the dreading wheel bearings.

after driving with a strange noise for four months coming from the driver section of my car i finally figured that my rear wheel bearing was bad. i had two opportunities to remove them but we didn't have enough time to complete them. brad, one of the technicians at the shop diagnosed the problem. we made sure it wasn't the brakes causing the noise. we removed the calipers and the rotors and spun the hub. the noise was definitely coming from the wheel bearing. so i gathered all the parts from kearny mesa toyota. after the two failed attempts i tried to find another person to help me out. i asked tire world of chula vista for a quote and they told me it would be $275 for the labor. i wasn't about to spend $275. so i asked a good friend of mine, Patrick. Patrick is the administrator of the Viper Truck Club of America forums. he was willing to assist me with the wheel bearing. so he planned out a day. he has never worked on a supra so this is new for him. so when i arrived to his house i rolled into his lift. we lifted the car and started the work. we ran into several issues here and there. the biggest issue was actually removing the wheel bearing out of the hub itself. we had to go to a local shop to assist us with the removal and installation of the the bearing. although it took us the entire day it was a learning experience. i think $275 at tire world is definitely a good deal. in return i promised patrick i would assist him with the painting of his house next week. :)

motor work

yesterday, david, jon (anthercite), and i decided to work on my jdm motor. we we removed the turbos, manifold and the throttle body. we started work at around 9:30 or so and finished in 2 hours. it was a great learning experience. now that i have the the intake manifold out its time to polish and clean.

back to stock springs on the front

well today we worked on my car again.... last week i had alex swap out my front springs to stock. for some reason when we switched them out it didnt do anything. i was a bit puzzled and was thinkin that my shocks could be bad. with all that stress from the aftermarket springs probably did a number on the shocks. so i decided to post on supraforums for a set of aftermarket shocks. so i got a couple responses and the one i found appealing were the Bilsteins. i dealed with the guy and he was able to send it two day air.

today b-rad helped me out today. we removed the front shock and spring. he showed me a pretty cool trick which didn't require the use of a spring compressor. we put the shock and spring in a tire while i was standing on the spring. this allows the spring not to move. i was a bit hesistant at first but it worked out in the end. once we finished both sides we dropped the car and the car was definitely raised back to stock... you can see the wheel gap. so now i know we installed the lowering springs incorrectly. good thing im going back to stock so i wont have to worry about scrapping all the time.

** mental note: the bigger fatter springs up in front and the thin ones in the back.

who cares... im going coilovers in the end!!

trip to north hollywood part 2 of 2

on our way wake back down to san diego dustin informed me that we had to go pick up his car in national city where he was getting his clutch installed. he asked me if i would drive his evo back home. i didnt mind at all. this was my chance to drive an evo with performance parts. jon from rev'd up kustomz was waiting for us when we got there. we unloaded the motor from the van. we then drove up back to dustin's house where i had a nice salmon dinner with mushrooms and Corona beer... i chilled out for a little bit and watched the chapelle show. as i was driving home i was just thinking how i'm gettin really close to the swap. what a long day but was well worth it.

trip to north hollywood part 1 of 2

today we went to pick up the motor.... here's a little recap of how the day went.

7:39am - Andrew, Jon (MR2) friend calls me up checking to see if im ready to go. he tells me that jon can't make since he has to drop his parents to the airport or something. so it'll be just be me and him. so i told him that its fine and will get ready in a few minutes.

8:00am - Andrew calls me up and tells me that his dad won't let him take the trunk. he asked his dad last minute that he will be borrowing the truck and got denied. so i now im stuck trying to find out a back up plan. i went down my list of people and trying to figure out how to get to north holly wood. i called david, sent a txt to revd-up jon, and several car guys. i was really in a bind trying to find somebody. but i got really lucky when i called up dustin the evo guy...

if you can recall on my previous dustin was the guy who let me borrow his battery. anyways, he was planning on going to an evo meet @ hooters in escondido today but his car was in the shop getting the clutch installed. he told me that would glady drive. i was so stoked that he would take me. i apologized and made sure i wasn't interrupting any plans. it was a last minute thing but was really cool about it. he didn't really care how far it was down.... which i found really cool of him to do.

9:00AM - I left the house to go to Dustin's place in Escondido.

9:45AM - I get to Dustin's place and were getting ready to head out. he got his satellite radio and his valentine one radar detector for the trip. our first stop was to unload some stuff at his work.

10:20AM - We headed to North Hollywood. The trip there wasn't that bad. We hit some traffic and everything but talked it up. i got to know dustin better. we pretty much talked the entire time which was cool. i was also presently surprised by his valentine one detector. we came across certain times when it came on and was quite accurate. on route to north hollywood i had to call up yuki and tell him that we're on our way up. and asked him just in case to stay open if we're a little late

12:30PM - We arrived just in time. i walked to yuki's office and handed him the money. dustin then parked his van in front of the gate. we placed the pallet on dustin's van. yuki hooked the motor on the cherry picker and carefully lifted the motor into dustin's van and placed it on the pallet. then dustin tied the motor and close the van doors. i thanked yuki for holding the motor and we were on our way back to san diego.

12:45PM - Now it was lunch time and we were trying to figure out what to eat. we decided just to drive down to irvine spectrum and grab a bite over there.

1:20PM - We arrive at Irvine Spectrum. i told dustin that lunch is on me. he didn't know what he wanted. so we looked at the directory and tried to figure out something. originally i choose California Pizza Kitchen... But as we walked i asked him if wanted PF Changs. He told me never ate there before, so i decided to eat there instead. when we entered PF Changs we were greeted by this smokin blond chick. as we sat down i was scoping out the scenery and there a bunch of hotties. so we ate lunch and headed back to san diego.

to be continued....