And Ms. Jenavieve is back home in the garage where she belongs. Decided that 4 months without her was long enough, and I’m kind of champing at the bit to start preparing her for spring. So, my wife, son, and I went over to the storage unit this weekend and brought her back home.

Couldn’t get her started over there, and with no light, no heat (it’s been hovering around 5 degrees Fahrenheit here the past week or so) and only the tools I bring from home, we figured it was easier to just tow her back home with a rope and my Expedition (the storage unit is only a block from home). That was a little giggly because as noted below, her brakes are at about 1% functional… if you stomp all the way to the floor, she slows but panic stops are not an option, so I was praying the whole way home that Mrs. Answerman wasn’t going to hit the Expedition brakes hard. Made it just fine though, at about 3 MPH.

Now that she’s home, the task list (notice I’m skipping #1, read further for why) for the next 6 weeks:

2. Fix her brakes. As detailed in another thread, she has a mysterious syndrome where her brake fluid just disappears on occasion… no puddles on the ground, but it’s going somewhere, and the consensus is that her master cylinder is leaking into the booster. So… did some ordering this week. New master cylinder arrived today, and I lucked into a “slightly used” booster on eBay that was apparently purchased as a temporary fix by the seller from the club store several years ago. He then had his original rebuilt, and decided to sell this one (it looks like the one Greg used to sell, the kinda gold colored one). The master cylinder looks easy enough, but the booster looks more complex. We’ll find out… it should be arriving this week.

3. Order and install her new exhaust header. Yes, I am going to tackle this thankless looking job. I’ll be ordering the header from the club store, along with the copper nuts and gaskets, and also new motor mounts since I’m in there and I am sure the current ones are trash. I have what I believe to be the stock header and it’s got some serious leak issue (and basically looks ugly, looks like a PO had done some welding on it). I’m giving myself a month to do the PB Blaster/wrench/swear/rinse and repeat process. Hopefully that will be enough.

4. Sand, block, and respray her bonnet. When I did the bare metal strip and respray last spring, I gouged up the hood pretty well and it’s visible through the paint. Going to take my time and get it right this time.

And that should be it other than the missing number, which I got halfway through tonight:

1. Finish unwrapping about 20 feet of painter’s plastic from around the fan and water pump pulley. Eesh. That was a mess (as explained in the previous post). We loosened up the alternator and pulled the belt at the storage unit, and got about 80% of it off, but the rest waited till we got home. At this point it’s about 98% removed, but there’s still some very tightly wrapped around the flange and shaft on the water pump. It’ll clean up with whatever I have to use to cut/scrape/burn it out.

It’s all worth it, though… so glad to have her back home, and ready to get her ready for spring!