Headaches

Today I picked up my subframe, which is a relief to finally have it home and ready to go on the car. Yesterday was quite a headache though. I decided to turn the JZA70 around in it's storage shed so that the front end was facing out, so it would be easier to load onto the trailer when it's time to move it. I figured it would be best to do it when there was some snow on the ground so the car could be dragged without damaging the already damaged wheel, but we ended up getting a lot more snow than I'd expected. It took Uttam and I about 5 hours total, so I'll go over it briefly.

We started by pulling it out, we just roped it up to the back of the CR-V and pulled until the wheel folded, then jacked it up again to straighten it until we had the wheel on the snow, then we just dragged the car out much as we did when I picked it up originally. Then we had to turn it around. I tried to drive it around under it's own power, but with the packed down snow the tires would just spin and that would make the bad wheel fold over, so that didn't end up working. So we had to tow it around a corner with the CR-V, and then drag it back towards the shed. Once it was near the shed we had to align it by attaching the rope to the front towhook (something which only came on the JZA70 Supras, never on the left hand drive ones, which is VERY convenient!), and pulling it across sideways. I know this probably isn't the best thing for the car, but we'll be going over it front to back after we move it to make sure everything is okay. Here's a picture of us trying to figure out why the 1JZ was steaming on startup (which has since been figured out) and just admiring it in general, and one of Uttam tying some sort of crazy slipknot to the CR-V's tow hook. You can see where the yellow rope attaches to the JDM tow hook on the front of the Supra. These pictures are just screen caps taken from my GoPro which I stuck inside the container for all of this, so there's a pretty funny video of this all taking place when you speed it up!

Getting it back into the shed was going to be the biggest task. We couldn't reverse it because of the wheel folding, and we couldn't tow it because there was no way of getting the CR-V inside. So we decided to head over to Canadian Tire and get a 2 ton hand pulley thing, which ended up working perfectly. We found hooks inside the shed to attach one end to, and then attached the rope to the other end and cranked the car in. I decided to take the wheels off the dollies I got before and threw them under the wheels to act as little sleds. It ended up working great so that the bad wheel could slide along the ground, and the good wheel could slide as well since the LSD wouldn't allow for only one to be turning. We threw some snow down on the floor so that the bad wheel could slide along and not have to roll, and now the car is nicely sitting facing out. Here's a picture of it on it's way in with the pulley attached, and one with it as it sits now.

As for today, Nanci and I drove down to Port Huron, just on the other side of the border to Michigan to pick up my subframe, which looks to be in great condition. No serious rust on it, just stuff that could be easily sanded down. Next up is a set of Ronnie K bushings for it, then my intercooler kit. Next week is midterms all week, so I won't be touching the car until after that, then it will be the 20th and the car will be getting moved for work to get started! Here's a picture of my subframe sitting at home on my stack of tires, and a picture off the bridge entering Michigan (because we thought it looked cool with all the ice!).