim, full a/c system, power window motors and regulators, sunroof track, leather seats, carpet, various switches knobs and dials. All of it was in pretty good condition for a 20 year old heap. The ad wasn't up very long before it was answered by an astonishingly young and normal guy. He had the usual encyclopedic knowledge of a Peugeot enthusiast but only half the age. He was 40. We chatted for about an hour about his car (which was the cleanest and nicest 505 I've seen since they were new) and our car (he was thrilled we were going to be using it as a race car)and he gave me a lot of useful advice on cheap fixes for common problems. Long story short, he bought everything we had. His intention is to restore everything, use what he needs, then eBay everything else. He said he feels he can make a decent profit on the stuff he sells. The most amazing part of the whole deal was how much he paid for the stuff. $500! Who knew these cars were worth more dead than alive? With all of the previous parts we sold from the car, we have managed to purchase the price of the car down to -$280! $780 worth of stuff off a $500 car and we still have a RUNNING car!

When we're done with this car, I think I'll just sell it in pieces, make a fortune and retire to the South of France. :-)

-Sean

As if the car weren't cranky enough...

2008-11-25T21:45:00.000-08:00

The local Peugeot enthusiast club somehow caught wind of our project. They took umbrage at our goal of removing a fine French automobile from the street and ruining it on a race track. They were angry enough that the entire membership showed up outside the shop to protest (see picture) they refused to leave unless we promised to restore the car to its former glory as a yard ornament. We were offended and refused outright. Eventually around 4:00 they grew bored (or possibly forgot why they were in someone elses driveway) and toddled off to Denny's to catch the early special off the Honored Citizens menu.

I suspect those eyesore guys tipped them off.

Safety fast

2008-11-15T21:08:00.000-08:00

Today we did a lot of safety oriented stuff. Hood pins. Window net. Battery disconnect switch. Oh, and of course adding the official Peugeot "the lion ain't no pussy!" decal. That's important information to anyone close enough to read our rear window.

Scott decided to try to do something about the massive oil leak around the oil pan. As you can see by the picture, Scott is not pleased with the amount of oil, grime and general filth he has to deal with. However he made use of the skills he learned while co-driving with me in my Triumph TR6 for a year. Having raced nothing but clean, reliable Japanese cars before he thought I was joking when I told him of the time honoured British tradition of the annual bolt tightening. Once or twice a year a Triumph owner/operator must climb underneath the car and tighten every bolt and nut or the car simply falls apart. This was the case with the Peugeot's oil pan. He discovered that the bolts holding it to the engine were all at least a quarter turn loose. It would have been... unfortunate if our oil pan fell off at Thunderhill. Not unexpected, but unfortunate.

-Sean

A scoop, sparks, and more sparks

2008-11-04T13:44:00.000-08:00

This past weekend saw the monkeys gathered for some work on the Peujeot. Photo highlights appear below.

Alan took some scrap metal from Sean's machine shop's trash bin and bent up a nice scoop for the intercooler. This required the installation of a hole in the hood.
With the hole installed, Alan pop riveted the scoop to the hood. Firmly affixed and hermeticly sealed, the scoop passed inspection. Doug also generated sparks as cage construction continued.

Dramatis Personae

2008-10-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

There has been a change in the driving roster. Ron "As Seen On TV" Bauer has had to back out due to work related schedule confliction. Bret "The Artful" Dodson has moved in to take Ron's place in the drivers seat. I believe I saw Bret smearing Crazy Glue on the seat of his pants before climbing in so it'll take explosives to remove him.

This is going to make for some messy driver changes at the track.

We have also lost our chief mechanic. She has moved on to other projects (pictured) and will only be available for French muffler bearing tightening as her schedule permits. Doug is now the official Chief Mechanic and engineer. :-)

2008-10-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday Doug, Scott and I (Alan) got together to work on the Peugeot again. It was another one of those "2 steps forward, one step back days" in many ways but when the day was done we (or at least some of us) had made significant progress.

I decided that I was going to try to make a hood scoop for the intercooler using a scrap piece of aluminum from Sean's shop (any metal without what the aerospace guys call a "cert" is effectively scrap so there is a good supply of metal sheet lying around the shop) despite never having used a sheet metal brake or the air-powered "nibbler" before. However I had once spent 3 months working in Sean's aerospace machine shop so I thought "how hard can it be?". Well that turned out to be like a monkey at a computer wondering how hard can it be to write like Shakespeare. I have to say however my design was an elegant one, simple yet functional and requiring only three bends with the brake. With help from Scott I got the pattern cut out and proceeded to do the first bend perfectly. Unfortunately I got cocky at that point and clamped down too hard on the aluminum. My next bend was going fine when all of a sudden I heard a crack and all the tension went away. Yup, I had bent the aluminum too much and snapped it like someone bending a paper clip too many times. Dejected I decided to try again. Once again the first bend went great and unfortunately I repeated the same mistake I made the first time, revealing that I am a) an idiot and b) should leave the bending to the professionals (Sean).

Thankfully Doug was having better luck at the other end of the car. We were worried about the wheel bearings so Doug pulled both axles and repacked the bearings. Thankfully the bearings appeared to be in good shape despite apparently being the ones that had originally came on the car from France! Not too surprising given how big each ball-bearing was, it looked like a string of pearls in a circular bearing race.

Scott decided to tackle removing the rest of the A/C and ID'ing and fixing the numerous vacuum leaks we knew the car had. Once he had wrestled all of the A/C hoses out of the way and removed them we discovered that two of the vacuum hoses down in the bowels had broken off. Thankfully without the A/C in place both hoses were now too long so Scott simply cut them off and re-clamped them. Scott also removed the cruise control but not its associated vacuum source because he was not sure if it served another purpose or not. We will have to figure out this week whether we can steal the CC's vacuum source for the blowoff valve but as our '85 manual doesn't cover the '88's vacuum hose routing we'll have to depend on the wisdom of the Peugeot list. I am a bit worried that we may have more problems in this area so I think we'll make sure to bring plenty of hose to the race just in case.

So all in all another successful weekend. I'll have to get Sean's help this week with making a new scoop (out of steel this time) so we'll be all prepared to cut through the hood next weekend.

Mentioned on Cold Track Days too

2008-10-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, now that we've been accepted to the Thunderhill 24 Hours of LeMons race word is really getting around the Intertubes. In addition to Jalopnik we've now also been mentioned on Cold Track Days as well! Guess this is that mythical "15 minutes of fame" they always talk about!

That's cool but frankly I'm not looking forward to the "years and years of infamy" we'll have to endure after the Peugeot leaves parts scattered all across the track at Thunderhill :-).

We're on Jalopnik!

2008-10-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I submitted a tip to Jalopnik on a potential Lemons car in Wisconsin (a Bristol 408), i suggested it might also fit as a subject for Jalopnik's "Project Car Hell" series.

I signed the email withthe tag line "a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey - comming soon to Arse Freeze-Apalooza!"

That triggered a response from Jalopnik's resident saucy minx, Murilee Martin. Shortly thereafter the story linked below appeared.

http://jalopnik.com/5068138/index-of-effluency-bar-set-unreasonably-high-for-thunderhill-peugeot-505-turbo-or-chevy-corvair

We're In!

2008-10-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

Sean received confirmation from Jay Lamm that we've been officially accepted into the 24 Hours of LeMons! Apparently they had over 200 entries and could only take about 80 so our wise (ok, it was crazy at the time but it seems wise now) choice of car made the difference! Now all we have to do is work our butts off for the next 10 weeks to get the car ready and we're all set! Well of course except for the actual driving in the race part, can't wait for that and our chance to show America just what an old hunk of bent-up French iron is capable of!

Pujo!

2008-10-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

We got a lot of work done on the car today. We have also unanimously decided to name the car "Pujo!".Unnecessary wiring has been removed and the motors and regulators have been removed from the doors. Brent went to town with a Sawsall and the doors are now about 10 pounds each lighter than they were before. Some vacuum issues were discovered in the engine compartment. Apparently French vacuum lines crumble into dust after twenty years. Go figure. The wheels have arrived from Tire Rack so I can start fabricating spacers to allow for the funky Pug offset and bolt pattern. Doug's roll cage is coming along nicely. It'll be SCCA legal when he's done and would be at home in any self respecting World Rally car. Hmmm, I wonder if Jay would consider putting on a LeMons version of the Dakar rally? :-)

New photo page created

2008-10-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be interesting to have more photos than just the few that we have on this blog so I've created a new photo page here. The cool thing about the new page is that I can update it from my iPhone so we'll be able to post real-time photos from the race itself. Is that cool or what?

Snug as a Doug in a Pug

2008-10-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

Nice seat mount Doug! I'm glad this falls under safety, it looks way too nice to be part of this piece of merde! :-)

Making Progress

2008-10-04T23:32:00.001-07:00

Today Brett and I came over to Doug's place to test out the Peugeot's race seat location and to get some work done in preparation for installing the cage. Brett couldn't stay too long but Doug and I made lots of progress anyway. First step was to get the sunroof and it's mechanism out of the car as it just took up too much headroom. We'll put the sunroof panel itself back in place once the cage is in, probably by attaching it with several aluminum straps but for now it's a lot easier to have it out. The sunroof actually turned out to be pretty easy to remove, perhaps half an hour and 10 bolts and it was free!

Since the sunroof wasn't much of a problem I tackled removing the driver's window and mechanism so Doug can cut out the door for the cage. While I was doing that Doug removed both rear brake calipers and figured out what was holding them up and reinstalled them on the car. The bad news is Doug thinks we (or the previous owner) damaged the pistons in such a way that the e-brake won't work very well but we're not likely to need that for the race anyway.

In addition I removed lots of miscellaneous bits and wiring related to the parts we'd taken off and so it's starting to look more and more like a real race car. There still is a lot to do and less then 3 months to do it in so I suspect there will be a lot more work parties before we're done but we're making progress!

Odds and Ends

2008-09-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

Just a short post this week. Now that everyone (well Ron and I) is back from Nationals or vacation (Sean + Bri) it's time to get going on the Pug again because time is getting short! Doug has the car now and is working on installing the cage and getting the braking system sorted out. I got the racing pads from Porterfield and I need to get up to Doug's place this weekend so he can install them. Sean is going to measure the hubs off of the black car so he can get going on making the hub adaptors (turns out that Diamond can't make wheels with the backspacing we need to clear the Peugeot calipers) so we can fit some cheap Tire Rack wheels to the car.

Good news on the bypass valve front, with parts from Lowes + McLendon's I can put together everything we need to plumb it in for $25 or so. Probably won't actually install it until we get the car rolling on the new wheels however as I want to use the Dynolicious iPhone software to do some before and after 0-60 runs to make sure it actually helps us like the Peugeot forum guys says it will.

Sean hasn't put out an official call yet but I'm guessing there will be an official or unofficial work party up at Doug's this weekend as we all have a lot to do!

Labor Day weekend work

2008-09-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

On the Friday before Labor Day Sean and Scott changed the front shock oil and wonder of wonders we now have stiff front shocks! On Saturday Sean and Doug installed the front suspension and replaced the brake pads with some el-cheapo pads so we could drive the car (one of the rear pads was metal-to-metal) and so I could send the old ones into Porterfield to be made into real racing pads). While they were at that I tackled the wiring inside the car and removed or cut back almost all of the unneeded parts with the exception of the power window controls since we haven't yet removed the window motors. I also attached the computers securely so they wouldn't flop around and removed the front amps for the stereo.

I had discovered during the week that Ford F150 shocks were supposedly replacements for the Pugs rear shocks so I headed down to TC's Off-road to get a set of Ranchos. Well once I got there I discovered that a) F150 shocks were not that close and b) the rear OEM Peugeot shocks we have were shockingly stiff compared to the Ranchos anyway (I'd never tried them before) so the good news is we now have 4 stiff shocks for the total outlay of one bottle of motorcycle fork oil!

About 5pm everything was done and we were ready for a road test. We installed the wheels from the parts car since we'd already sold the Pugs wheels for $250 a couple of weeks ago and that's when we discovered that we are idiots. Before we'd sold the wheels Sean and I had tested the black car's wheels to make sure they fit and there seemed to be no problems. Well when we tightened down the wheels we discovered that they didn't quite clear the bigger '88 front calipers and they wouldn't rotate at all! Now the plan is for Sean to call Diamond on Tuesday and find out how quickly they can get us a set of wheels and in the mean time we'll make spacers out of a few thick washers so Doug can get the car onto the trailer and transfer it to his shop to start the process of installing the cage. Oops!

There are still lots of things to do on the car before we're ready including figuring out a way to plumb in the 944 bypass valve I bought for $10, removing the mechanism for the sunroof and windows, cutting or replacing the springs with Volvo ones and getting the racing brake pads made so we're not done by any means but hopefully soon we'll have a running and driving car again!

Another work party

2008-08-03T00:41:00.000-07:00

Well we are making slow but sure progress. Today Sean, Scott, Doug and myself (Alan) got together to work on the Peugeot once again. Today's goal was to get the springs out of the car so Doug could take them home and cut a coil off of each and to finish the job of stripping the interior. As Doug, Sean and Scott are a lot better mechanics than I am I let them concentrate on taking the suspension apart while I finished the interior job.

The first thing to do was to get the front half of the console out which took a little studying before I finally located the hidden screws that were holding the console in place. Once the console was out it was an easy job to remove the carpeting and the two layers of sound deadening underneath. Once I removed the second layer I discovered that the front was every bit as wet as the back had been and it felt that I'd taken 50 lbs out of the car just by removing the carpet! Once everything was out it was even more obvious that our car had been in a serious collision at one point, both the driver's and passenger's side floorpans were buckled and the cross-brace that the driver's seat bolts to was in none too good shape either. I no longer feel bad about turning the car into a LeMons racer, frankly it should have by all rights been hauled off to the wrecking yard years ago.

Meanwhile the rest of the team got the front suspension out fairly easily but the rear turned out to be more of a problem. Just getting the rear shocks out required a lot of wrenching in a tight area and applications of heat from a butane torch (right next to the gas tank!). However once the shocks were out it became obvious that there was no easy way to pop the axles out so we could remove the springs. A quick check of the PDFs on our Peugeot service manual CD confirmed the worst, that we had to remove the hubs to get the axles out, unfortunately the hubs were on so tight that they broke Sean's 1/2 inch Craftsman breaker bar! Thankfully Sean has an impact wrench but the air pressure from his small-sized air compressor just isn't enough so the rear springs will just have to wait until Sean can take home his bigger work air compressor which should hopefully do the trick.

Anyway it was a good but slightly frustrating day but with luck we'll get it all taken care of soon. Thankfully we have almost 5 months left to go but there's no need to tempt fate and wait to the last minute!

Our Inspiration

2008-07-16T01:16:00.000-07:00

Ok so we have a POS Peugeot but that doesn't mean that every Peugeot is a POS, does it? Ok so far that's been true of every one I've seen in person here in the states, but elsewhere in the world I've heard rumors that there are actually new Peugeots which run well and are shiny and everything! And get this people actually race them and spend a few more than the $500 we're spending in the process!

Well it turns out that several Peugeots 908s actually participated in the real 24 Hours of Le Mans this year. Not only that but they almost won! Perhaps this is a good omen? The Pug guys had to settle for second place behind the winning Audi but they beat a lot of great cars including Porsches, Corvettes and the other Audis. Not too bad for a company that saw fit to abandon the States over 15 years ago, huh? We're hoping that some of this almost-winning tradition will rub off on our car!

Pug of the litter

2008-07-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

We had a productive day of labor on the car last Saturday. We swapped some wiring from the black car into the red car and the ignition problem that had manifested itself during my test flogging went away. We also stripped away most of the civilizing bits of the interior. Ron and Bret are the co-discoverers of 'Lake Peugeot' underneath the rear seat. There were two full sized bath towels under the seat presumably to reduce the irritating sloshing noise of free standing water. I think we removed 70 lbs. from the curb weight just by binning the towels. The leak that produced the pool that necessitated the installation of cotton breakwater was caused by cracks and tears in the sheet metal incurred by a tremendous rear end impact. I'm actually surprised it survived the crash. The frame was so bent that the floor under the front seats was rippled. I'm glad we're installing a roll cage if for no other reason than to reduce the chance of the car being torn in half by 14 hours of brutalization.

We also began discussing planting a new (used) engine into the black car and fielding both Pugs. Now we just need to find one for dirt cheap. The black car has a much straighter body but mechanically it's quite the hoopty.

We had a guest mechanic on duty. She's certainly not afraid of getting her hands dirty. Especially when fine tuning a French muffler bearing.

What does it mean?

2008-07-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

So at the work party yesterday, my brain took a little hiatus (it does that from time to time) and I discovered something.

When you take our current 7-monkey team, and put their initials in the right order, you can take Brent, Alan, Ron, Doug, Scott, Bret, Sean.... and make it say

Bard's BS.

It's gotta mean something, right?!

A typical email thread

2008-07-11T18:28:00.000-07:00

One problem with filling your team with smart asses, is that they tend to digress into ... being smart asses. Today for example, a straight email went out reminding the Monkeys of the work party tomorrow, which, for once, will have 6 out of our 7 teammates in attendance, though possibly not all at the same time.

Doug replies, confirming the start time, which was somehow left off today's email.

Sean: Yes, 10:30 or 11 will be fine. It's not like an Amway business party, so you don't have to show up exactly on time. ;-)

Bret jumps in: What if we bring 3 friends...
Then *they* bring 3 friends...
And then *they* bring 3 friends...
.
.
.
Then after a short period of time:
Sean's house will be annexed by France, we'll all have more junker Pugs than we know what to do with, and everyone's weird cousin who does Amway will be insanely jealous.

Sean: Remember to bring your passports and work visas. You'll have to clear customs at the driveway and you'll have to endure a body cavity search before you return to US territory. Fortunately US customs that will handle that issue. The French Protectorate of Sean and Brianne's House has no interest at all in your body cavities or their contents.

Sean Green, Governor FPSBH.

See what I have to put up with here?

Pic of the New Car

2008-06-26T23:52:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd post a pic of the new car. As you can see it was literally parked in a field next to a barn owned by this old Peugeot nut. I think I counted a half-dozen Peugeots of various years but there may have been more hidden in the out buildings. The car next to ours is an '87 STi and next to that is an '89 Turbo wagon. The test drive was an adventure as the car hadn't been licensed in a couple of years and had no insurance so we weren't even allowed to drive it, we had to just ride along. However the old guy wasn't shy about proving that it ran good and strong so we ended up buying it without ever taking the wheel ourselves!

Episode IV: A New Car

2008-06-25T15:58:00.000-07:00

Just when I'd really started to like Pugly, we found out our engine is crap. There are multiple cracks in the head that run from the valve seats to the water jacket or spark plug holes. The nastier problem is the piston with a big chunk eroded away from one edge. I'm pretty sure the cylinder wall is f***ed up to the point that there's no way we can fix this engine and stay anywhere near our $500 budget. So, we started a search for a new engine and have so far come up empty handed. Not just because parts are difficult to find for an old Peugeot 505, but because Pug enthusiasts are proving to be really flaky folks that seem incapable of answering an email or a phone message. I mean, really, is it so hard to answer an inquiry generated by an ad that YOU placed concerning an item YOU want to sell?? What's a guy got to do to get some information out of a Pug owner anyway? As luck would have it, the need for a new engine became a moot point a few days ago. A really decent (OK, OK, decent for an old POS)505 Turbo S showed up on Craigslist. It was reasonably within our price range and once we'd begged the guy down to $500, found ourselves in possession of car that actually runs pretty well. The body is not as nice as the other car, but it's good enough for a cheapo race car. I'm quite pleased with the find. Most of the stuff we need to do to the car falls under the safety category, such as brakes. Everything else that doesn't work we don't want anyway, such as air-conditioning. Once we buy down the cost of the car by selling off everything we don't need, we can replace the few hoses and fiddly bits that look a little rough.

I hope someone reminds me to answer the ads for the parts I want to sell.

-Sean

Pug Owner symptoms

2008-06-19T16:35:00.000-07:00

We seem to have found a prerequisite for owning a Peugeot. You are never allowed to return another phone call.
I wonder how long it will take to hit us? Hopefully, it's just a symptom of people trying to sell one....

Adolescent genetically altered Kung Fu spiders

2008-06-09T21:14:00.000-07:00

The spider silk seats are coming along nicely. But they really don't look right in a French car. I'm starting to think we should have looked for a decent Chinese car, like an MG.

We probably could have gotten one of those brand new for $500.

Nano spiders

2008-06-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

Spiders...why did it have to be spiders?

Obviously, I need to apologize. The spiders are mine, and I put them there on purpose, and here's why: Those aren't just any spiders! Those are French nano-spiders which I liberated from the secret (NOT) Arachnitech facility in Pacific WA. OK, OK ......liberated is to strong a statement, the creepy little things were surrendered to me on request and further more I think they are to big to be called nano. Regardless of how I acquired them or their size I have programed them to begin rebuilding the 505 from the inside out. As I see it there are only one or two issues with this rebuild:

1. The seats will be reproduced with silk coverings and could easily be stained,
2. The rest of the car will also be made of silk or nano-silk,....whatever.

More later,
Scott

Arachnaphobia

2008-06-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

When I first looked at our 505 after it had been sitting in the previous owners front yard for 5 years, I thought to myself, "That thing looks like it'll have a pretty sizable spider population in a few weeks, I'd better hose it down with the pressure washer before we get too deep into the project." Heeding the wisdom of my own words for a change, I attacked the gestating hordes of spiderlings with 2200psi of pure hydraulic force.

Apparently I missed some as the car is now swarming with millions of tiny yellow spiders. Nasty.

The Team

2008-05-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Sean put together the team from friends from our local autocross community. Mostly, he wanted members he knew would get along well together, drive well, and wrench well. Turns out, everyone brings unique strengths that we believe will combine to create a "perfect storm."

Sean Green: Team Captain. British Car enthusiast, general wrencher, and owner of aerospace machine shop brings access to lots of mills, lathes, power tools, and scrap metal.

Scott Miller: "The Negotiator" Mad wrenching skillz, nice guy, can get into small places, and don't ever sell him something without counting your fingernails afterwards.

Alan Dahl: Rules Lawyer and internet scout- Mr Linky, finder of all things Peugeot-y.

Doug Chase: Owner of Chase Race, specializing in fabricating, roll cages, exhausts, and general wrenching. Fiero Enthusiast, Rally guy, and host of the best annual housewarming party on the planet.

Brent Picasso: Self-appointed Chief of Useless Technology. Founder and Chief Engineer of Autosport Labs.

Ron Bauer: “As seen on TV,” probably our Stig, part-time professional driving instructor and another good wrencher.

Bret Dodson: Currently the driving understudy, ready to jump in if one of our 6 can't make the big show, resident wine snob, PR guy, and crafter best excuses why he has to miss “THIS” week's wrenching party but will surely make the next one.

And of course, Karina, Kelley, Alyson, Jenny, and myself, Cheerleaders and the gals without whom this team could not get off the ground. ;)

The Three Most Important Pieces of Equipment for the Peugeot Owner

2008-05-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

From the Peugeot list:

It needs to be said that I have always believed that the most important equipment for the owners of ancient Peugeots is, in increasing order of importance: Automobile Club Membership (one call gets you help); a cell phone with a fully charged battery (Club membership is virtually useless without it) and, lastly, but most importantly, an abiding faith in the benevolence of God.

The Beginning

2008-05-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

So, Sean was reading Grassroots Motorsports a few months ago, and saw a fun full-page blurb for the 24 Hours of LeMons Race. "This looks fun," he said, as he handed me the magazine. I skimmed the page, and my response flew in the face of wifey-stereotypes everywhere. "Yup, that does look fun honey, you should totally do that!"

This blog will chronicle the adventures of the team he put together, in the team's own words, I may or may not write again. ;)