Oh, and if you're travelling with a whack of cash, be sure to bring all paperwork required to prove it's not proceeds of crime... your Civil Forfeiture laws are beyond fucked up.
The car drives, Im probably going to fly my brother out to pick it up in San Fran and have him drive it back. Im thinking a wire transfer may be the route I go? But transferring that much before I have my hands on the keys freaks me out quite a bit. Apparently wire transfers are the norm and the suggested method on BaT.
Maybe do the wire transfer and have the seller overnight you the signed title? That's the way I've usually handled long distance auto transactions and I've never been bit in the ass. BTW, awesome little car! I've always dug the turbo MR2's, I imagine they're an absolute kick in the ass to drive.
Yeah, Im half way thinking of shipping it so I don't have to worry about my brother and the snap oversteer.
As much of a pain in the ass as shippers can be (re: It took 2 months to get my Z28 from 800 miles away), I would go that route myself personally. Jumping in an unfamiliar car and driving it 100's of miles can be a dicey proposition. Especially one that hasn't been driven much lately, something has probably deteriorated during that inactivity and being in the middle of nowhere when it decides to break would not be fun.
Good point. Boy the extras add up. 1200 to ship. ~750 driving. BaT fee. State tax. Escrow... Be lucky to get out under 12000.
Have you considered renting a Uhaul trailer to bring it back to your place? You can rent the truck and the trailer from them. It might save you some money, but not time.
That's a possibility too, but be forewarned, Uhaul will only rent you a car trailer if you rent a truck from them...like an 18-20' box. I had to rent one when I was moving back to Idaho once. I was just going to pull the trailer with my Tundra, but they put the nix on that idea.
SO. After the auction I contacted the seller requesting more information on the car, undercarriage shots that weren't posted in the auction. It looked like the guy tried to cover a large oil leak with a shitty power washer job. Also had evidence the transmission had been worked on. He couldn't answer for them since he got it at a repo auction with no service records. Decided to go our separate ways on the car. I think he's just trying to flip cars, I have no problem with. Im not that confident in my automotive skills for what could be wrong. I might be out the %5 auction fee, waiting to hear back from BaT.
Got my front upper/lower control arms, bushing and ball joints installed today. And then I got the news that they couldn't get the camber for my left tire in spec for the alignment. This pretty much confirms what I'd suspected....the car, at some point, has been in a wreck. I noticed a while back that the right front fender/lower molding gap was a bit off. As near as I can figure it must have happened quite some time ago, going by the condition of the paint, and they never got the sub frame back into spec while repairing it. So, $1000 later, I still have a slight pull to the right. I imagine if it ever bothers someone enough they can replace the front clip. That someone is not me.
Would something like this help? https://www.carid.com/specialty-pro...pn-94304.html?singleid=681407564&url=13890830
Pulling is almost always the effect of CASTER, not camber. Did they give you a printout of the before and after specs? If so, post it, and I'll instruct you on what to do. Trust me, I do alignments every day, on cars, all the way up to semis.
They did, but I don't have a scanner. Ir's only 1.5 degrees out in total on the camber, so it's not that bad....just a bit disappointing. As far as the pulling...it's not really a pull, it's more of a drift to the right which may be the crown of the roads here. I drove a friend's car today and it did the same thing. I'm wondering if I just never noticed it in my Durango because the front end was really fucked up in it.
If I ever get robbed and they demand my phone, they'll probably shoot me just on general principle. My phone makes calls & texts and costs me $25 a month. I'm a cheap bastard.
Can you just tell me what the caster numbers were? I don't have to actually see the printout. Edit: post the camber numbers as well, please. Edit 2: You would not believe how common it is for a car to drive straight with a worn out suspension, and then as soon as you put new parts on (that don't even effect the alignment appreciably, like ball joints or bushings), it starts pulling to one side or another.
I'll grab the sheet out of the car and put them up tomorrow. In other news, I got my stock leather steering wheel....it's in great shape and NOT painted as I feared it might be. It will be going on soon. I just can't get the feeling out of my head that non leather wheel = cheap. A few days ago I was bored and put the Hurst T-handle on the car. That lasted about 5 miles. It was a nice nostalgic bit of driving, but no. And I'm finally at the point that I can start addressing the things I don't like about the car. The first is going to be the exhaust note. It growls at idle, but not enough. I was sitting outside yesterday when it was fired up to go in the shop....traffic was going by at 45 or so and I couldn't hear my car. I heard the starter, then nothing. It may as well been an Altima. That won't do. I don't want it to be obnoxious, but I do want a bit more growl. Probably my favorite sounding car I've had was a '71 Charger with a cammed up 440 Mag and turbo mufflers. I don't know if anyone remembers turbo mufflers, but they were awesome on a big engines. A clean, deep sound that hinted at what was under the hood. My Charger wasn't loud, it just sat there shaking and spitting raw fuel and an incredible sound out the tail pipes. Anyways, I know I'm never going to replicate that sound out of my Z, but I want a bit more growl out of it. I've pretty much settled on a Flowmaster series 80 muffler. It's got a deep, throaty sound without sounding like something a 16 year old kid would do to draw attention to himself.
Before; Left Front Camber -2.6 Caster 4.5 Toe -0.65 Right Camber -0.2 Caster 4.7 Toe -0.75 After Left Camber -1.5 Caster 4.4 Toe 0.05 Right Camber -0.5 Caster 4.2 Toe 0.03 Toe
Generally, you always want. AT LEAST .5 degrees more caster on the right to accounting for road crown. You can compensate for this by adjusting caster out of the other side, or if you're out of adjustments, you can elongate the bolt holes in the cross member on a 4th generation F body.