Sold the old hippie van on Thursday, and this is the new vehicle. 1991 Geo Tracker 4x4, manual hubs in the front.
Passenger side has plastic along the door
Driver's side does not.
Some rust, but nothing serious
Slightly bigger rust on the back corner
And the other back corner
This was the reasonably decent A/T-ish tire featured in the CL ad...
And this is what was on all the other wheels... Apparently, the nice one was the spare, but the one on the tailgate now has an unfixable hole. Less than ideal, but hey, she passes aircare and makes no expensive noises, so...
Sale included four extra rims
And four bigger 235/75R15 tires
Unfortunately, the extra tires are, well, pretty useless, really.
Couple of tiny holes in the soft top, backed by duct-tape right now
Speakers might need some kind of guard fabricated so I don't stick a finger through them
Ditto for the rear speakers
Also a spare thing that fits in the front of the soft top. I have no idea why one would need two, but there we go.
OK, so the driver's seat is a bit ripped, but, meh.
Now with extra bonus smurfiness. Also, with extra bonus duct tape... Bought the hard-top, but some of the bolts holding the hardware for the soft-top were a bit seized, and I hadn't taken penetrating oil or screw extractors on this shopping trip, so couldn't remove all the soft-top hardware to install the hard-top. So the drive home was a bit dubious... Wanted to avoid highways, so took Kingsway, which just might be the bounciest road in all of Vancouver... Now I'll have to get the hardware out of the way and install this properly. Perhaps I should invest in one of them impact wrenches from Lee Valley :)
So, no Lee Valley on Sundays, but Lordco was open. The clerk at Lordco had no idea whether they carried impact drivers, and seemed stunningly uninterested in finding out. So I left in disgust and went to the small hard-to-get-to Canadian tire, which the web site said had them in stock. The web site lied. So I went to NAPA, which I've had good success with, but thought weren't open Sundays. They *are* open Sundays, but only until 4pm, and I had by now wasted enough time that it was 4:15. So I went to the big easy-to-get-to Canadian tire which the web site said was out of stock on impact drivers, and lo and behold! The web site lied again. But by this time I was so tired of shopping that I forgot that I only had a dollar-store, small, genteel hammer in my car tools, rather than a nice BFH... The dollar-store hammer was quite un-able to power the impact driver to any success. So I gave up and drilled the bolts out.
You can't really see much bolt left. At some point, I'll locate the handle for my extractors (and maybe replace the #2 extractor, which I broke off on the van's engine...) and take these out, just in case I ever want to put a soft-top on
But in the meantime, look! Smurfy! And no duct-tape!
Found a set of big tires for sale about three days after buying the van, but only now installed them. Stephen thinks it makes the tracker look more ``macho''. Sort of a ``Butch Smurfette'' look.
Hmmm. I suppose I could just remove the spacing blocks here, but then the tire would still be rubbing against the tailgate paint. So maybe I should get longer bolts and a spacer. Though the spare *is* on a rim with 1/2" less backspacing than the other four. Replacing that rim with a similar one might move the tire just far enough off the tailgate... Or I could not worry about it. Alex says to not worry, so I won't.
The tire sticks out a tiny bit on this side; dunno if that's a vehicle infraction I should worry about
Tire *doesn't* seem to stick out on this side... (Ignore the fronts, the wheels aren't quite straight-ahead in this pic)
I spoke too soon on the lack of duct-tape... Was driving down the street when the front of the roof kinda, uh, flew off. Luckily, the dude behind me was able to stop in time to save my roof and no-one drove over it. So I put it back in place and duct-taped it down. The problem is it's held down with clips, which were loose enough to shake open. So after much googling and shopping, I ordered a roll of new weatherstripping from JC Whitney. It's bigger than the old stuff, and will hopefully keep enough pressure on the clips that they stay closed. 'course, by now, the duct-tape has been baking in the sun for two weeks...
But in case they don't, I also made back-up straps These are strips of the heavy-duty stuff my brother made his kayak out of, screwed to the plastic roof, and with a button bashed into the other end to mate up with some buttons on the car that were part of the soft-top attachment.
In theory, should the clips at the front of the roof let go, the straps will retain the roof here until I can slow down and pull over. Hopefully, this theory will never get tested.
The new weatherstripping definitely helps the roof feel sturdy, and the clips feel firm, and it all feels good. Only problem now is, it also holds the roof high enough up there's an unsightly wind-noise-generating gap at the front now.
Perhaps more of the same weatherstripping would work. Not the best profile, perhaps, but given how hard weatherstripping was to find, it may have to do. I think I'll get some goop-off and try remove the baked-on duct-tape residue first...
This might be the most obvious sudden idea I've had. Use the *old* OEM weatherstripping, which was too small where it was, for this application, where the new beefy weatherstripping seemed too big. Test-fitting before cutting it up.
Note also the glorious lack of duct-tape residue compared to the previous photo. Contractor-grade super-solvent for the win :) 'Course, either I've been almost-coming-down-with-a-flu for the week since this picture was taken, or esle the contractor-grade super-solvent fumes dissolved my throat, too... There were no health-and-safety warnings on it (other than not aspirating the *liquid*), so maybe it's the former.
The piece was long enough to do three sides in a single run. This should be nice and wind-shedding and cut down on highway noise somewhat.
Next project will be the lip at the top of the tailgate. That's a nice sharp edge sticking up to whistle in the wind. We'll see how bad it is, I guess... Also, when it's raining and you open the tailgate, the water drains off this lip, *just* misses the weatherstripping on the roof part, and dribbles all over the cargo in the back. So maybe adding some windlace or something here would help with that problem, too.
Peeled back the carpet in the back to see why it was a bit on the damp side. I'm not sure whether the masking tape is factory, or if this means it's been re-painted... There's also some kind of rubber matting stuck to the metal, which may or may not be OEM...
There's a bit of rust around the hardware that holds the back seats down, when they're down
And some rust around the anchor for the rear seatbelts.
And there's a hole in mah bukkit! I have no idea why there's a 1/2" hole drilled clear through the body here, but it could explain the damp... At least it'll be easier to seal than rust holes, which is what I suspected...
I think she looks OK without ratty carpet in here.
I'm not sure the + battery clamp is entirely othrodox. Also, I should get a battery hold-down. But at least all the corrosion is gone from the clamps and battery top.
Today's fun was pulling out the carpet. The felt underlay was basically holding moisture against the tub, which is not a good, on the good-bad scale. This is the front of the driver's side of the tub.
The rear of the driver's side of the tub.
The rear seatbelt on the driver's side. Not the best place to see rust...
Front of the passenger side doesn't look bad
Rear of passenger side *does* look bad (by my standards, at least. pWeasel being all used to rusty 'cruisers might still think this is minor :) )
But it does go right through the body in a couple of places.
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