What did you do to your vehicle today?

Not today, but a couple days ago, I redid my shift knob install. The previous setup was stupid, and making the shift throw too long - I had two washers, one skinny and one thick, so that the knob, when tightened all the way down, had the lettering facing the right direction. This added a half inch to my shift throw and put insane pressure on the plastic shift boot retaining ring as well as the washers. I took it all apart, removed the washers (with WD40 and two vise grips since they'd been embedded in the shifter rod ), and started brainstorming...

The problem was that the shift knob, when screwed all the way down onto the threads, was backwards. Turn it back 180 degrees and it's loose. So I grabbed some steel wool, stuffed a little bit inside the shift knob with my key, and screwed it back on. The result is that the farther you tighten it, the more resistance builds up... until you're using 95% of the thread and it's stiff enough to hold its position but still movable so you can align the lettering perfectly . Result? Shorter throw, by about half an inch, no more pressure put on the shift boot retaining ring or the washer, and it's not shifting around (the previous setup was tilting the lettering slightly as the washer carved a groove into the shifter rod).

Also, a few days earlier, I redid my steering wheel install, simply putting a washer underneath the hub adapter so I could torque it down fully (it had come loose). Suddenly my steering is super light and it's auto-centering! Turns out the previous setup was creating insane friction from being tightened too hard against the steering column, making the steering unnecessarily firm and blocking out a lot of the subtle forces that should've been coming up through the steering.

My next project is to tighten up the shifter linkage. I have a ball joint rod end that I need to rethread, then it'll replace the OEM part (which has a sloppy plastic inner ring) and make the shifter nice and tight Waiting on the rethreading die to ship.

I also ordered a set of Enkei RPF1s which are coming on Friday. Getting them painted black, then mounted on the car. They're insanely light - 8.3 lbs per wheel, compared to ~18 lbs for my steel wheels. That's 40 lbs less unsprung weight, which is going to be a huge improvement in handling, ride comfort, and acceleration. They're 14x7 - I'm sticking with 14 because I want to keep my perfectly good Michelin Pilots (they're pretty much brand new), and I need the big sidewall to absorb all the horrible bumps from the road I live on.

Oh, and today I took my car in to a body shop that's authorized to work on old air conditioning systems like mine (R12). Turns out the problem is actually electrical... something in the car's 25 year old computer brain decides to turn off the A/C after a couple seconds of running. Very weird. The body shop had some amazing cars. They had a '48 Cadillac, pretty much identical to Mythbuster's '49 Cadillac, as well as a '69 Monte Carlo, a '77 Caprice Classic, some kind of old Rambler wagon, and a '67 Chevelle. I should just stop by every week to gawk at the awesome cars

Sidenote: got beat by a Prius on an onramp the other day In my defense, I had 150 lbs of meat in the passenger seat, 50 lbs of groceries and wine in the trunk, and I kinda botched the shift into 3rd. We were neck and neck until I decided to back off at the merge. My Prelude's meant for cornering anyways, not drag racing

 

Hey, Priuses have the electric motor torque helping them uphill, plus the CVT so there's no shifting I didn't launch hard, since I didn't want to damage anything, and like I said, I botched the shift into 3rd and I had 200 lbs of extra weight.

 

I'd still wreck a Prius in anything involving cornering. I'd wreck one in a straight line if I didn't have 200 lbs of extra weight to carry uphill

 

1990 Honda Prelude Si Nissan Snoremaxima pictured on the left. My daily driver that I don't even daily drive because my Prelude is way more fun

 

Ooh! Shame about those wheels, though. Big wheels are just heavy and dumb. No real handling advantage. I'm glad my car doesn't have a spoiler, either. Pointless and heavy.

I've honestly never seen a 3rd generation Prelude in traffic in my entire life. Never. I've seen one at a car meet. That's it.

 

A little bit. FWD though, and the wheelbase is 2 inches longer. It's also more 80s boxy and less 90s curvy Amazing car though. The handling is just sublime. Perfect steering, perfect suspension.