Subj: Massacre at Miled's car.
Date: 7/27/00

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Hi Gang:
I have inserted pictures into the story for AOL 5.0 users and have included them as attachments for others. I don't know what the results will be for those who can't receive pictures in the text. Please give me feedback if it bothers. Larry G.

This is the follow on day to Larry gets culture. All of you innocent victims of my stories have been great. The stories have been done in jest, never to hurt anyone, but in hopes of making the great people we meet so infrequently, a little more familiar to our NE Group. Most of my stories involve Peter and Sylvia Mills. Every so often, I check with Peter to see if one of my stories has crossed the "line" and if I still have a room to sleep in when I visit. A typical response is, " Sure you do Larry, it's where it always is. Up the stairs, take a left, and go out the window!"
Now on with the story!
Other than getting culture, another reason for the trip to New York, was to show Larry B. how I hooked my harness assembly to my bar. Larry has been waiting for D. Dali to send him his harness bar. In the mean time, he has been pondering how he would attach the 5th or 6th point feature of the belt assembly. Miled, who learned of Peter and I going to Larry B's decides he will join us and maybe con someone into helping install his new shifter boot, and analyze a climate control problem. We meet Miled at his brother's garage and make an uneventful drive to Larry's house. After an exchange of pleasantries, it's time for conversation and "bring out the photo albums." Larry was in the house when I brought my album to "the table on the deck" (sounds like the name of a classy restaurant, doesn't it?) so he did not see the first few photos. I have the album tilted so that only Miled can see the photos. I can see Larry wants to see the pictures also, as he keeps looking our way. In my devious way (it's gonna take more than one dose of culture to fix me), I ignore Larry and keep talking to Miled about how great this shot came out, and look at the great job I did on this one using "Photo Shop" in hopes to get a rise out of Larry (Dang, he's just too polite!) Larry wins, as I can't take the pressure of his rubber necking in my direction in hopes of catching a glimpse of the photos. I smile and tell him that I'm not ignoring him (liar) but want to give him a personal showing. This way I can tell the same story over and over again. The family put on a cookout for us that filled our stomachs and then we proceed to the chore at hand.
Round 1:
Miled comments that his car is not the same height from left side to right. Out comes the yard stick and fierce measuring is taking place. We measure Miled's, then Larry's, then mine, and repeat this process several times as the conversation develops on who had what shocks changed; and who had lower springs, and so forth. Miled's car is considerably lower on one side than the other, but no obvious solution to this conundrum jumps out at us.
Round 2:
We are going to perform simultaneous procedures on Miled's NSX. Removal/installation of the shifter boot, raise the height of the shifter knob, trouble shoot the climate control system, and rip off, I mean, take off his tail light assembly to see if we can get rid of the moisture inside the lenses. Besides all this, I have a personal quest (which reared it's ugly head at the NH event). A while back, Miled pointed out the missing rubbers located at the rear on my trunk lid. After I ordered a new set, I stumbled across the article that told where "Rubbers go to die and how to archeologically dig them out". Since this time, my mission has been to pass on the "Did you know your rubbers are missing and where they might be hiding" seminar. Sure enough, we found the previously missing culprits in Larry's and Miled's car.
Larry and I proceeded to solve the climate control problem by using the trouble shooting manual. We stopped at the point where it instructed us to substitute a good climate control module for the suspected defected one. The reason we stopped was that nobody wanted to take theirs out to use as a test subject. (pretty weak friendship if you ask me. (I would have used mine, but I think it has a problem too :-)
There were two big holdups to our otherwise lightning pace:
1. In order to install the new shifting boot one must first remove the clock (easy job) and then remove the air vents. Ah, the air vents. Peter and I had done this once before on Miled's car. It was an easier task because of the vent being broken from an earlier episode (that we had nothing to do with) plus we were liquored up. This time the vent had all of its attachment points working overtime and we were cold stone sober. I tried, Pete tried, Larry tried, and the rotation continued, but no one could remove the vent. It was looking like a scene from the movie Airplane, where everyone was taking a smack at the passenger who had become hysterical. Although we are trying to be careful, chips were appearing on Miled's new trim panel. Miled is being very understanding about this whole boon doggle that is taking place in his car. The rest of us are getting frustrated that it won't come out and feeling bad about the damage that is taking place. At one point Larry has given up and gets out off the car. (Now picture this) Miled is sitting in the driver's seat, I'm sitting in the passenger's seat taking my shot at removing the vent. Larry, who has taken another look at the service manual, proceeds to lean over me and try to remove the vent. I snicker as I have been in this position before (refer to a previous story), but this time with Larry trying to get in a good position to work, it seems more like we are trying to do the "How many people can you get into an NSX" stunt. Another time, Peter was trying to remove the vent while sitting in the driver's seat, I in the right, when the "trying to release the spring clip" made a sound that sounded more like plastic breaking. We both froze, looked at each other, waited a moment, and then continued. Finally, someone got it out and we proceeded to the next phase.
Meanwhile:
The trunk had been popped so that work could begin on the removal of the tail lights. Peter had called Larry over to show him the "Ninth wonder of the world". It was a discovery that Peter came across a month back. Miled keeps numerous towels in his trunk. What is so odd about that you ask? Nothing, until you hear the rest of the story. The wonder part isn't even that they are neatly folded and stacked, from large towel to small (better than most people's linen closet). The "wonder" is that they stay this way, unsecured, through water puddle dodging, aggressive lane changes, and balls to the wall accelerations! They just don't move! (what Miled doesn't know is that whenever Pete and I want a smile, we use my key and look in his trunk to behold this wonder)
2. I had suggested to Miled that if he put an object in his shifting knob, the knob wouldn't screw down as far and then be the 1/4" higher that he would like. A piece of bolt had been cut and placed in the knob. The knob was screwed on for a trial fit and then removed. Someone suggested that it would be better to hot glue the bolt on top of the shifter, so that the bolt would not fall out of the knob when rotated. The hot glue was applied to the bolt outside of the car, and by the time it was affixed to the shifter it had cooled enough so as to not make a solid bond. As the knob was being put on, the edge hit the bolt, and......katink, katank, katunk; it was now somewhere in the center console. Magnets, mirrors, and every detection device known to modern man was used to locate this piece of metal. Miled knew that if it wasn't retrieved, every time he went around a corner he would hear a rolling sound followed by a tink. I was thinking, "Why don't we put a bolt in each door, then it will be just like the sound system. Noise coming from each door, plus the center console!" Miled rejected the suggestion to drop another bolt to see where the first one went. After a half hour or so of exhausting efforts that mirrored the likes of a human getting probed by an alien, I got a hunch. We had detached the carpet on the passengers side looking for the bolt and found screws, money, and other objects, why not look on the drivers side? If nothing else, we could find more trinkets! I got out of the car to stretch and then I heard Miled say, "I found it!" Yes, persistence paid off. It had rolled under the carpet on the driver's side
This time Miled applied glue to the bolt while inside the car so that a speedy attachment could be made. The only draw back was that Miled burnt his hand with the glue and his face with the gun (Stand back! Trained professionals at work). The tail light assembly project that Peter and Larry had been working on was going smoothly other than there seemed to be a lot of bolts holding it on. After it was removed it was determined that there would be no quick way to dry up the moisture, so it was reattached. All the pieces are back in place other than the vent assembly that was left out until Miled decided as to what he would do with the climate control unit. Miled was sitting in his car, checking out the new height of the shifting knob and cleaning up. He was a little disturb about one incident. Now mind you, it had been a long afternoon filled with trials and tribulations. It is not like Miled to criticize our work, but every man has his limits, and limits come quicker with anxiety.
So what do you think bothered Miled?
Was it:
A. The chipping of his new trim panel?
B. Loosing the bolt in the center console?
C. Not being able to get the climate control system to work?
D. Not getting the moisture out of his tail lights?
E. All of the above?
F. None of the above?
And the answer is (drum roll please)
The answer is "F"
It was a little hot and close working in the car, and when Larry bent across me to work on the vents his head was up against the windshield and left a big, oval head print on the glass! After that inexcusable incident was cleaned up :-) we were back to our normal selves. As the day wound down I let Miled try my car so he could see how it handled with the Bilsteins, and also showed him the art of double clutching (which every good tractor driving farm boy knows how to do). When we returned, Larry told us that his neighbor always comments on how nice his NSX is. With the neighbor away, we all parked our cars in his door yard, and tried taking several pictures. But darkness was coming fast and my digital camera doesn't work well in low light. Miled, who has eyes like an owl, (I say owl because he saw debris on his car from 200' in the darkness) hurried over to his car to make final touches before the shots were taken. (The camera makes it look lighter than it really was)

The rain started to fall as the pictures were being taken so we curtailed our efforts, thanked our hosts, and proceeded to make the trip home. I am proud to say that even in dark rainy nights my autocross abilities work fine. For I Zig Zagged my way home dodging 3 skunks, 1 opossum, 1 fox, and 1 raccoon. Although I saw several deer beside the road they never challenged me.
Larry G.