Rollercoaster day including the spurs

So I set my alarm for 4:15 am so I could be out the door by 5 for the drive up to Plant City in the SSR.  I had been both looking forward to and dreading the drive at the same time.  I was afraid whatever the source of horrible rattling noise under the truck was, it would cause the truck to die on me en route during the nearly 180 mile trip.

It was rather chilly out Thursday morning with temps right around 60 so I decided to leave the top up for the drive up.

The drive required two DD coffee stops, one at our local location and again up at Siesta Keys.  I also inadvertently ran over a retread that was on the highway after not seeing it soon enough in the pitch dark.  I later discovered the tire fragments left rubber marks along the bottom of my truck which I will have to get off later. Other than that the drive went fine, the truck, despite the rattle, drove like a champ, just as it has since the noise started.

I had a little issue locating Lonnie’s shop, Sinister Kustoms, even though I had the address punched into the GPS in my Pioneer 930BT.  Once I got into Plant City the GPS had a hard time tracking me and as a result I found myself being told to turn onto streets I already had passed.  Eventually I just pulled over and called Lonnie to get final directions to his place the old fashioned way.

I actually beat Lonnie to his place, arriving a few minutes before 8.  Once he and his wife Lauren arrived he opened up his 4 garage doors, revealing a vast collection of cars in various states of completion.  Lonnie does incredible work and routinely fabricates components from scratch.  It was really impressive seeing the various projects he had going on.

So after pulling a couple project cars out of the bay that has his lift he got to work along with his other mechanic, John.

Lonnie noticed I had stock running boards.  He told me how he sells modified brackets for the running boards which pulls them down so they are even with the bottom of the body line and tucks them in so they are less of an obstacle when stepping into and out of the vehicle.  He said they only cost $100 installed and he had a spare set on hand.  I told him to go ahead and do that as well.

Now in addition to the Corvette flywheel/clutch swap that was being done I had brought up a number of parts I have had for over a month to be installed as well.  They were all piled in the bed of the truck.  My plan was to work on them while Lonnie did the more complicated work.  Well it turned out the only job I truly did myself was installing the front air dam which is a no brainer.

As John worked on getting the transmission area pulled apart for the swap, Lonnie worked on some of the smaller jobs like installing the running board brackets and replacing my bent panhard bar. I was glad to see that Lonnie wasn’t at all bothered by my hanging around. I told him  I had no issue getting dirty if he needed help with something.

Relatively early in the process a straight body pulled up to Lonnie’s shop, it was his exhaust guy, Jim.  Jim basically has a rolling welding shop, complete with most anything he would need to do most exhaust work.  Jim was a nice guy as well and seemed to share Lonnie’s passion for custom vehicles, describing several projects of his own he is working on. Jim first installed the new muffler and then the monster sized exhaust tips.

So after most of the the auxiliary jobs were done the main focus became the clutch swap.  I pitied John as he struggled to get the old stuff out, it looked like a real pain in the ass.  Once the transmission was separated from the bell housing Lonnie was turning the shaft on the tranny and heard some gear noise that he wasn’t sure was normal or not.

He called up his transmission guy for some advice.  The advice was to pull off the front of tranny and take a look inside to see if anything looked abnormal.  Of course this had me a bit nervous.  I was already concerned because a visual inspection of the old flywheel/clutch did not reveal anything broken that would have been causing the rattle.

So I got my first opportunity to get some real grease under my fingernails when I helped Lonnie and John lower the tranny out from under the SSR and onto a table. Actually it wasn’t so much grease as it was transmission fluid spilling everywhere.  Lonnie, despite never having ripped into a SSR 6 speed transmission before had no qualms in doing so.  He removed the bolts holding the cover on and popped it off.

Both of us looked at the various gears, bearings and pinions over and did not see anything that looked damaged or scored in the least.  So Lonnie put the tranny back together.  Despite seeing nothing wrong in the tranny I still had a bad feeling in my gut that when everything was put back together the noise was going to remain.

During the day we took a lunch break, Lauren had ordered a couple pizzas that Lonnie said I was welcome to enjoy with them.  I thought that was really nice.  I could tell very early that both Lonnie and Lauren are just good people.

So during most of the afternoon the reassembly process took place.  By this time Lonnie knew I was fine with helping so he utilized me a few times as a third set of hands.  I also got to learn a whole bunch about the underside of the SSR and how stuff goes together and comes apart.

One of the things I learned was the truck obviously was hit in the rear at some point and time.  Lonnie first mentioned that the rear emblem’s “R” was not positioned the way it normally is.  When I was walking under the truck I saw the passenger side rear quarter obviously had been pounded out at some point and time.  Evidently whomever repainted that section of the truck didn’t take note of how the old emblem was attached.

So eventually after a lot of effort the new Corvette parts were installed and the transmission and drive train were put back in.  Lonnie started the truck up and the only noise I heard was what sounds to be idler pulley stuff that has been there since day one.  However I told him that I have noticed that the noise is not always heard when the truck is first started up however after only driving it a couple miles I can hear it.  So Lonnie took the truck for a quick spin around the block.

Well that was all it took, as he pulled back into the garage I could hear the death rattle had returned.  My heart sunk.

Lonnie heard the noise clearly and said we should put it back on the lift to listen to it better.  One thing I like about Lonnie, he never gives the impression that he is flustered or he can’t handle an issue.  You always get the feeling he is in control.  It is much the same attitude I take when it comes to my job, just a quiet confidence that despite obstacles, you will always find a solution.

So I get in the truck and ride in it upwards on the lift.  I start it up so Lonnie can listen closely.  He said the rattle sounds like it is definitely coming from the transmission.  Shit, that was EXACTLY what I didn’t want to hear.  My bill was already approaching stratospheric proportions, the prospect of a transmission repair on top of it was really, really depressing.

Lonnie called back over to his tranny guy and asked if we could bring the truck over for him to listen to.  His shop was maybe 15 minutes away so I rode shotgun while Lonnie drove.

This transmission place had car lifts, big ones, all over the place, most of them outside.  Evidently this place even does full size tractor trailer size truck transmissions.

The owner hopped in the SSR and rode it up in the lift with it running to hear the noise for himself.  After a few seconds he said, “it’s notthe tranny’, trusting his expert ear.  One of the other mechanics walked under the truck with a stethoscope and took the “pulse” of the SSR trying to verify where the noise was actually coming from.  He said the noise was coming from the exhaust pipe that runs right under the transmission.  He said something must have broken in one of the catalytic convertors and that was the rattle.  Lonnie listened with the scope himself and verified the same diagnosis.

Well this was some good news indeed, replacing the catalytic convertors although, not cheap is a less expensive and far less time consuming option to a tranny overhaul.

I had to laugh as when we pulled out onto the main road from the transmission shop Lonnie lit up the tires to put on a show for the guys who requested it.  The SSR sounded like a pure beast with the new exhaust components in place.

Ok, so by now it was getting late in the afternoon.  Lonnie called back Jim to see if there was any way he could come back to replace the cat’s.  At first the response wasn’t good.  Jim had a baseball game to attend at 7 and he wasn’t sure if he had cats that would fit on his truck.  He said something to Lonnie about not being able to do it until after 3 o’clock on Friday.

Now I actually had made provisions for staying a night up in Plant City, packing a small bag just in case things went long but I certainly wanted to avoid it if possible.  After verifying that Jim actually did have the cats he would need on his truck, he said he could come back and do it around 9 after the game.  Ok that was fine with me, I could hang out, eat dinner somewhere and get the work done.  A late night drive back to Naples wouldn’t kill me.

Then just as I was getting ready to head out Lonnie says Jim called back and said he thinks he can come over before the game and get it knocked out, perfect!

So as we were waiting for Jim to arrive Lonnie opened up another one of his storage bays to show me some more of his projects.  The most amazing of all was a totally custom vehicle that started off as a Honda S2000.  I told Lonnie it first looked like a Lotus to me from the rear.  He said he actually was going for the look of an old Lamborghini.  This thing was absolutely incredible.  I was awestruck as he described how he fabricated the body of this vehicle, making many parts and inserting parts from other vehicles to make it all work.  The truck latch was from an old Camaro, the tail lights were from some old Caddy I think.

I just can’t wrap my head around the skill, patience and talent that Lonnie possesses to make these sort of creations.  Lonnie and my uncle would get along great.

So as we were walking back to the main shop a kid pulls up in an old Camry with a dented in trunk.  He wanted to know how much it would cost to get it fixed.  This kid was pure central Florida.  Although he was very young, he had a very defined section of white/gray hair towards the front of his hairline.  Inside his Camry there were various items including a bowling ball, jumper cables and three angle grinders he just bought for $9 a piece.  Oh did I mention he was also wearing spurs? Yes, spurs.

So anyway the kid described how his trunk has never been able to open in the two months he has owned the vehicle because of the dent.  Lonnie told him that it would make more sense to replace the trunk lid instead of trying to fix because of labor costs.  The kid then asked if Lonnie might be able to get the trunk open.  Well Lonnie dove right in and in the span of a few minutes was on his back inside the trunk, working on the latch via the fold down rear seats.  He eventually was able to get the mechanism to release and showed the kid how to do so himself in the future.

The kid was very grateful and Lonnie didn’t charge him a dime.

So while Lonnie was finishing up on the kids car Jim had arrived and wasted no time getting to work.  He was able to replace the both cats in less then a half hour.  When he pulled off the driver side cat he shook it, it sounded like a baby’s rattle.  There was the noise culprit.

I thanked Jim several times for going out of his way to accommodate me by coming back.  After he left I said my goodbye’s to Lauren and Lonnie and again thanked them for everything.  What a great team.  I just wish they weren’t so far away since I have struggled so much finding quality mechanics.

Despite the clutch swap not being the actual fix for the problem and the additional costs I felt very good about the entire experience.  I wanted the day to be memorable and it was indeed.  I just will be extremely frugal during the month of May to try to lessen the impact of the big bill.

Just before I got on I-4 I spotted a Carrabas and decided to treat myself to a dinner for one at the bar.  I took the only seat available at the one corner, right next to a group of four women whom were obviously out for a girl’s night.  Three of the four were very attractive.

I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation since they were right next to me.  It seemed like at least two of them were recently separated/divorced and were complaining about various aspects of their relationships and men in general.  The group laughed when they saw my reflex facial reaction when one of them said her ex didn’t know how to “use his equipment” .  She blushed when she saw I heard it.    I interacted with them a little bit but I did not stay long since I had a long drive back to Naples to complete.

I had the top down for the entire drive home with my Linkin Park Pandora channel blaring on the radio.  The truck felt GREAT.  It wants to just get up and go.  The new exhaust provides a deeper, meaner, “you better get the fck out of my way” sound that I find very endearing.

The SSR is BACK.

If you want to see all of the pictures from the day, go here.