'89 Stepside "Way Cool Jr."

[Erik the Awful]

Yesterday my wife returned from garage sale adventuring and told me about a couple lawn mowers for sale, cheap. We hopped in the truck and headed over there. At the end of our block I heard a light metallic tinking, and then I heard something hit the ground. I stopped the truck and found two chunks of catalytic converter honeycomb in the street. One side looks a bit melted. Ugh. The truck still runs fine, but replacing them is now on the list somewhere south of getting the Sniper professionally tuned, which itself is somewhere south of buying a Holley distributor.

On the plus side, I picked up a John Deere 185 for $20 and a Husaqavarna zero-turn for $150. Both are intact but non-running. The owner had done a bunch of farmyard fixes on both over the years, and I'm hoping that some solid maintenance brings them back.

I'd post a pic of the catalyst, but my computer currently has a boot sector failure, and I'm running off a USB stick. I'm backing everything up so I can upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04.

 

[Idle Serge]

On the topic of tires - I really wanted a set of MT's so I ordered a set of Sportman S/T tires from Summit since Discount said they were just too far backordered.

A bit pricey but fortunately I got a buddy that mounts and balances tires for a couple of beers...

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20210428_143437 by Sergio Zapien, on Flickr

 

[Erik the Awful]

I'm trying to be a good environmental citizen. The truck's going to need tuning before I replace the cats.

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A quick update on the mowers...

The John Deere 185 needed some wiring repair, I had to ungum the starter, new filters, and new fuel hoses. I got that done and it fired right up, dumping an entire ant colony out onto the ground. The deck was sitting funny, and while correcting the linkages I discovered one of the drag links is missing outright. There's $40 on Amazon. All the belts are newish, except the hydrostatic drive belt. It was still the 40-year old John Deere belt. Total pain in the butt to replace. It only took me three hours, and that's because I had the mower deck and seat deck off. I think I'm up to $100 total.

The Husqvarna had wires burned up from one end to the other. I did a quick splice, went to hook up the battery and got a nice jolt. I stopped and ordered a harness. It should be in this weekend. It was also missing the grass chute and the choke knob was rusted solid. Amazon had it all for $150. When I get it running I'm looking at another $150 in tires. $450 for a zero turn isn't a bad deal.

 

[PlayingWithTBI]

The truck's going to need tuning before I replace the cats.

You may want to change the cats before tuning, they'll change your back pressure. Maybe your Holley EFI will be able to work around it?

 

[Erik the Awful]

It should. The Sniper's a self-learning unit.

The John Deere 185 runs and mows, the wiring harness for the Husqvarna is in, and I still haven't touched the doors on the truck. I work this weekend and my son's bringing his Crown Vic over next weekend so we can fix his A/C.

 

[Erik the Awful]

One of my TARP Racing teammates offered me the chance to autocross his K24-swapped Miata this coming Sunday. That got me to wondering, is Way Cool Jr legal to autocross? I looked up the SCCA Solo 2021 rulebook, and my height needs to be less than my average track width. I grabbed my tape measure and checked. My front track width is 67 inches even, even with the tire bottoms cambered outwards. My rear track width is a hair over 68 inches. My truck is 69 inches tall. Doh! I'll have to drop it two inches to autocross, and if were to drop it two inches, I'd drop it at least 4/6 inches.

 

[MrPink]

Do it!

 

[PlayingWithTBI]

My front track width is 67 inches even, even with the tire bottoms cambered outwards. My rear track width is a hair over 68 inches. My truck is 69 inches tall

Can anyone say "Chop Top"?

 

[Erik the Awful]

It's more likely to get a chop top than get lowered. It's my light-duty tow pig, and I really like being able to crawl under it for maintenance. If I had another dedicated tow pig, this would get a 5/7 drop, more head work, a Lemons-legal cage, and some serious lightening.

Come to think of it, some low profile tires and wheel spacers would probably do the trick.

 

[wyn97]

Just read the whole thread. Very entertaining, learned a lot I thought I might know, but clearly didn't. As far as I'm concerned this is a must-follow.