My '85 MGM, "Maisa"

[Arquemann]

Latest round of exhaust paste seems to be still holding up on the Y-pipe flanges, or atleast it's not visibly blown out yet.

Last week I bought 90° grease fittings for the inner tierods to avoid stupid gymnastics to get grease in them. Apparently the tie rods are 1/4"-28 SAE-LT, so the common 1/4"-28 non-tapered fittings don't thread in properly.
So, today I installed the new grease fittings and greased every joint in the car. The 90° fittings on the inner tie rods are pretty tight to the crossmember, but shouldn't touch. Both outer tierods squirted out some horrendous rusty gooch juice when I greased them. Safe to say the torn boots aren't just an eyesore, they seem to let water in too.

Also resealed the front oil drain plug while under the car. The plug had been seeping since the oil change and snugging didn't fix it, so now it has a new copper washer and some sealant.
When I was under the car the previous time, the power steering return hose was wet, which I wiped dry. It was dry today, so I guess it's not leaking then?

I've been playing around with the tie rods to get the steering wheel straight, today is the third time adjusting. These things are ridiculously touchy to adjust, when I shortened one side and lengthened the other a single turn, the steering wheel turned like 60°. Then I did a half a turn backwards for both, and the wheel was still a bit crooked, so today I adjusted them a bit under a quarter turn more.

The latest tank of fuel was a bit more highway-oriented than most, and it netted a consumption figure of 13.9L/100km / ~17 MPG. Also taking in the consideration of speedo error (that I recently calculated) of about MINUS 5-7% which means the actual fuel mileage was somewhere around 13.0-13.2L/100km or 18 MPG.
My speedometer has always showed a bit less than actual, plus I have 225/70 tires instead of the factory 215/70. Currently at 90km/h indicated, the GPS speed is about 95/96.
Recently I got flashed by a speed camera at an 80 zone while I was doing a touch over 80 indicated, so I decided to whip out a GPS speedo and see what I was actually doing.

Inspection coming up on the 27th. Maisa turned 40 this year, so the future inspections are gonna be biennial instead of annual.

[Tynnerstroem]

It's fascinating with the passage of time - when I discovered these cars in Miami Vice in my early teens they were "20 years old". Now they're closer to 40. Nice to get those biennial inspections though - here we get them at year 30. Does the inspection approve of red turn signals on your car or do you have to work out some aftermarket orange turn signal solution?

[Arquemann]

It's fascinating with the passage of time - when I discovered these cars in Miami Vice in my early teens they were "20 years old". Now they're closer to 40. Nice to get those biennial inspections though - here we get them at year 30. Does the inspection approve of red turn signals on your car or do you have to work out some aftermarket orange turn signal solution?

The whole automotive lighting legislation has been a shitshow for decades, but I don't think red rear indicators were ever illegal. Somewhat recently the legislation has changed for grey import vehicles, where they only need to apply to the standards of the origin country, i.e. USA in this case. So everything DOT-approved is fine now.

I've watched Miami Vice too, but I've also been enjoying the Narcos show on Netflix, there's quite a few box panthers in that, and a whole lot of them in the Narcos: Mexico series.

[gadget73]

Only way I've found to grease the inner tie rod ends is either run the steering to each end and fish the hose across the lower control arm, or use one of the 90 degree adapters that also tend to squeeze as much grease past them as they manage to get into the fitting. Either way the process sucks.

[sly]

I took the zerk out and put in a 90 degree zerk. Much easier.

[gadget73]

Why do that when you can bitch about it for 20 years instead?

[sly]

Cause I like being lazy for 20 years.