Oh, the Gino weekend, probably long

[roccit_53 at scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca (C Boyko)]

Well, this was the fourth weekend centred around one rare French Canadian
Slegato. He's quite the guy.

On top of this, my son had scheduled "Beer-Turkey", where he invited thirty
or so of his closest friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. A 23lb turkey
goes a long way, and drunken "young adults" were everywhere. Think
Waterfest and the chaos level is pretty close. 

Anyhow, Gino's main issue was a set of mismatched axles from the previous
attempt, engine needed 90s, car had 100s. Daun brought a set that was dry,
from the engine donor, and George, well, what can I say? He's the
undisputed King of the greased shaft. Yeah, it was bad. Lots of rude
squishing noises....
Brunbergs (TMBs family) arrived with their new addition, Taryn, she's 2
weeks old and not into cars yet...he dropped off a tranny for Daun to take
home, headed for somewhere else...by this time Daun was snorting coke. And
Jay, if you're reading this, you are scum. You know why. Secretly everyone
wants the T shirts they ordered. LOL.
MkIMark got here quite late, and bumped Klaus out "onto the apron" of the
Wind Tunnel, it was awesome, three Roccs up in the air, two others behind,
resting, Klaus looking on from outside, and lots of wrenching, Blackie had
new exhaust parts to go on (not sure if they got them on or not, and a
belt), MkIMarks's sleek, trim <gasp> MkII got a nice Shine bar for the
autocross the next day, and Gino got his axles.

Of course, Gino is a Scirocco. The new mill started up and ran smoothly
first twist of the key, this engine was a "dirty drop":  alternator, belts,
tranny all still attached, so no timing or anything to mess with. Some high
tech "spy cam" work, followed by low tech "flashlight and mirror" work to
figure out why one injector wouldn't seat on the initial install (the
little O ring was left in, removed it from the one going in, and all was
well, just not room for two in there I guess), but other than that, all
according to Hoyle on the install I'd say. Then he started...no tach/fuel
pump. Randomly.

So on to replacing corner markers, which should be easy but required a
drill, and some splicing (one of the headlight tabs snapped off in the
plug. Not ripped off the lamp, just rotted through in the middle). It was
at this point the I realized just how "nice" Gino's wiring harness is, and
invented a corrosion rating system. Black, with a poof of dust when you
strip it? Not so good...

Then on to my new happy place, the wiring in the ignition system. I had to
take the coil wiring right back to the ICM plug to find clean wire, so both
wires from there to the coil got a complete replacement, and new plugs on
the other two coil wires...then some trouble shooting with a spare ICM/coil
I had around, and no more lost tach signal. I'd like to thank that (fill in
your favorite term of endearment here) German engineer who had the bright
idea to mount the coil where it is. The bottom bolt was rust welded on,
usually I can snap them but not this sucker, it needed the Dremel...I'm
just too short for this shit...and I'd been in the area the previous day
swapping out hoses, good for the back. Thankfully it wasn't equipped with a
Fox manifold at least.

Daun swapped out the ignition switch, which may have been flaky, and
proceeded to much needed vaccuuming. Fuel pump relay needed wiggling or
bypassing to get the pump to run, not sure if we have that cleared up or
not, but after using a bypass wire all day, we both broke into hysterics on
the discovery of a bypass wire and spare relay under the passenger's seat.
We just love these cars and their evil ways eh?

Daun pulled apart the back drums to get at bearings, we discovered that my
usually ample supply of brake parts cleaner was nowhere to be found, a
victim of "Beer Turkey", they were spraying it at wasps. Of course by then
all the stores were closed. :( Anyway, we scrounged some from my brother
who was almost out as well, got the radio working and went for another test
drive. Gino is such a gentleman on the road, he is SO worth the extra
effort to save, he'll be really nice once he's done. Paprika is a really
nice colour too, very unusual for a kitted car, and that red interior,
mmmmmm.

Marc, I'm sure you're reading, he's looking really happy and I'll take him
for a few short runs around here, including one for an alignment in prep
for his long journey. I will miss his face, maybe I need to get one eh?

Guys, as usual, it was a pleasure to have you all drop by eh?
Cathy