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.