If you've kept up with the my thread from the beginning I never turned a wrench on a car before I got Izzy and the first job that I ever did was replacing the rear brakes. I'm very proud of the progress that I've made with both my knowledge and the progress on Izzy. I really want to continue with that progress so I wasn't happy about taking it to a shop, but my dad said it would make him feel better if we just got it [done quick as possibly] so reluctantly I took it to a shop.
[done quick as possibly]..... This was the funny part. I took it to a shop and they told me it would be done in 3 days.... 7 days later I called them and asked what was going on and they said "Oh we got your car done in the 3 days we said we would but we need a new master and slave" I was pissed that I had to call them to get that information and was kind of annoyed with my self I didn't buy those things along with the clutch and everything else. Luckily Turner Motorsports saved the day, when I called to ask when is the soonest I could get my order they said that the truck just pulled up and was being loaded up so if I ordered it now I could get it tomorrow morning. The sales associate (Shaun?) personally ran down to shipping to stop the truck leaving so they could quickly get my order out. Now I don't know if he actually did it, but it sounded like he actually cared about my problem so that got them brownie points.
Pics of my newly arrived order (also figured what the hell and got a z3 shifter with new bushings)
Anyways woke up the next morning with a Turner package sitting on the front door steps. Took it to the shop, they said it was a 3 hour job. 2 days later I called them to ask what was going on and they told me my pedal assembly was broken now.....WTF?!?!!?!?!? I went in to look at it and yes there was a crack but it didn't allow enough movement for it to effect anything. Regardless I said screw it and searched high and low for one, Facebook pages, eBay, Turner, ECS, the Forums, and Craigslist. I actually happened to find a guy who had a spare one for his 5 speed swap (He goes by "totheredline" on here). Since I was trying to get my car fixed as soon as possible and he's seen a couple of my threads he said I could have it for free if I got one off eBay or the forums or something and gave him that one when I got my car fixed.
Well the shop installed that and that didn't work either, they then blamed Turner for faulty parts and thats when I got really pissed (as if I wasn't already) I told them to stop making excuses and I wanted them to take everything back apart in front of me so I could double check their work. They agreed to that, but told me if nothing was wrong I would have to pay for the labor for that to. I told them to f*ck off and called a tow truck took it to Aamco and 3 days later my car was ready for pick up and drove like a dream.
Here she is on the tow truck :(
Aamco saved the old parts for me and had the tech stay over time to explain to me what was wrong. Well the guys at the other shop put in the clutch disc in the wrong way and wasn't making contact with the fly wheel. I loved the guys at Aamco though, they called me everyday with an update and offered for my to come in and walk underneath the car to check on the car anytime I wanted to. I definitely felt like a VIP dealing with them. This whole experience took 3 weeks, easily enough time for me to help fix my dads touring and to get my car on the lift and back down here. Lessoned learned though, only my hands touch the car from now on.
You can see where the fly wheel bolts were hitting the springs on the clutch, also the old shifter carrier had seen some better days, lol.
Now onto some things that I personally got done to the car. Picked up some sweet door handles from phenryiv1. Kind of wished I got the valve cover too, but all well. I've also had a e46 center console (with out the arm rest) sitting in my trunk for about a year and decided it was about time to do some work on it. I've gotten it to where I like it, just need to get some more bondo and need to figure out a way to mount it to the car (just a trip to the hardware store). When my roommates moved out they left a butt ton of sub box fabric and covered my trunk liner in it. I really like it but I'm not very optimistic that its going to hold up.
On a side note moved into my new apartment and I was walking outside when I saw a light blue e30 that the sun hasn't been to kind to. I had a spare set of grilles I wanted to get rid of so I ran up to get a piece of paper and leave my number but when I came down I ran into the owner. She said she'd got the car in Cali 4 years ago for $800, but from the picture that she showed me it looked like a $8,000 car, definitely the find of the century. Unfortunately the car spent some time with her uncle while she was overseas with her parents and the car got baked in the sun, and I mean BAKED. The resprayed the roof, but the rest of the car is still in bad shape. The girl was also pretty cool, I've never seen someone love their car so much. I snapped some pics of Izzy and "Stitch" together in the parking garage.
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