Camino LS6

A little hot around the collar A little long in the tooth Alittle bit nostalgic for the errors of your youth Everybody says you're crazy Everybody says you're nuts Everybody say, You just picked up and ran? Man, that takes guts. Free and easy Miserable and confused Guilty as charged The trial separation blues

Can ya see the real me ,can ya? can ya? can you see the real me can ya? Cracks between the paving stones like rivers that flow in rain strange people who know me from behind of a window pane the girl I used to love lives in this yellow house Yesterday she passed me by, she doesn't want to know me now Can you see the real me can ya? I went back to my mother I said I'm crazy,Ma help me she said, I know how it feels ,son 'cause it runs in the family Can you see the real me,Mother? Mother Can you see the real me mother I went back to the doctor to get another shrink I sit and tell him about my weekend but he never betrays what he thinks Can you see the real me Doctor? Doctor Can you see the real me doctor I ended up with a preacher full of lies and hate I seemed to scare him a little so he showed me to the golden gate Can you see the real me preacher? Preacher can you see the real me Doctor? Doctor Can you see the real me MO____THER can you see the real me?

Holden has been re-badging Isuzus for a long time! I didn't know it went back that far.

Since we are taking a dark turn... Once she ruled the earth with love and wisdom but we were much too smart to live her way with greed and lust we tried to rise above her the ignorance of Man will reach an end And now she's gonna die! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! We've strangled all her trees and starved her creatures there's poison in the sea and in the air but worst of all we tried to live without her we've lost the very meaning of our lives and now she's gonna die Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Lots for me to comment on in this thread but I'll settle for the above exchange. Has to be one of my favorites ever on C&G.

I'm not going to dive into this whole mess again, but I have to chime-in on the Viper issue. I think DCX ruined the Viper. The original was that raw, relentless beast NOS describes, but the new one tries to play the Vette's game - and fails. The current Viper may have more power and refinement than the original, but it is a compromised animal. I wouldn't even consider the current Viper at a 50% off sale. Why? Because it strayed too far from what made it great (burned legs from side pipes and all). Me, I'll take a last gen GTS any day over the current car. Why all this background? Because I belive that if GM buys Chrysler, the Viper will die in the first minute of the first hour of GM ownership. Too bad really, but bound to happen. No matter who gets Chrysler in the end, I'd love to see Viper return to its roots as the only product of a small domestic company a la Shelby and Avanti.

"I had to shout above the din of my Rice Krispies.."

I'm betting on two out of three.

OK, it was really cold in the barn last night so I didn't get too far in my re-assembly of the steering column. I did begin by installing new inner and outer bearings in what I'll call the inner housing. This is the main housing around the tilt shaft which contains all sorts of parts including the tilt lever and ignition and lock mechanisms. The first two pics are of the bare housing cleaned and ready for new bearings and re-assembly. I'll save you a detailed blow by blow and let the pictures do the talking. When it got too cold, I decided to see what I could do with my ratty steering wheel in the warmth of the house. As you can see in the first two pics, it looked really nasty and had what seemed to be an original leather wrap on it. The first thing I did was to cut the leather off, followed by hours of trying to get the thing clean. It came out pretty well considering.

Congrats! I feel pretty certain that you will love it for some reason... :AH-HA_wink:

Damn the naysayers - full speed ahead! :AH-HA_wink:

Welcome to the board,Windy! I agree with your assesment, large FWD is a dying segment - especially on the high end of the market. If you are spending the cash on a high end car, the cost of AWD isn't likely to be a concern. I've long felt that FWD's place is small, economy-minded cars and nowhere else. I'll conceed part of the midsize market too, for now. I does my heart good to see FWD's near- total domination of the market coming to an end. I look forward to the day when only "transportation appliances" like the Camry are FWD. RWD and AWD are the future, and the now-ending heyday of FWD the automotive equivalent of the Great Depression. Happy Days are here again! :AH-HA_wink:

Onward, to better things.

It would likely be an awkward conversation, since one is essentially an organ donor for the other. :AH-HA_wink:

Well, the snow delayed me for a few days and messed-up my sleep schedule (I plow). Even so, my ebay and regular parts orders have begun to arrive and I'm knee-deep in steering column. Sorry, no dis-assembly pics (I was too into getting started). I will try to take pics of the re-assembly. Unfortunately, the reason I had to start with this is that my turn signal switch and cancelling cam were both broken. Because of this the ENTIRE steering column has to be taken apart. The switch has a connector the size of Texas which can't be fished down the length of the steering column so the whole thing has to come apart and be dropped from its mounts. While I'm in there, I am cleaning and servicing the whole assembly. Good thing too, as the upper bearings were shot. I got lucky and found a column repair kit at the local Chevy dealer with both bearings, sector and gear, lock pin spring etc. I'll be using all of the new parts and saving the old ones that are decent. At this point, all of the dis-assembly is complete except for dropping the column from the mounts. It is a tilt wheel and surprisingly enough all of the mounting bolts are nice and tight. I will probably remove, clean, and loctite them anyway. The only hold-up is I'm not sure if I have the right reverse Torx socket for the job (I may have to make a trip to Pep Boys). I'll update again after this job is done (maybe with pics).

The Police "dee do do do dee da da da is all I want to say to you..."

I'll dig a little deeper when I start on the front suspension. It looks like snow is going to steal my momentum for a few days. On the upside, I finally got it home today. Project and parts car are side by side in the barn.

They aren't exactly the same as the T/A wheels, and I think they are an aftermarket version (maybe BBS).

Good stuff!

Today's update: The tech at the dealership installed the motor mounts and trans mount. I got the parts car off of the trailer by doing the following: -I backed the trailer into the garage with the end of the trailer deck right where I wanted the rear wheels of the car to be. - Then, I chocked the left rear wheel of the car and removed all of the tiedowns. - Then, I wiggled the chock loose and moved it a few inches away from the tire allowing the car to drift back to it. I repeated this process until I ran out of room for the chock on the deck of the trailer. - Then, I chocked the right front wheel and removed the chock from the rear wheel. This allowed me to get the rear whels right to the edge of the trailer deck by moving the chock a few inches at a time. - Then, I placed two 6x6s right at the end of the trailer on the floor where the wheels would land. - Then, I slowly raised the deckof the trailer(hydraulic) and the car began to roll backward dragging the chock with it. It rolled until the rear wheels hit the floor and then I stopped raising the deck to chock the backside of the rear wheels. - Then, I raised the deck higher so that the back end almost touched the floor. - At this point, I pulled the trailer forward far enough to chock the front of the rear wheels as well. - With the car immobilized at the rear wheels, I pulled the trailer out from under the car completing the job. With the car now on the ground, I broke loose all of the lug nuts and put the car up on jackstands in the front and jacked-up the rear leaving the jack under it (since someone seems to have borrowed my second pair of jackstands). I removed the tires/wheels and loaded them into the truck, took them to the dealership, scrubbed them down, and installed 3 of the 4. The fourth wheel will have to wait for 5 new studs to be installed on the right rear of my car because some fool forced a truck wheel on there that has a wider bolt-pattern bending all of the studs! Anyway, that was today. Here are some pics of the wheels on my car and one pic of the sticker I peeled from the inside of one wheel.

Whoa! That's a nice looking SS!

Got it off of the trailer without help (details later) The wheels/tires are in the back of my truck and I'm on my way to the dealership to get them on the project car. Details later.

...and maybe, just maybe, Viper could carry on as an independent company if the right investors step up.

If GM does buy Chrysler, I think the cold, hard realities will include the following: - The end of the Viper - Jeep given to Hummer with the Compass and other marginal Jeep products axed - The LX cars axed (I really hope that the Challenger gets built first) - The Ram axed - The Nitro used for Chevy/GMC to replace the Trailblazer/Envoy as well as Equinox eventually - The Durango,Dakota,Canyon and Colorado all dumped in favor of an all-new small truck - Any future Chrysler that is not too far along to be immediately cancelled. - The minvans given to Saturn and Chevy - Production of all other Chrysler/Dodge products immediately stopped - All unnecessary facilites closed and sold-off - A phase-out of the Chrysler and Dodge brands as fast as legally possible with the rights being sold-off. I'm sorry, but this is hardball and I don't see GM even attempting to save Chrysler and Dodge. What I hope happens is that another American financial concern purchases Chrysler instead. The downsizing would still happen, but they could remain in the market. The sad thing is that GM almost needs to do this.