Does she know? Does she know about the new gal?
No, I'm not sneaking around on my lovely wife... I'm worried that the 100 Series knows I've brought home a rig that will eventually replace her. I've been on the hunt for a 200 Series for the last 6 months or so. Nothing super serious but a few classifieds alerts and such. Things changed early last month when I found a great 200 here locally and pulled the trigger.
This is the day I purchased it. Yes those are some hideous 22's and yes they will be gone very soon!
I'll detail the story in my upcoming 200 build thread but for the time being let's get back to the 100. I really think she is forcing us to spend time together.
I've been driving it less and less the last few months, it's been great but there have been a few things on my mind to clean up as the weather has warmed up and dried out. I still need to spend some time cleaning the under-carriage and re-applying some black paint. Nothing pressing but it's time.
More pressing things popped up earlier this week. I was getting what I would call a "metallic clicking noise" out of the driver side front wheel well. Was it a CV? It was more "tingy" than I would expect and my CV's were service not that long ago. Was it a bad wheel bearing? Odd noise but I suppose it could happen though again it was serviced before we drove to Mexico last November. Brakes? Pad thickness was great but perhaps a squealer was hitting something?
Problem number two seemed even more pressing. I popped the hood last night to use the air compressor and noticed the coolant recovery bottle was all but empty. There was a 1/4" or so in the bottom and the radiator appeared full when I popped the cap so I don't think there was any real issue BUT where was the coolant going? There were no signs of leaking or dripping. Head gasket? I sure hoped not. I started poking around and found signs of a link on an oil cooler line on the front of the motor behind the idler pulley. I don't know how long it has been leaking but I'm assuming that is where the coolant leak was coming from.
I had a couple minutes and the help of my pal Olly to diagnose and we pulled it in the shop today. Olly pulled the front driver wheel and we spun the opposite side at every angle hoping to duplicate the noise. Nothing, in fact the only thing we could now here was the "squeek" of the CV boot at full droop. We looked all over in the caliper, no signs of interference, brake pads and hardware were all correct. We figured we would start pulling the wheel hub down, inspect bearings and go from there. He pulled the dust cap and drive flange and again spun the opposite side, this time only spinning the drivers side CV still boot noise and nothing else. We then spun the rotor and sure enough a bit of noise could be heard when the noisy CV boot wasn't drowning it out. Time to pull it down and inspect bearings. He un-bolted the caliper and what falls out? A 1/2" odd shaped rock that was up against the back of the rotor, between the two caliper pistons. How it go there I will never know, one in a million bounce but it has a San Rafael Swell color too it so I'm sure I picked it up recently. We re-assembled, re-torqued and guess what? No clicking.
We then tackled the hose. A bit of a chore to get to but all fixed. Topped off the coolant and she is running tip-top without squeaks, rattles or bangs
The offending parts. You can see the small pinhole leak next to the hose clamp and of course the dreaded rock.
