Nothing much new here either. If you want, you can skip to the old damage pics.
The obligatory engine picture. Three things to notice, besides the fact that
the entire engine compartment is filthy.
Before: That orange wire? My fan bypass switch. Works fairly well, if I do say so myself. It may not be pretty, but it has worked for over 5 years now.
After: Well, it stopped working after 6 years. :) I actually managed to melt the switch because I was running the entire load through the switch with NO RELAY. A big "d'oh!" for me, please.
Someone once said that electronics have this magical smoke that make them
work, and if you should accidentally let the smoke out, the electronics will no
longer work. They were right. :) Go to turn the switch off, something inside the
warm plastic switch cracks, suddenly there's a puff of smoke, and the warm
switch gets REALLY warm and starts to melt. Not fun. Long story short, I went
out, got a new switch, a relay, some heavier gauge wire, an inline fuse for the
relay supply, and wired it properly. It should last at least another 5
years. :)
Here's the rust I pointed out, and here's the deal. When I got the car, it
didn't have the right size battery. Very bad idea, as I was soon to discover.
Battery slid around in the tray, slowly working it's way backward unbeknownst
to me. One day I go to start the engine and I get very little juice, barely
enough to crank the starter for a couple seconds, and not nearly enough to
start it. I pull out my jumper cables and pop the hood, expecting to simply
jumpstart. Lo and behold, the battery had slid back into the alternator fan
which had chewed through the battery casing and sprayed battery acid all
over the engine. That first cell was dry as a bone. I hosed down the
compartment as soon as I could, but the damage had been done before I even
popped the hood. What you see here on the inner fender and the very top of
the alternator bracket seems to be the extent of the damage. Luckily.
Needless to say, I replaced the chewed battery with a properly fitting one.
All is well except for where the paint was stripped, and even that is being
protected by surface rust right now. :0)
Did I mention that the engine leaks a little oil? Seems to be coming from
both the valve cover seals and the main seals to the tune of a quart every
1000 miles. You should see the bottom of the oil pan and transmission...
Gotta love those stock V6 cast iron manifolds!
Ok, that's enough about the engine. On to the damage pics. Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment.