Good Morning!!!! 69F @ 4:30AM. Partly cloudy. High near 80F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.
You know, Drew, the only time I've regretted paying too much for something is right after I made the payment. But I regretted not getting the options/features I wanted every time I used something that didn't have 'em. You'll have to decide which regrets are easier to live with. BTW, have you noticed your 401K creeping back up? Should take some of ths sting out of the tractor price.
Tragic what happened to that officer, Kyle. The shooter should get the death penalty; only way to make sure he doesn't do it again.
My barber is an English immigrant in his late 30s/early 40s, and loves this country more than most people that were born here. We've both worked hard for most of what we've got, and get on very well together. If he sticks with it, he'll outlast me by a great margine. I just have to hang on to what hair I've still got so he has something to work with!:laughing:
I learned the hard way that paper shredders don't like peel and stick labels, and I peel or cut the shipping labels off all the packages I receive and put them in a grocery bag for later burning. No sense spreading my name and address info all over the city dump. That grocery bag takes about a year to fill, and it'll make a great campfire starter once it starts raining here again. I sure like your stainless steel washtub idea, Ron, but any sort of burn barrel is banned here. I guess too many people don't like the smell of burning trash, or the ashes that float away and start fires when idiots use them wrong.:confused2:
I got my flu shot during Thursday's shopping trip to Costco. Met the cutest little pharmacist I've ever seen; I doubt she was an inch over five feet tall, had the lovliest long chestnut brown hair, and a wonderful personality. Too bad I'm old enough to be her grandad...:duh:
Vanagons as they come from the factory are prone to engine fires due to a plastic fuel line bulkhead fitting on the front firewall of the engine bay. The plastic has gotten brittle over the past twenty something years, and the end result is predictable. VW made matters worse when sometime in the mid '80s they changed the material for the trap door over the engine bay to plastic from steel. All the fuel lines have been replaced on my Vanagon, and the fuel line is routed through a rubber grommet in the firewall to eliminate the plastic fitting. Yesterday I took the steel trap door out of the '82 donor van and spruced the underside up a bit with a fireproof blanket and something called a BlazeCut, which is basically a fire extinguisher in a tube that I attached with padded clamps to the trap door. It self triggers when a sensor reaches a certain temperature, and the one I purchased is double the usual length to hopefully make sure it does the job should it ever be necessary.
The rest of the day was spent boning up on Idle Air Control Valves and trying to understand what the error code that was thrown last week means. In the process I discovered that the screw that holds the throttle position sensor on was loose, so I tightened it and used the OBD II reader to make sure it was adjusted properly. That was a new way of working on a vehicle for me, as the only other time I've used something electronic was to check timing with a timing light or continuity or voltage with a digital volt meter. Now I can add the iPhone to the list, as it runs an app that reads the OBC II reader over Bluetooth radio waves.
I'm also beginning to understand the allure of hanging sensors all over an engine, and even the whole car, and being able to see in real time the movement of various actuators, the resistance change in potentiometers, or the RPM or temperature change as an engine runs. I'm still not sold on the concept, though, since not only do the engine parts all have to do their jobs, but now all those sensors and connecting wires, and the computers that they communicate with all have to work as well. More links in the chain, more stuff to break, and lower overall reliability. Yes, a Hall sensor triggered ignition is more reliable than an old set of points, and that was one of the first "modern" uses of electronics in the automotive world. But a lot of the other sensors and actuators in use now are prone to failure, so in addition to understanding the failure mode and resulting symptoms of the engine parts themselves, a skilled mechanic must also understand those things for the sensors and actuators, too. And in todays engines, I'm not sure any one person can understand it all.
We're under another Red Flag Warning for the weekend due to temperatures some twenty degrees above the norm and gusty winds. Just yesterday the fire department had to visit a property where a "controlled burn" got out of hand, in spite of a total ban on any outside burning that has been in effect all summer.
Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!
