Exhaust Mount
An exhaust mount metal hanger is separating from the rubber isolator.
$100 to $100
Heater Intake Hose
The fresh air intake hose is cracked letting engine and exhaust fumes enter the cockpit.
$100-$110
Suspension Front: Trunnion
The right front upper trunnion bushing is worn out.
$300-$335
Suspension Rear: Bushings
The rear leaf spring shackle bushings are collapsing and the rubber pads between the leaf spring and rear axle locating plates are distorting out.
$600-$700
Windshield Wiper Blades
The windshield wiper blades are worn out.
$100
Wow.
I told them not to do any work and I picked up the car. Right off the bat, I ordered new parts. I replaced all three wiper blades (though only one looked bad) and my dad and I installed a new heater intake hose (the large hose on the left of the second photo below).
So right there, I saved $130. Then my dad and I set off to replace the rear bushings. I decided to do this first since it was the most costly item on the list. I bought urethane bushings to replace the old rubber ones, as well as new shackle plates, bolts, u-bolts and some nuts and stuff. All of this stuff didn't need to be replaced, but I thought it'd be safer to have it on hand before starting. My Midget has 1/2 elliptical springs for its rear suspension. Disassembly started out pretty promising. We jacked up the car (with two other support structures set up in case any one should fail) and began removing the center, or lowest, section of the spring. This included a metal plate, two seating pads, and the two u-bolts; and disconnecting the shocks. I believe these seating pads are what Ragtops claimed were "distorting out." They were fine. Below are some picture of the disassembly.
Then we proceeded to disassemble the rear and front of the spring. We started with the rear. It was extremely difficult getting the old bushings out of the shackle plate. But through shear, blunt force we got it. Below is a picture of the old bushings followed by a picture of the new ones, partially installed. The old ones were only slightly worn, and I don't think it at all warranted a failed inspection.
The removal of the front proved to be even more difficult. Our trouble was with trying to remove the bolt from the "eye" of the spring. There's a bolt that goes into one side of a bracket (which attached to bottom of the car), through the "eye" of the leaf (which contains a bushing), and out the other side of the bracket. Well, unbeknownst to us, the bolt was somehow permanently adhered to the inner bushing. So as we unscrewed the bolt, we actually pushed the one side of the bracket away from the center. This is probably confusing, but you might be able to make sense of it by looking at the photos below of the old bracket next to the new one. In short, we basically destroyed the crap out of it.
Once we had everything disassembled, and I had all the new parts, I was anxious to put it all back together. It was difficult, but not as difficult as the tasks we just accomplished. I won't bore you with a play-by-play of the reassembly. But I always love it when my dad says, "Let's put the wheel back on," because it indicates finality. We were done. Below is a picture of one of the final steps: tightening everything onto the u-bolts.
I promptly took it for a (illegal) test drive and I didn't notice anything, out-of-the-norm. Actually, the car ran terrific...as stated in my previous post.
Although the plan initially was to do both of the rear springs, after seeing the unnecessariness of the left side, I decided to not do the right side right away. Instead, I made an appointment with our local mechanic at Grant's to perform inspection. I only had to wait a day, and Billy seemed excited to be able to look over my car. The day I brought it in, he wanted me to come look at the front right trunnion bushing. I did, and he showed me how it was worn out. Admittedly, this had been on the Ragtops list. However, since I was planning on doing it myself anyway, I already had the necessary parts and I dropped them off to him. Antsy to get the thing on the road, I told him to do the work himself. The bill? $65 to replace the bushings. (I paid about $25 for the parts. So $90 total.) Compare that with the $300 to $335 estimate at Ragtops to do the same exact work. Bullocks!
So let's do some more math here. Unfortunately, I ordered way more parts than I really needed. I ordered parts I thought I would need, but things turned out to be in much better shape than we anticipated. But I spent about $250 in parts. And I spent $90 at Grant's. So that's a total of $340. Since the initial estimate was $1500, I saved about $1150. I will not return to Ragtops and Roadsters.
Right now, I'm thoroughly enjoying the car alongside the great weather we've been having.
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