Very mixed news on the car front. Was driving home from work on Thursday and noticed that whenever I stopped the car at a set of lights the battery light would flicker on. Thought “that’s not too good” and so changed my Rev/Speed meter to measure battery voltage. Now usually I’m making about 14V when I’m driving and about 13.3V when idling. At the lights I was registering 11.2V and when driving 11.7V. This meant that the battery was discharging even with the engine on and me driving. As I got closer to home, the lights on my car were getting dimmer as the battery faded. This resulted in a comical situation when I came to a set of lights. I turned on my indicator and whenever the indicator light was on, the needle on my tachometer went down, then when the light went off, it went back up! Just about got home and then the battery was well and truly dead. Did some testing with a multimeter this weekend and found that the alternator was well and truly broken. It should be producing 13-14V and was producing a whopping 0.5V. May as well throw a couple of AA batteries in there for all the good that little power’s going to do!

Did some hunting around as alternator’s aren’t too cheap. I found out a rebuild here in Okinawa would cost me around $200-350 depending on what I wanted replacing, and a new alternator would cost me $520 from Mitsubishi. Not really what I was wanting, although I don’t really need my kidneys and could sell them to pay for it! But then one of my friends suggested I research if any Mitsubishi cars in the States had the same alternator as maybe I can get a cheap replacement one from there. Cue me spending about 4 hours using the Japanese and American CAPS (Mitsubishi parts system software that I have) and matching up part numbers online to try and find out what would work. I eventually found that a 1994 Mitsubishi Expo LRV (see below) has the same alternator as mine, and from autozone.com it would cost me $200, but with a $60 rebate when I send them my broken alternator. Not a bad deal and it should be here within a week or so. So fingers crossed I will be back on the road by the start of December.

And then onto my car insurance situation, I got a quote from the bodyshop on Saturday. They said they were assuming the other guy would get a large proportion of the blame, and so would make sure they did a good job on it. I have been quoted $1100, mainly because of the position of the dents on the car (right on the edge of the door), and the fact that the scratches were nicely spread over 4 body panels and the wing mirror. I would go and get other quotes, but seeing as the car is basically immobile in its parking spot, I can’t really do that. But good news was received on entering work this morning. My insurance company got in touch with me and said that the other guy had accepted blame and so his insurance would be paying 100% of the cost of the repairs. So I have told them the name of the bodyshop and they are just checking with them to make sure they amount they have quoted me is reasonable.

You’ve got to take the rough with the smooth with my car, and I know that when I have one problem, I usually have 2 or 3 more within the next couple of weeks. Finally, one potential problem I could have had was solved on Saturday when I replaced my front brake pads. Have to say they made Kate Moss when she was in her waifish best look obese! Hopefully I’ll have more car news to report in the next week or so and I can fire the engine up again in the near future.

Just as I was getting over the car damage caused by the kamikaze old Okinawan guy and starting to look forward to the HKS Drags on Sunday, and another problem arises. Driving home on Thursday night from work and noticed that when I was idling the battery light was flickering. Checked voltage on my rev/speed meter and at idle was making 11.1V and when I was going I was making 11.7V. Not good. I made it home with my lights gradually dimming as I went, and then when I tried to start the car again the battery was just dead.

Played around with connections as I had been messing near battery terminals the night before but got no joy there. Eventually got a friend with a multimeter to come today and found the alternator is producing a whopping 0.5V. Definitely not good. So basically the battery is discharging whether the engine is on or off. So I’m definitely out of the drags, despite having paid 50 quid to enter the event

Looks like an overhaul (if I get everything done) might cost in the region of $360/245 quid. And that’s much more preferable to paying $353/364 quid for a brand new one. My only other shop would be trying to source one from a junkyard and putting it on, and hoping it’s good. And then my bodyshop came back to me with an initial estimate of repair costs of $1130/770 quid. Am really hoping that this guy gets given 100% of the blame as I don’t want to be paying money towards this unless I have to. And the problem is that I can’t go anywhere to get any more estimates because my car is pretty much immobile!

Fun times…

Well, a couple of updates. Called the insurance company yesterday morn and gave them some details.  They told me to go in so I could fill out a form so I just came back from doing that with a co-worker and the former owner of the car.  When I got there they said they had just had a call from someone and it looks like this guy’s son might have had the car insured under some sort of policy.  We went through what had happened, what he had said and she had said.  She initially said the blame would probably be 90% his and 10% mine (for existing).  After talking a little more though, she said it is possible that he could be given 100% of the blame (they are going to ask him if he will accept full responsibility).  If I was given 10% of the blame and disagreed, she said I should go back and speak to her and she would see what she can do.  It does bring in an interesting point which I’ll probably talk about in the future.  In a traffic collision in Japan, as long as your car is moving you will usually incur some of the blame (usually around 10%).  The theory which takes a little while to get your head around, is that if you didn’t exist and so weren’t on the road then you have some responsibility for what happened.  Because, if you weren’t there then no accident would have occurred.  The exception would be if the car is stationary and with the engine off.  In this instance, you are not held liable at all.

So have to get a quote or 2 from bodyshops in the next few days. Front scratch should be able to be buffed/compounded out. Rear one is more than a surface scratch but shouldn’t be too tough. Door scratch is a dent and also a tiny bit of damage to the edge of the door, so that’s gonna be a tricky one.

Driving home this evening and was slowing down to get to a set of lights. Am in the left hand of 2 lanes and brake as the lights approach. Without any warning, this small pick-up/flatbed/whatever the hell it is comes up to the side and decides he’s going to turn into me. No turn signals or anything, just changes lane into my lane and into me. Horn is slammed on and this guy just pays no attention for a couple of seconds, continuing to turn into my drivers side. Eventually he realises and pulls back into his lane but the sound of metal on metal had already been heard and damage done.

Pull over off the road and this guy just sort of stops right in the middle of the lane. I get out and take a look at my car. No structural damage but 3 not too nice looking scars along the side of it. Take a look at the driver of this truck and realise he’s in his 70s or so (at least some comfort for me in the he’ll probably be dead in the near future). At first he says my lights don’t work. I’m like “come look at them”. Then he says, “oh I didn’t see you. How much will it be?”. Alarm bells start ringing and I tell him no way, the police are coming. He wasn’t ecstatic at that but accepted it.

Cops came pretty quickly and were friendly enough. The younger of the 2 guys was chatting to me, and when was especially friendly when he realise he graduated from the same school I teach at! Took a statement from me while the other cop did the same from the old guy. At this point, old guy’s son had come from his house - a guy in his 40s I expect. He asked me if I had insurance. Of course I have insurance… we have to have insurance (mine is 3rd party, fire theft & typhoon). Returned the question and got the answer “Maybe…”. I think the phrase that first came to my mind rhymed with “clucking bell”. Basically that means he ain’t got insurance and is going to try and wing something tomorrow. Got his details though and will get my insurance company onto it first thing in the morning. The cops went to this old guy’s truck to see where it hit him. They looked for a minute or 2 but couldn’t tell due to all the other dents and marks on the truck!

Don’t mind the accident itself so much but am gonna be mighty pissed off if I end up having to pay for what he’s done to my car. I mean, it’s not a huge amount of damage but it’s still gonna have to be fixed by a body shop.

A bad end to a long week…

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Yup, it’s that time of year again when the quick cars in Okinawa make their way up to the north of the island to Nago “circuit” and try to get traction on the ice rink they like to call a drag strip/racing circuit. Those of you who know about Nago circuit, either from my posts before or through personal experience, will know how slippery that place is. It is partly due to the fact that the surface up there is coral-based like the roads were up until a few years ago here. That’s fine for the most part until it rains. However, over time even in the dry the surface gets slick to say the least. Plus, here in Okinawa the drag strip is a pitiful 150m (not even 1/8 mile). The reason is that we don’t really have a 400m (1/4 mile) stretch of straight road here in Okinawa without a set of traffic lights, a sharp turn at the end or a high probability of a drunk driver pulling out of a blind turn into the road without looking! So with the short stretch of track to race along and the slippery surface, getting traction can be much more important than having a big turbo to make power. This is where the AWD cars have a big advantage, and with a new turbo setup and a couple of other extras in my car I was eager to see how it would perform.

On a personal point of view, right up until the last second I was debating whether to go. I had a creaky wheel bearing (yet again!) which was sounding pretty bad and I was more than a little worried. Although it would give me a secret weapon in the race (nobody would be expecting my front left wheel to come off midway down the track and start rolling towards them!). Unfortunately, someone at the circuit informed me that this would be a one-time only weapon and so I would have to choose my moment very carefully! So I woke up at 6am to see rain coming down and dark skies ahead. Checked the weather radars though and they looked pretty clear for the north so I decided to jump in the car and head up there.

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Just a small post here, but I thought it worth showing to you all. A couple of days ago I found this picture on one of the internet forums I frequent taken of a 1949 Mercedes Benz (not sure what model exactly). It was a really nice shot but he was looking to age the photo a little to make it look more authentic and vintage. You can see the original shot here:

So a good shot to start with but I opened up Photoshop and with the help of a couple of internet tutorials I managed to come up with what I think is a great little piece of editing. Click to read the rest of the article to see what I came up with…

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Yes, it’s that time again and how time has flown. The Custom Car Show is one of the big events for people to show off their cars in Okinawa, and on the whole we were treated to good weather last Sunday. There were a few showers but it just helped to keep the edge off the heat. Didn’t stop me getting sunburnt but some things never change. This particular car show will always give me fond memories though as it’s pretty much the first time I met up with Tara (aka Turbosnatch) in Okinawa, and who became one of my closest friends here. So with high expectations and armed with my camera I headed up to Chatan for the show.

There were the usual array of lowrider cars there, along with a couple of drift cars, classics imported from the US, some VW buses and Beetles and bikes too. Late on in the day was a performance by Okinawan hip-hop group, Triple P. I saw them last year and they were pretty good, but I was burning as the afternoon wore on and there’s only so much taking pics of cars that you can take. And with that in mind, here are some of my favourite shots that I took from the show. Have to say this first picture is the one I like best; the composition, focusing, colours all seemed to work. Let me know which ones are your favourites.

Should note that this is a picture-heavy post so only click to read more if you have a decent internet connection.

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