Roatan, Honduras

Our first time on the island of Roatan, Honduras and we had a very nice time. Michael hired in advance a driver name Shelford Dilbert who was our guide for the day.  The air conditioned van was nice too. 

Shelford was born on the island. He answered all our questions and gave us a good tour of a small part of the island. Traffic was an issue with seeing much of the island.

We took Shelford's advice and ate the local dish of iguana, rice and beans and fried plantains. It was delicious and yes it 'tastes like chicken'. Jacob ordered fried chicken but he actually liked the iguana better. He is becoming quite the adventurous eater.  It is actually illegal to kill iguana on the island so go figure why it was on the menu. I would definitely go back to the island of Roatan.

Miami and Boarding Day

Miami Beach.

Jacob was smittened with the glass houseboat.

Miami.

Miami Beach.

Boarding day. We were able to get on the ship by 10:30-11:00AM and have lunch on the ship. Rooms are usually ready by 1:00PM.

Line dancing, the Electric Slide. I did a class of line dancing every day.

Central Park, deck 8.

Grass/plant wall, Central Park.

Ship art.

Balloon Drop with Mike the Cruise Director on the Royal Promenade. Jacob made us stay up until Midnight to attend. It was fun but noisy, everyone popped the balloons. All in all a good first day.

Manawakie Eco Nature Park

Manawakie Eco Nature Park is located on the island of Roatan, Honduras. The brochure for this park states "Culture, Sloths and Monkeys". Enjoy the fun pictures.

As you can see Jacob is having tons of fun. This was his favorite activity.

This was the inquisitive monkey.

Trying to steel Jacob's glasses.

He was also angry monkey and really hated Jacob. He got into a bite fest but Jacob said it didn't hurt. His tennis shoes still have monkey bites.

Michael was up next. The kid in the Batman shirt was our guide.

Curious monkey again.

Going down.

Coming out. He would even search your pockets.

Monkey selfie with Jacob's phone.

Angry monkey.

Baby monkey. He was only a year and a half. Very docile. He wasn't doing so good, the staff said he wasn't eating. He may have been the one they rescued.

They had a parrot exhibit with about 4 of these green parrots. It was molting season so not looking pretty. I was able to whistle my birdie magic and he seemed pretty happy.

This parrot was used to humans and readily transferred person to person.

Sloths are my new favorite animal.

They are so cuddly and cute.

This male sloth was called "real deal" as he had two girl sloths; one pregnant and one with a baby. The enclosure is growing.

Family photo.

This was the sloth keeper.

This was our first stop and by far our favorite activity. We really enjoyed being on the island of Roatan.

The MR2 is Back from Camp

Michael, again.  In just a week, the rest of the automatic to manual conversion was done by ETL Motorsports.  There was also a small oil leak from the distributor o-ring that was also fixed.

Diane and I drove out to pick up the car and I drove the car home; all was fine.

Amazingly, on Craigslist, I was able to find a manual shift boot for the interior, new in box, purchased by the seller from a Toyota dealer in 2002.  So that solved the problem with that ugly old part.  With that part I could reassemble the interior.

The Interior All Done

And here's the Frunk also Re-assembled

I knew the suspension and tires were old.  But driving in the rain last week it was clear that there was a safety problem.  So, lastly, I took the car to the mechanic on the corner, Carlos, and he put on new tires (I ordered from Amazon) and new struts (I ordered from Rockauto).  Can you believe it?  The car had the original struts from 1988; no wonder!

Now things are proper, wet or dry, and I have confidence in the car's handling.

It's impressive how inexpensive things can be on an itty bitty car.  The struts were about $30 each, and the tires $40 each.  One thing I've learned is that cars with 14" wheels are rare now, and all the big tire companies don't make any tires for these any more.  So it took a little searching.

Happy driving!  For me that is.

MR2 is at Camp ETL Motorsports Garage

I figured that while the MR2 was at the garage we'd have a photography blackout, but these guys have been documenting progress.  ETL Motorsports specializes in mid-engine cars like the Toyota MR2 and Porsche Cayman.

Here's the old automatic transmission removed from the car

...and the spot it came from

New pieces going in

Clutch in

And here's ETL's Instagram Page

MR2 May Go for Transition Surgery this Week

Here's the newly installed Clutch Master Cylinder.  It's installed in the frunk and connected to the clutch pedal behind it inside the car.  Hopefully this week the mechanic will have time to take the car in for its major transmission replacement surgery.

The clutch hydraulic fluid will go into that white trapezoid shaped reservoir that is part of the master cylinder

As part of the transmission swap, the mechanic will run a clutch hydraulic line from this device to the rear of the car where the engine and transmission are.

Happy New Year 2019! A Shorter MR2 Day Today

Today's project was disassembling the interior so I could be ready to remove and replace the shifter.  This required having both driver's and passenger's seats out.

As you can see, it was a successful tear down.

I even salvaged the donor shift pattern metal badge that goes on the center console and replaced the one that came with the automatic transmission model.

On the left is my 1988 center floor console

with salvaged shift pattern badge installed and old badge removed.

On the right is the donor console; I'm going to need to replace that boot.

I also found today that I needed to adjust the brake switch to accommodate the new pedal; the brake lights were stuck on.  A little adjustment with a 14mm wrench and that problem was taken care of. Diane stood behind the car and verified proper operation for me while I stepped on the pedal.

I put the seats back in and drove to Ralphs for some potatoes- one of this car's last trips as an automatic.

If I believe tracking info from Amazon and Rock Auto, tomorrow and Friday the new clutch cylinders and clutch kit will arrive for the last steps before handing over to the mechanic for the heavy stuff.