Since I last checked in, I've been busy with the following:
1. Our club's club race & DE, which is our biggest event of the yr. VERY busy as registrar but 3 great days of driving on the track after all the work is done.
2. My brother from KC was coming up over Memorial w/e to see if we could get his 1926 Model T running that's in my basement garage. Spent 5 days cleaning the house as I thought his wife was coming too, but at the last min (after 95% done cleaning) she decided not to come. We got the T started but the trans was stuck in 1st gear so we could only start it on jack stands and not drive it. Hopefully we get that solved next time and can take it out for a spin.
3. Had to get all 3 cars shined up for various shows & events on the w/e of June 9 & 10. Punkin was invited to be on display at Porsche of Omaha's 75th celebration, so she needed a lot of attn.
Now that all of that is in the rearview mirror, I could focus back on the shark. But first, I bought a new tool for the garage.
The last few yrs I've been getting tired of jacking cars up with a jack & jack stands. Decided to pull the trigger on a set of these. Got the 5K lb. version thru Costco. Took a bit of work to get them put together and these dogs are heavy but hopefully they make life easier.
What better job to break them in on than to change the front wheel bearings on the shark. Since I got her back from the TB replacement, I've been driving her around more and could hear the grumble from the front of what could be wheel bearings. I also had an intermittent shimmy in the front when I drove 70mph. I raised the front wheels and had quite a bit of latteral movement side to side. The bearings themselves were < $50 / side from Pelican and there was an informative 3-part video series on YT from an '88 944 Turbo S (same hub assembly as an S4) on how to do the job. It didn't look too tough so I decided to tackle it. The last time I'd done a wheel bearing job was in the mid-70s on my 1st car - a 1970 Mach 1, so it's been a minute, huh Mav?
Didn't take me long to get the hubs off. Thankfully the caliper bolts didn't give me a fight. Everything else was pretty easy.
The next day I worked on getting the rear seal, inside bearing, and both races out. Took some heat, but got both races out without too much of a fight. Cleaned up the hubs and called it a day.
Thought it would be downhill from there, but I was wrong. In part 2 of the video series, the guy was able to heat up the hub and push the new races in with a bearing driver kit. I rented the kit from O'Reilly's. The outside races both went in w/o too much trouble but the inside wouldn't go in far enough. I called a friend who has a press and he was available, so I went to his place. We used 10K lbs of force and got them set in properly. But after a day of heavy hammering, I was done so I watched golf for the rest of the afternoon & evening.
Sun I got the bearings packed. Bought a bearing packing tool that made life easier, so now this is an official project since I had to buy a new tool. May never use it again, although Punkin has 84K mi & Sydney is 77K, so there may be some bearing work somewhere in their future. But the inside bearings went in and so did the seal. They were ready to put back on.
Got everything put back together but before I put the wheels on, I took the opportunity to clean the fender wells. Then put the wheels back on. There was still some wiggle in them, but was at least 50% better. Hope that was enough improvement but I still had a cpl of items to check before I put her on the ground for a test drive. And I'd had enough for the day so those jobs would wait until today.
Job 1 was to check what the leak was in the engine bay (that spot you see in the 1st hub pic). Turns out it's a coolant leak at the thermostat that we're planning to fix (my mechanic friend). Job 2 was to change the fuel filter and a rubber hose from the tank to the fuel filter. I squirted some Aeroqroil on the filter nuts but they wouldn't come loose. Decided to squirt some more on them and let them soak before trying again on a later date.
Time to drop her to the ground and go for a test drive. As I left the neighborhood, the growling / grumbling noise was gone. Out on the highway I drove causiously at first but then got up to 70 for the big test. No more shimmy. Success!
Now I need to poke my mechanic about getting the AC fixed. I initially talked to him in Apr about it and he said he'd order parts. I pinged him in May and I got the impression he had forgotten but was going to get back on it. Guess I have to see if he wants the job or if I should take it elsewhere.
In the meantime, I'm probably going to get back on the stereo project. I have better motivation now that it's warmer. I still have something running the battery down, so that's added to the To Do list. But the list is reasonable and getting shorter.
I like my shark.