By last Friday I had all the parts I’d ordered for this final push to get the car registered in hand. This included major components like the rear shocks and also a few extras like new hatch lift supports and a trim piece for the interior hatch handle (one of which I had already broken). Unfortunately I managed to aggravate a pre-existing back issue from a sports related accident I had when I was 13. I could barely walk let alone change car parts. I had to take most of the weekend to recover. Fortunately I was feeling about 90% better by Memorial Day, so I was able to get all my planned work done.

Even though I haven’t posted in awhile, rest assured that I have been busy and am so, so, SO close to getting this car street legal.

The stainless steel butt joint pipe clamp and donut gasket I ordered arrived in the mail in time for the weekend, so at the earliest opportunity I climbed under the car to put things to rights.

After a few weeks of waiting there was finally an alignment of decent weather and the weekend. That meant as soon as a got done with a few household chores I was able to start the process of taking out the old exhaust and putting in the new one. This system includes the resonator, a muffler, and the various pipes that connect them.

First a quick note of resonators vs mufflers. They are similar to each other in that they are responsible for mitigating exhaust noise. The main difference is that the resonator does not quiet the exhaust sound. Rather it “tunes” the exhaust sound in a way that makes the muffler’s job easier. That way the muffler can be designed to muffle a much narrower set of frequencies which means a quieter ride with less of a hit on performance.

Removal

The whole process starts by jacking up the rear of the car onto jack stands. Next I had to remove the clamp that connects the resonator to the catalytic converter pipe. This clamp was hideously rusted and was almost just a clamp shaped lump of corrosion. I blasted it with WD-40 and used a breaker bar with a 14mm deep socket to get the nut turning. It took some muscle, and boy did that nut scream as it turned, but eventually I got both sides off far enough to be able to move it out of the way. I then got out the rotary tool and used a cut off disc to finish it off. I wasn’t going to reuse them, so this was the much faster and easier method.

The weather this past weekend was very pleasant which meant the opportunity for car work was there. It also meant that spring cleaning was in play too. In the end I didn’t spend a lot of time working on the car, but I did find some time to do relatively small but critical things. After I finished cleaning out the garage and installing a bell on my front door I moved on to the car.

First on this list was a simple swap of the dead bulb inside the shifter. This light is there to illuminate the position of the shifter when the headlights are on. This procedure was just a matter of unscrewing the shifter cover and moving it out of the way so I could access the bulb socket. The socket is pulled out of its holder, the bulb switched, and the cover screwed back in place. Now I can see what gear I’m in when it’s dark.

Back when I changed my brake pads I found that one of the lug studs on the driver’s side rear tire had stripped threads. Or maybe the process of taking the tire off stripped the threads. I’m not sure. But I would need to change that lug, and that’s what I did this weekend.