[Shotimes] No-SHO yet

[Peter Chase]

Well, my trip to NY to pick up my SHO was only partially successful: The car is no longer at the seller's house, but it's not at my house either.  About an hour after leaving Long Island around 9 pm on Saturday, the alternator belt decided it had had enough and left the engine bay on the appropriately named Belt Parkway in the Bronx.  I immediately called the seller, who couldn't have been nicer and invited me to get the car towed back to his house and that I was welcome to crash on his couch for the night so we could get a new belt on Sunday morning.  Two tow trucks, one slice of NY pizza, and many hours later, I got the car back to Long Island and went to sleep.  When we got a new belt on and started the car up, the A/C compressor clutch was making a slight scraping sound so we unplugged the compressor so it wouldn't cycle on.  At that point (1pm) there was no way I was going to make it back to Atlanta but my father lives in Boston so I booked a flight out of Boston and headed
 north.  A few hours later, I was in Boston and on a plane back to Atlanta with the SHO parked at my father's place.   I'll be picking the car up at Christmas time when I head back to Boston for the holidays.
 
The car did fine once I got it on the road the second time, although it's going to need an alignment for sure since one of the tows tweaked something in the suspension and somehow got the steering wheel 30 degrees off center.  Also, the front struts are starting to go (there was a slight pogo-stick effect after larger bumps), and I think I'm going to need to replace the thermostat since the car never got above 1/4 on the temp gauge the whole way up.
 
After my initial shake-down drive I have a few questions for you guys:
What types of struts are currently available for the SHO?  Are any of the performance struts bearable for a daily driver or are there any stock replacements that aren't just regular Taurus struts?  Also, I got a low coolant reading towards the end of my trip, but when I stopped and restarted the car, the light went out.  Does this sensor typically go bad?  Also, is it normal for the shifter to lack any self centering effect?  I think every stick I've ever driven has had some sort of spring to keep the shifter in the 3-4 plane.  Do Sho's lack this spring?   Also, how hard is it to replace the e-brake cables?  The cables on this car stick badly and have to be manually released with a tire iron after every application of the ebrake.  And finally, how hard is it to replace the A/C clutch?
                                                                Thanks,
                       Peter (happy to have a SHO even if it's not in my driveway yet)



		
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