Flowers

I checked out our flowers today. I am getting baby tomatoes finally, but was curious how the flowers were doing. I was amazed the sunflowers are taller than I am. I shot some pics of the flowers beside out house. I didn’t however get pics of our tomatoes; I’ll wait until they turn red.



So the sun flowers are about 8’ tall. They stand almost as high as the window tops. Big yellow flowers. We also have some other flowers, some I didn’t get pictures of, lots of lilies I missed.



But I did shoot some yellow, pink, and red flowers.








Oh yeah and some metallic beetles that are eating leafs of one kind of plant (no idea what it is). But as you can see they are going at it pretty hard core. I should of got them and fed them to my toad, Mr. Toadsworth.





Toadsworth was the size of a pinky nail now he is up to the size of a thumb nail. But he can annihilate a dozen crickets overnight so it isn’t a surprise. I caught the poor little guy by the river. If you feel bad for him, he left a snake infested environment where the insects were larger than he was, to a comfortable home with no predators and a buffet of bugs. He is very happy, and doesn’t pee on you every time you pick him up anymore. So if you feel bad for anything feel bad for one of the snakes that would of got him, they lost a meal.

And here sits the Chevette, awaiting a brake part to come in. Notice the exhaust I ripped off pulling up our hill. Hard to believe that thing has a rebuilt engine in it.



We have been fertilizing with humus, and fish parts. Lots of fish heads and guts. The tomatoes get a lot of dog crap thanks to my three lovely dogs.



I was amazed at the flowers I never really stick my head around there, I just kind of mow and weed whack around them for the most part.
Ok I lied, lilies and tomatoes. But not the big white and pink lilies, only the orange. And I noticed I'm going to have to start watching my pics, already up to 25% of max uploads, wow!

Fall is coming, or Wishful Thinking?

Feels like fall is coming fast. That means bow season. I dug out my bow. Browning double cam Cobra. Yep, one of the old ones from the 70s, wood grain with a 50lb draw and 50% let off. After shooting with her the new ones just feel off. And even know the cobra model was only about 5 pounds, the new ones feel too light. The newer compounds aren't so bad if you like the caliper release, but I still like my fingers on the string just below the nocks.



It’s been a while since I shot her. Going to have to get some practice in with her, I know she shoots higher than you’d expect, and to the left. I don’t like sights on a bow, too easy to rely on, so I like to know how my bow shoots.
She is pretty quite. String whiskers help the string from “twanging”, and everything is tight.

My bow isn’t too accessorized. The quiver is stock, detachable if needed. The string whiskers were added of course. The rest is (I can’t find any more) a stick on plastic “fall away”.

The rest is nice, holds the arrow firm, but is flexible and thin enough to not get in the way of a shot, doesn’t move the arrow off course in the least. It just slaps in on release. I haven’t been able to find another one like it, but I am keeping an eye out.

No sight. Sights get tangled up, and bumped out of line easily. I prefer to know where and how my bow shoots. Though I do have a “sorta sight” It is a piece of tape, and about a half inch above, and half inch out to the left when you’re looking at it is where the arrow will land in the field. Up to 50 foot anyway.



I have my other stuff out as well. Taking inventory so to speak or what I need/don’t need. Skinning knife, check, deer pee, check, rope, check, and so on.



And of course broad heads. I love these three blade broad heads. Fires like a field tip making it easy to adjust from target shooting to kill shooting. They are easy to sharpen as each blade comes out.

But here I am waiting for fall to get here, hopefully this year I can get a good deer. If not with a bow I’m ready for shot gun season as well.

(I actually will use a HR slug gun, though I love my Mossberg.)

My tips? Keep quiet, deer can hear better than you. Keep clean, deer can smell (stank and cologne) better than you. Get close; most people take deer within 50 foot, despite the sniper like tales you may hear. Stay camo’ed. If you are on the ground, stay still and stay out of main view, wear a pattern that breaks up your outline.

If you’re high in the air hang some branches off your stand to break up its form. Deer hardly ever look up right above them, so go too high and you have an impossible angle, too low and they will see you as they come in. About 15’ is good. If your ground hunting with a shotgun, being low can help.

That being said I usually walk up on deer and they surprise me as much as I do them. At 50-25 foot they stop and look at you, sometimes run, but usually go back about their business and keep an eye on you. If you Move fast and they bolt. Move slow and they stay cautious. The young ones won’t run, one that has had a shot taken at it will be gone (probably before you see it).

If you find a rub, or drinking spot, deer are creatures of habit. They will be back, if they don’t see you good, if they do they may avoid the spot all together, if really interested they will come in slow and ready to bolt. Stay still, try and move when they aren’t looking. Then take your shot.

Always go for a kill shot, nothing sucks more than running down an injured deer, you can be on them for miles before they drop. All this sounds easy, but gets very difficult out in the field. That being said I’m probably breaking a copy right law somewhere but here where to shoot.



(Sorry Champion targets, but I used your name so that free advertisement)
Right above the front knee and back a little ways. In the chest area, a little behind the shoulder, but not too high. I say that because most people shoot high, so aim low, If you miss the heart you can still take out both lungs with a good shot, bow or round.

So fall here yet? I’m getting tired of kill rabbits. I wanted to put a picture of dead rabbit here, but you will have to look at my other posts, got to start watching my image hosting.

Bye VW, hello Aveo.

So what ever happened to the VW? We traded it in. A prime time to do so.

But why get rid of a VW golf? I hate VW s. The German engineers are asses. The way certain things are mounted and placed is a joke. But away from that it ran like crap. For the first two months after we bought it, it ran great.

Then the tranny started shifting hard, then late. Then I found out the transmission is a “sealed unit”. Not so, if you need to change transmission fluid on a VW search my blog, it’s there. The great thing about VW tranny fluid, is that it is about $25-30 a liter.



Then the fuel pump went out, a $400 fix, then the starter, a $300 fix, and then the strut mounts, a $80 fix. Did I mention VW parts are expensive? Not including labor, which I graciously volunteered.

After the tranny fluid change it shifted a bit better. But then it started running hot. Something got crossed in the wires/bad fan, and the fuse kept blowing for the electric fan.

I replaced the fuse and usually it would blow in 5-10 minutes. I never wanted to hunt down the cause. So it ran a little hot. Then the “thermo housing,” the hose junction on the side of the block, started to leak. Well it had been leaking since we got the car, but started to get more noticeable where I had to add water twice a week, versus once every two weeks.

The radio lights stopped working from us running the heater to cool the car down, melted the wires inside the dash. The engine began to run weak as well. When it ran great it took about 5 minutes to get to 70, so weaker performance was very noticeable.

So we started car shopping, and we found a Chevy Aveo we liked. The day we went to look at it something under the dash went up in the VW, so I pulled fuses until the smoke stopped. We went the dealer and they offered us $1500 for it. Sold. I just had my fingers crossed when they test drove it.



We got the Aveo. Ok I know it is a Daewoo, that doesn’t surprise me. But it has a Chevy warranty, 4 year bumper to bumper, and 5 year engine/drive train. Good warranty, but you have to “afford” the maintenance to keep the warranty valid. Good thing my wife is sleeping with a mechanic.





But I like the Aveo. It is tiny, four door, and fun to drive. The car has a tight turning radius, super quiet, and feels huge inside. It is peppy with its little 4 cyl, but has exhaust manifold turbo, I found the air pump and hear the whistle. It’s pretty easy to do maintenance on, everything is easily accessible. There are some guards in the way, but not as bad as the VW.





One of my favorite things is the mileage. We get almost 40mpg on the highway, about 30-35 in town, with no air on. But the air will turn the small car into a meat locker.

A Buick that couldn't stop.

So recently I did the brakes on a 90 something Buick. I am not a big Buick fan to start with; I've had no luck with them. I owned a Buick Regal Grand Sport Limited Edition 3800 GT one time, longest freakin' car name ever, and it was a lemon. Nothing but problems. But this one wasn't mine, but it did have those damn hex bolts on the calipers that I'd wanted to get a picture of.

In my opinion that’s what killed GM, those hex bolts on the calipers. The old ones where small, and in between sizes from heat expansion. You had to shove a metric one in and hope to God you didn't round it off. That scared away consumer trust starting around the early 70s, that and building crap with air condition pumps over the distributors. The trend of making cars un friendly to repair.



I was fan of simply cutting the caliper off and then vice gripping the bolts out. But you can't do that unless you replace the caliper.

So any way back to the Buick. It wasn't stopping, and was grinding in the front. It was the brakes of course. Brakes are pretty easy.

Tire off/Jack up the car.

Unbolt the caliper from the back, two bolts, and if they are GM you allen type hex bits/sockets.

Flip the caliper over, pop out one side and "push the caliper open" with a brake tool or C clamp.

Pop out the other pad, put the new ones in.

Check the rotor

Reverse the process.



Easy enough. So the passenger side went about like that. Done in ten minutes with a smoke break.

The driver side however wasn't so good. The pads were down to the rivets, the rotor super thin on one side, and the caliper locked up tighter than catholic school dorms.



So I unhook the caliper, and popped the rotor off. Put a new caliper on, and rotor, put the pads back in, and was almost done.



I usually make someone help me bleed the brakes out, but this time I was on my own, so I used my "God Awful" one man bleeder. I got sick of it, and ended up just sucking the brake fluid out by mouth like a siphon until I saw no bubbles. Much easier and faster than actually using the bleeder.

With the air out I returned the vehicle to a drivable condition. I was later informed that the driver almost got whiplash the first time she stopped, because she was used to standing on the brakes.

Another job well done.

Killed my phone.

I broke it.



So I had a CECT P168 phone, commonly known as an Iphone clone. I loved it, but most people hated it. It looked like the first generation Iphone, but didn’t have the features. There was no Java, shake feature, and it was pretty bare bones.

The reason I loved it is I had signal everywhere. I have a smaller company, and with them I could get almost full bars where my friends with the big networks and $500 phones couldn't get a signal. I always said I could be in a bomb shelter sitting in a closet and get half bars.

It was tough, I dropped it, got it wet, and abused it, and it took a beating. Being a mechanic it rode in my pocket with lots of bolts, screwdrivers, ect, and only had one small scratch on the screen. Not bad for $70.

But it didn’t have Java, so games and apps were out. That is the reason I think most people hated it. The camera was ok, good enough for me; the video it took was awesome though. Loud, very loud, even on its quietest mode it was still loud, on full volume a surprise call could make you piss yourself. Great for an alarm clock. Played mp3s, and most videos with ease. I used to watch old cartoons on it when waiting places.

The headphone jack was a USB type jack, so getting replacements head phones was a PITA. I hardly used it, but a regular jack would have been better.

Touch screen was great, I loved the phone, tough, reliable, and then I killed it.

As tough as it was it couldn't survive a fall on the corner of an open drawer on the night stand screen first.



So I say good bye to my 168, and wait for next week when my CECT I9 will be here. It does have Java, shake control, ect, however I just hope it has as good of antenna and gets as good of a signal as it's ancestor.

Pain sucks. Time for a gross post.

So I've been lazy lately. But I have an excuse. In pain, lots of pain. The other day I thought my appendix was going to rupture. A quick Web MD search told me that wasn't it. The pain was on the wrong side.

So what hurts? Started out right above my left hip, to the lower portion of my stomach on the left side. Ached like no tomorrow.

I searched, appendix was out, lots of other diseases, and cancers all that took time and symptoms that got worse or are different to my pain. A flipped an intestine or hernia? Now those could be it, except my morning constitutionals have been normal. So nothing is blocked up.

So why does my lower left abdomen hurt? Well I looked into kidney infection, doesn't burn when I pee, the #1 symptom. But everything else matched.

So as I hunted down my ailment I blatantly forgot the most obvious cause.

Yesterday morning I bought cranberry juice, oh yeah the stuff of legends for kidney and bladder infections. I got up and in three hours of being awake I drank 8 glasses of water, and 64 ounces of cranberry juice.

Did you know, that cranberry juice is a natural laxative?

I found out the hard way; let’s say I am cleaned out, for six hours my rear had become a super soaker. And that super soaker had gone from chunky brown, to fluid so clear I could fill up a Fiji bottle and you wouldn’t know the difference.

What I'm saying is I got tired of crapping liquid. Thank God it stopped.

While doing this I realized two somethings. I cleaned myself out, yay, and it is a pulled muscle.

Oh yeah back to the kidney infection, above my kidneys started to hurt, so I put the abdominal pain and the new pain together, thinking maybe I was coming down with kidney infection. That is why I hit the cranberry juice hard and fast.

But today my lower left abdomen hurts right at the base of my stomach to my hip, wraps around my side, to my back where my kidney sits. Not kidney infection. Pending any weird disease, I pulled the muscles.

I tried to stretch and move in the beginning to see if it was tight muscles, but I couldn't really get them to hurt by moving. If I am driving and hit a bump, they hurt, but not physically moving my body.

Well yesterday, the third day of this pain I figured out the cause. Five days ago I carried a gun safe by myself. It weighted about 250lbs, a small one. I had propped it on my left foot. With the safe sitting there I walked it step by step with my leg into the house, up stairs, and to its final resting place.

If I move my leg in that awkward motion the whole area lights up with pain, like a bdsm Christmas tree.

So that is the cause, and why I have been lazy.

But that being said, I have a three great blogs coming soon. One on the death of my CECT P163, one about a Buick and it's brake malfunction, and one on our new car the Chevy Aveo. They should be boom, boom, the photos are ready, the text mostly typed. So they will have photos, and be way better/interesting than this post.

Missing V-8

So I drove my Nova the other day, right before the fourth. Expecting a smooth ride, and it ran like crap. Missing, popping, back firing. Couldn't figure out what could of wrong, seemed off, very off.



So I came home and popped the hood, let it cool down, and started the search. Wow, one plug wire had melted through, the other had fell off, and the plug was loose. No one wonder it ran like crap, the V-8 was a missing V-6.

So I knew these plugs were a pain in the butt to get to. When I did the headers they were a night mare. Tight is an understatement, I'd like to insert a pedo comment but won't due to good taste.

So I have no room to work on them. The boots I had to use, and I use the terms boots loosely, suck. I can't use straight, I can't use 90 degree, or 45 degree, or any other boot you can think of, I can only use half wells. Now a half well is a boot that is cut in half, and the 90 degree half well boot work perfectly. By perfectly I mean about as well as a three wheeled fork truck. So that's what I have.

So I tried to snug the plug, no wrench would fit, or wratchet, or socket, no not even the all might buddy boy, will fit, not enough room. So I used rubber coated pliers and did the best I could. I wasn't happy so I made a "hook" wrench, it worked sort of, still hard to get it on the plug, but they are a bit tighter than finger tight now.





With the plugs tight I smushed the boots back on. To prevent heat I used those thermal flash dance leg sock looking things. So far so good, they say up to 1500 degrees. We will test that.

I noticed how fast my exhaust was getting hot.

Now I was bad, I set my base timing, and it ran fine, I figured it was advanced enough. So I decided late timing maybe super heating the exhaust. So I bumped it up a peg after about six beers. It was idling in park at 600 rpm. Which is a little slow for a 350, but I guess technically pretty slow on a 327. The 327 have that super short stroke, so they like a little more RPMs. So I cranked it up to about 10-9by advancing it. It was semi warm, so I am sure it will fall to about 900-850 when warmed up. So not too much overkill.

I do think I will get pinging from my vac advance now though. I hate vac advance so I may plug it. Insufferable little things that need constant fine tuning just for the sake of mileage.

I only drove it around the block, but it seems good to go, better than 6 cylinders anyway.

Drunk advance video, just kidding not really drunk.



Speaking of drinking, here is some fireworks at the fourth of July this year. I was excited about a chicken and tank.

Fishing and stuff.

Sick today, ugh. Don't know how I got a cold in the middle of the summer? Who knows? Usually it is my sinuses, I constantly battle them. Pollen in spring, weeds in summer, dry air in winter. Never bothered me as a kid, I hope they stop bothering me again.

But this gives me a chance to blog, something I haven't done in a while. A brief look at what I normally blog about. The Chevette, runs great, exhaust still isn't on it, and there is a loss of prime at the fuel pump, so you have to prime it every time. Other than that the engine is good to ok. The master cylinder is shot though, so it needs that replaced. I've taken a break from it, so it is parked awaiting a more motivated time to arrive.

The VW, well it is leaking coolant out of either 1. The water outlet elbow or 2. The head itself. It started losing power, so I think the head maybe screwed, but it still runs great so not sure if it is the head as it has power in low. We wiped out the exhaust the other day and had a new piece of pipe welded on. Other than it's normal problems it is doing all right besides overheating. But I can't see spending any more time and money on it, the wife works 45 minutes away, I go to school about 45 minutes away in the opposite direction, so we need mileage and reliability. So we maybe looking at new cars soon.

The Nova, plug 3 and 4 are giving me problems, with my headers I can't run any kind of plug boot but short wells. And they fall off or burn through. Besides that she is a dream, whoever designed the headers is an idiot.

I did a quick tape up job on them for now. Going to look for plugs that may work, but 45 and 90 degrees are out, so are straight boots. So maybe something short with a heat shield?



Well away from mechanic work, I've been busy hunting and fishing.





So been fishing, lot of fishing. Kind of wish I would have got that trout fee, I've caught two of them. Lots of bass, and other pan fish like blue gill and perch I've caught, so many I've sharpened my fillet knife a million times. I've got a few, very few channel cat, I hate cleaning them so that’s ok with me.










Been fishing in several lakes, and on the Mississippi river. Had some hot spots, and then they go cold. But I've been taking quite a few fish; I have about 15-20 pounds of frozen fillets in my freezer. The wife is going to make poor man lobster, and fry up the rest with the pan fish. Should be a good time, a few beers, fried fish, and maybe family and friends . . . whenever we get around to having it.











Also done some hunting, thanks to year round pest/rodent/varmint hunting to protect your fields and crops. I've been protecting fields. I've took four rabbits this year on three ten minute trips.







First of all if you’re going to tell me I can't eat rabbit this time of year your wrong. I've heard you can't eat them in the summer they have worms, I've heard you can't eat them in the winter they have worms. So evidently you just can't eat rabbit. I've always eaten them year round. If you cook them properly they are fine, and tasty.






Besides know what else has worms year round? Pork.

South they take them in the spring and summer and won't take them in the winter, head north and it's vice a versa. I've eaten them both times and never once have gotten sick. But I carefully clean and the wife carefully cooks them.



That being said, my wife makes a mean rabbit salad. I'm looking forward to it again. The trick is to clean them well, soak in salt water for a day, freeze them, then thaw and cook to at least 180 degrees internally. That kills anything.
I almost have enough fur to make me a set of rabbit mittens. The good kind with fur inside and out. Well maybe, unless my determined dogs ever get the furs first.

So other than that, we've been cleaning our house and yard. Mower is giving me fits, may tear it down and get some pictures. Been lacking on taking pictures lately, just doing the work and then when I want to blog I wish I had pictures. Oh well I can't be perfect all the time.

Chevette Rescue Part 1.5

So worked on the chevette, fired her up, dropped the old radiator in and put some water in it. Engine ran strong, but the water pump spits out water like anorexic duck. So I ran her until she warmed up adding water, watching the timing belt and fan pulley, didn’t want either to fall off.



She ran strong, good to work that oil through since I just changed it. But the water pump is shot; one will be coming in, on order. Good thing to find out before you get ready to road test her though. Also you get that lovely water spray everywhere, that happened to leave white residue on everything in my garage. But the old one is about off, waiting to be replaced.







I have an exhaust to start piecing together. I haven’t decided what kind of system yet, thrush tubes, turbo muffler, just no stainless steel resonator that will make it sound like a moped though. I don’t care what people think is cool.

But I got the front calipers on, need to bleed them. I got my suspicion that a front brake line is leaking too, I’ll find out when I bleed them if I see any drips. Knowing my luck the worst possible, hard to get to, impossibly bent, line will be leaking.



She sounded strong though, loud of course, there is no exhaust, but the engine ran a lot better than it previously did. Well the dizzy isn’t flopping around so I expected an improvement. I'm sure the new lug made all the difference though.



There is a story to starting her though.

I got her together, good enough for a test fire, and cranked it. The occasional pop, but no fire. Hmmm, come to find out the fuel pump isn’t priming, still it isn’t but I haven’t funneled fuel into it, having to prime it manually at the carb. Figuring that out fuel pump will come later. But for now she is just tossed together to run, the pretting' up come later.



So I put gas in her carb, and still, pop . . . . pop. . . . crank and crank.

Well that sucks.

So the wife got home and I had her turn it over while after I loosened the distributor, after turning the distributor way back past TDC she started and ran like a champ. Then I underwent the major task of tightening the dizzy, which is a pain. So with that clamped down she purred, loud as all get out, but still a loud purr.



When the sticker says 8 degrees before TDC, it means it.

That made me happy. Fuel, spark, and time (besides having to prime the carb) and that car is a go. Now I am onto picking at the brakes, and the coolant system. New water pump is on order; the new radiator is out in the garage awaiting its installation.

Right now the choke is just kind of hanging out, it has no power, but still opens up which is concerning to me. I may end up killing it, it’s electric anyways, and putting a manual choke on. But then I have the whole idle stop floating cam therory goes out the window . . . maybe I’ll leave it and bend it so it starts tighter. No, no, I’ll find the wire; it’s off the oil sending unit, wherever that is. Once I find that though I may kill off the idiot light and run my own tach.

But she lives; right now she is in pieces again, awaiting that water pump. But once I get the water pump and radiator in,I have the exhaust to figure out and then clean up the wires, and put the new tach in, oh yeah and the front brakes bled at least. I may park her for a while and take a break.

So right now I am waiting on some parts, and have lots of things to do, like tach, brake work, still haven’ gotten to the rear end yet. It has new gas shocks and wheel cylinders in line at the very minimum. But once she is together, and all that I have left is cosmetics, I’ll have to shoot a vid of her running.

I do need to start picking up my tools, my entire tool box is all over my garage. Since 80% of the engine work is done I won’t need everything, I can go back to picking and choosing out of the drawers, versus let’s get everything out because I need standard and metric everything.

That’s the update, not a lot new, as the engine is the biggest task, I’m pretty happy with how it is going. I will be happier when she is road ready and I can start gutting the interior and doing some body work though.