Be Sure to Drink Your Ovaltine

I will be offline for a few days. Better things to do than hang around here writing mundane blog entries. We are heading down to see Mickey and Donald for a few days.

When we made the trip a few years ago, I took my laptop with me. The only time I took it out of the bag was at the airport. This year I will leave it at home rather than lug it all over the southeast. Surely I can last a few days without internet access.

See you in the funny papers.

The Elves are dressed in leather ...

So my seester has run out of room on the old HD and wanted to replace it with a larger one. The current was a 60 gig-ger. We went to Best Buy on the 24th and obtained a new 250 gig-ger to replace it.

Her computer had been acting up so I decided a clean install on the new HD was the correct route rather than attempting to backup/restore the existing image.

After dropping in the new HD and booting the Win-XP-Home CD, the thing booted installed a few drivers and then BSOD'ed. Something about 'pci.sys' yada yada yada. Google was fine enough to tell me I needed to install XP SP2 (service pack 2 for the mere mortals) and all would be excellent.

Having no SP2 disk, I spent a few minutes reading up on slipstreaming SP2 and proceeded to make a new Win XP Home SP2 disk? This requires using an real XP disk, downloading the SP from MS, and downloading a few more utilities to extract a boot image from the XP disk, and create a bootable disk from the existing disk with the SP integrated into it. I got most of my useful info from a site called "theeldergeek" or somethink like that. Very useful that site was.

The truth of the matter is I tried a few things before I took the slip stream approach. None worked. Very frustrating at times. When I finally got around to making my own disk, the first disk would not boot (due to a parameter in Nero Rom which should have been a '4' being a '1'). My bad.

Messing around with computers can certainly be trying. There are several times during the whole process I was reminded of a song by Spinal Tap. Christmas with the devil, in this case the devil is Terry's computer.

Things are now rapidly progressing towards various stages of completion. Next comes the hunt for all the required drivers to get that laptop back in shape for the Happy New Year.

Happy Christmas

We had an enjoyable Christmas. Christmas eve consisted of a short service followed by dinner with the family including my sister and in-laws at our house. After dinner we continued our tradition of opening all the presents. Not to worry, we still have stocking to go through on Christmas morning.

Christmas Days consisted of a trip to Albertville to have lunch with G's father's extended family.

Tomorrow I will be heading over to Atlanta with my sister and my brother's two sons. We are going to load all of T's stuff into a U-Haul truck and drive it back to HSV. That should make for a nice short day.

Merry Holidays to everyone.

It got cold again!

I am still working on painting the cabinet doors. Twelve doors total. I decided to paint them before hanging them to keep the paint off the hardware. One coat of primer, two coats of paint was the plan. I have finished the primer and the first coat of paint. I plan on making more progress tomorrow.

The Winter Break of Rick

After finishing my final final on Tuesday, I found myself in a unique position. I had nothing to do. Nothing.

When your a student there is always an assignment due. My normal modus operandi is to just work on whatever is due next. Well the calendar said I was done. No more school for 3 weeks. Awesome. I could get use to this.

Actually I do have a few things on the calendar in the next three weeks: Celebrate Christmas, Trip to Disney World, and Celebrate the New Year.

Things will be rough for me for the near future. Think of me as your working through your daily grind.

Yesterday I made my periodic pilgrimage to the dentist. As I was getting strapped into the chair to begin the genetic experimentation - wait that is a different story.

After sitting down on the chair, the hygentist gave me a warm next pillow. It felt really nice (it was cold outside) on the back of my next and I said so. She asked if I wanted to turn on the massage/heat features of the chair. I had always declined in the past but thought the additional heat might be nice. And the chair went brrrrrrrrmmm. Nice.

I was kidding around about how nice it was to be pampered at the dentist and the hygentist asked me if I had ever had the hand dip. She said I absolutely had to try it if I was feeling adventurous. Next thing you know, I have had my hands dipped in warm paraffin and I am wearing big white mittens.

For the rest of the day, my hands smelled like lavender.

And then I got my teeth cleaned.

Last Tuesday I left the house headed for school in the Miata running on fumes. The gas station I have been frequenting is about halfway between home and school. Once I arrived there, I discovered I had left my wallet at home. The tank being empty, I realized I didn't have enough gas/time to head to back the house. I also didn't have enough gas to get to school.

After briefly panic'ing for about 7 seconds, I collected all the change from the car and went inside the station to proudly request $1.50 on pump number 8. The price of regular was $1.55 per gallon which bought me most of a gallon. With my most of gallon of gas I was able to make it to school and back.

Two days later, I was in the Miata again, once again heading for school. This time with my wallet in my pocket, I stopped at the gas station and filled up the tank. Here is the amazing part. I filled up the tank for less than $20. To be more precise it cost $18.99. Gas mileage on this tank was down: about 28 MPG, but still nothing to complain about there.

It has been a busy busy week. During times like this I usually have a lot to write about unfortunately most of it never gets written.

This semester of school is almost over. I took my final for the second of three classes yesterday afternoon. The final final will be on Tuesday.

Over the last week I have managed to effectively procrastinate on several occasions by building a set of wall cabinets for the garage. I build three cabinets spanning a total of 12 feet. Hopefully the extra storage space will allow me to finally get the work bench cleaned off.

That is all for now. I am heading to the high school to sub in a Spanish class. (School started two hours late today due to possible inclement weather. We all knew it wouldn't really snow, didn't we?)

Ouch!

I forgot to mention I shot myself in the finger yesterday with a nail gun. Fortunately it wasn't loaded but it still hurt. A lot. And it still does.

I just breezed past here and noticed I have been delinquent. And then I was hit with a little deja vu. Last year about this same time the blog was idle for a few weeks. School was keeping me busy then as well. Only about ten more days until I can stop using that excuse for a few weeks.

What's Up in the Shop?

After getting the laundry done, I headed out to the shop the create some more dust. After a couple of hours I had managed to make some new cabinets. I built the case and face frame today. Still need to putty, paint, and hang the doors. That probably won't happen for a week or so.

One can never have too much storage space and cutting up some wood creates more free space.

A few days ago while watching a movie, I commented that I don't recall ever seeing a film with Morgan Freeman that wasn't good.

Today I read that they are bringing back "The Electric Company" on PBS in January.

Like I said before, can you think of anything Morgan Freeman was in that wasn't good.

(Sure, your going to mention that movie, but for the record, I haven't seen it.)

The Big One that Got Away

I spent the last week watching a local car on Ebay. The car was a 1968 Corvette convertible. I was very tempted to buy this car. I contacted the seller last Thursday and arranged to look at the car on Saturday.



This car was very sound mechanically and it looked pretty good from about 10 feet back. Did I mention I was tempted. After giving the car a good look over I went home to sleep on it.



I eventually decided to let it pass. While the price was right, there were just too many little things that it needed. All these little things could add up to many-many weekends of work (and a empty wallet). I don't need another project right now. I already have a few.

Stay tuned...

Goals and Procrastination

My goal for today was to write two papers for school. Having gotten one out of the way I decided to take a short break before finishing the other paper.

I decided I would use my break to do a little home maintenance (one of the toilets was stopped up). Now your thinking someone must really be wanting to avoid writing the next paper to tackle a glorious job like unplugging a toilet.

A mere three hours later after completely taking the thing apart, putting it back together, a trip to home depot, and taking the thing apart and putting it back together again, it was working. The entire episode was also a comedy of errors. Fortunately for me, know one was around with a video camera.

Guess what stopped it up? I little plastic Dixie cup. I have not idea how it got in there and at this point I don't want to know.

Now it is time to work on that other paper. What a glorious day it has been.

More Interesting Bits About Diagnosing A Tractor's Electrical System

I somehow managed to forget to post the follow up on the tractor. Until now. Lucky you!

Testing the alternator determined it was good (as was probably the voltage regulator). It turned out one of the wires to the regulator was bad. Upon close inspected it appeared to be smashed. It turns out it had melted. (Can you say "too much current"?). I ended up unwrapping the wiring harness and replacing a section of wire that had been melted. After wrapping it all back up, we jumped the tractor off a car (because the battery was dead). The tractor cranked and ran fine. White it was running I used my voltage meter to measure the alternator output and the battery voltage. The alternator output was fine and the battery was charging.

Using my twenty/twenty hindsight, it makes perfect since that a wire was bad.

1972 GMC Frame Pictures

Here are a few picture of the 1972 GMC pickup frame. This has been a very slow process. A few years back I bought a truck to restore. First I completely disassembled it. The frame has been sandblasted and painted along with all the suspension and steering components. These pictures were taken before the front wheels were back in place.

This first picture is where the trailing arms connect to a cross member. The differential is mounted to the other end of the trailing arms.



This is picture of the entire assembly. Finally I can see my progress.



Here we see the trailing arms again, this time showing their attachment to the differential.




Looking down the length of the frame from just above the second cross member. The cross member you can see is blocking the view of the trailing arms and the differential. My '06 Dodge Charger is trying to hide behind the rear tire.



The front end of the frame. The first cross member will be below the radiator. The second is below the engine and was quite heavy.



The rear view of the differential. The truck originally had leaf spring suspension. I am in the process of completing the conversion to trailing arm suspension.



This is the front suspension, passenger side. Shown here are the upper and lower A-arms along with the coil spring and the spindle. I mounted the brake rotors on the spindles today and put the tires on the front end.

GMC Progress

This afternoon I put the front wheels on the '72. There was actually more to it than that, but visually that is what you would notice. Also included was the installation of the brake rotors, inner and outer bearings, and other miscellaneous foo foo.

Wood Working SkillZ

Saturday's adventure was hardly as glorious. I re-sawed and planed a few pieces of scrape pine that were originally destined for the refuse bin.

The wood was actually 8 pieces of 2x4, each about 14 inches long. Really too short to be useful. (Unless one decided to make some small boxes to practice making dovetail joints.) I have certainly got a fair amount of use out of these boards. Their last use was as part of a large dolly I built to move the truck frame around on before it had its wheels back on. I recall at that point I was recycling the wood from another project though I don't recall exactly what it was at this point. Not that it matters, but I certainly felt good about using the pieces of that 2x4 three different times on three different projects.

After many past attempts, I did finally manage to get the band saw tuned up sufficiently to re-saw the wood without any wander of the blade. The solution was so simple, I can't believe I hadn't spotted it before. (One of the blade guides was misaligned.)

2007-2008 F1 Championship

This weekend was the final race in the 2008 Formula One World Championship.  The race held in Sao Paulo Brasil was on Speed at 11:30 AM central.  Per our normal modeus operandi,  we Tivo'ed the race to watch it that evening.

 

Middle of the afternoon I was online reading the news and I accidentally saw a headline stating who won the championship.  Bummer dude!  The headline stated that Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) won the championship.  I had been pulling for Felipe Massa (Ferrari) all season so I was disappointed.  Going into the final race, Lewis was ahead of Massa by 7 (or was it 5) points.  This meant Lewis needed to finish in the top 4 cars to win the season.  Massa needed to finish first with Lewis outside of the top 4 to win. 

 

The race turned out to be a thriller.  Even though I knew how the season would end, I didn't know the results of the race. 

 

Massa started from pole and maintained the lead most of the race, but that wasn't enough.  The race was actually decided in the final turn of the final lap when Timo Glock (Toyota) slowed down due to the rain and not having the correct tires.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing, nor could the folks in the Ferrari garage on TV.

 

This season was absolutely the most exciting season for F1 since I have started watching.  (Though I would like to see Michael Schumacher come out of retirement.)   Alonso who was stagnant most of the season, was showing his skill toward the end of the season.  Kimi Raikkonen who I thought would win his second championship this year showed he was a team player (and that he could smile).  Kubica showed his skill as well as a promise to be a future F1 champion.  

 

This year also marked the final season for David Coulthard and possibly for Rubens Barrichello.  We also saw the demise of the Super Aguri team.

 

Next season should be exciting (if the FIA doesn't mess it up with more stupid rules).  Maybe next year will be Felipe's year.  And maybe we will see F1 return to the United States in 2010!

This weekend Capn. Dan became a grandfather again. As I predicted, the baby and Danny both share several common family traits. Neither have any hair and they both drool a lot. Congratulations Danny.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of the new baby Sean Connery Steve Jobs Danny. Note he is not drooling in this photo.

The End

Sorry iMike, I hate to be the one to break the news to you but the old truck has found a new home. Here is a final picture of Jordan at the wheel of the 1925 Chevrolet Superior Series K truck. (This is the vehicle he learned to use a clutch on.)

And here is a picture of the new caretaker loading it up to take it to its new home in Fort Payne Alabama.

Trick or Treat

Here is a picture of my neighbor Brian with the saw blade in place. He was going for a Norm Abrams "New Yankee Workshop" zombie look complete with flannel. It wasn't until I looked at the photo this evening that I noticed he didn't put on the beard. Proabably too much effort. The over all look was well done though.

Tractor Mechanic

As a graduate of Auburn University, people believe I should know how to repair a tractor. Unfortunately I never took an AG classes so I missed out on John Deere Repair 101.

My neighbor asked me to take a look a this tractor (a YANMAR 1500) with him. The first symptom was a dead battery. Sometimes a dead battery is just a dead battery. Other times it is a problem with part of the electrical system. In this case, the problem was not just the battery. After doing some research online, I took some voltage measurements on the tractor. Based on the numbers, it appeared the alternator was generating sufficient voltage but the regulator was not working. We replaced the regulator but things were still no go. At this point the alternators output had dropped from about 18 volts to about 9. This was a bit of a mystery to me. The best I can figure out, the regulator input was "open" so alternator appeared to be working. Once the regulator was replaced, it put a load on the alternator causing the alternators output under load to drop to 9 volts.

What are the odds both the alternator and the regulator were bad? Not very high if you ask me, but the original symptoms pointed to the regulator not the alternator. Obviously now, the alternator is the problem. Hopefully we will get Coy's tractor running again this week. And then I can take it out for a test drive.

Anybody have an Aspirin?

This is a picture of my neighbor. He had a slight accident and ended up with a saw blade stuck in his head.



Actually, this is just part of the costume he is working on for tomorrow night. I won't give away the details until the costume is complete.

He brought the blade down this evening along with a template of the shape of his head. I cut the blade using my meta-saw. Next I welded a few support rods on that wrap around his head and hold the blade in place. He will add some blood and guts.

The Madison County Woodworkers Guild is back in action. Danny, David, and I are all working on duplicate projects. This keeps fighting over the tools to a minimum. ("You go first!", "No, please after you", "No, I must insist that you go first"). It only took us about an hour to accomplish the first cut of the evening. Excellent progress.

The neighbors must have left their refrigerator door open last night because it was cold outside this morning. I suppose this was our first frost of the year. I am already looking forward to spring.

This weekends camping trip went well. The rain stopped before we arrived at the trail head. We arrived at the trail head around 4:30 or 5:00 pm. We didn't get to hike in very far because the sun went behind the next ridge rather early. The camp site we selected was at a fork in the trail next to a fork in the Sipsey River.

We did enough hiking to suit everyone. Friday evenings campfire was weak due to a lack of time to collect wood, but we made up for it Saturday evening. We enjoyed plently of good food as well.

All in all, it was a great trip. I am looking forward to next trip out in the spring.

Fall Camping 2008, Take II

I am heading out this afternoon for another camping trip. We are going to the Sipsey Wilderness again, though a different area. This is a really nice area for camping. Lots of trails, large rock formations, plenty of trees, and several large creeks. (In Texas they call these rivers.)

The weather is not optimal but it appears it may cooperate later. Currently it is raining but the skys are suppose to clear up mid afternoon, maybe.

Time to get packing.

GMC Update

I bolted the rear coil springs on the GMC this evening. It is starting to look like a real truck again!

Two of Ten

I have now completed two days of observation in a local middle school. This semester I am required to do a total of ten days. So far so good. It is a nice school with a very friendly set of teachers, faculty, and administrators.

The school I am visiting is on the block system. Today I learned the names of about 50 kids between the three classes I am observing. I hope to know them all, about 90, by the end of the week.

It is still odd being addressed by my sir name. I feel a power trip coming on.

I keep thinking I need to update the pictures of the kids on the side bar. No telling how long ago they were taken. For you viewing pleasure, here is an update. This picture is only a year and a half old.

Late to the Party

OK, I just discovered face book. I knew it was out there but I had been avoiding looking at it because it seemed like a time sink. It certainly is.

Besides wasting lots of time, I have managed to find some old friends. It is certainly good to be in contact with all of you.

Woooooooooooooo Whooooooooooooo!!!

Yesterday, I bolted a couple of wheels back on the frame of the truck. This was huge progress, bigger than when I reassembled the front suspension which seems like eons ago.

What did I accomplish?
1. Installed new bushings in trailing arms.
2. Bolted trailing arm brackets to frame.
3. Bolted trailing arms to brackets.
4. Bolted differential to trailing arms.
5. Installed front coil springs and spindles.

The last step required two neighbors to sit on the frame to sufficiently compress the coils while the spindles were bolted on.

What did I not accomplish? I forgot to take pictures!

I had a mid-term today.

The test had eight essay questions along with many multiple choice problems. Before the test the professor offered us an option. We could answer 4 of the 8 essay questions (along with the multiple choice questions) or one of us could select an envelope from a set of 9 envelopes containing a number between 0-8. The number in the envelope would be the number of essay questions everyone had to answer.

I convinced the class to select an envelope rather than holding at 4. I was then voted to pick the envelope. Without hesitation I selected an envelope. I should have bought a lottery ticket this morning. I picked the zero. No essay questions for anyone.

Camping Trip, Fall 2008

This past weekend we (Myself, Billy, Chad, Danny, David, David, Steve, and Jim) went camping at the Sipsey Wilderness in the Bankhead National Forest. It was a nice trip but it seemed like someone was missing.

Oven 4.0 was somewhat of a success: bread, biscuits, brownies, and muffins.

The weather cooperated. We heard lots of wildlife after dark, probably due to the almost full moon. Plenty of trails for hiking. I took two short hikes. One included a trip to the gas station for water. (The water filter gave up on us.)

Good times.

Monday's List of Accomplishments

After spending several hours this morning doing homework, I had a couple of free hours to spend outdoors. I managed to get two more things accomplished, in addition to my homework.

The first was unscheduled. My neighbor has an old 1980's model Honda Passport. He wanted me to help him get it running. He is actually the expert with regard to gasoline powered engines, but I have better eyes. After checking the spark, and draining the carb bowl, we finally got the motor to kick over and run even with old gas in the tank. Unfortunately the rear tire has a huge hole in the tube so we didn't get to cruise it around the driveway.

Today I also mounted two tires to the freshly rebuilt 10-bolt GM differential. I now have a partially rolling vehicle. Ha! The next step will involve connecting the trailing arms to the frame and the differential to the trailing arms.

A differential with wheels certainly takes up more space than a differential on a work bench. This is creating a problem for me, not enough space. Therefore I will make another small effort at selling the turnip truck.

For Sale: 1925 Chevrolet Superior Series Model K Truck

Camp Oven 4.0

A camping trip is planned for the near future. I decided it might be time to build another camp oven.

The previous one (see Camp Oven 3.0 here) was very successful. We used it to bake cookies, cakes, brownies, muffins, bread, etc. on many trips to NC, TN, and AL. The only real problem it had was a hot spot directly over the burner. This tended to cause the food to cook unevenly sometimes. I would use a rock placed over the burner to spread the heat.

This is my latest attempt at a DIY light weight camping oven for back packing.



The oven itself weights 23 oz. That does not include the weight of the grill or burner. I reused the burner, grill, thermometer, and PVC from the previous design.

The oven is made from 20" aluminum flashing formed to make a cylinder. The cylinder is held together by 3 qty 4-40 screws. The diameter is 17" so that two 6-cup muffin tins will fit in it.

The top is simply another 20"x20" piece. The top is removed to gain access to the cooking rack. Because the top is so light, I expect a good gust of wind may try to carry it off. To resolve this and to improve the seal between the main body and the top, place an item on top. I have found a handsaw works fine. Alton Brown would be proud because this makes my saw a multi-tasker and gives it a legitimate use in my outdoor kitchen.
I hung a wind screen below the grill to improve its overall heating efficiently. (It will preheat to 350 F in less than a minute). The wind screen does not completely encase the burner for several reasons: ease of changing the tank, ease of lighting, and not wanting to get the burner valve hot.

The previous oven was used many times. From it we learned that a wind screen was absolutely necessary on a windy day. The outside temperature doesn't seem to matter much though, Oven 3.0 was used many times while the temperature was in the 30's or while it was raining. Simply adjust the valve to compensate for the current weather conditions.



Below you see the oven at 350 F. Reaching over 500 degrees is no problem. The lowest setting on my burner only reaches about 225 F. I have found most things I want to bake need 350 to 450 F.

I drilled a second hole in the top for a second thermometer. I don't expect I will have the diverse temperature range with this oven between the two as I did with the previous version. I haven't verified this yet, as I only have one thermometer. I will be borrowing the second one to verify this soon enough.

According to the spec's for my burner, the propane tanks last 2 hours on the highest setting and 4.5 hours on the lowest. Most cooking occurs somewhere in the middle.





The final picture was from the test-run. The oven heated up quickly. I cooked a few mini-corn-dogs. (My son ate them for dinner.) Below the pan you can see the blue ring of fire on the burner.

The rack shown here is simply aluminum wire. I drilled 12 holes evenly spaced 6 inches from the top. Six inches allows plenty of room for baking a loaf of bread. You can also see a couple of the screws holding the cylinders shape if you look closely.



If you have any questions or want additional details to build your own, email me and I will try to help you out.

Madison Street Festival Parade

This morning the 1925 Chevrolet Truck was rolled out of the garage to attend a local parade. The local temperature was just under 50 when I left the house. I stopped at the nearby gas station to top off the tank, surely the most expensive gas this truck has even seen. (It made me wonder what the least expensive gas price was.) The trip to the parade staging area went pretty fast, probably about 7 miles. The speed limit was mostly 45. The truck was position 16 of 38. We loaded up the truck with our troupe of Girls Scouts along with a brother or two. All total, we had 8 people in the truck. The truck was pretty full thought we might have been able to fit two more small people.

I was amazed again this year at the number of people I there that I know. I met a couple of guys with the local chapter of the antique car club.

All in all, it was a nice little trip.

Election 2008

While attending class on Thursday, I heard some students discussing who they would be voting for in the upcoming presidential election. And why. Their reasons were ridiculous and uninformed. What about your reasons?

You still have plenty of time to select your candidate based on the issues.

What's the Difference?

This evening I finished assembling the 10 bolt GM differential for my '72 GMC pickup. I was having a tolerance problem this weekend while working on reassembling it. The pinion pin did not seem to have enough space to slide between the end of the axles. The solution turned out to be as simple as removing some grease from between the thrust washers and gears. This potential solution came to me while I was driving home from school today. Glad it worked. Who would have thought a little grease would make that much of a difference. The tolerances on these parts were definitely tight.

I have not filled the diff case with fluid. I will wait and do that after the diff has been bolted to the trailing arms. Oh yeah, I also need to touch up the paint on the differential. I scratched it up a bit, flipping the diff end over end a few times while it was up on jack stands. Again, it is a minor thing. I am calling it done.

Next Step? Assembling the rear suspension I believe.

T-F-Oh-Doe

I just found out U2's Under a Blood Red Sky is about to be released on DVD. Time to pre-order!

Now when was that new CD going to be released? Oh, yeah, it was pushed out to 2009.

The tanks in both my cars were empty Monday morning just in time for the spike in gas prices.

The Charger normally gets 89 octane as recommended by Dodge. This week it got a tank full of 87 as everything else was unavailable. I don't bother to calculate MPG on the Dodge. The number would be below 20 and no one needs to know that.

The Miata is fine with 87 octane and that is what it got as well. The calculations on the Miata this time yielded 29.3 MPG.

GMC Progress: None

After what seems like months, thought it has only been a few weeks, I finally got back to working on the differential for the GMC. What was suppose to be just a buttoning up process, turned into a minor struggle. The stuff is suppose to just go back together, easily. It did not.

I am guessing I have less than an hours work to finish it up. Just as soon as I figure out what is not right, I will start the clock on that hour. It could be a while.

I went by the parts counter at the local Chevrolet dealership to buy a special bolt today. This particular bolt is a retaining both that goes through the shaft in the chuck of the differential. According all the information I have read, this bolt needs to be replaced anytime you take it out. Failure to do so could be catastrophic for the differential.

The data in the computer at the parts counter only went back to 1973 so the parts guy had to get out an old parts catalog. Once the experienced guy took over for the new guy, he found the part number very quickly and then located the bolt in the parts room in less than a minute.

Total damage: $5.02 for a bolt. Golly-gee.

#1003

If your interested in reading a blogger's notes on hurricane Ike, check out Ain't Chicken. The author, Carol, lives in the Houston area.

Post #1002

Somehow in all the cheese excitement, I overlooked the fact that I was making my 1000th post.

Go back and read it again. It was just that good.

Kaboom!

After a mere two weeks, today my head no longer felt like it was going to implode, explode, to simply turn itself inside out. Hopefully I will be one hundred percent in another day or two.

This week I spent Wednesday and Friday working as a substitute teacher.

Wednesday was in an 8th grade math class.

Friday was in a high school class with AP Calculus, Calculus, and Pre-Calculus. During my free block I also filled in for Geometry B.

Having said all that, TGIF.

Huh?

"I spelled island wrong.  I spelled it I-S-E-L-A-N-D because I was thinking about cheese.  Cheese has a lot of 'E's in it"  - JM

Sometimes I have a hard time following his train of thought.

Is Your Computer Running Slow?

I often get asked to work on other peoples computers. (I have been using/working with computers since the mid 80's.) Sometimes I know what is wrong, sometimes I don't, but I am very persistent and usually resolve the problem.

Last year I was asked to figure out what was wrong with a computer that seemed to be running slow. Very slow. It turns out that computer had 3 different virus scanning programs running on it. Once these were removed, the computer was once again a speed demon. Removing three simultaneously running virus scanners is more time consuming than it should be, but I digress.

I personally don't run any virus scanning software on my computer. I feel like the virus scanners are usually more of a hindrance than a help. First and foremost, it causes the computer the feel sluggish. Inevitably it begins the system scan at the most inopportune time. And then all the nagging, and begging for money via upgrades and other virus/security services.

Do you really need a virus scanner? Probably not. How often does your scanner find a virus on your computer? Hourly? Daily? Weekly? Probably not. But in the mean time it is annoying you to no end. But mostly just causing you to spend a lot of time waiting on your computer to boot, open files, etc.

Let me ask you that question again. How often does your scanner find a virus? Do you really need it?

My recommendation is to remove the scanner. In my opinion the scanner is as annoying as the stuff it is trying to protect you from. Really. You will be fine with out a virus scanner so long as your have a decent firewall (usually built into routers) , stick with reputable websites, and don't open email from folks you don't know.

Should you ever get a virus on your computer, just download and install a free demo of your favorite scanner, remove the virus, and then remove the virus scanner again.

Pros: 1) You will save money by not buying a update of your virus scanner next year. 2) Your computer will run faster. 3) No more nagging from the scanning software. 4) Faster more responsive computer.

Cons: 1) When you finally do get a virus on your computer, you will have no one to blame but yourself. (You should not have been on that site.) 2) You will get no tech support from me because you forgot to say please.

Post a comment to let me know how much you are enjoying living without your virus scanner virus.

I had this very productive idea where I was going to wash and wax the Miata this afternoon.

But first a trip to WM for break and milk. And a few side trips. And stops at various neighbor's garages. And a trip to the Harley dealership with yet another neighbor. (No I didn't buy a bike)

I never got around to the wash, much less the waxing.

My head has felt like it was going to explode for about the last week. That would be one nasty mess. Sinuses, who needs um? Hopefully this little episode will be over soon.

Hopefully.

Useless Fact o' the Day

Yesterday's fill up of the Miata yields results of 28 MPG. Pretty good considering not a single mile was on the interstate.

According to some random site on the 'net, Mazda spec'ed the car at 21/27 MPG. Another site listed it at 22/28.

What kind of mileage are you getting?

The Fall of Rick

Fall semester is off to a good start. I have been busy, but not too busy. Definitely more manageable than the summer was.

On Wednesday, I substituted at a nearby middle school. Seventh grade math. This school was on a traditional 7 period schedule instead of the 4 blocks I have become accustomed to during my field work. The day flew by. I had the opportunity to apply a lot of what I have learned from the classroom management class I took this summer. Overall things went very smoothly, but I know I still have a lot to learn. I have 3 more days of sub'ing lined up. (AP Calculus, 7th grade math, and Spanish III).

I still haven't gotten around to buttoning up the differential. Only a couple hours effort remaining. I hear it calling from the garage. Soon, very soon. Unless of course I decide to take a nap instead.

Last Friday my sinus's started bothering me. I don't know exactly what caused it but I have been miserable since then. Taking meds helps, but then I end up feeling spaced out for several hours. I took some allergy medication at dinner last night which caused me to be very sleepy by 8:30 PM. By 9, I gave in and went to bed. The problem with going to bed early is waking up early.

The date for the Fall camping trip has been chosen. We have 4 ACKs, 3 NAKs, 2 MAKs, and several "No Replies". That usually means their wife hasn't decided yet. :)

I rotated the tires on the Charger today.

Odometer: 14,839

Doh!

Yesterday afternoon around 2 PM I drank a Monster Loca Moca. Mystery solved.

Time to catch a few Z's.

990

Occasionally I wake up during the middle of the night and can't fall back asleep for a few hours. When it happens I usually get up and find something to read on the internet. I don't ever watch the tv because I don't want to wake anyone else up. I use to just lay in bed but that gets restless after a while. I will start to get drowsy again in a few hours. Probably around 5:30 am, within a half hour of the time I normally wake up. I have started keeping track of when this occurs. For a while it seemed like it happened about weekly. The last time it happened was twenty days ago. This summer I have had the luxury of not having to get up at 6:00 am, but the internal clock is still wound pretty tight so most days I still wake up within a couple of minutes of 6, plus or minus.

Tonight we had takeout from Rosie's for dinner (Mexican). I woke up thirsty, but normally when that happens, I drink some water or tea and go right back to sleep.

My seester made a delivery in HSV today. We had lunch at Casa Blanca (also Mexican). She let me sit in the big rig. Nope, I didn't get to drive it, though I did wonder if I would have been able to break it loose like I did Danny's dually. I bet I could!

After lunch I drove by the Dodge dealership so that she could take a gander at the new Challenger. On Wednesday they had two on the lot. One black, one Hemi orange. Today they also had two, but they were both orange. The window sticker's MSRP was about $41,000 before the additional dealer markup of $15,000 was added. I guess the guy that bought the black one wanted it pretty bad. The engine is a 6.1 liter, 425, and it gets something like 14/18 MPG. Sweet. To me, it appears that Dodge doesn't really want to sell many of these cars. While there is a lot of interest, this car is priced to high for most folks. I suppose all the numbers will be more reasonable when the non-SRTs reach the dealerships. The Dodge website lists the starting price at $21,995 for the base model. The R/T will have 370 HP. I forgot to ask for a test drive. To borrow someone else's slogan, Zoom zoom zoom.

This afternoon I trimmed all the trees in the front yard. All four had many limbs that needed to be removed to ease mowing. I have been told that these butcher jobs should wait until the fall though I seem to always do it during the middle of the summer. It is easier to see the shape of the tree when it still has leave on it. That of course is not the real reason. The real reason is that tree trimming is usually a spontaneous event that follows having a tree limb whack you in the head while your minding your own business.

Planning for the fall camping trip is under way.

Last week I spend a few hours on a couple of days working on the differential for the old GMC. I was on the home stretch last time I touched it. Perhaps I will finish the diff up this week. School comes first though. I hope to not get too far behind too often this semester.

I recently signed up with the county school system to do some substitute teaching on the days I am not it class. Friday I sub'ed for the band director at a nearby HS. I lined up a couple more jobs while I was there.

Friday evening I helped the inlaws unload the moving truck. They bought a house nearby.

It is now 3:20. Only a few more hours to go.

This is post 990. I plan to celebrate post 1k with the mundane label also.

I recently read that the new U2 album was schedule for release in October. And then it was changed to November. They have a working title which I have inconveniently forgotten.

This week I picked up 3 lbs of okra at the big garden down the road. Mmmm. Fried okra is good. I boiled a few pods too, just to gross you out. It never occurred to me to try to steam it. I read about that here: Okra and Proud of It.

I have used some of my free time this week to work on rebuilding the differential out of the GMC. I was very lucky during the assembly process. I got the backlash within spec on the second try and the pinion shim was already correct. All that is left is to get the pinion pre-load set by crushing the crush collar and then button I can button it up.

We are home from the beach and I resolved the problem with my IP address.

The trip home took about six hours and twenty minutes which included three stops.

Before leaving the beach this morning, I went out on the balcony early enough the see the sun rise. Again, I missed it, not because of clouds this time, but because the sun rose to far to the north. Instead of being above the gulf, it rose behind the condo next door.

Last night we dined at the Crab Shack. The crab dip was excellent.

Some folks staying in the same condos, had their wedding ceremony on the beach Saturday evening. Seems risky to me, what with the possibility of sunburn, seaweed, jelly fish, sharks, thunderstorms, and sand in your shorts.

It is good to be home.

Assuming you count the day we arrived, today is day three at the beach. The Ada guys would all count that as Day One; the C guys count it as Day Zero. Big Bird would simply increase the array size by one and not worry about what he doesn't understand.

Day two went very smoothly, no jumper cables were required. The kids (and Seester) all awoke before me. I think she was actually a victim. G' prepared pancakes and bacon for breakfast and then we all headed for the beach.

After a brief interaction with the omnipotent god of the beach umbrellas, we set up shop and began to make a sea wall of sand to hold back the waves. (I thought I was going to let it go with just that single statement, but it appears I was wrong. As I can imagine iMike saying "Hey buddy, there is a reason there is only one dollar in your tip jar." ) The sea walls eventually collapsed.

We have watched two movies so far. Juno and Thankyou for Smoking. Juno was definitely the better of the two.

The dinner hour last night consisted of a trip to The Light House restaurant. The place was huge though practically empty. The food was good, the prices reasonable, and absolutely no wait at all. I decided the reason the place was empty was simply its location; it was not on the beach, and not directly on the main road.

Time to head back inside. The thunder and lightening are getting closer and the sunrise will be obscured by the clouds.

We have enjoyed having Seester here with us.

I woke up early this morning. Good thing I didn't take a nap yesterday or would have probably been up all night. I am sitting on the balcony in a fairly comfortable chair with my laptop waiting for the sunrise. I am equipped with a camera in case I decide the moment needs to be captured along with a small Starbucks coffee Frappuccino.

A small Ford tractor just passed by on the beach below with its headlights on. It was heading west dragging some sort of beach grooming device behind it. The clouds to the south above the water appear dark and occasionally I feel the rumble of thunder coming from the west, obviously further down the beach than the current location of the tractor. The waves are large this morning keeping the scavenger birds along the beach on their toes. The flags will definitely be red today.

As the sun approaches the horizon, a few adventurous souls head toward the waters edge. From the east a woman approaches carrying a coffee cup, probably almost empty. Directly below me, a family of three emerges. The son appears intent on crab hunting, the mother on seeing the sunrise, and the father on ruining the moment because he would rather still be in bed. Lightening appears to the southwest followed several seconds later by a mild clap of thunder. Or two. The small family turns around and heads for the boardwalk.

Life's a Beach (again)

I went to sleep Wednesday evening at home and woke up this morning in Florida. Yeah, I know today is Friday and I failed to mention Thursday.

Thursday consisted of a quick 6 hour trip from HSV to FL. We arrived about 2:30 pm, 30 minutes early for check-in. I shall not elaborate about the next hour and a half other than to say I need to buy a set of jumper cables for G's 4x4.

Seester also drove down from ATL, GA so we have a whole condo full of fun here.

We went to the Back Porch for an early dinner consisting for fried seafood goodness.

Due to my bouncing Internet back at home, my IP address has changed and this entry shan't be seen by you until after I return home. Probably.

I brought a wireless router with me so that we could all share the network connection here. As I look around me, there are 4 laptops being used for various purposes. What a bunch of nerds. It's good to be king.

My internet connection has been bouncing a lot in the last few days. The cable guy dropped by this evening and replaced the cable modem. Things appear to be OK now. With crossed fingers.

Even though the temperatures was down about 20 degrees yesterday compared to the day before, I believe everyone is going crazy due to the heat.

My last final exam for the summer was this week so the Summer of Rick is now officially here.

Unfortunately Ginger has started making noises regarding a list of things that need to be done. How droll. [Go ahead and look it up, I can wait. I first heard the word as a kid while watching Disney's Robin Hood. Good times, good times.]

iMike has lost it just like Sean Connery. I realize it is not funny if you have to explain it. Make sure you use the accent when saying it. "And now I've lost it!" Yeah, anyway, iMike it talking about raising chickens in his back yard. Times must be hard.

Summer Update


Finals are finally here and I will be finishing up the summer semester next week. It's all good.

Last weekend we went to GA to visit my seester. Or was it to go to Six Flags. Good times.

Weekend Update Posted Mid-to-Late in the Week

The posting has been slow around here lately. This is mostly due to my class schedule for the summer. Not that I am spending a lot of time in class, as I am only in class about 12 hours a week, sometimes slightly less if they let us out early, but still at least 10 hours. The real reason is the amount of time required to complete all of my assignments. The last few weeks has seen me spending anywhere from 40 to 60 hours per week on school. Can you say projects out the wazoo? Go ahead and try to say it. I knew you could. What happened to theSummer of Rick? It is absolutely insane, insane I tell you. Fortunately, all good things must come to an end. There are only about 2.5 weeks left of this semester.

Last Saturday I did manage to find the time to take the Turnip Truck out to the Greater Tennessesseessesseeesse Valley Antique Car Show. (Sorry about that extra eessee.) The trip to the car show was like three separate adventures. Count them.

The forecast for the day was 80% chance of rain all day long starting at 6:00 am. There were no clouds in the sky at 7:00 am so I decided I was going.

#1 Driving to the show. Driving an 83 year old vehicle is always an adventure. Doubly so when you attempt to drive 30 miles at a top speed of 35 miles an hour. No trauma on the trip out but we were amazed to see nearly twice as many cars there at 8:00 am this year than there were last year. Technically, I arrived at 8:10 AM this year. Last year I was right on the bell. When I registered, they gave me registration form #426. I assume that means I was the 426 car to arrive but I doubt it. And yes it was hot. And no, I didn't win any of the door prizes.

#2 Spending the Day at the Show. It was hot, but we came prepared. (We = me + 1 of the Brians) We had a cooler full of ice, a gallon of water, and a nice tent-tarpy-thingy along with several soccer-mom chairs, sans the soccer moms. I walked the parts swap and did not find anything I could live without. I also viewed like 70,000 old cars and trucks. OK, maybe 300. I ran into several people I knew, no surprise, and spent some time talking with Mr. Trailer Queen (Tim T.) who brought his 1924 Studebaker in on a trailer. I gave him the business because I had pretty much driven past his house on my way to the show.

Around 3:30 or 4:00 or something like that It was time to head home. Still no clouds in the sky but a call from home informed me it was raining there and had been for a couple of hours. Complete with dogs and cats.

#3 The trip consists of about 30 miles, probably an equal number heading north and east and unfortunately no roads go north east. As I am heading north, I notice large dark clouds to the east and some lightning. And some more lightning. I decided to change my route home in hopes of going around some of the rain. And lightning. I managed to find a nice bank drive thru to park under just as the rain came rolling in. The truck (and '66 Mustang) sat parked for about an hour while we waited out the rain. Eventually the rain pasted and clouds cleared and the pavement dried up. Still we sat there. Why? Have you ever tried to solve a differential equation in your head?

The rain is heading NE at 6 mph. We have a top speed of approximately 35 mph. The house is approximately 15 miles away almost due east. How much of a head start to we have to give the trailing edge of the rain before we leave so that we get home without driving back into the storm? So then we set there for another 10 minutes after agreeing we should wait at least 15. No patience to be found among us, for sure.

We did not catch the rain on the way home though at times we were just behind it. We experienced a little fine sprinkling but nothing worth blogging about. Getting home mostly dry was a major accomplishment. I guess it is good that I didn't win a door prize at the show for surely that would have used all my luck up leaving me to be drenched all the way home.

And in other news, this weekend is my favorite car show of the year. Yes, it is once again time for the air cooled Volkswagen show at Point Mallard. I will probably wait until Sunday to venture forth. See you there.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog


Got a few minutes to kill?

Jordan just asked me a tough question.

"Why is Iraq spelled with a 'Q'."

"But not a 'U'."

"Because isn't 'Q' always supposed to be followed by 'U'."

I didn't have an answer for him so we blogged about it instead.

This is How We Roll

Check out this short video featuring the kids, my Sister's Mustang and my Miata.

Top Gear and F1

I wish this show was available in the US. Here is a bit they did on F1 a good while back. It predates Alonso leaving for McLaren before returning to Renault.

Listen to all the stats he quotes on this car. And the tolerances. The engine is effectively siezed up and must be warmed before cranking.

I hope they bring F1 back to Indy in the near future!

Filled up the Miata today. 28.5 MPG for the previous tank.

BR549

OK, after figuring out my plan, I measured both my frames and then looked at some photos of Guy's frame. At this point I realized that I was wasting my time. The difference between my two frames was due to the fact that one was a SWB and the other was a LWB, not that one had been cut off. So now the plan is to just leave it alone.

Monday I went to the dentist to have my teeth filed. No charge.

Today I pretended like I was starting the rebuild of the differential for the '72 GMC. I was limited to pretending because I did not have a bearing separator to remove the old bearings from the pinion. Quick trip to the china store to discover they are out of lower dollar goodness. What to do, what to do?

I have been trying to get caught up on my school work but I don't yet see the end in sight. I think four of the ten weeks for the summer semester are complete. Note to self: work on time management skills, if you can find the time.

The '25 auction is rapidly progressing towards various stages of completion. It is currently 45% sold.

Saturday afternoon, I called up Brian (no not that Brian, the other Brian) to borrow his plasma cutter. As I told him then, "I have some plasma that needs to be cut". Some things seems funnier before you say them out loud.

My eventual plan is to replace part of the GMC's frame with part of another frame I have. Essentially my appears to have been attacked by a torch at some point in it past and I will be replace the foot or so with a section from the other frame that is in pristine condition.

The plan is:
1. Learn how to cut a straight line.
2. Determine where to make the cuts.
3. Mark the frames.
4. Make the cuts.
5. Weld in the piece from the other frame onto my frame.
6. Grind grind grind.
7. Amaze friends and family with my mad skillz.

Step 1 is complete.

Everyone needs to play with a plasma cutter at some point.

Ebay Motors is once again having a $1 listing special. Look for the 1925 Chevrolet truck to appear later today.

Drip Drip Drip

While rolling around under the Miata Friday morning doing a visual inspection, I decided that the oil leak from the CAS O-ring was not the only leak. There was a drop of oil on the front of the oil pan. (I cleaned up the oil pan while I was working on the clutch last week.) So it appears either the pan seal or the front main seal.

I thought I had replaced the front seal last year when I did the timing belt, but after reviewing last years write up, it appears I skipped it. I guess I didn't want to loosen the oil pan at the time for fear of creating an oil leak. Doh! Here's to hoping this is the only leak. I am currently debating whether I want to fix this one any time soon. The parts cost will be negligible but time wise it could kill a day.

I also had a drop of anti-freeze on the radiator drain valve. I had noticed this before also. I think the drain plug just needs to be replaced. This can wait until I replace the front seal, assuming I do, as the radiator needs to be removed during that procedure.

I keep asking myself why I am so obsessed with the car leaking. Why can't I be satisfied just sliding a pan under the car? Myself never answers.

About the time I was finishing up the inspection of my car, David arrived and we replaced the o-ring on his '91 Miata also. Having done the replacement on both a 1.6 and 1.8 liter engine, I believe the 1.6 is a slightly easier task. (It is actually possible to get the CAS out from between the engine and firewall.)

Sixth Grade

Today I finished my eighth day of field experience in sixth grade at a local elementary school's summer school program.

The math teacher offered to let me teach a lesson. It seemed like a good idea to me so I agreed. This week I taught a total of 8 blocks. And since you only have to teach your very first lesson once ever, I have that out of the way. And that is one less thing.

Don't tell anyone, but I had a really good time being back in 6th grade.

MMM

(Common Miata Oil Leak)

While replacing the pilot bearing, clutch, etc. on the Lil' Zoom-Zoom I determined my oil leak was located somewhere high on the block, probably near the rear. Googling for common Miata oil leak clued me in to the CAS O-Ring. And the location was exactly in the general neighborhood of where the oil appeared to be originating.

This evening I replaced the Cam Angle Sensor O-Ring on the Miata. After removing the CAS a quick inspection of the underside revealed black gold. The sensor was definitely dripping oil. Jackpot! Hopefully this was my only leak. I will let you know.

The entire procedure took about 2 hours including a trip to the parts store and dinner. Actual under the hood time was probably between 20 - 45 minutes. The instructions over yonder say 10 minutes. It didn't happen like that here.

Total cost including two o-rings and one of this little mirror on a stick thingies was less than $5.

Why two o-rings? Because tomorrow David M. will be bringing his car over for a little More Miata Maintenance. I bet we don't get his done in 10 minutes either.

Odometer: 107K and some change.

Sunday Afternoon Maintenance

This afternoon, in the extreme heat of the afternoon sun, I washed the Miata. (I had two helpers so it took a little longer than normal.)

While washing the car, I found a bunch of tar along the lower half of the car, especially on the drivers side. I happened to have some tar and bug remover so I made a pass at the tar. Unfortunately it leaves a residue so the car is ready for another bath. It will have to wait.

In additional to the wash, I cleaned the windows and applied rain-x.

Next was a quick 8 mile drive to drive to fill up the tank. Technically it should only be about a mile, but I often get side tracked by curvy roads when driving the Miata on a Sunday afternoon.

The fill up proffered a mileage rating of 29.5 per gallon. Sweet. Not as good as my hypermiling experiment but not bad for my lead foot.

Odometer: Just over 106,900, which is what was on the clock when I finished the clutch job.

Zoom Zoom Zoom

Woo Hoo! The clutch is done, tires are rotated, and the oil and filter has been changed. No more funny pilot bearing sounds. Yes, after disassembling every thing, I determined that the problem was indeed the pilot bearing. And it is all good now.

Props to guys (David M, Brian B.) that helped me out. I couldn't have done it without their help.

Miata Clutch: A New Hope

This afternoon following a short two hour nap, I resumed work on the car. A gentle breeze and the afternoon shade made the garage cooler than it had been in several days.

I finished bolting up the transmission and hydraulic clutch lines. Next in was the drive shaft, followed by the complete exhaust system from the exhaust manifold all the way back to the tail pipe. Finally a couple of support bars.

At this point I need to replace the fluid and reinstall the shifter, however I don't have a small hand pump needed to pump the oil back into the transmission. One more part store trip is in order.

Since the car was already on jacks, I decided to rotate the tires and change the oil. Draining the oil and removing the tires was uneventful. Removing the oil filter however was another story.

The filter is difficult to get access to. The easiest way for me had been removing the right front tire and reaching in. Even with the tire off, I could not get the thing to budge. In the past I have just hand tightened it, unfortunately, I was not the last person to change the oil. I decided this would wait until tomorrow. It was 8:30 PM and I had not fed the kids yet. They had been so busy playing, they hadn't noticed.

Tomorrow after finding a hand pump, I will fill the tranny, install a new oil filter(assuming I can get the old one off), and fill it with oil. After putting the tires back on and doing a final bolt check, I will hopefully have the car out for a victory lap.

Sixth Grade

This week I have been attending sixth grade summer school.

As usual, the education classes I am taking require some amount of field experience. This semester I am required to spend 8 days in a classroom. I requested placement in a middle school to get an idea what it is like to work with the younger folks.

So far so good. Today I got the opportunity to teach a mini-session on factoring and prime numbers.

The most striking difference I have noticed? Sixth graders get recess. Woo Hoo!

I am amazed at some of the material we have been reviewing. Some of this stuff, I did not see until 7, 8, 9 or 10th grade. Times are certainly changing.

Today the local blog critic awarded my blog the most boring blog in the neighborhood award. I guess he missed the geometric proofs from a couple of years back. And the lyrics for 'Oh, Yes Wyoming'. (If your interested, I recently proved the triangle inequality theorem for vectors.)

Then I remembered my blog wasn't really meant to be entertaining, it was intended to document my current obsession, whatever that might be, for example a Miata, a 1925 Chevrolet,rebuilding a 1972 GMC pickup, hoping to acquire an unspecified year Corvette or Volkswagen Beetle, building Furniture, hot tubing, auto body repair, camping, hiking, biking, welding, metal-meet, camping, Dodge Chargers, low carb dieting, school, procrastination, hypermiling, building a foundry, melting aluminium, state quarters, container gardening, MDF, STL, model railroading (n gauge), tenth scale RC cars, RC airplanes, Vertigo, slot car racing, Formula One, the US Grand Prix, attending car shows, Mini Coopers, ping pong, foos ball, chocolate chip cookies, fembots with a penchant for evil, cast iron skillets or even fried okra. Whatever. I feel so validated now.

Mmmm, fried okra.

iMike and Terry did not even get an honorable mention because their blogs are too interesting. Sorry guys.

Hello, Hello, Hola!

The clutch saga continues. Slowly. My total wait time for the rear seal for the transmission was 8 days.

Quick recap. Order parts at O'Reilly Autoparts, Some parts show up, but not all. Make another trip to pick up the missing stuff. Get home with it. Not the right stuff. Call back. "We can't get that stuff, go to the Dealer."

Go to dealer. Order parts. Go to pick up parts two days later. Some parts show up, but not all parts. This was especially painful this time because it was a Friday and I had hoped to reassemble the car over the weekend. (Mazda Parts guy called O'Reilly to see if they had the part. Ha! They sent me to the Mazda dealership.) Back to the parts store on Monday and get the missing seal.

At this point I am fairly busy with my mundane life and don't get a chance to really work on the Miata again until this evening. That is not entirely true. Late in the afternoon, I spent about an hour with the car hoping that I would somehow be able to lift the transmission back up myself. Even with a pair of jacks, this was more than one person could really do.

At this point I got on the bat horn and called in the calvary. With the assistance of David M. under the car and non-boring Brian controlling the jack, we managed to get the transmission lifted and bolted to the engine block.

I will not call the entire operation a success (prematurely). I still have to hook up the hydraulic clutch cable, re-install the entire exhaust system, fill the transmission, and re-install the drive-shaft(Famous Australian rock band) and a few other miscellaneous details before I am really done. Regardless, all the work requiring more than two hands has been completed.

While the car is on the jack stands and one of the tires is off anyway, I will go head with an oil change and rotating the tires.

The car should be rolling before the weekend is over. A mere 15 or 16 days later.

What did I learn? Order all the parts and have them in hand before getting started.

Regrets: None really. At least not so far.

...Clutch Replacement...

Several busy days have passed and very little has been done.

Saturday we hit a British/Euro car show in the AM and spent the afternoon at the lake.

Since dropping the transmission, I have been trying to acquire the front and rear seal. Sunday I went to a local auto parts shop. They ordered them, available for pickup 9:30 AM Sunday. Long story short, they were available when they were supposed to be and when they finally showed up, they were wrong.

(Monday and Tuesday I stayed busy with school.)

Tuesday evening I removed the seals from the transmission. I also did some general cleaning and degreasing.

This morning I removed the flex plate and replaced the pilot bearing.

This afternoon, I stopped at the Miata dealer ship to order the seals. They will be in friday afternoon. I also replaced the rear main seal and re-installed the flex plate. And finally I did some more degreasing and general cleaning.

Total time involved, probably about 4 hours. Hopefully I will be ready to raise the transmission this weekend, Assuming the correct seals arrive on Friday.

Miata Clutch Replacement - Day Three

At the end of day two, I called David M. and asked (begged) him to come give me a hand for a few hours. His free time was from 7:30 - 9:30 AM today and I was already under the car when he arrived. Together we managed to remove the 3 remaining exhaust bolts (all him), drop the complete exhaust system, and removing the remaining bell housing bolts.

It was at this point we attempted to drop the transmission on our heads. We missed, but we did get the transmission out of the car.

By this time, two hours had passed and David had to exit. We got a lot done in two hours. I could probably have spent the entire day working on it and not gotten as much done. It really helped having another pair of arms to loosen the bolts when my arms had turned to jello. Also, not having to crawl out from under the car every time another tool was needed saved a whole bucket of time.

At this point I would say my original estimate of 30% was an over estimate. My current estimate is 40%. I will be half way once the pressure plate and clutch are removed.

No new tools required today.

Time today: 2 hours x 2 guys = 4 man hours.

Total Time so far is roughly 10 hours.

I should probably comment on my emotional state also. At the end of day one when there were several bolts I could not see or reach, the whole project seemed like a bad idea. The state of day two was basically neutral - basically I was cutting up 2x10s and spraying WD-40. Nothing frustrating or gratifying about that. This morning when I rolled under the car on the creeper and could actually reach the still unseeable bolts, things started to look up. After two good hours with an extra pair of hands I am beginning to feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I don't think I could have finished the project without additional clearance under the car. The 2x10's turned out to be a very economical solution.


Miata Clutch Replacement - Day Two

Day involved only about an hour of work, two if you count the time I spent making a trip to Home Depot for supplies.

Home Depot for supplies when replacing a clutch? Yeah. I bought 2 eight foot 2"x10"s. I cut them into sixteen 1' sections and stacked them underneath the jack stands. The extra height made it easier to access the bolts on the bell housing. It also made it possible to get under the car while on a creeper.

Two hours: Trip to HD, sawing the boards into pieces and then lowering and re-raising the Miata. Also spraying the exhaust bolts with WD-40.

Miata Clutch Replacement - Day One

My original estiate of 3 or 4 days to complete this task still feels about right. I read online it could be done in 9 or 10 hours with help. So far I have been working alone so 10 hours seems out of the question.

Today I drained the transmission, dropped the drive shaft and loosened 7 of the 14(?) bell housing bolts. The remaining seven at this point seem like they are unaccessible. I am sure this is not true. Three of the bolts have nuts behind them. I haven't figured out to reach the bolt and the nut at the same time. I think my arms would require multiple elbows.

I think I am about 30% done and I have put about 5.5 hours into it so far.

New tools acquired: 3/8" and 1/2" drive universal joints. 18 mm six-point socket.

I already had two sets of metric sockets. One set is 12-point and the other is an impact set. Neither had a 18 mm socket. Why?

Weekend Update

We had a busy weekend. For starters we had a most special guest. OK, it was just Terry. The kids were thrilled to see her.

Friday we saw the Narnia movie.

Saturday morning I hit a car show in Decatur at the annual balloon festival. Many nice cars, too hot for me though. After the show, I went to my mothers house were we had a birthday party. The part was to celebrate her, Terry's, and Jordan's birthdays. Speaking of which, today is Jordan's birthday. Terry bought him an MP3 player for his birthday. He has been plugged in ever since.

Sunday. Hmm. Can't recall a clue about Sunday.

Monday we saw the Indiana Jones movie. And I ordered a clutch kit for the Miata. Little Beth and David came over for dinner. And Brian is working on rebuilding the carburetor on his 1966 Mustang. Once it is complete, he is going to finally give in and sell it to G.

This morning I put another coat of paint on the trailing arms of the GMC truck. I haven't touched them in months. Once the Miata clutch is complete, I will probably finally get around to rebuilding the GMC's differential.

Time for school.

Hypermiling

I recently read two articles on hypermiling. One of the articles described how some guys were able to get more than 100 MPG out of a stock Prius. Hypermilers use driving techniques to exceed the estimated fuel efficiency of their vehicles. It sounded interested so I thought I would give it a try.

I decided to adopt a single technique for one tank of gas. One the next fill up I checked my mileage and started the experiment. Crunching the numbers 305.0 miles / 10.9 gallons resulted in approximately 28.0 MPG during normal driving. Not bad when you consider I tend to have a lot of fun while driving the Miata. Maybe, maybe too much fun.

The driving technique I applied is called pulse and glide. Essentially you accelerate up to some speed and then shift into neutral and coast for a while. Some folks kill the engine while coasting. I did not. After using this technique for a while, you begin to realize how often being in gear is actually holding the car back. You seem to get a little bit of free speed every time you shift out of gear. You can also use the hills for a little free energy whenever possible.

After two weeks and 324 .4 miles I filled the car up with 9.86 gallons of gas. This time the tank averaged 32.9 MPG, an increase of 4.9 MPG or 17.5%. Not bad.

Pulse and glide is easy on the open road with a manual gear box. I don't think I would try this with an automatic transmission though. Will I drive this way all the time? No. Occasionally? Certainly.

Press Button, Get Bacon

I went camping again this weekend. Also to the Sipsey Wilderness. We started at a different trail head and camped at a different site. I don't know where we were relative to the last trip but I plan to check the map later.

We had a small group this time: myself, Brian B., Chad E., David M., and Billy T.

There were a lot of folks (including two Boy Scout Troops) out camping this week. More than I have seen on any other trip. I am not sure if it was the weather or just a more popular area.

The hike in and out included 15 yards through a cave called fat man's squeeze. The packs had to come off to make it through the cave.

We had a nice flat campsite between two ridges with easy access to water. We setup in the fork where a major and minor creek met. It was fairly obviously from looking at the ground that the area was frequented by wild pigs though we did not see any. We did think we heard one the second night.

The evening meals this trip consisted of Jambalaya the first evening and red beans with rice the second evening. Dish duty was easy with the water access only 50 feet away.

Overall it was a great trip.

The Summer of Rick

A friend of mine who we shall call David has termed this The Summer of Rick.

While some would say this event started on Friday, I believe it more accurate to say that it started on Monday. Friday was mostly a normal day - I went to work. And Saturday and Sunday were as usual a weekend.

We had a busy weekend. Friday evening we attended a social. Saturday AM I was planning on taking the Turnip Truck to the a car show. It was rained out. Saturday evening, another social of sorts. Sunday included testing a propane burner I had built in the driveway. The burner sounded like a jet engine. It was really cool. And folks came from miles around to watch. OK, there were only four of us, except when Guy dropped by the strawberries.

The Summer of Rick actually started on Monday. What is this summer?

Monday morning instead of going to work, I went to school. I am now officially a full time college student again. I will be going to school full time summer and fall and then doing an internship as a student teacher in the spring. This puts me on track to graduate (again) in the May of 2009 and begin teaching in the Fall.

The summer is just one season in the Year of Rick.

I am currently 2 days into a 15 day mini-semester. It involves 3 hours in class every morning followed by me attempting to accomplished somewhere, anywhere, near the amount of studying I need to be doing to keep up with the class. The class meets the same number of hours a regular class meets, it is just all being crammed into a 3 week period.

After the first three weeks are over, the normal summer semester starts. Hopefully summer semester will be less painful. I will let you know later.

I went camping this weekend in the Sipsey wilderness. Our camp site had a 100'+ rock wall one side, and a stream on the other. The scenery was spectacular. Lots of rock formations and flowing water. The temperature was perfect all weekend and we only had a couple of minor rain showers. Everyone managed to stay dry.

I saw one rattlesnake too many. And two ticks.

And tonight I will be very happy to be sleeping in a real bed again.

The End.

Can you believe I didn't think I would be able to write a post about camping this weekend without mentioning how many times our trail guide took us down the wrong path? Even so, it was an excellent trip.

Today we had a funeral for Mr. Lizard.

Mr. Lizard left behind many friends. He was laid to rest under a flowering dogwood tree.

Rest in peace Mr. Lizard.

Stairway to Heaven

My neighbor asked me to make some stairs for his trailer, a goose-neck used to haul motor cycles. The stairs are used to ease access to the section above the hitch.



I spent a couple hours in the shop this evening making these. The assembly measures 30"x30". The treads are 10"x30" and the rise is 7".

Yep, MDF again!

Propane

Disclaimer: We are not trained professionals. Playing with fire is dangerous. If you attempt anything stupid like you have seen here, you do so at your own risk. We advise you to ignore what you have seen here and go back to playing Wii.




And now back to the regularly scheduled program.


This weekend we tested the propane pre-warmer. Success.




The ease of propane has made of question whether we should be using propane as the main heat source rather just a pre-warmer. Hmmm. To be continued.


The water tank has now been chopped in half to make the foundry. We originally intended to slice the tank up with Mr. Mustang's new plasma cutter but ended up using a jig saw with a metal cutting blade. Keep it simple, eh? Here is the tank after chopping the top.