Engine Woes Redux and Gauged and Ready for a Test Firing: The FrankenMauser

Greetings and Salutations!
So again it’s been a couple of busy days. I spoke of our trip up to Mom and Dads place on Sunday. Now of note, I forgot to mention the car issue reared it’s ugly head again. Now you may/may not remember/don’t give a shit but the car when the temp dropped precipitously (heh… I used a multisyllabic word… double heh… I done dood it again!) anyway, when it got cold AF ’round here, the throttle body (per AutoZone’s code reader) told me the throttle pedal and the throttle itself were out of synch.

The problem went away however when the car warmed up.
Huzzah!
I figured the cold caused the gunk inside to freeze up and slow the throttle throat plate where it coded out. Cool… literally.

What I didn’t realize, but do know is that there was still some issues. Now late Sunday coming home, if you’ve ever driven in the Tampa Area, it’s gotten really ‘Mad Max-ish” as of late… 80mph seems to be the minimum speed. I was trying to just go a sedate 78+/- but at one point I was forced to ‘gun it’ and Whoops!

Engine light again and the engine itself didn’t sound so hot… not a lot of power. I found out later the ‘safe setting’ is disallowed by the computer over 50mph. It means the car desperately wanted to go into ‘safe mode’ but it couldn’t do it as “highway” and all that. We made for home ASAP.

Made it too.
And so Tuesday Night I got a package in the mail from Faithful Terrapod. He’s been a great supporter, and a pack rat nonpareil that I can tell. He’s sent me some really cool excess stuff that he had laying around. In this case, most appropo, a code reader was in the care package (bows and scrapes while screaming “I’m not worthy!!! seriously T, many thanks!).

So because of this, I was able to find out that not only the throttle body had ‘errored’ again, but there were 3 out of the 4 cylinders misfiring!

Mind you back in October? I had a ‘supposed’ new engine thrown in b/c the one we had BTFU while under warranty.

Now since then, I’ve been s-l-o-w-l-y realizing we got scammed by the dealership. They fixed the engine no doubt. New rods at the minimum. The problem is that according to the paperwork that they gave me and that I discovered regarding this particular issue they’re supposed to ‘pull’ the whole fucking engine and replace the entire thing with ‘new’.

Reason being that Hyundai HQ wants the whole engine for analysis apparently. Makes sense as the Koreans are damned near as anal about failures as the Japanese, so OK… new engine. Great.

The problem is, as I’ve discovered, the Dealershit (intentional spelling) fixed the issue (I’m thinking new block and rods and crank) and instead of putting in the whole new shiny engine in, the fuckers stripped my old engine and put the already-high mileage parts back the fuck on the new block.

Hmmn.
A situation that requires Gretchen’s deft touch methinks…

So in the meantime, I need this thing running. I ordered the new ignition points/plugs (a kit for like $68 on the ‘zon) and a new plug socket, as I couldn’t find the old one to save my life… Of course during the repair process today the OLD fucking plug socket turned up, so now I have 2… or maybe even 3 by this time as this seems to be a pattern with my tools. Shit goes MIA when I need it, and ONLY re-appears AFTER I’ve dropped shekels on a new tool… They showed up today, so I called Glorious People’s Tractor Factory #231, and told Commissar that I’d punch early today, and I’d make up the time over the weekend so I could repair the car.

And yep. Three points of interest. One was when I popped the hood, apparently what appears to be a field mouse took up residence under the engine cover. I had to vacuum out a TON of cracked open and stashed acorns and whatnot, as well as some shredded cotton bunting of some form. The wires, thankfully, were intact. Two was that the points were nasty and old. These were not new by any means. (Hence the Dealershit fuckery) And then Third: the plugs? Damned near burned the fuck out… like the OEM plugs that came with the car 102000 miles ago when we got it new… (MOAR Dealershit fuckery)

Yeah… for a 2020 it’s been brutalized hard what with all the trips to East Tennessee and shit… still… besides it ‘swallowing a rod’ from a ‘known defect’ I really can’t complain. I change the oil/filter religiously as DeadDad taught me, and maintain the other fluid levels as needed, and as we found out, I can turn wrenches when needed.

So disconnected the battery, got everything cleaned up and out, old parts out, new shit it, and wow… A serious difference. I had gotten used to a wee bit of roughness that I had attributed to the mileage. And yeah, despite the new ‘engine’ my mind sees the odometer, and forgets the ‘transplant’ and that it should not be rough running by any means… In this case, it appears to be back. Smooooth runnings mon!!! The only thing left is the throttle body, and per the advice of ReadiFreddie, (the other GranDa) I got a full gas treatment/fuel system cleaner that –supposedly– will take care of the throttle body.

I really hope it works. I was going to take it apart and scrub it with a specific cleaner, but maaaaaaan… today showed me that’d be a full fucking day of taking a LOT of pieces/parts off, and I already got enough on my plate.

And as far as the Dealershit?
Gretchen is up Hyundai’s Corporate asses like a raped fucking Ape for this one man…. Like hip-wader deep up the anus.
She’s pissed off.
Hell hath no fury like an under-medicated Hair Diva
(She’s been out of her pain meds for a week)

See… the Dealershit already scammed us out of $600 to get the car back after the transplant. They also damaged some shit, (like the hood latch) and tried to charge us for damage caused by their probably drunken incompetent wrench turners. It was $1000, but Gretchen went ‘beast-bitch mode’ then on them and got it down to where we could afford it sort-of-kind-of.

Now?
This?
OMG… the poor fuckers on the other end of the phone are reeeeeally hating life when she gets on with them. She starts out all south’en and sweet, and then goes full on psycho-house on them.
Have to see what she gets, but I’m confident Hyundai will cave before she will.

So now lets get into the other part headline tonight.
The FrankenMausers new bolt showed up.

AND

It appears to have successfully gauged out.

And I was positively shocked as to how good it looked when it arrived, as this is the actual auction I got it from:

The item in the pic looks pretty grungy. I had ‘sniped’ the thing in the last two minutes with a $75 total bid… it went from $40 to the $55.09 at the end, so I got it for short $$$. The reason I say that is because similar items?

That’s just 2x examples.

So when I get done tomorrow afternoon, the other bolt remaining will be auctioned off for a starting bid of $100, with shipping being like maybe $7.50 on the top end.

I figure it’s sell quick-quick, and whomever gets it MAY just be able to use it in their rifle like I did with this one. An added plus is just how clean I got the non-headspacing bolt. It looks brand new:

In fact both look pretty damned pristine.
We’ll see how it tests.
BTW: The Good One is in the rifle in the pix.

That being said, I mean for all I know it -still- might detonate like a hand grenade. The 7x57mm Mauser is a big honking round:

So the bench rest, 30 feet of 550 cord, and hearing protection is mandatory. If it doesn’t blow, and after 5 rounds, just like the Lee Enfield I’ll shoulder it and see how it shoots.

If it does BTFU (blow the fuck up) well then…

ScouterGreg who donated this to me had said during a conversation that if it failed, to turn it into a lamp… That got me thinking that IF it’s like that, I just may do that. I have enough ‘wall hangers’ already, and a Lamp might be cool.

Cut the barrel and stock down right in front of the rear ladder sight. This as it’s too long to be a floor lamp, and too short for a desk. Chopping it also means it gets a demil, and that’d be great.

Strip the bolt of the internals and drill out the face so the power cable can fit through. Then drill a hole through the underside of the receiver AND the bolt that match to make sure it’s “legally demilled”. Then strip out the trigger and fiddly-bits. Get a small on/off switch to attach the power line to, and feed the power line back through the back of the stock and out the back.

The switch I’d mount where the trigger would normally go naturally…

Get a wooden mount or make something similar:

Then once it’s ready, run the power line up and through to the top, where you connect it to the lamp kit:

So that might be cool amiright?
What I do with it then?
No clue.

Maybe raffle it?

Your Thoughts in the comments
More Later
Big Country