1969 Mercedes 200. Because they said it couldn't be done

revengineer wrote: Great thread, excited to see how this beauty works out for ya. I love watching how folks learn to work with what they can find in a new and unfamiliar environment, without all the amenities (necessarily) we have back home...even Amazon, apparently! Oh and the title caught my eye; apparently we're kinda neighbors...I'm in the Jahra area. We spend a lot of the day at work outside or piled in a truck so I hear ya on boosting that AC! 49C today and 50C predicted for Wednesday, woohoo!

Wow! what are the chances!?! Ok, I'm pre-coffee and speechless right now, but when I get myself put together we're going to have to figure stuff out!

This was a good week for the Merc parts! Unfortunately my Hungarian chauffeur is out of town. Before he left we were able to get the car down to the villa so I could work on it over the weekends but since he's gone I'm going to be stuck in the hotel for a while

The good news is, I have the tunes sorted out. I picked up a nifty little FM transmitter for 3kd (about $10) and downloaded an app called "Jango Radio" on my phone (Pandora isn't downloadable out here, but it's roughly the same idea) so Zsolt and I were able to jam out to my brand new Parliament station while we drove through town. (not too loud though. Ramadan is still in full swing, and you're not supposed to go through town blasting music)

The bad (can I really call it that?) news is, the mail system picked this week to go in to warp speed and all the stuff I thought would arrive after Zsolt got back is now sitting my room teasing me

(Workshop manual from Australia, Bosch "Blue" rear brake pads, and a rear seatbelt set with almost all of its mounting hardware!)

Always good times.

Good times indeed!

In reply to Hungary Bill:

FYI, you are the steward of my current favorite GRM thread.

Woody wrote: In reply to Hungary Bill: FYI, you are the steward of my current favorite GRM thread.

Aw, Woody!

Thanks!

I did forget, there was some bad news this week:

I seem to still be having some trouble figuring out how business gets done here and part of that, I think, is because the people seem to keep very late hours. I'm the type that likes to line things up in advance and THEN deploy my assets. I'm also an early riser, and not much of a late nighter. Here though, everything happens "inshallah" and communication doesn't seem very clear.

So I got in touch with the previous owner last weekend and asked if I could swing by one evening (I picked tuesday just to have a day in mind) to pick up that spare engine. His reply? a text that simply said "inshallah"

Sweet, I took that for a yes and called my buddy Mustafa to see if he could line up a flatbed with a small crane (these things are everywhere, especially at the friday market). His reply was a text that said "ok, I'll call somebody today"

Sweet! I ask the previous owner "what time on tuesday works for you?" and he said any time after 9pm. Ok... that's a bit later than I'm usually out, but I can work it I think.

And then days go by... and neither person is talking...

Finally Tuesday morning rolls around and I still haven't heard boo from either party. So I text (whatsapp is used for 100% of the cell phone communication around here) Mustafa and no reply. I text the previous owner and say "well, it looks like I couldnt get a truck in time. I'll try again another day, inshallah"

no reply

at 10pm tuesday night (after I've been asleep for a few hours) I get a whatsapp call from Mustafa. I didn't pick up, but I'm betting money he had a truck and was ready to go... You know, after days of not saying anything and an hour after we were supposed to be at the place? But I think here, that's the norm and he was right on time.

Ah well, next time I'll know better.

What I might actually do is go to the Friday market and see if I can't meet the previous owner to snag a truck and driver from there and do all the coordinating myself. Until I get used to the local business customs, I think it'd probably be better if I kept my hands on as much of the procedure as possible

Good times

Inshallah defined:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_5b1rA_Uysk

In reply to Hungary Bill:

Might be a weather thing, too. Here in Las Vegas, the predicted highs for next week are 114F.

Some years ago, the brake fluid distribution block in my Volvo had failed in summer.

I started the replacement at 3am, when it was only 90F. By the time I was finished bleeding the last caliper, it was 6:30, the sun was coming up, and so was the temperature.

Makes perfect sense why people there don't want to do much of anything outdoors during daylight hours.

EvanR wrote: In reply to Hungary Bill: Might be a weather thing, too. Here in Las Vegas, the predicted highs for next week are 114F. Makes perfect sense why people there don't want to do much of anything outdoors during daylight hours.

I was thinking the same thing too. We do get a lot of shocked looks when we tell people what hours we work (normal dayshift hours in the states). I don't think Mustafa even wakes up before 4pm.

When I was planning on coming out here I asked some of the guys "how in the world do people there deal with the heat!?!". I got lots of different explanations, but my favorite was "You just swap seasons". Instead of staying indoors in the winter, when the weather is cruddy, people here go OUTSIDE in the winter (for all their camping and other outdoorsie stuff) then hunker down in the summer when it's too hot

Easy squeezy lemon peasy.

The other thing about the heat is now it's heating up the cold water in the house to roughly the temperature as the hot water...

See those big water tanks on top of the building tops? The ministry pumps the water into those for use in your house. From there it flows down and that's what gives you water pressure. It works, but in the summer (like now) the water is almost always in direct sunlight so the stuff coming out your tap is cool for about a second before it's scorching hot!

It took me about a day of not washing my hands and refrigerating my drinking water, but eventually I figured out if I tripped the breakers to my hot water heaters I'd end up with two 50-gallon "cool tanks" in the Villa. We'll see if my plan worked next time I'm down that way but I have high hopes

Good times

Brilliant!

Agreed. That is a genius solution to get cold water in your situation.

D'oh!!!! I just had a great weekend at the house and now it appears my photobucket account is acting up

Anyhoo, the good news (while I sort out my photobucket account) is the hot water heater trick worked!!!

It dawned on me that first morning that the water might have cooled overnight, and I might be in for a cold shower, but with JUST the "cold" water tap open the temp was PERFECT. Exactly where I like it for a hot shower (and that's kind of scary when you think about how hot that water must be in that tank...). the hot water tap is room temp but I'm marking this down as a win

Right now it's off to photoberkit to see if I cant get my inked pictures working. Right now they say "boo on you for third party hosting" which I'm assuming means because I link pictures to forums... which is what I thought the whole point of photobucket was

Good times

I'm back! (and on Flickr.) I'll be honest, I have a lot of photos and photobucket really had me scarred for life. I was DREADING uploading all of them with how bleeding long it takes my ancient computer on the hotel's wifi...

But enough of that! A few posts ago I was trying to find a hardware store to buy those AC gauges I ended up finding at the friday market. Well, I finally found the darn place. It turns out I thought it was an event center

what can I say, I'm still new and things are still strange

Anyhoo, here's a few shots form the inside. I found lots of "things" but if you were looking or something specific (like, say, a set of AC gauges?) it might be tough pickins:

It's no Friday market, but I definitely dig the place. The rifles you see are all air rifles but I'm thinking about picking one up for giggles. I loved the antifreeze containers, I've NEVER seen it packaged like that before

Good times.

Ps

no, I didn't buy anything. I made it out of there with my bank account fully intact. We're paying two mortgages (well, one rent and one mortgage) and I'm trying to behave until our house sells.

Cool.

FYI 3 flickr pics in the last post say "this photo is no longer available". The rest work.

Oh my goodness, if image hosting were engines Photobucket would be carrying a small block chevy up a flight of stairs (been there done that) and Flickr would be the smooth hum of a Rotary.

So like I mentioned I had a great weekend at the house. Try as I might I just couldnt quit messing with house stuff! There was a ton of stuff left behind and at first I thought it was the landlord hoarding but a lot of the lamps and appliances had american style plugs so I began to suspect that previous tenants may have left all this stuff behind and the landlord was just kind of stuck with it and couldn't be bothered to get it all out. Ah well. Either way I didn't want most of it in our living areas so I hauled as much as I could up three flights of stairs to the maids quarters (I know, right?!?). The rent is so far under what it should be (By about $1500/mo) that I don't mind a little sweat equity.

If I'm honest though, I think doing housework made me feel like I was that much closer to the family being out here. 90 days out, 60 days to go on that front (inshallah).

All that being said, I did get a little car work done:

First, the car didn't start (no click, no crank). Now, I'm positive it's because it sat for about two weeks without being ran, but because the radio and headlights still turned on with the key on I looked at the starter wiring...

And immediately wished I hadn't

ok, those came out kind of small. (still learning to flick I guess) the first one is twisted wire and electrical tape going to the solenoid

The second is a blob of solder on the solenoid terminal...

Thank god for two things:

1) I'm not afraid of wiring

2) I'm in possession of a spare starter

Moving on

When I last looked at the rear brakes it was on the driver's side and it was paper thin. So of course the first pads I elected to change on this repair were the passenger's rear....

... which had plenty of meat on them....

I elected NOT to change those...

Instead I went and re-looked at the driver's side.

Well, I guess that explains why the car came with one pair of rear pads. Still... these had "stuck piston" written all over them. While I had the pads removed I gently pushed on the brake pedal. I got measurable movement an all four pistons (two pistons on each caliper). I was able to push them all back by hand with equal-ish effort, and the new pads went in their respective places without a fuss so I called it good. Now I have a spare set of rear pads to go with the car

Easiest pad change ever. 2-pins out, pads out. Compress pistons, pads in, pins in. Done! (not bad for 1969)

Ok, back to the house.

As I mentioned before, the house has an apartment below it. This is because the big houses in Kuwait have entertaining areas that are below ground. It's like a little apartment, and in this particular house the landlord sectioned it off to make two living areas out of one. That means the stairs going down to the lower level got filled in and now look like this:

Well, on Friday a British friend of mine "Harry" and I were hanging out and.... well... not drinking. Long story short, we've decided that in that "urn" are the ashes of the landlords great grandfather "Aziz".

Aziz was the Kareem of Abdul-Jabbar and lived in this house but died tragically before his time. The family had him cremated and, out of respect, the family turned the entire lower level into an empty tomb (adorned with the golden urn you see now) I'm seriously thinking about having a plaque and a small plinth made. Anyhoo, if you're ever over and you hear something moving about downstairs at night, it's just 'ol Aziz entertaining his guests.

Good times.

RedGT wrote: Cool. FYI 3 flickr pics in the last post say "this photo is no longer available". The rest work.

Aw darn. My fault. Standby

Ninja edit: The name "Aziz" honestly had nothing to do with my signature. That was complete happenstance

Another successful weekend at the house!

No work on the car to report, but I did have a walk around the block and it looks like I miiiiiiiiiiiight have a few friends in the immediate area

I want them all

Also the water is so hot that Zsolt, the Hungarian, installed a water saver shower head in his apartment. He says he can get 2-minutes of a shower now before the cold water scalds him.

In town you see water stations near the sidewalk on just about every block. I've used one or three before it got this hot and I was walking around more but on Saturday I saw this:

That's right. The water coming out of the pipes is so hot that people can make tea right from the tap

Good times

I'm surprised to see that 1971/72 GTO over there...the poor thing didn't fare well.

Yeah, that Pontiac hits me right in the feels every time I see it (and it's right between me and the nearest grocery store)

I did some starter troubleshooting: I got a set of cables on sale with a can of generic wd40

Unfortunately Zsolt's CL500 was unable to get it to crank (did you know that thing cost $100k when new?!?)

Since I dont have a battery charger here (yet) I took the battery in to work where Zsolt and I were able to convince one of the Pakistani battery backshop guys that it was a Light Cart battery (think flood lights on wheels) and he was willing to toss it on the charger for 4 hours (no pictures, sorry) but super nice guy.

Short story long it was no dice for me. The 50C temps and low charge mean my poor baby is done until I can afford another battery for her (still paying two mortgages and prepping for the move).

I DID notice that after the charge I heard a relay click when I hooked up the battery (ignition off). Dang, I might have a short

I troubleshot it to this cluster:

" />

Which led me to a wire that had no connection...

Which led me to another group of wires that had no connection!

There is one wire that runs through the firewall and into the cabin but I haven't traced it yet. I think it might lead to this relay's removal, and if so it might solve my drain issues. Wish me luck

good times

I only had a few seconds to skim the latest, but I love the cool tanks, great idea!

if it makes you feel any better, the cold water tap here in south florida is well over room temp these days...probably around 80 or so. I can take a cold only shower and it's plenty warm after the first couple of minutes.

Man, coming from Washington state the idea of needing to do something extra to get cold water is still foreign to me, I don't know how you guys do it!

Well, I ended up cutting the one wire going through the firewall. It shares a sleeve with two other wires and together it really gets messy once you get behind the radio and in that area. There's also gratuitous use of what looks to be RTV like adhesive and I think that might be what is holding the center console in place so I'm kind of afraid to try to remove it. So far everything in that area has been done by pulling the carpet back on the driver's side and peeking in. Lemme tell ya, it's a rats nest back there...

Anyhoo, photo proof of wire removal comes to you today by my computer's webcam! (I left my phone in Zsolts car, and even though he's like two blocks away I'm too lazy to go get it)

More photos of rats nest, RTV, and my pretty mug to follow

Good times

(also, I checked. The AC fan and blower motor still kick on. I'm very nervous about doing ANYTHING that's going to disrupt that system)

As promised, here's a picture of what's behind that center console (because I promised) but I'll spare you any more pictures of my ugly mug

I think I'm going to start at the relays and remove everything wire by wire. Unfortunately not much car action has been going on at all lately. It's been getting up to about 50deg C (that's about 122f for us 'Murikans) and one day it got as high as 55!!! I'm afraid that's just a LITTLE too hot for me to want to be outside any longer than I absolutely have to.

..

Unfortunately, it doesnt look like it's QUITE hot enough to do any outdoor cookin yet

Ah well, I'll try again in a month or so. In other news I've been keeping busy inside getting the house ready for my family's arrival (delayed one month because "government work", so now due in about end of September-ish). I also may have adopted a couple birds on accident

(I promise the egg experiment and the birds nest are completely unrelated )

That second picture is going to be the kids play area. I've bought a metric-crap ton of that green artificial grass, and that shiny stuff is the padding that's going to go beneath it (working backwards as always ) All of that was funded by the friday market and I even got to hire a diahatsu truck for about 15kd ($50) to help me haul it since it obviously wasn't going to fit in the Merc

So yeah. Summer here is the slow season... which is a bummer because I have so much time I could be working on the car

Good times

Speaking of the Friday Market, I've been at odds with myself this last week or so because of an article I stumbled across:

http://news.kuwaittimes.net/the-friday-market-and-animal-rights/

In short it says that the animals at the market aren't taken care of at all, and are left in the sun all day. Some without food or water, most of them dying in the sun. I own 5 pets of my own, I really do NOT have the stomach for animal suffering (especially companion animals). Furthermore it says they sell stolen, dangerous, and exotic animals there (under the same conditions) to people who have no idea how to take care of them.

So of course I was really trying not to go back (and I didn't) because if I did go, and I did see what the article said I would, then I would have to do something about it. I wasn't really sure, but I figured "something about it" was probably going to involve me making a contraption to strap a 5-gallon water jug from the company water machine with a siphon hose to water the animals... At the very least.

So this is in the back of my head almost all day every day and it's really draining me. How would I get there every day? What happens when the family is here and we're busy again? What about food? How will the people who own the stands respond? Will they do less because I'm there doing what they should? Do I take my 5-year old to help? Even if I don't, how do I explain the situation without making him carry the burden?

In an unrelated conversation Mrs. Hungary and I decide we should have me scope out the local chain of pet-food stores known as "Pet Zone" to see what's available as far as pet food for our 5 fur babies (she figured she could start the diet transition now to make things easier later). There's one Pet Zone a little further than walking distance away from where I live (I know this because I walked it, and that was a mistake) and there's a much much bigger one near the Friday Market.

So I scoped the local shop the Friday before last, and from there a well spoken Pakistani Taxi driver picked me up to take me to the bigger store. Except!

Except he wanted to know where specifically I wanted to go on "Block 3 of Kuwait City" so I clarify "Oh, I wanted to check out the Pet Zone near the Friday Market"

Which he took to mean "The portion of the Friday Market where they have animals" because, as it turns out it's across the street from where all the goods are sold.

You ever do something stupid as a kid and after your parents are done chewing your ass they drive you to the house where the stupid stuff happened and you have to go knock on the door to fess up and apologize to the old couple who owned the property you did the stupid stuff to? You're standing there on the walkway facing the house not wanting to go forward to face the unknown consequences but you know your dad is in the car staring at your dumb butt and he's got a lot of known consequences that you really don't want. So you start walking towards the house... That's how I felt when the cab driver unexpectedly dropped me off right at the front gate of the animal market.

The world had just forced my hand.

Ready or not, I was going to see what was inside that market and after that it would completely be on me if I did nothing. No more excuses after this

So I went in. One slow step after another. I was scared, angry, uncertain, and anxious all at the same time.

I wont leave you hanging. It is nothing like the article said it was. Absolutely nothing like the article said it was.

I pretended to be interested in adopting a dog. With all the petitions a google search for "friday market kuwait" had to offer, I was sure I wasn't the first person who walked in there with their game face on, camera in hand. I after the red faded from my vision I decided I could probably get the pictures I wanted AND keep things civil at the same time if I was a prospective future pet owner. I did two laps and took pictures of the three worst dog cages:

Why were these the worst? Because I think they're too small for their occupants. But if I'm really being fair, this isn't the US, this isn't a no-kill/not for profit type of shelter, and all the animals basic needs are met. They have enough space to move a little, they're watered, they're obviously fed (but I didn't see any being fed when I was there), the cages were kept clean, and they all respond positively to human contact. There were no exotic animals. Just chickens, rabbits, birds, dogs, cats, ducks, and the like.

This part of the market is under a double roof (so it's already a few degrees below ambient temps) and the rooms are built in a sort of ice cube tray configuration where each one is air conditioned. I guess it's worth saying I left in a much better mood than the one I arrived with. It's not a perfect environment for them (yet?), but it's not abusive either. I think on a scale F-minus to Cesar Millan's house, the animal portion of the Friday Market gets a C+: "Exceeded expectations. But only slightly"

I think the most amazing part was the fact that I didn't go home with all of them

The following weekend I was back to buy the carpet and padding (above) and needless to say I went for another pet visit. I think the German shepherd pup remembered me