[Chrysler300] Spa Day for the Lady

["rob kern" <robkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello 300'ly to all!
    During the Lawton Meet Wayne Graefen, Gil Cunningham, and John Lazenby took Mopsy out for a crtique run.  Now I know why Ken Mack told Chrysler not to loan us an SRT-8 for the Pontiac, MI Meet.  Of course she got a thorough work out.  Smoothness concerns, handling concerns were mentioned after the high speed run.  A lot of it was resolved with increasing the Coker radials to 35 psi vs. 29. However there were some smoothness issues I was noticing at 65-75 vs. 97!  Marnie went to visit her sister in New Jersy this weekend. So 0600 yesterday Mopsy & I were on our way to Duncan, OK to have the wheels balanced via the Hunter Road Force system, recommended highly by George McKovitch. Every tire including the spare had to be remounted to match the wheel and tire hard and soft spots and be rebalanced. We rotated the tires and blasphemy, took the spare out of supposed retirement! The left front tire at 7600 miles was showing excessive wear, so guess who is now retired as a spare? I then took her to a reputable frame and alignment shop in Lawton. This was after a phone call at 1000 after a high speed run back to Lawton with smoothness I had never witnessed with this vehicle before. The fellow said bring her in at 1100.  In the meantime I slipped in the new K&N air filter elements purchased from John Lazenby's Open Road International and did some interior detailing work.  Off to the alignment shop.  Mopsy was toeing out worse than 4 degrees on the left and some on the right. We adjusted the caster 3 degrees positive but then had a difficult time adjusting the steering wheel to be straight. The upper and lower ball joints were diagnosed as the problem being quite loose. This was diagnosed at 4:00 pm. The alignment guy had originally wanted to be out of the shop at 1200. However, his comment being that I was so involved with the car and had so much passion for it, stated that what the heck let's get it done right and today.  The next question was, do you work on cars?  No, I work on people, but I told him I was pretty good with my hands and took orders real well and didn't mind getting dirty. If I would assist him, then it was time to replace the ball joints.  I had to run next door to a sleazy used car lot office where the owner/dealer was surfing the more lacivious regions of the net dealing with the interaction of human genders at which time he flinched when I walked into his office requesting an internet search for ball joints, that I was sent by the alignment guy next door (who did not have a computer).  The guy turned the power off on the computer just when there was a scene that could blow out some core plugs. After wasting precious 15 minutes to get the thing booted back up (now I can appreciate the fringe players of society, they have slow computers, etc.) we finally got on the internet and went to the Tech section on our club website and looked up the NAPA numbers for the upper & lower ball joints.  This was very helpful since there are no NAPA stores in Lawton!  Twenty minutes later CarQuest and AutoZone shows up with the ball joints and the fun begins! I'm taking off the front wheels and pulling the cotter keys out and whistling away and lay out the press for the lower ball joints, all the ratchets and impact hammer, wiping out years of grease from the cracked rubber boots and the alignment guy comes over after finishing the burger and fries I went out and treated him to for lunch/dinner to get the procedure going.  While grease is flying in the fender wells with the pneumatic wrench doing its thing on the upper threaded ball joint removal step the alignment guy asks, "What do you do for a living? I couldn't have gotten those cotter keys off so fast myself!" When I told him I was a sugeon he just about dropped the pneumatic wrench! He runs and gets out a box of latex free exam gloves (I guess he had other assistants who had a latex allergy?) and from then on we worked until 9:00 pm getting the job done and the alignment completed including a test drive. The car never ran smoother. Filled her with 93 octane at $2.24 per, another nice surprise. Got home at 9:30 pm and washed and detailed Mopsy with the wheel covers off. Repainted the jack base and the spare tire wheel rim and the rims of all the mounted wheels and finished about 1230 am. Drove to church this am in Mopsy and wow! Now I have realized the full potential of the 'Brutes.  She drives as if she is relaxed, like after a massage. Very smooth, firm, great steering response, a little more zip, and with the K&Ns (as John stated) she doesen't purr, but growls!  I could go on and on with various metaphors, but the bottom line is that getting up early, going to an out of the way hole-in-the-wall tire place (listening to customers talking about their Mustang restorations while eyeing Mopsy on the lift) and rolling up your sleaves, utilizing all resouces at hand and being committed and driven, the Lady puts out in spades in return!! So treat your 'Brute to a Spa Day (spouse too) and you will be forever rewarded.  Thanks to Wayne Graefen (and the caster vs. camber lesson), Gil Cunningham, John Lazenby, and George McKovitch for steering me in the right direction!  Marnie, come home soon!!   ROB KERN

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