my focus rally car
as anyone who knows me will probably already be aware - i love the World Rally Championship. and the american SCCA Pro Rally series. i enjoy cars going at outlandish speeds on dirt roads. i just never thought that a combination of outdated map data, plus (in my opinion) irresponsible highway signage, would lead to me (and carrie) having a Rally experience in my focus … today.
the problem
first of all, carrie and i were navigating from traveling west on rt 101 to Suncook (Pembroke), NH. our Dash Express GPS usually routes us up Daniel Webster Highway, which has terrible traffic and red lights. so we asked the GPS for an alternate route. it found one. yay!
what’s in a name?
i am a stickler for consistent nomenclature. i pretty much make it my occupation. the GPS routed us down “Chester Turnpike.” now, in the parlance of road naming conventions, a “road,” “street,” or “avenue” is a thoroughfare which has an outlet. a “lane,” “place,” “terrace,” “park,” or “circle” have no outlets. and a “highway” “freeway” or “turnpike” are primary thoroughfares.
chester turnpike
this is a google map of the part of chester turnpike it routed us down. notice google shows the road ending at “N Candia Rd.” the GPS however believe that road continues for several more miles. in fact, there is a gate blocking whatever it is. the more accurate story also says, that right before it heads down into that valley that Clay Pond drains out through, at the top of a hill, the pavement … ends.
story in pictures
view approaching crest of hill
where the pavement ends - just over the hill
where we landed - hit the gravel pretty hard, the anti-lock came on and stayed on for at least 5 seconds
where they put the sign - a small sign designating that they didn’t maintain the road
road not maintained by town
no dumping - i guess dumping trash is more important than informing motorists that pavement ends over a blind hill
i plan to write to the town and ask them to please post a sign at some point farther in advance of reaching the end of pavement, that informs you of the upcoming end of pavement. maybe a nice diamond-shaped yellow sign that says “Pavement Ends.”
tomorrow i’ll inspect the suspension of the car, but i think i came through it okay. i built the car for this, really. i just didn’t expect to do it … today.
got out of a bind
previously i wrote about my suspension in the back of the focus making a clunk. i forgot, however, to update with the ultimate resolution to this clunking conundrum.
after eliminating various other sources of noise (the improperly-secured jack being a big culprit) i noticed the noise persisted, and it seemed to occur consistently every time the rear suspension moved up or down.
this led me back to thinking it was something with the suspension, so i started to investigate deeper. first up: removing the shock absorber on the passenger side rear (where i could hear the most noise coming from). as i began to remove it, i noticed immediately that there might be issues: it was really tough getting the bottom-end bolt out of the trailing arm.
at first i suspected that the shock mounting bushing was frozen onto the bolt, thereby applying a moment on the shock every time the suspension compressed, causing the shock body to slam against the shock piston cover. turns out i was half right.
the bolt and bushing were not frozen; but rather, the washer on the bolt, which was designed to help [the bushing] rotate freely on the bolt, was corrupted with rust to the point that it could not rotate. i cleaned up the bolt, washer, and bushing and applied anti-seize to all surfaces.
upon reinstalling the shock and torquing to specification, a test drive proved that the shock body was no longer making the clunking sound. i brought it home, re-checked the torque on all fasteners and cleaned up my tools.
the takeaway: salty winters change everything. it’s probably a good idea every spring to give everything a once-over and make sure if it’s designed to move: it still moves.
what the clunk?
so while driving around this past weekend, i detected a thunking in the back of my car. i currently have some sound deadening removed so i can keep an eye out for where a water leak is (i’ve found it, it’s where the taillight mounts. still crafting a solution for that. anyway). it got worse as we drove around on cruddy new england roads.
yesterday i investigated a bit more. turns out i’ve got at least 3 things rattling back there. my hatch rattles/squeaks. i’m not sure what i can do about that, given that it needs to open and whatnot.
the protective plastic casing on my shock rattles against the shock body. i think that one is only noticeable since i have all the sound deadening stuff removed. we’ll see if it gets better after i fix the leak/restore all that stuff. i also checked the torque on all my suspension components, and everything was tight.
the last and worst offender? the previous time i put my jack away underneath my spare tire, i didn’t tighten it down enough. 60 seconds, done.
now, if we could do something about these roads…
car rally, brew rally
Saturday this weekend was spent in the Focus. we participated in the Spring Run organized by the New England Rally.
the premise is that a bunch of people get together and drive somewhere as a group, have lunch, drive somewhere else as a group, have dinner, drinks, socialize. sounds great. this years course was Rt 1, all the way to Maine.
there was good and bad; i won’t get into the specifics here but a few misunderstandings led to 1/2 the day being unpleasant. all in all it was 15 hours spent mostly in the car, and i don’t know if i can convince my better half to do that again.
Sunday we started out with plans of productivity, and to brew later on in the day. by 1pm i called shenanigans on our intentions of productivity, and we headed to Kettle to Keg for brewing supplies. that afternoon/evening, we brewed a batch of Double Brown Ale as an end-of-tax-season celebration. afterwards, we followed up with a Golden Ale recipe designed to be a drinker and not knock one on their respective sorry butt on a weeknight.
that was the weekend. at some point, we need to look into this ‘relaxation’ we hear people toy with on their 2 day break.
gorillas at the dealership
no, sigourney weaver is not selling cars. i’ll get to the title in a bit. drove to buffalo for the weekend, to surprise my mom for her birthday and to get a little work done on my focus at my brothers house.
i spent a lot of time debating whether to leave my snow tires on or switch to my summer tires. turns out it didn’t really matter either way. time (or lack thereof) ultimately decided to leave the snows on.
work accomplished on the car: stainless steel brake lines from goodridge, new DOT 4 brake fluid, brake bleeding courtesy of motive via focussport. new front disks by brembo to compliment the hawk HPS brake pads.
oil change with royal purple. that’s where the gorillas come in. last time the oil was changed, it was done @ the dealer. both my brother and myself literally injured ourselves trying to get the oil drain plug out.
note to AutoFair Ford in Manchester, NH: Ford’s official torque specification for the oil drain plug on a focus is 33 lb-ft. not “hammer it on with the impact wrench.” thanks.
next up, filter. hand? ineffective. strap wrench? dented it. ineffective. giant pair of channel locks? crushed it into a rectangle-like shape and got it to turn. note to AutoFair Ford in Manchester, NH: there’s a gasket on the oil filter. let it do its job. thanks.
latest round of snow
we got hit again overnight friday to saturday. after i got done shoveling saturday afternoon, i thought i’d take a few pictures.
first, from across the street. you may not quite get the scale of it:
until you realize that hiding behind the pile is a mid-size SUV:
i wonder where i’m putting the snow from the next storm.
mo update
so to figure out what was wrong with the truck, i followed the diagnostic procedure outlined in the ford factory shop manual. i examined the hydraulic fluid reservoir, hose down to the clutch master cylinder, hose from the master cylinder to the slave cylinder.
it was then i noticed that the transmission was wet (as the entire underside of the truck was covered with slush & ice) but in some areas it looked at bit yellow. i remembered yellow - from the hydraulic fluid reservoir. so, it was leaking fluid from where the hard line enters the slave cylinder inside the transmission.
this is the point in the diagnostic procedure which dictates replacing the broken parts. the procedure for replacing a defective slave cylinder begins with removing the transmission from the vehicle.
Mo (that’s the ranger’s name, btw) left on a flatbed friday afternoon. it should be returning under it’s own power, sometime this week, sporting a shiny new slave cylinder and an expensive new clutch. not a bad idea to do the clutch @ 70,000 miles, given that i’m paying for the labor to remove and reinstall the transmission at this point, anyway. if i ever need to do this again, it will be when Mo and i are both long in the tooth.