I could certainly get use to four day weekends. Today's plans is nothing. Now let me catch you up on the last few days.

I started Friday by rotating the tires on the Charger (7500 miles). I had to replace a few lugs on the front tire. They were deformed and I couldn't get the proper size wrench on them. This was the first tire rotation for the car, but I have had two flats already. My theory on the lugs is that someone had applied the wrong size socket to those lugs using an air gun. Gotta love that.

A simple tire rotation ended up taking almost two hours. That included a parts run for lugs.

Once that was complete, I met G', Bri, and David M. for lunch before heading back home to start work on changing the Miata's timing belt. David parked his Miata nose to nose with mine and we got to work. His car is a 92 with the 1.6L; mine is a 95 with the 1.8L. At first glance they are very similar but as things progress one really starts to notice the differences: Air box, thermostat housing, alternator brackets.

After a few hours I had to call it quits for the day. I estimated we were 30% done, David thought we were closer to 50%. At this point I had drained and removed, the radiator, removed the dual electric fans, the valve cover, the three plates covering the timing belt.

Next up for the day was helping Beth lock up her new house. She needed all the locks changed. First we went to the house to inventory what we needed. Next we dropped David off at his house. He was at our mercy for a lift since he no longer has a functional Miata. Step three involved finding a set of door knobs and dead bolts that matched the others in the house. We managed to find three out of four sets with matching keys. The key dude had already left for the day so she would need to make a return trip to get the remaining set to match the first three. This expedition ended with me be dropped off at home so that Beth could go pick up her son. Yes, his name is David also.

After grabbing a couple of tools, G' and I headed over to Beth's new house. The goal for today was not to replace all the locks, but simply to replace all the dead bolts. This would be good enough for now, because Ginger and I had other plans, we were going out to dinner at Bone Fish Grill.

Saturday morning David and I planned to start working on the Miatas at 7:30 AM. At about 6:30 AM I was in the getting a head start. I called him a few minutes later to ask if he had a socket. I don't recall if it was a 20 or 21 MM socket, but I didn't have it nor did he.

Yes I called David at 6:30 AM. He is an early bird and there was no risk of waking him up. He was sitting on has back porch drinking coffee.

David hit HD, Lowes, and two parts stores before he found the socket we needed. Fortunately it was only $6.

The socket was required to remove the crankshaft bolt. Having the right tool sure makes the job easier. At this point I could described a misadventure involving removing the timing belt and chipping the timing belt sprocket but no good could come from that so I will omit it.

At 9:15 AM we closed up shop again. I was heading for Decatur for a car show and David had to take care of some stuff he had been volunteered to do. The plan was to open the shop back up at 1 or 2.

The car show was nice though a little warm. My neighbor Brian went with me. While a the car show I saw Ginger's Aunt and Uncle. I saw a 1966 VW Beetle that wanted to follow me home, but I had to leave it there.

By noon I was beat. And about that same time David phoned in to say he had been volunteered for even more stuff and would be able to return until 1 on Sunday. Good for me. I think I took a nap. Then I watched some F1 and re-read the instructions for changing the timing belt. And finally I made a trip to the parts store. I knew going in that I probably wouldn't be able to get the sprocket until Tuesday. Unfortunately it was worse than that. They couldn't get it, so now I have to wait until Tuesday and try the Miata dealership.

Sunday AM started early. Beth had dropped off the other lock on Saturday morning. I skipped Church to finish up lock smithing and then returned home to assembled a basket ball goal we got Jordan for his Birthday.

At one I re-opened the Garage. At two David showed up with reinforcements (Bryant). On a Miata the power steering pump has to be removed to swap out the water pump. On a 95 Miata, the alternator must also be disconnected.

My plan for today was to show David how difficult it was going to be to replace the water pump. I would eventually convince him it was not necessary and once he had had made this decision, I would then try to convince him how important it was to change the water pump. Mind games. Ha!

The water pump swap went smoothly. At this point there were a few things I could put back together but basically I am stuck until I get the sprocket. Best case for that is Tuesday.

David has a hose he needs to replace. The parts store was no help on this one either. He needs the OEM part also.

It is looking like neither car will be running again before next weekend.

Today's plan was to do nothing. Ginger thinks the broken sprinkler needs to be fixed. These two plans don't coexist very well. I guess I will look at the sprinkler in hopes of switching back to my plan ASAP.