The 2-Day 13-Pound Diet
No, I didn’t cut off my leg. That wouldn’t take two days.
Instead, I found some additional weight to cut from the TARP Special. As the title of the post may have tipped off, I was able to remove 13 pounds of needless weight from the car on Wednesday and yesterday evenings. Where was this hidden weight? Right in plain sight.
About 8 pounds was spot-welded to the floor in the area directly underneath the seats. Speculation is that the 3.5 pound cast iron weights were added by Toyota late in the production process to help control some noise/vibration issue. After drilling out 22 spot-welds on each side, it was possible to remove the weights and the steel panel that held them to the car.
The other 5 pounds was removed by stripping more of that asphalt-tar coating on the interior surface of the floor (and a little that was still on the firewall). Using dry ice helped to flake out the more gummy bits, but mostly it was just elbow grease and a slightly sharpened paint scraper.
The result is that the car is now well under 2000 lbs and I’m sore as heck this morning.
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