My Weekend

Yesterday I installed Carbotech brake pads and new rotors on my 99 Miata dd/autocross toy. Man that thing stops now! I think I have to go back into the rears though. I installed the pads with the scrapers out, didn't seem to matter as the ones I removed didn't have scrapers. The spring clips on the front was a #&$# but I did finally get them on. I put on AX6 on the front and 1521 on the rear and have a heavy front bias now. I think when I go back into the rears to put the scrapers on the inside I'll tighten up the rear a bit to get better balance. Unless that's just the way it is when you put heaver pads on the front.

My 95 F150 wouldn't start a month or so ago and I finally got to it. Before I checked the battery & swapped out a known good one, still only a click. Replace the solinoid and still only a click. Pulled the starter and had it checked and it checked OK, nothing wrong. So I'm thinking now its the ignition switch that has been kinda giving me issues. Reinstalled the starter and everything works. It starts and runs great again. Guess a bad ground and resetting everything fixed it.

My 70 Opel GT gave me fits earlier in the week when I drove it to a club meeting. Wouldn't idle and backfiring. I didn't do anything to it since the last time I drove it. Over the weekend I pulled the distributer cap off to check points and they seemed OK and I cleaned things off a bit under the hood. Went to work on it today and fired it up. It started right up without any backfiring and idled smooth. No problems, works as advertised. Don't know what I did.

Anyway, all is well in my garage now. All my vehicles run again. Even chatted with an old friend from the army, haven't seen or talked with him in over 20 years. Lost contact through too many moves. He was the best man at my wedding. He's planning to come out for a visit T-giving. How was your weekend.

started out p-pour... got up at 5am, got ready, went out to start the CRX (2+hr drive to an a-x ) and .... nothing.... in the dark,(with a flickering flashlight) hooked up the charger, immediately the brake lights came on..... not a good sign.

turned out the rubber tipped plastic thingy on the end of the brake light sw had broken to smithereens sometime the day before and I parked it in the afternoon with out realizing the brake lights were on... drove to the a-x with constant brake lights(and home the same way) but I did win my class (12 car STS field) by .050 sec.... all in all not a bad day ... the sw is GRM fixable so all is good

Drove 1.5 hrs to a-x and promptly realized I needed to replace an upper ball joint.

Bought the whole upper a-arm from a Honda guy for $100 (brand new!) and replaced it but missed my walk throughs.

First time driving the CRX in anger, and I think the course workers will forever remember my car now. I did manage 2 clean runs but still wasn't happy with the time. I need more seat time in this car.

Looked at 30 houses. Finding houses in my price range with 2+ car garages is a challenge. Put 250 miles on the wagon and was never more than 25 miles from work. All those houses are starting to blur together. My head hurts now.

Friday night I replaced the exhaust manifold gaskets on the '02 with one of the later ones that includes a heat shield for the plug wires.

Saturday I went to a nice "test drive" and some errands. Followed by a car wash and wheel cleaning.

Today, I attempted to get the tach to work with megajolt - it works great until the engine hits a little over 2,000 rpm then it drops to zero.

Didn't have any thing to do to the Mini or the Miata.

Junkyard_Dog wrote: Looked at 30 houses. Finding houses in my price range with 2+ car garages is a challenge. Put 250 miles on the wagon and was never more than 25 miles from work. All those houses are starting to blur together. My head hurts now.

I hated house hunting. Take lots and lots of pictures so that you will be able to remember individual houses, they do all blur together after a while.

My weekend - extracted a broken axle bolt for the lawnmower, replaced that, threw a new blade on it (the old one was too far gone to resharpen again, and a new blade painted Deere green was $11) and spent 3 hours mowing the way long lawn for the first time this year. Took a 1 hour bicycle ride, first time off the trainer and outside in 5 months - felt verrrry good to be outside. Nothing car related at all

The autocross on Saturday was a blast. I'm finally figuring out how to drive the Abomination. 1st in class out of two and 12th over all in raw time out of 141. My best finish ever!! Also took the new Lemons car out and ran it in STO. Jensenman and I put 8 runs on it. We had a bunch of the FWD guys drive it to see what they thought. They put another 15-20 runs on and and seemed to like the way it drove. All in all a great day.

Today I helped my Father work on his boat. He's building a custom enclosed hard top for it. We got the windshields in it and got the tracks for the sliding door figured out. He is getting ready to do this: The Great Loop

I wish I could go with them.

fixed the headlight on my girlfriend's car, spent the rest of the weekend in her room >:)

I sold my Miata and spent the rest of the weekend drafting for my Architecture class.

Won the NASA Great Moonbuggy Race Best Design Award and Safety Systems award after finishing it about ten minutes before the race and then spending the entire night fixing it for the second run the second day.

Broke 3 11/32 cobalt bits trying to open 24 holes in .500 thick stainless... notched my subframe, moved the swaybar a little... long tube headers WILL fit. Dammit. Also, made an aluminum dash panel, installed gauges (again) wired same. Cleaned all the metal shavings off the floor. Loaded the M20 into the truck to deliver to a buddy at the track tomorrow... went to Little League practice, out to dinner and did real actual work for a few hours.

I am exhausted from my weekend... instructing on the full course at Monticello tomorrow. 5AMstart. Ugh.

Trap shooting Saturday morning, gave a tour at work Saturday afternoon, sushi for dinner...then Sunday was work day. Helped the landlord drop in 4 new windows in our bedroom, replaced the upper motor mount and A/C compressor on my fiancee's new (to her) car- the seller said the compressor seals were bad...there was still pressure in the system, it's just that the compressor clutch was fried- cleaned the apartment top to bottom, broke out the 0000 steel wool to get the haze off the windshield and windows in my car, then went for a spirited drive on the fun backroads around here

on sat i helped old tin pull the bumpers off his new bimmer, then p[ulled th tarp off my race cars to try to distred the peace but could not get it started..kinda bummed, then went to work and seen some really cool rides and some very nice female sights..... sunday got up, did some things aorund the house, then went to the colllege to get online and then wentr to work...very busy day sunday... sunday boring, sat was fun...sigh....

Worked Saturday. Stayed up all night in a parking lot with 20000 people to watch them bring down Texas Stadium. Worked Sunday. The implosion was cool, sad but cool.

Got home a bit before 2 am Sat. after a 9-hour shift Friday night. Woke up Saturday at the crack of noon, puttered around the house for a bit, then went to work for another 9-hour shift.

Worked 4 hours, then they booted us out because the chassis/driveline side of the complex ran out of engines. Pissed-off a few people on my way out when I said something along the lines of "Well, it's a crap engine they put in these things, so why is running out of them such a big deal???"

Got home and hung out with some friends drinking beer for slightly too long, then fell asleep on the couch.

Woke up Sunday afternoon and mowed the lawn. Then I drove the track-rat out to my buddy's shop and spent a coupe hours staring blankly at the leaking oil-cooler and crap intercooler couplers that I need to replace. Watched a little bit of the Moto-GP race, then came home and took a nap. Woke up and fed the cat, then went to bed.

Went to work Monday for another 9-hour shift, and found out that I need to stay an extra hour per shift for the next few days for training to be Production-Leader for the department I work in.