Minor Win thread - Life is good!

It's been a great first week in Colorado. 

Three minor wins. 

1. All my stuff got here with only one minor thing broken.

2. My wife got a job within 3 days of being here and also got a nice pay raise in the process. 

3. We made the trip up here with none of the animals puking or peeing in my new car. 

So yeah, life is good right now.

Today's success:

1. Found the reason why the trans failed in the duster. 

2. Finally found a solution to the upper radiator hose for the challenge car 

3. Got a 71 240z running for the first time in a decade 

4. Got a mazda b2000 running for the first time in 4 years 

5. Got the 72 t bird running for the first time in four years. 

3,4, and 5 are at brother Dustin place.  T bird is what brought him home from the hospital when he was born. Picked up the carb at last years challenge. Z car was bought from the original owner last week. Truck is his first car that developed a smoking problem all of a sudden and he thought needed a motor (pcv valve went bad, but we have a lot more work ahead on that one)

Damn good and successful day.

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

A '72 T-bird was my first car.  It was the awesomest car I ever owned!

Got our tow dolly refitted with LED lights and wiring completed yesterday. It will be VISIBLE, legal, and safe. Woot!

Challenge car ran, turned, stopped... and took us on the road legally for carryout!

Packing has begun for the trip..

Now, to get our tow minivan wired for trailer lighting....  

I just realized that one of SWMBO's old yoga mats is perfect for cutting up and using for seat padding. :) !

Since my Miata wasn’t “quite” ready for prime time (it’s at the dealership).  We have autocross today and I bummed a co-drive in a very nice little STR prepped ND. Earned myself 5th place in raw time, 4th in PAX, and fastest street tire finish.  

If you have any money don’t drive one, you’ll be buying it.  Very, very good car.

Greg Smith said:

Got our tow dolly refitted with LED lights and wiring completed yesterday. It will be VISIBLE, legal, and safe. Woot!

Challenge car ran, turned, stopped... and took us on the road legally for carryout!

Packing has begun for the trip..

Now, to get our tow minivan wired for trailer lighting....  

LED lights are "visible"? 

Thanks to random visits from friends, 2 crisis have been averted. Last night I showed the ham I'm brining to someone and noticed a leak in the container. Today, I finally got to show my buddy the pig I got this year, and found the freezer had been not shutting. Only loss was the deep fried cheesecakes, they were probably still good, but had gotten very soft. 

Bonus win, I'm finally getting a freezer that's younger than me. Has never happened in my 31 years. 

Knurled. said:

Greg Smith said:

Got our tow dolly refitted with LED lights and wiring completed yesterday. It will be VISIBLE, legal, and safe. Woot!

Challenge car ran, turned, stopped... and took us on the road legally for carryout!

Packing has begun for the trip..

Now, to get our tow minivan wired for trailer lighting....  

 

LED lights are "visible"? 

Absolutely! Compared to the old single bulb decade old units that came with the tow dolly originally, these are nearly impossible to miss.  On 1000 mile road trip, I want every advantage possible to keep other stupid drivers from being stupid with us. 

Rode 10 miles on the old bicycle tonight, great weather for it and I don't feel like my legs are going too fall off. 

Worked on the new to me 07 F250 today. I changed to oil to 5w-40 T6, changed the crappy Napa cap and filter to genuine Motorcraft and changed both the primary and secondary fuel filters. Everything looked good. Next will be the serpentine belt and rear end oil.

I also changed the oil, air, fuel and oil filters in my dad's 7.3L. He's getting to the age to where he can't crawl under vehicles anymore, so I was more than happy to help.

It was a nice day.

My 15 year old and I spent half of Saturday and half of Sunday replacing the rear struts on my In laws car and replacing the logic board in their garage door opener and my son seemed to have a good time hanging out with his dad and grandpa.

well, my 54 year old boat not only floated, but sailed very well. I even slept aboard for 4 nights. The last part was the only hard part of the entire trip down to Md. Cruise/beach camping has a lot going for it, comfort is not one of them

Completed the first half of my commute today 

Severe weather caused me to forego the ride home. The sky looked like this 

Decided I shouldn't be riding a bicycle into that mess. 

Still a win though.

The Bride of Burrito and I are on holiday in Iceland right now.  Today I got to watch an honest to goodness Iceberg flip over on it's own accord.  I had no idea that was on my bucket list until I watched it happen.

Our Turbo Diesel / 6MT equipped NV200 campervan is currently parked about 400 meters (I'm trying to fit in....) from the Skogafoss waterfall, oriented so that it's the first thing that we see in the morning.

It's almost exactly midnight here and the wife and I are embibing in a few adult beverages in hopes that the Aurora will make itself present to us this evening.

Pretty berkeleying content right now.  

I just made SWMBO laugh so hard she farted.

I love long, passive-aggressive construction questions that can be answered with "Read the berking drawings."

On the minor rant flip side, that means you're working with a contractor that can't (or won't) read the berking drawings.

Or, you have drawings that were created by and engineer or architect that doesn't know their ass from their elbow and the drawing they created makes no sense in reality. I dealt with both of them.  sigh 

In reply to Appleseed :

These aren't the world's best drawings - they're prototype drawings sourced from the hotel chain, which I've adapted to meet local code.

But in this case, there was a longwinded RFI about a bunch of casework from the subcontractor, implying that the drawings were not complete enough to be useful.  Well, if you had bothered to look at the casework plan, each and every item has a callout around it.  Follow that callout to the indicated drawing, and lo and behold, there's an enlarged, detailed plan, section, and elevation for each piece that answers all of your stupid questions exactly.  Oh, and that one piece that you said didn't have any information at all?  Guess what - it's furniture, and it's clearly tagged on the furniture plan.

My autocross friend's Fiat Abarth 500, which he had a love/hate relationship with due to it's inherent Italianness, was wiped out in an accident recently (not his fault, everyone was okay) and so now he is picking a new car, and being quite secretive about what it is. Today on Facebook he mentions that due to the forecast for possible snow this week, he might be parking the car as soon as he picks it up until his snow wheels/tires show up. I ask what the bolt pattern, size and offset is in hopes of getting a hint, he says he will only give me diameter: 18". I immediately reply "I'm gonna guess it came with 19" stock,and if that's right I know what it is" and he messages me and goes "Yup, you guessed it, Focus RS."

So, A) I guessed the correct car just based on the diameter of his winter wheels and B) I now will know someone with a Focus RS that I would feel comfortable asking to let me take it for an autocross hot-lap.

I scored the last new old stock aluminium small block mopar to tremec bellhousing that was known about in the country. They've been discontinued for a few years. And never that thick on the ground. 

In addition, i got it for the old proce of $285 shipped!

Much better news than my fragged Lakewood. 

I've realized that with my shift in career focus I'll be able to afford to buy and run my "affordable" dream car as a daily driver in 2 years.

finally in south Texas we got some cold weather! And after spending 2 years in old house with no insulation or central heat we have central heat!!!! (Off to rant thread to complain about cold weather)

In reply to Papabishop :

I turned the AC in the garage off for the first time since probably March.  And I used the seat heaters in the Subaru. Life is good. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Sadly after this morning, getting into my 2004 Infiniti with leather seats, I missed those heated seats..