For the Children: Ol Dirty Bastard gets a build thread (e24 content)

[Wrinckled]

Have lurked around this thread for a while. Nice to see you're continuing with this car. Sorry to hear about the recent personal life changes, but things always have a funny way of working out for the better.

[theseeker411]

Ol Dirty Bastard's ShitLuck cross country relocation. Aka: Get me the hell out of the South.

So like I said earlier, my fiance left me and my plan was to relocate to my family's house in Redlands, CA to figure out the rest of my life. Not exactly what I had in mind at 30, but whatever. The earliest any of my family would have been able to make it out to Nashville to help me move was July 1st. The lease on the apartment I shared with my now ex was set to expire on the 30th of June. While explaining to some of my friends via FB that I didn't want to continue sharing a space with my ex (I slept on the couch), my friend Taylor (aka e30_fiend), offered to fly out early to Nashville to help me move my Mk6 Golf and ODB to California. My dad paid for Taylor's plane ticket and he flew over night June 12th to Nashville. The plan was to throw everything we could fit into my two cars and then drive. All furniture, appliances, and electronics were left with my ex to help her get a head start on her new life. Plus none of it was gonna fit in the cars.

Yeah, we decided to start a 2000 mile road trip on Friday the 13th. With a Mk6 TDI and Ol Dirty Bastard. We're smart.



Two days before the move some shitdick decides that ODB's nose would be the perfect backstop for his moving van. No note left, they probably didn't realize they'd even hit it. This should've been my first sign.

We made good time from Nashville to Memphis, then hit downtown Memphis road construction. Did you know there's a big ass pyramid in Memphis?



Well, you do now.



Taylor up ahead of me driving my Golf. He was fortunate enough to have working A/C, cruise control, and satellite radio at his disposal in that car. All things ODB doesn't have. This was the last bit of un-constructed road we saw in Arkansas until we were on the western side of Little Rock. It's like Arkansas decided to redo all of highway 40. At the same time. On the same day. Shit got so bad on the east side of Little Rock that we were forced to take a detour around the entire city.

The traffic and detour took a huge chunk out of our forward progress. We had hoped to book it all day and get into the Texas panhandle, but we were forced instead to stop 400 miles east of OKC. In 9 hours of driving we'd done about 500 miles. This should've been my second sign.

We made really good progress at the start of our second day. Or at least we did, until we'd made it out of Oklahoma City. ODB started loosing power and hesitating really badly. We chalked it up to either bad fuel or a clogged screen on the in tank fuel pump, as I'd let the tank drop very far the other day before refueling. We figured letting it sit a while would be the best thing to do. Fired up, seemed to run ok, so we hit the road again.



Sure enough, the symptoms of rough running and low power reared their heads again. Taylor also noticed my crank position sensor's connectors were bad, so we spliced them together. Back on the road, ODB would give us a good 50 miles of trouble free running before fucking up yet again. He repeated the process from the western edge of Oklahoma, through the Texas panhandle, and into New Mexico. We'd hoped to make it into AZ our second day, if not all the way into CA. We wound up stopping in Albuquerque, NM for the night. 600 miles in 12 hours of driving. We were less than happy. We stopped at Sonic in Albuquerque, where I decided to share some of my sweet tea with ODB in the hopes that he'd be less of an asshole the next day.



We woke up around 7 AM on Sunday, with a goal of booking it for 11 hours to make it to my family's house by 6 PM.



At a gas station somewhere in Arizona. Taylor had me air up ODB to full dragster status in the rear to help with the camber wear on the back tires. We were doing pretty decent time again, right up until ODB decided to fuck up again in Flagstaff. We decided that we'd had enough, so we found the nearest parts store and Taylor changed the fuel filter.



While he was doing that, I was attempting to fix the 2 month old head unit that was randomly shutting itself off while driving. Didn't work. So from Albuquerque to SoCal, my only entertainment was the drone of ODB's exhaust. I didn't have headphones and the speaker output of an iphone is no match for a high flow catalytic converter and 4 feet of straight pipe.



The best damn sign I'd seen the entire road trip. Ol Dirty seemed to behave way better after the fuel filter was replaced. Aside from one last hickup about 100 miles from the CA border. I'd also run every fuel cleaner/injector cleaner/King Cobra 40 I could find through the tank, in the hopes that it'd help the clogged fuel system or bad gas or whatever the fuck was fucking up my car.



Posted up in front of my parent's place in Redlands. Got in at 7 PM, unloaded the Golf, and drove 2 hours further west to get him back home in Ventura.

So yes, after all that shit mess of a road trip, ODB and I are now in SoCal. Once my CA physical therapist assistant license application is processed and I can start working, I plan on putting some time and effort into making this car great again.

[double_oh_9]

Miss you man! glad you made it out there safe

[SnazzyQ]

Sweet you're on the west coast now. So no more rusting of the cars.

[Miroteknik]

Those long trips, and roadside breakdowns! Good stuff, hope Cali treats you well

[chanathon]

Shit man sorry about the personal issues but welcome to socal! ODB will enjoy the weather

[theseeker411]

Miss you man! glad you made it out there safe

Thanks dude! Miss you and the TN/GA crew too. I'm sure I'll be back to visit at some point. And honestly who knows if I'll stay here permanently. I have a habit of wandering.

Sweet you're on the west coast now. So no more rusting of the cars.

Thanks, although the South almost never salts their roads since it snows maybe once or twice a year and ODB stays parked when that happens.

Those long trips, and roadside breakdowns! Good stuff, hope Cali treats you well

Yeah, it was super frustrating when the damn thing decided to fuck up. But honestly I love long road trips, IMO its better then flying.

Shit man sorry about the personal issues but welcome to socal! ODB will enjoy the weather

Thanks dude! Yeah we're both definitely enjoying the stupid low humidity. Every time I step outside I expect it to be sticky hot and I genuinely get thrown off when it isnt, lol.

[Chrome DaddyO]

Nice ride man. Just read the whole thread. Quite the journey, a new chapter is here I guess. Truly a nicely done, classy ride! I need wheels that fill like that.

[theseeker411]

Nice ride man. Just read the whole thread. Quite the journey, a new chapter is here I guess. Truly a nicely done, classy ride! I need wheels that fill like that.

Thanks dude, much appreciated. Yeah, I suppose a new chapter is here. Not one I particularly wanted, but not much I can do about it at this point. ODB is going to be going through some big changes as well.

[bostongrnM3]

Sorry to hear about the whole breakup situation,.hope the move out to Cali suits you and you get some progress on ODB. The road trip sounds like a mission lol i recently experienced the same driving from Atlanta back to California, longest road trip of my life.

[theseeker411]

Sorry to hear about the whole breakup situation,.hope the move out to Cali suits you and you get some progress on ODB. The road trip sounds like a mission lol i recently experienced the same driving from Atlanta back to California, longest road trip of my life.

Thanks dude! Hoping to make some progress here soon. And yeah, that drive is the fucking worst, but at least we made it, lol. You, me, and EvilStar should roll through some of the big SoCal meets some time.

[P78]

that was some roadtrip man

enjoy ca!

[theseeker411]

that was some roadtrip man

enjoy ca!

Thanks man. Yeah it was...um...memorable, haha.

So ODB and I had been in SoCal for less than 24 hours, when I walked out side and saw this.



Granted, ODB got his name for a reason, and he's always been known to leave his mark wherever he goes, but this oil spill was a good bit bigger than his usual.



The culprit. It's hard to see, but there's a little hair line crack right by the sending unit. Awesome. ODB was overdue for an oil change anyway, so I drained the pan, JB welded it, and put it on the ground. But then for some reason the front drivers side bag wouldn't inflate. Back up on the jack.



Well, what the fuck? Somehow the bag had slipped past it's sealing ring. Thankfully Universal Air Suspension is based here in San Bernardino, and they're the ones that do the bag set ups for BagYard. Ran over there and they hooked up a new bag for me.

Oh and while I'm doing all of this, ODB starts to not want to shift in to gear. Check the clutch master cylinder and it's just pouring brake fluid onto the carpet under the dash. Great. Spent a couple of days chasing parts all over the Inland Empire to get that and the clutch slave cylinder replaced. Made a few 100 mile round trips to Ireland Engineering for various things I couldn't find locally. Those dudes are awesome and hooked me up with an IE roundel for my troubles.



So after about a week of ODB looking like this.



I was finally able to get him back on the ground and rolling again last night.

While I was fixing all of the issues, I seriously contemplated getting rid of this thing. Not just because he was pissing me off with his fuck ups, but also because it reminded me of my ex. A lot. I very nearly traded him for an S30 Datsun Z. But after driving it again, I can't do it. This car and I have had a crazy history together for the last 5 years, and I can't just toss it like that. There are some big changes that are going to be made soon on this car though, and I'm excited.

[nicolas_w]

Just read you're roadtrip,oh boy,you got some balls

[Mason]

Saw this today at church, I knew I've seen it before so I had to look it up and ended up here. Sounded great, especially in the parking garage haha.

Hope everything works out and enjoy california