Conclusions

So, back from work. Anyhow, I got it all together, but it was a Sunday, so I had no biz to the inspectors as they were closed. I'd come back in two weeks.

The next day I couldn't hold it so I drove that hundred kilometres again to get it inspected. I had 1 hour until the inspection. After such a long time I took the Probe to the sunlight and headed towards the station.. And thats when the ANTI LOCK came on! The ABS was working very bizarrly, I think there's air in the pump or something. Anyhow, I mended it.. in a way, in a record time of 30 mins I managed to get the brakes working normally and the locklight to co-operate with me. With shaking hands I drove that car to the nearest station, and only a few minutes until they closed managed to get my car in the inspection queue.

Failed. The damn front brake was dragging just a little bit, didn't notice it, and it's one of those drags that would've begone'd after a lil bit of pumping the brakes. Furious, I drove back to the garage and opened the brake caliper, flushed the piston with oil by pressing it in and out and wiping everytime and finally greased that and the guide pins. Turns out, there's no dustboot in the caliper, either it's missing or doesn't belong there, but that pretty much explains why it dragged. Time to buy them Subary 2 piston calipers next year I guess.

Well, by the time it was fixed, all the inspection stations were closed obviously, so I headed back home, and prepared for some torture, knowing the car would be ready to go but not having any cash at all to go to the city my garage is at to get it inspected and on the road.

Luckily, my good friend Toni decided to help me out, two days after we journeyd together in his Omega to the Garage City again and went for inspection... But the brakes were un even in the front now.

Luckily, I don't know why really, maybe it was within the tolerance, I got the damn stamp! Finally, after 2 years. We fueled her up and gave her some new wiper blades, washed in a machine (sorry buddy) and by then I was halfway late from work.

So there it is, sitting in my parking lot, working.. pretty good.

Whats bothering me is a stupid clicking noise coming from the dash, it varies by speed so I think its the speedo cable. Also one of the LEDs I soldered started flickering, and the steering wheel is one notch to the side. The front suspension is ready for retirement and the attachment of the exhaust still worries me. Overall, I don't trust the car much yet, but it feels good to drive it, finally.. After two years, so many hours and euros later, it's finally in this condition. :)

The paper says "Inspection result : ACCEPTED"

Also it's way too quiet in there without a stereo, but like I said, I'm completely broke right now, I will probably fix my USB powered speakers in there for the rest of this year.. :D So far the dump valve has been my audio. ;) Then it needs a proper wax and I will get the window tints later on.

Anyhow, I'm probably gonna write a little bit about driving the car later on and conclude this year somehow. I'm gonna be a bit busy with my girlfriends Nissan and my daily/winter ride Mazda the upcoming months.

Oh and I found a garage in the city I live in, if it all works out I'll be moving my stuff there in October so I will post about that. You could expect for more stuff to happen next winter. :)

Anyhow, thank you for reading my blog, it's been a pleasure. My summervacation has begun ;> Enjoy it while it still lasts!

The lot

A lot has happened. I haven't been updating the blog despite having spent a lot of time in the garage lately, but thats mainly because I simply haven't had the time, and I tried to rush things after I got the ABS sensors so didn't take time to shoot a lot of pictures or anything.

So last friday I headed to the garage, I had a lot to do until the inspection stage. I soldered the LEDs to the steering column in a zippy, quickly got the interior together;

Unfortunately one of the LEDs stopped working later on. I used the LEDs I previously ordered for T5 socket, they were very easy to remove the pockets, just straighten the legs and pull out. Saves a lot of trouble since I didn't have to solder the resistors. :)

Then I put the ABS sensors in, and changed the oils. Changing the oil is always a confusing task, no matter how good I get at cars it never goes quite like in the movies. I ended up with about half a litre of oil on the floor, cos' I used an old canister which side had been cut open as a draining pan. Then you can easily open the cap and pour it through there to the waste oil container. Unless you have 5L of oil in the can and a way too small funnel. :D

Lucky I wore my paps jacket ;D Also I didn't have any new copper gaskets unlike I thought I would, but then I remembered an old folks trick; if you heat the copper ring to a red glow you can use it perfectly again;

Well I almost got it red with that "lighter" :D But it worked.

Anyhow, I need to rush to work now so..

To be continued. :)

Celebration

It's been a while, but today is a great day. I just picked these up from FedEx

Those are the thing I've been waiting for the last 18 months. And now they're in my hands. My dear fellow Mark from FordProbeStore had _some problems_ and couldn't deliver them successfully to my doorstep in 12 months, and coulnd't refund me in 3 months. Luckily, when I was about to make a claim to European Customer Community (ECC) I stumbled upon a phrase, which made it possible for me to ride the car this year after all.

Because let's face it, Mark would've never ever refunded me or have got me the parts. WARNING to all of you associating with him (www.fordprobestore.co.uk), I strongly suggest that you use a credit card when purchasing from him, especially if it's a big order like mine. I know that he is the only merchant of some of the parts for Probe in the whole Europe, but he has some big issues running the business that I don't have energy to get into. You can imagine the amount of emails we exchanged during this year and I got it all; lies, uncaring replies, sorry excuses..

Anyhow, I got my money from my bank since it turned out in a case of undelivered goods, they are responsible to refund me. So THANK YOU Nordea (my bank), I will always be your customer. One day the money just popped into my card account and they even paid me interest. I then ordered the parts from RockAuto for nearly 100€ cheaper than what Mark asked for them, and after 6 days they were in the Customs. THAT'S proper customer service to me!

Fact is, I try to use the services of small companies; in exchange for expert tips and good customer service, I can pay a little more. But lately, I've got shittier service from small companies than from a vending machine. I think it's because they are struggling and at some point they just want to give up, I know how hard it is to compete against those massive companies. But you people running the small companies, you gotta hold on to what makes the big difference between you and the big companies; passion, knowledge, experience and customer service. If you can't give that, you are no good to anyone.

Anyhow, I was near by my garage for other reasons so I used the little time I had to prep the car a bit further. I sorted all the electrical gremlins I had, while I had the seat off for ABS unit maintenance I also set my power steering to 10% tougher steer. Yeah, you can do that in a Probe GT ;>

I also put the blower control unit back in and put together the interior a bit further. Then I had to leave. What I still need to do is solder the LED lighting to the buttons which allow other light color than green to come through, change the oils, put the rest of the interior in, install the ABS sensors and hope it all works fine.

I will have to save some money for the inspection, but by the end of this month I should be driving the Probe. :)) Quite handy, since the inspection on my Mazda is running out and that guy won't get a stamp just like that, exhaust broken, 6 big corrosion holes, rear axle corroded, loose suspension sounds coming from the front..

Anyhow, shake that bottle and make it pop!