Put a few more miles on the car but the driver side wheel was getting a loud grinding noise so I figured it was wheel bearing fixing time. The might as wells started catching up to me and I thought I would check out all the wheels and make sure the suspension and brakes are all in perfect shape. Back wheels were good. I changed the grease in the wheel bearings to synthetic. Prob not a big deal but while they were apart...
Front end the passenger side brake had one of the slider pins on the rotor binding and not letting the caliper slide. Took it apart and cleaned it up and got it sliding smooth. Drivers side bearing was shot so I pulled the knuckle off and went to swap some parts around. I discovered that the vert parts are different than the 95+ knuckle parts and are not interchangeable. The spindle height is also different so that is prob why the car took bumps funny and felt like it was out of alignment. Passenger side was a 95+ and the drivers was a vert. I looked around and found the drivers knuckle off the 97 and got all new bearings and seals and a new caliper with brackets to make the entire suspension off the 97 hatchback and easy to repair in the future.
I took the car for a spin. I drove it about a mile down the road and it felt good with no more grinding noises coming from the tires. I turned around and started back home and the new bearing apparently was no good because it just let go. The wheel was held on by the brake caliper but had probably an inch or so of play. I was close to home so I just eased it home really slow, the closer to home I got the shorter the walk to get the tractor
When I got home I had to let it sit for an hour to cool down enough to take it back apart so I could exchange the bearing for another one. Got a new one on it and now the car finally runs good.
So it took me 3 days to do a 30 minute job and put a wheel bearing on it
The list of things wrong with the car now is very small and not really important. It has an exhaust rattle, rear view cameras need hooked back up, and I need floor mats to keep the carpet clean. I did order a mpguino kit so I'll wire the cameras back up at the same time I hook it up I figure.
And to update my first tank of gas. I filled up at 143470 miles. In one of the pictures on my site from building the car the odometer is visible and reads 143284 for 186 miles total at
23.29 MPG. That seems more reasonable for what the car should have shown. It really is no indication of what the car can do but I am just glad I figured out where the error was at.