Wheels

Thirty years ago few considered the computer a tool in the design much less the building or repair of the automobile. Those days are long gone. Let me confess a computer is my second best man when it comes to finding parts, forums for enthusiasts of all stripes, information and ideas.

And speaking of ideas, let me offer one that you might find handy. How many of us have been in the middle of a rust repair and needed a patch plate to weld in. Friends it's time to save a few bucks on some nice steel. Drive through any neighborhood on a trash day and it's likely you will find an old computer on the curb. The cases of most old computers have steel panels that are flat and perfect for rust repairs. For the cost of a few minutes you can liberate a ten or twenty dollar savings in steel.

It was this use for old computers that lead me to a discussion with a co-worker in our IT department. Our company has quite a few old dead AT boxes stuffed away under stairwells. While I couldn't get those old computers he just happened to be cleaning out his garage. It was like striking gold. A short trip landed me fourteen dead computers for salvage.

As I blew through those those boxes tearing them down there were a few worth salvaging as computers. Ergo the Rat Box, a beast cobbled together from remains of those free computers. The first one assembled is a 486 DX 66.

Okay it's not a power house, but a 486 carefully constructed is enough to run my Cad program, run an early version of Word Perfect, fetch my email and keep spreadsheets of maintenance, repairs and costs. Heck I may have to dig out a few old games too. I'll keep it in the garage and if it all goes pow what the heck, it's not like I've lost anything but a few hours of my time on this machine. Why go through this trouble you ask? For the same reason we keep fixing our old cars instead of going out and buying new cars. It's cheap, challenging something to be able to say, I did that.

Several small lighting problems on the truck have been bothering me, but not enough to move them to the 'Do It Now' list. My 'Do It Now' never was short but the night before the right side lowbeam of the headlight burned out and that was the straw that sent me to sorting electrical problems.

There was that left headlight, I couldn't get it to adjust right. The left front parking light was out and the left turn indicator stayed lit whenever the lights were on, a sign of a short or a poor electrical ground.

So I pulled into the Walmart lot after work to pick up a headlight and bulbs and looked down and saw why the left headlight wouldn't adjust right. The previous owner installed the headlight upside down. Well, that's a easy fix, but I felt like smacking myself in the head for not catching it earlier.

Onto the turn signal problem. Swapping the left side bulb didn't work. I didn't expect it to, but who says you can't get lucky. At least the front parking light started working, after cleaning out a lot of dried white grease, one out of two. The wiring harness has several grounds. The bed lights ground to the drivers side frame rail just behind the leaf spring shackle. After cleaning, no fix. The cab section light harness grounds on the drivers side of radiator support, hidden by the horn, After cleaning and sanding the contacts it's fixed.

I admit that when it comes to insurance it's all pot roast stew to me. You can change the amounts of different vegetables but in the end, it's still stew.

Today I changed insurers. I've was doing business with Allstate, a respected name for the last 5 years. I've had no problems with them (but then, I haven't had a claim either). Yet two things changed that led me to the little green lizard guy GEICO.

My insurance agent was right down the road, less than two miles away. This was handy in that as a cash and carry kind of guy, I'd drop in, pay 6 months at a time and with papers in hand, know it was covered. Car insurance is important, you want to know it's there and have someone handy if you should have questions or actually need it use it. Admittedly by driving across town I could have kept Allstate but the agent also no longer accepted cash payments at the office. Lastly for someone who does as little driving as I do, with a clean record Allstate was charging to much.

I likely would have stayed with Allstate if I could have continued to pay cash and my agent hadn't moved, GEICO sweetened the deal by saving me 20 bucks to boot.

To give a little hint how rough this turkey was...

The thing about any used truck or car is that unless the previous owner had a perfectionist streak, it will need some tender loving care to put right. This week has had it's share of that. Also true is that each new vehicle has it's learning curve.

To date the truck has gotten a good cleaning and some new parts.

A replacement hood, wiper cowl, wiper blades, air filter, muffler, oil change, water temperature sender, oil pressure sender, thermostat, temperature sensor for the fuel control system and a spare tire.

So, for just under 1200 dollars a licensed, insured truck for Cris is taking shape. This weekend Cris will take his first driving lesson, pray for me. After our test drive he can get a little elbow grease time by putting in new plugs, plug wires, cap and rotor.

There is something to be said for a old salvage yard. Today marks the start of Project S10. Last Saturday the money and title changed hands. At $750.00 it was a good deal. The truck while needing some love and attention is 100 % solid, no rust in the fenders, kick pannels or door sills. It even runs well with the small but sturdy 2.5 L Tech4 engine, more often refered to as the Iron Duke. Lastly the truck is loaded, AC, full gagues and interior.

I'm going to hate giving this one up, but it's being built for my youngest son Cris and he better damn well take care of it.

Anyway... today I headed to the local salvage yard in search of a few parts. After a wandering search a hood and wiper cowl was found, bought for $125.00 and tommorow I'll pick them up. Looking at my old rust bucket I also found another S10 and I'm thinking of buying the whole truck for myself.

If your looking for a deal it's out there, good hunting.

Would you believe I found this bike on the curb tossed out for the trash man? This in case you don't know is a Peugeot 103 Carbolite, a bike that at one time considered a starting race bike, costing several hundreds dollars.

I've wanted another bike for the last several years since my mom in one of her helpful moods tossed my cheap Next that was dissembled for repair.

Plans for a few changes will turn this into a low budget commuter bike. How cheap you ask? This will be an all Ebay parts bike and already has seen it's first modifcation, a used Tioga T-Bone quill stem ($6.04 including shipping) moved the handlebar upward 2 inches. New Tektro v brake levers have been bought ($11.50 including shipping) and with a little luck a used Rocky Mountain Handlbar will mine for cheap.

I'll update the progress as the upgrades continue, but living 4 miles from work a bicycle will be the perfect item as Project S10 moves foward.

I am starting to hate winter and I mean really, really freaking HATE winter.

Although the winter here has been mild (with the exception of one incredible snow storm dropping 14 plus inches) today was another example why Dante chose his third circle of Hell to be a frozen wasteland where the condemned are pelted with hail.

It's Friday, the day when I get things setup for the weekend. The usual list includes the grocery shopping and light cleaning before my oldest son picks up his brother from mom's. Just after ten in the morning I head to the truck and already a freezing drizzle has started. Today has a extra stop as I want to go by the music shop and discuss new strings for the guitar and having some shoulder strap pegs installed.

There is only one way to drive in the slick stuff if you own a light truck with a manual transmission. You go easy on the gas and keep it in a lower gear using the engine to brake. This will give you good braking without breaking the rear loose. All this adds to the time spent getting around but eventually I make it home, unload and get ready to head to work.

Work, is well, work and tends to be dull. This day the gal who orders in Subway for lunch is out, so I cover for her. After processing through the orders and calling it in I head to the door and wait for the delivery. I'm waiting, waiting... The subway manager usually does the delivery as he gets off shift, but his next shift is late getting in too. After forty five minutes of waiting we get delivery from a store not a mile and a half away. Now it's close to five and I'm starting to worry about my oldest son who will be driving home in this freezing joy and then out into the countryside to pick up his brother. I call home at seven to learn that wisely, he decided it was to slick to drive, especially at night. On one hand I'm relived, on the other hand now I have to get up early to go pick up my youngest son. Eventually work ends and the herd stampedes out into the night. The sleet has now encased the cab of the truck. The plastic trash bag laid across the windshield has half blown off. The door handle itself is iced over so grabbing a stick from the bed I carefully apply a few wacks around the door handle to break the ice loose. Lifting the handle I hear the click of the latch's release. But ice has seeped into the cracks around the door and it's going to require a pull to open. As I pull the door handle snaps stabbing me deeply into the index finger of my left hand.

I knew instantly it was going to be ugly. For the last three weeks I've been taking the beginners steps of learning the guitar. You cannot grasp how tender your fingertips become until you try pressing them firmly against a thin steel string. If you want to get a sense of this find a brick wall and try tapping a hole through it with your fingertips for six hours. My fingertips were already hurting before this. The only thing keeping me from screaming is that by this time my hands are already half numb from the cold.

I'm bleeding, cold and my truck door handle is now broken. Figuring the night couldn't get any worse I walked around to the other door which of course opened easily. Great, add the feeling of stupidity to the mix. After letting the truck warm for a half hour I head to the gas station, for a full tank of gas $31.60 worth and head for home. Goodnight All, I'm going to bed.

As a father facing 50 the time spent bonding with my two son's is at a premium. When it comes to bonding, there is little like working on a car or truck to cement those bonds. My oldest son drives a 1993 Dodge Shadow. It's his first car, a family hand me down with a lot of miles. Like any 13 year old car, it needs a little love and attention.

During the last cold snap my son attempted to roll the window down and the glass slid down inside. The practical sort he knew one quick cure, ducktape.

Having never done this job before he asked for my help in opening up the door. It's a simple, straight forward job yet it can intimate someone who's never done it before. Last Sunday we opened the door and discovered door lift channel broke. The door lift channel is riveted to the bottom of the door window. While this will be a simple job, getting this part wasn't going to be easy.

When it comes to belts, sparkplug, brakes and suspension parts you can walk into any part store and have it by the next day by the latest. Try and order body parts and even the largest parts jobbers can look very small. With some diligent searching we found the part online and it should arrive this week. Next Sunday, we will have it fixed and something else, a shared moment of two guys fixing a car.

What a rough couple of weeks starting with the snow and going downhill from there. I was hit with a computer worm that would not give up. Thinking a change of antiviral software might do the trick I went out and paid 110 bucks for Norton System Works Deluxe 2006 (money I didn't have to spare) and hoped the high dollar software would save me. Not only did it fail to save me from the worm, Norton Ghost hung up and the resulting mess caused me to have to re-install Windows.

Thank You Norton (sarcasm)

I've used and loved Norton's back in the early years of computing, but it's become a fat cow. So here we go scrounging the corners for my disks and re-installing software and while it's yet finished, the machine is back and online.

I'm doing this while working overtime. Not enough overtime to get fully caught up mind you, just enough to stretch out the misery. You can eat a sandwich every day and still slowly starve to death.

On the way to work the truck broke tossing the belt. On the way home from work I ran out of battery juice, reduced to driving without lights at night. My Chevy S-10 has a single serpentine belt. This belt is tightened by a spring loaded idler pulley. Overall it's a good idea as you never have to adjust the belt tension and even changing the belt is reduced to a 5 minute quick process. However someone in the past replaced the pulley that comes in contact with belt with what has to be the cheapest made part available. Someone installed a plastic pulley with pot metal bushing. I've seen better parts installed on lawnmowers. After just getting home I pulled battery and put it on a slow charge and removed the belt tensioner assembly. A quick trip to the local parts store and 24 dollars later I installed the new steel pulley from Gates Manufacturing which uses a roller bearing.

Inkjet went dry, just at the wrong moment. It's not like it was a crisis, it was only 18 dollars to have refilled. But it was 18 bucks on to of buying software, fixing the truck, Christmas shopping which I still have not finished and tight schedules because of the overtime and damn it I just did not need one more aggervation on my plate to deal with.

Last and certainly not least my left knee is giving me problems. Christmas is not turning out well this year