Ringo Leaving His Mark

When I returned from the convention, I was greeted by a large puddle emanating from Ringo’s rear end. My initial reaction was, since he had sat facing downhill, his previously patched shifter cable was failing even worse than before. It took about a quart of transmission fluid to top off the reservoir. I moved him so he was now parked facing uphill. The next day, however, there was another puddle. Irrrr. Wednesday evening I backed him up onto the ramps to investigate the leak source and saw fluid coming from the patch on the cable, but also from the front of the tranny near the pan-to-housing joint. I tightened all the bolts holding the pan on since they were barely tight. Then, I placed a drain pan underneath and left it for the night. Last night, I found a significant amount of fluid in the drain pan. I investigated more thoroughly and discovered the bolts I could reach at the front of the transmission (the lower front-facing ones that retain the front pump cover) were loose. Now, I am positive I torqued these bolts to the factory specs when I rebuilt this transmission. I guess I should’ve put some thread-locker on them. Fortunately, I could get a socket on these three bolts, so I snugged them down and crossed my fingers. When I checked for leaks an hour or so later, the cardboard I’d placed under the transaxle was dry. Now, either I staunched the flow or there wasn’t any fluid left in the reservoir. I’ll check again this evening and will, regardless, pull him out of the garage and park him on the street over a dry piece of asphalt.

I only bought one part while wandering the aisles of Clark’s setup at the convention. Ariel had been complaining that the current cracked driver's armrest pad was leaving dark stains on her elbow, so I bought a new to the tune of twenty-six dollars. Once installed I’m sure it’s gonna’ be one of those replace-one-interior-part-and-everything-else-looks-even-crappier-so-I’ve-got-to-replace-everything kind of thing. Well, that’ll just be one of those things we’ll need to live with although I know Ariel would also REALLY appreciate a new driver’s seat so she’s not sitting with her butt almost touching the floor having to peer through the steering wheel.

Last evening I also gave Glinda some attention. I swapped out the racing seat for her front bench. It took some fiddling to get the screws to go cleanly through the holes in the carpet and get started in the nuts welded to the floor, but I was finally successful. The seatbelts were also reinstalled. Now, for the first time in a VERY long time, Glinda was able to be pressed into daily-driver duty and did so this morning. Sadly, the bogging when flooring the go pedal still exists, and now the tranny is low on fluid so I've got to take it easy on the turns. I’ve left the awesome taped-on 2 in place because I’m sure it makes her faster.