Ah the Mustang Saga continues...

"It's ready!"

"Great, I'll pick it up on Friday!"

As I previously posted, the problems that I reported to TPS were that a brake caliper had fallen off, that something had made a horrible BANG while loading/unloading the suspension on the track and the the rear end was making rotational squeaking/groaning sounds at low speed.

First the good news. The steering is about right now. They rotated the rack bushings 180 degrees and did an alignment. I'm not actually sure to what numbers - I didn't ask for the printout - and I just asked for an "aggressive street alignment."[1] They got out almost all of the play and really sharpened up the turn in. This is a huge improvement from the play that I dealt with on I5 driving to and from Los Angeles where I'd hold the wheel steady and the car would wander around the road like I was drunk. Good times.

They fixed the brakes to the tune of a set of new rear calipers. Not much needs to be said there.

They replaced the transmission crossmember and, honestly, fixed a problem that I didn't really know that I had. There is a whole crap ton less vibration, especially under throttle. I guess I'm so used to the damn thing shaking so much that I forgot it just might not have been normal.

And, of course, the bad news. They completely didn't fix the low speed rear end squeak/shudder/groan. It's a rotational squeak when rolling forward at about 5-10mph which goes away under braking and I usually get a loud groan and a brief shudder when I make the right turn in reverse that is required to get out of my dog sitter's driveway.

I called them after having the car back for about fifteen minutes. The shop manager went back and talked to the techs and came back with "they think that your differential oil is too thin. They want to put Red Line in but our supplier is out right now." I have an appointment on Friday to change it out.

I'm having a hard time not being pissed. From the exchange with the manager, I read into it that at least one of the techs knew that the noise was still there and they still gave me the car back as "done." On the other hand, I couldn't demonstrate the noise I was complaining about since I'd arrived on a flatbed with no brakes and I'm pretty sure that they thought I was referring to the vibration from the loose transmission. Still further on the other hand, I did take delivery of the car without checking for the noise.

Diff oil, huh? We'll see.

And, dammit, am I so used to thinking about the Mustang as a "piece of shit" that I don't even notice fixable problems? Am I so used to the thing shaking around that I just assumed that it was normal for the car? My first analysis is, basically, "yes." Most of my seat time in the Mustang came when I was first learning to drive. More to the point, it came before I'd been forced on a race track to learn that my Mustang and I wasn't the hot shit car/driver combo I thought we were. In short, most of my Mustang miles were when I didn't know any better.

Then along came a string on competent cars starting at about the same time that the Mustang became a true money pit: my 1.8T GTi, the Mk5 GTi, Helena's C230 and of course, the Exige. I got professional training. I got seat time. I got used to competent cars and, since it was mostly sitting in various stages of disrepair for years, forgot what the Mustang was SUPPOSED to feel like. When I started trying to fix it up for Thom to drive, I found myself dismissing things as "stupid piece of shit Mustang always rides like crap" or "I remember the steering being tighter than this, but I can't tell if that's just because I'm comparing it against the Lotus."

Anyways, it's certainly drivable now and I'll be autocrossing it with the GGLC on 08/30.

[1] As opposed to a "tire-shredder track toy" alignment.