For a while I’ve been irritated that I could not connect my phone into the stereo in my car.  I’ve been using a Satechi BT Ultimate FM transmitter.  However since the bird’s aux ports are always hot half the time it blows the fuse in the transmitter.  I had gotten in the habit of keeping a half dozen or so fuses around to fix the transmitter.  Problem is…these fuses are a bit over a buck each.  So I probably feed it 20+ a month in fuses.  I thought it time I do something about that.

I went to my local Radio Shack and picked up a 1/8″ panel mount jack that was a 3 conductor closed circuit.  I was determined to install this in the car so I could use my modern tech with the old OEM head unit without spending hundreds and hundreds on a new unit.

I pulled the head unit and started to break it down.  What I found was not as expected.  Wires were normally white and black.  I had everything in red.  At least they were keeping in the pontiac spirit.

A little research later and I found out that despite the color, the pin out is still the same.  So I snipped off the left channel and pulled out a piece of CAT5 to use as an extention.  Here is a nice soldering of the left channel cables.

After heat wrapping those connections I did the same to the right channel resulting in this.

Once I put everything back in it’s place I buttoned up the head unit and went to work on the other end of the cable.  I used the switch and tagged all the appropriate items on the tabs then soldered them into place.

I slapped the unit hack in the car and plugged the phone into it with pandora running.  I was so estatic that I sat there almost an hour listening to it before I decided to come back in.

Right now the cable is just hanging out in front of everything but when I have the time I need to tuck it up and hide  the connection away.

So yesterday I was headed off to work and as I got near my office There was a bit of a shudder, a loud clunk, the sound of tinkling metal down the hwy and a nice horrific grinding noise from the rear.  Thankfully I was only going about 20-30 at the time so I eased off the driving lanes.  I then got out and checked under the car expecting some broke suspension component or an exploded rear end.  But what I found was entirely more shocking.  Somehow all 5 lugs on my rear driver wheel had sheared off and my rotor was now resting on the inside of the rim.  I’m thinking if I didn’t have wide wheels that it probably would have gone flying.

As you can imagine it wasn’t getting driven anywhere more safe than the center lane of a hwy.  So quickly put in a call to my insurance provider to request a tow.  As I was getting off the phone a local city officer pulled up trying to help.  Unfortunately due to the circumstance of the wheel, there was just no helping it.  I told him that my wrecker was on the way but he wasn’t happy about the time estimate of an hour that I was given.  He assured me that he was there to help me and that he would stay as long as needed but continuously asked for updates on the wrecker and began to get impatient near the hour mark that I was quotes.  I called the insurance back and they got in touch with the driver and he assured them he would be there no more than another 15 minutes.  That came and went with no truck.  The officer was visibly agitated at this point and pretty much insisted on calling their own wrecker so I told him go ahead.  Fortunately my free roadside assistance one showed up before his did and I got all loaded up and taken to a local shop a couple miles away.

I explained the situation to them and they promised to get it on the rack to inspect shortly.  Well, that shortly ended up being about 3 hours before they gave me a call.  The wheel was ok other than dings and scratches but the studs, nuts and labor was going to run me $200.  And he wanted to do my brakes for another $105.  The rotor was nearly undamaged and just needed a deburring on the edge.  Told him negatory on the pads but got bent over on the studs and nuts.  But I needed a speedy repair while I was at the office so I gave the go ahead.  So now I am riding around on a fugly rim with mis-matched lugs.  I will end up replacing it later down the road but not anytime soon.

Here is a quick shot of one of the dings in the outer rim, there are several around the wheel where I assume the broken stud pieces impacted the wheel after shearing.

And here is a closeup of the kind of damage the inner rim suffered because of the rotor and caliper grinding against it.

All other wheels checked out find.  The only plausible theory we could come up with is some kid snuck into my garage while I wasn’t looking and thought it would be funny to loosen the lugs.  And once they vibrated loose enough riding on the studs broke them all off.  I am lucky this didn’t happen booking down the interstate at 70-80mph in traffic like I was not more than 5 minutes before it happened.

I haven’t been doing much on the car lately.  It’s not that I don’t have thing TO do or the parts handy to do them, I have just been enjoying actually driving the car around with the new T-56 too much to bring it down to do any of the other mods I have planned right now.

Although, about a month or so ago I came across Kelley West who was starting an imagining company that was focused on the f-body platform.  I really didn’t think much of it at first but I followed his feed.  And as he asked for suggestions I put one in and he decided to use it.  I was enthused by the idea an image I submitted was going to be cut into a nice large piece of metal that I could hang on my wall.

It finally came in today and here are the preliminary results.  I am very satisfied with the work and it is a solid piece.  I can’t wait to put the polisher to it and get it on the wall.  Or perhaps try my hand at painting to see how firey I can make it turn out.  Anyway, enough beating around the bush… here is the piece I got from Kelley.

It is a version more influenced by tribal design than your standard firechicken but I really liked it and I appreciate Kelley for take the time out to cut one out for me.