All SSR

Saturday morning Ali was up and out of the house early to meet the girls at the GCR club run.  I got up with her although it wasn’t to run.  I hopped on my computer, caught up on my email and headlines.  I then ran through a couple instances in WoW but found myself annoyed with the people I was playing with at that time of day and bagged it.  I figured I may as well get to work.

I had stripped/flipped the bed, swept the house and had the Scooba running in the kitchen all by 7:15 am.  It was still a little dark out so I passed the time by jumping in the van with the girls and doing a DD run.  They were happy to ride shotgun.

When I got back I headed outside to do the weeding.  In the  garden I pulled out an eggplant that was past the productive stage.  It had gotten huge, probably 3-4 feet across and 3 feet high.  Pulling that out freed up another bed for additional planting.

I then pulled put the weed whacker and got busy.  Ali had mowed with the tractor on Friday.  Almost all of that standing water we had from the deluge last week is finally gone.  I hadn’t run the trimmer in probably 3 weeks so it was time.

Now there was a method to my bright and early chore start, I wanted to clear up my schedule to work on the SSR.

First up I wanted to change the oil and filter.  The SSR actually has an engine oil monitoring system that tells you when you should change the oil.  Based on that, it said I had 43% oil life left.  However the oil change sticker on the windshield indicated the oil was due at 27,500 miles.  The odometer was sitting at 28,500.  Plus since I have no idea how the prior owners maintained the vehicle, it was a good idea regardless to get it done with factory recommended Mobil 1 synthetic.

I was worried that the low profile of the truck would prevent it from being able to navigate my ramps.  Luckily they just cleared.  Once I was underneath I did a quick visual inspection.  For the most part the underbelly of the truck looked fine.  The only blemishes I saw were some scrapes/surface rust where somebody obviously bottomed it out.  I hit those areas with a quick blast of rust retardant rubberized undercoating.  I had some left from the massive clean up I did on the bottom of the party van.

So I locate the oil filter and oil drain plug.  I was less than thrilled when I saw both were right around the junction of the cross brace (used for convertibles for stiffening the structure).  The brace made access to both items less than ideal.

I also immediately noticed words stamped into the oil pan near the drain plug.  It basically said “Refer to service manual for proper oil changing procedure”  I was like shit, is there some special trick to change the oil in a SSR that would be different than the dozens of other oil changes I have done in my life?

Well I certainly didn’t want to do something stupid so while I am on my back, under the SSR laying on my creepy krauly I pull out my Iphone.  I have the SSR owners manual in my Dropbox so I quickly pulled it up and scrolled down to the maintenance section.  I saw nothing in the oil change pages that seemed unique except the reminder to reset the built in oil monitor in the car.

I later double checked with SSRfanatics that I had not missed an important step.  They said that indeed all that was referring to was resetting the on board oil monitor.

So after draining the oil I removed the oil filter.  I was worried that the oil filter would be on very tight.  With the cross brace right under it I would have a difficult time applying much torque.  Luckily it wasn’t on all that tight.

So I pull out my replacement filter, apply a thin coating of oil and try to screw it back in.  I can’t.  When I bought the oil change supplies at AutoZone the clerk said there were two filters that would fit the SSR, one was slightly longer than the other.  I told him to give me the longer one, figuring a bigger filter equals, more filtration area, a good thing. No, bad thing….

The new filter was less than an inch longer than the one I pulled out but that was enough of a difference to make it impossible to get past the cross member.  I had two options, remove the cross member or go get the smaller filter.  I chose the latter.

The girls were quite happy to hop back in the van for their second trip of the day.  The weather was awesome and they both had big dog smiles as we cruised down Immokalee Road with the windows all down.  When I checked the filter reference guide at Wal-mart I only saw ONE compatible filter.  I’m not sure why the AutoZone dude gave me conflicting info.

After getting the correct filter I was able to complete the oil change without incident.  While I was at it I replaced the air filter which appeared to be pretty dirty.

While I was working my neighbor from across the street stopped mowing to take a look at my new toy.  He gave his stamp of approval, he said he always liked the SSR’s.

I also had some other small SSR things I wanted to do.  I had ordered a replacement reflector for the passenger door off of Ebay.  The car was missing it for some reason.  The reflector arrived last week but I didn’t bother to open it until Saturday.  Well when I unwrapped it I was pissed, one of the two mounting tabs was broken, making the reflector garbage. I later contacted the seller and he agreed to send me another one.

I also bought a replacement cup holder for the driver side of the console.  Luckily that was not broken and installed easily.  The other item I purchased was a 2nd key fob, the car only came with one of the two original fobs/keys.

I found out there is no way I can match the fob to the SSR myself, it can only be done at a dealership.  So I called down to the local Chevy dealer after verifying they have Saturday service hours and asked if they had time to do it for me.  I already knew it was a 10 minute procedure at most.  They said they would be happy to do it for me and they charge $45 to do so.  Wow, that translates out to almost $300 per hour, what a deal.  Well it isn’t like I had much choice so I headed out.

It was a glorious day to cruise with the top down.  Driving the SSR just puts me in a good mood.  Hell by the time I got to the dealership I hardly cared they were going to rape me for $45.   I was surprised when I pulled up to the service overhang and there was nothing going on.  I was literally the only car there. Wow things must be slow in Chevy land.

I explained to the service writer what I needed done.  I also said I would like to have a second key made while I was there.  He said I should go inside to the part counter and have them do the key first and then come back out.  I did so.  Unfortunately when I came back out the service guy was involved in a lengthy phone call.  He didn’t turn his attention back to me for close to 10 minutes.

He took the keys and said it would take 20-30 minutes.  I told him I would go for a walk and come back.  He said I shouldn’t walk too close to the showroom or they may sell me a car.  I reassured him there was no danger of that happening.

About a block away was a Sports Authority, I headed there.  I needed to pick up some supplies for my upcoming Tough Mudder.  I wanted to get a long sleeve Under Armour shirt and some cheap lifting gloves.  The shirt will be very helpful in protecting my skin from the various things I will be pushing, pulling, carrying and crawling through.  The gloves serve the same purpose.

Many of the obstacles in the Mudder involve you getting totally soaked in cold water.  I figured a dark colored, cold gear, Under Armour shirt would be my best option.  From pictures of other Mudders I see a lot of competitors go this route.  I was a bit stunned with just how expensive UA stuff is.  I have never paid that much for a shirt.

I still have not finalized what I am going to wear on the lower half of my body.  I assume shorts would be good but exactly what type I am not certain.  Footwear is a BIG concern.  To cover 12 miles via foot I need to be wearing some good running shoes if I want to have any shot of completing the event without two blown up knees.  The problem is whatever footwear I decide to wear will more than likely be destroyed in the process.  I am sort of leaning towards just wearing my good NB 1080’s and then buying a new pair after the fact.  It’s not like I will be doing any running in the time period shortly after the Mudder.

So after buying my two items I hoofed it back to the dealership.  I only had to wait a few minutes until my SSR was driven back out front.  Ok second set of keys, complete.

Ali had mentioned she wouldn’t mind going back to Sweet Tomatoes Saturday night since she has some coupons after she joined their Veg Club.  I was fine with it, plus it was another excuse to drive the SSR.

Before we went to dinner we stopped at Staples to ironically buy a stapler.  We have had our stapler forever and it sucks.  It jams more than it staples.  We invested in a nice $10 model that should put our curse word riddled stapling sessions behind us.

As we walked to the restaurant at about 5:45 Ali jokingly asked if we have turned into that old married couple that eats early and with coupons.  I said I guess so.

Once again we had a nice experience, sampling small portions of many different food items.  Sweet Tomatoes will never supplant Carrabas as my all time favorite place to eat.  A meal at Sweet Tomatoes is efficient.  It’s relatively cheap and all of that time consuming taking your order, waiting for the food to be made, etc, is all eliminated.  Of course there are times when you are looking for that dinner experience to be more about the mood of a place and less about efficiency.

On the way home we again had the top down although by that time the air was getting cooler.  I turned on the heat and Ali even utilized the heated seat feature of the SSR to keep her cozy.

On Sunday morning I had talked to Ali about taking our bikes out for a ride in that new area we enjoyed a couple weeks prior.  The big long squares on sparsely trafficked streets is a perfect combo for Ali.  Ali was down with the plan until Sunday morning actually came around.

She woke complaining of a sore back and absolutely did not want to go.  Well a little dissent wasn’t enough to dissuade me so I basically said we are going as I loaded up the bikes onto the Camry bike rack.  Ali was not very pleased with my insistence.

So we got to our spot and headed out.  We wound up having a 20 mile ride and by the end of it Ali actually thanked me for forcing her to get out on the bike, I was quite surprised.  Although the pace we kept doesn’t push my cardio, just being on the bike for 80 minutes is good regardless.  My ass was quite sore.

Since I had most chores already done it freed up a good portion of the rest of my Sunday.  I again devoted more attention to the SSR.  I wanted to hit the pitted chrome wheels with polish to see if I could clean them up a bit.

I knew the pitting was far too advanced to be fixed via elbow grease.  The only way that will happen is if I get the wheels rechromed or replace them with genuine factory chrome wheels, both very expensive and low priority items right now.

My efforts did help somewhat, the wheels definitely did look better.  I would classify them as 10 footers right now, they look good from 10 feet but the closer you get, the more warts show up. I also used the leather cleaner and conditioner I picked up to make the seats look nice.

Mid-afternoon I had to make a run to Pet Supermarket which is in mom’s neck of the woods.  I called mom and asked her if she wanted me to pick her up to take a joyride in the SSR since she had not seen it in person yet. She said sure.

Mom was impressed with the truck and loved cruising around sans top.  We extended the drive by adding in stops at Home Depot and Walgreens along the way.  It was fun.

By the time I got home daylight was fading thanks to the clocks falling back Saturday night.  I had ideas of trying a hard mode version of this month’s Bar-barian challenge but instead decided to just try  a max muscle up set again.  I hadn’t done any muscle ups in over a week.

I was happy that I equaled my previous best of 5.  I was so happy that I didn’t think about trying a 6th rep which in retrospect I think I probably could have grinded out, oh well.

I have to say a week plus into my SSR ownership experience that I have no regrets, I LOVE the vehicle.   Some time behind the wheel with the top down is an instant mood stabilizer, much better than popping pills or spending time on a shrink couch IMO.