Name change

We thought that having the word "cheaters" in our name wasn't the best idea going into the race where cheeting could be fairly common.  It may beg our car to be the people's curse winner in which it would be destroyed at the end of the race.  Therefore, we've changed the name of the team from "I'm not a Tiger, I'm a Cheetah" to "Leon the Craptacular Neon".  We worked on the roll cage last weekend and have it about a third of the way done.  We'll try to finish it up two weekends from now and will get some more pics on the blog soon.  This is the last week that team are allowed to apply for the race and so far 50 teams have applied.

Back At It.

Howdy Sports Fans.

We were back it last weekend... working on the roll cage.

Here is how the roll cage arrived:

Notice the split cardboard wrapper on one set of the pipes. The floor plates were in there but were lost in shipping. In addition, if there were instructions that were supposed to come with this kit... they were probably in there too. After about 2 hours of staring at the parts, moving stuff around and looking at a picture of a different rollcage on line, Chris finally had it all figured out. Good thing, because the rest of us were still baffled.

The thing about this Lemons race... or perhaps the thing about owning a $500 car... is that you need to have some creativity. Thankfully we have Chris who can see a rollcage in a pile of pipes.

Check out this link to see the sort of creativity we are up against...

http://jalopnik.com/5510916/this-sentras-oil-blow+by-problem-solved-cheap

(Thanks Scooter)

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for!

Todays WTF moment is brought to you by random sheet metal.

What on earth is that doing there? In person you can see that the cut on the bottom seam is rough, this is definitely another "custom" job from Mr Red.

The other side (sorry, I should have thought to take a picture of it too) does not have any cover there. You can see right out to the wheel. So why does this side need a cover? And, even if it did, why did our friend cut it to fit...whatever it was supposed to fit, better? At this point, it is just hanging down there, waiting to get caught on something or decapitate a squirrel.

Oh, a notice the random red A arm. I assure you, the other one is not red.

While I was under the car, Hagn and I heard a huge and long

running crash from deep within the garage. It appears one of my shelves had a structural integrity failure. The top shelf went and dragged the rest of them shelves down with it. One of the paint cans even blew open and got all over everything. Remarkably, the rest of the paint cans stayed closed and the three cans of paint that are open to dry managed to all land rightside up or it might look like My Little Pony exploded on my garage floor.

None the less, there was a sizable mess created.

And now for the finished product.

What does the car look like now, you ask?

Check it out. We have managed to take our POS and make it worth less money than we bought it for. I did not realize that was even possible.

I wonder how much we can get for the dashboard. It has that nice custom paint job, as do the door panes and center console. I hope we can manage to get a few buck for it. We might want to consider replacing that steering wheel. It looks like some small creature spent months nibbling away at it.

Beyond the driver seat, the stick shift, and the instrument panel, there is nothing left inside.

See if you can guess...

See if you can guess what is missing in this photo?

That is right... Joe took the airbag out. Actually, he managed to get both out without blowing them up. This is important for 2 reasons. First, we are required to remove them for the race. Secondly, unexploded, they are worth money!

If we can get enough for the two airbags, perhaps we can afford to get new shocks. I can assure you the current ones have about 100,000 miles on them.

Ever wonder what an airbag looks like? Yeah, not all that exciting sorry.

There were two rotors in the trunk that managed to sneak into this picture as well. What do you suppose those are worth? 5 bucks here, 5 bucks there, pretty soon we are talking about enough money for a supercharger! Ok, maybe not.

Trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents...

Ever wonder how we are going to be able to afford to repair and restore our race car? We are going to strip it down and sell it.. Here are some pictures from the first nights worth of work.

Not sure if we will be able to sell those door panels after Mr Red decided to spray paint them black. Prior to that, maybe?
But there is lots of other crap in that photo. There is a jack, a sun visor... the glove box with a fresh coat of black paint? We have 4 window regulators. Those have to be worth $10, right? 4 of them would work out to be more than the cost of the motor mount we need... bingo.

In this photo, you see the back seat. Yes, it is a little nasty but hey, at least the genius did not spray paint it black to match everything else.

What do you think a back seat it worth? I really have no idea.









Here you see about the only thing we stripped out I thought might be worth some real cash. These are nice, perfectly functional speakers. They are in good shape and completely free of spray paint. I am offering them up for $75. Who wants them?

I am speechless now...

I almost missed it while I was inspecting under the vehicle. As I slid out from under the car, I spotted those zip ties and gave it another look. Odd, someone left their screw driver here!

Oh wait...

Check out this red neck fix! This guy deserves a MacGuiver award of some kind. The motor mount is ripped to shreds. In an effort to stop the shaking and banging, he wedged this screw driver in here. The handle actually fits into the space between that random frame bolt and the motor mount support on the engine. So as the engine bangs around, it does not hit metal on metal and make noise.. instead it bounces on screw driver handle. The zip tie holds the whole thing in place.

I am really impressed. Not necessarily in a good way or with our car... but the dude with the red obsession was certainly creative. I have to give him credit there.

WOW...