John and Noah came to our rescue this evening and welded on upper front suspension bump stops and a right steering bump stop.
Or, as Skid said, “If we had to wave our hands in the air and ask for a miracle and hope for a specific vehicle to show up, theirs would have been it.”
If it weren’t for the four men listed above, there’s a real chance we wouldn’t be running Baja on Tuesday. They replaced a bad master brake cylinder, did a front end alignment and bled the brakes.
The bad news was that we needed to some welding to fix a problem with front end where the steering was hitting a shock tower when we turned the steering wheel. Guaranteed failure on the course if unfixed.
Since we had time to kill, Rich called a buddy of his, John Turner, who he hasn’t seen in 30 years. John and his son Noah showed up to say Hi. As it turns out, John is President of Turner’s Portable Welding, Inc., and showed up in one of his big portable welding trucks. Adolfo and his team said we could use one of their lifts to do the welding we needed. It’s going on as I type this..
We found a place next to the Wal-Mart where the guys were willing to stay late on a Sunday to bleed the brakes. Then we found out that it needs an alignment and that some part of the steering assembly is hitting the shock tower. And the master brake cylinder was bad. So the guys at the shop are doing everything they can and we’ll be heading to Tijuana to meet up with Eric who will help us with the welding we need.
We also learned that the transmission on Crusty’s RV is shot. We’ll get it to TJ and take it to shop that Eric recommends and hope its ready by the time the green flag drops.
Seth rightfully said it was good time to break out the bottle of Makers Mark.
We’ve spent most of the day in a parking lot working on the car. Decals are on, seats installed. About to roll it across the parking lot to a place that will bleed the brakes for us. Lots of people coming buy to say hello.
Kitty logo courtesy of Scott and Carrie’s “Hell Kitty” race team.
In San Diego.
First shot of 1146 on the trailer in a parking lot in San Diego. We’re doing early prep, then a team meeting and we’ll map out what will happen for the rest of the day.
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