Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

So the dog we "rescued" yesterday may not be ours yet. Turns out the people who found her spent a week trying to catch her (she was wandering), caught her on Friday, took her to our vet on Saturday, and told our vet she needed a home. Our vet called us on Sunday, we brought the dog home on Monday. Tuesday we take her in for shots and spaying when the vet tech tells us "well, you may want to wait, her owner may turn up." Apparently nobody told us that there had been almost zero effort into finding the owner. Dog had no collar, wasn't spayed, and was not chipped.

So this morning I've been pouring through various "lost pet" websites trying to find a match. I took pictures of her and I'm going to post a "found pet" ad on Craigslist, but I'm wary of what kind of freaks I'll attract by doing that.

Wife wanted a dog, found a great dog, now it we don't know if it will be our dog. Sucks.

RockAuto, seriously, it is 1030am and now the shipping date changes to three days later? Now i'm looking at expedited shipping to get a part by the weekend? It's berkeleying Tuesday!!!! I shouldn't have to spend a half of the purchase price in shipping, 2day shipping in this case at this time of day, to get something in a reasonable amount of time.

Frustrating.

EastCoastMojo wrote: In reply to Flight Service: So what I am taking away from this is, you want us to start a Great Guns Almighty thread?

Bingo, you read my mind. Because of jack-assery that has been shown in response to my comments in this thread alone is enough of a reason.

I notice that the sandpaper I'm using is "Made in Canada." Many Canadians are abrasive. Coincidence? I think not!

There's a GR STi for sale locally in my price range but it's white not WRB.

Ranger50 wrote: RockAuto, seriously, it is 1030am and now the shipping date changes to three days later? Now i'm looking at expedited shipping to get a part by the weekend? It's berkeleying Tuesday!!!! I shouldn't have to spend a half of the purchase price in shipping, 2day shipping in this case at this time of day, to get something in a reasonable amount of time. Frustrating.

Do you have Amazon Prime? Look on Amazon for the part. They might have it. In my experience their prices are a little higher than Rock Auto's, but if you need it fast and have prime it can be well worth it.

Ranger50 wrote: RockAuto, seriously, it is 1030am and now the shipping date changes to three days later? Now i'm looking at expedited shipping to get a part by the weekend? It's berkeleying Tuesday!!!! I shouldn't have to spend a half of the purchase price in shipping, 2day shipping in this case at this time of day, to get something in a reasonable amount of time. Frustrating.

Cancel the order and hit up your FLAPS and get the part(s) in time for the weekend.

RockAuto is great if you're not in a hurry. If you're in a hurry, then go local.

Flight Service wrote:

EastCoastMojo wrote: In reply to Flight Service: So what I am taking away from this is, you want us to start a Great Guns Almighty thread?

Bingo, you read my mind. Because of jack-assery that has been shown in response to my comments in this thread alone is enough of a reason.

Just do what I do, stop coming to the forum as much and let the nuts run the place. If GRM cared they would pay attention, but they are busy writing mags and putting on events, so as long as no one is getting offended and making a big deal, nothing will get better.

So go outside, play with your wife or car or both, ignore this bullE36 M3 and be happier.

How come I couldn't find one cheap enough when I bought Catywampus, but now this happens??

http://autoweek.com/article/junkyard-treasures/junkyard-treasure-1991-nissan-sentra-se-r

Some of the recent discussion is reminding me of:

What's really going on? Why the sudden gun hate? Did something happen involving firearms?

You got flippant responses because we have no base. My comment about banning pictures of knives might have been taken as smarmy, but it is based in family history. My cousin was hacked to death. A different time a good friend was shot and killed.

Doesn't change my feelings about knives and guns. One perpetrator was mentally handicapped. The other was drunk. Doesn't change how I feel about those types of people. The people that did those heinous acts can rot in Hell.

You seem to be suprised how things operate around here.

What kind of response did you want?

My grandfather's ship was shot at in the Pacific so I think we should ban all articles about Mitsubishis.

Er... I own two half Mitsubishis, one Mitsubishi chassis and one Mitsubishi brakes/electronics (dang RX-7 has the triple diamond on just about everything) so... triggered!

My apologies if I came across as a jackass, but I don't understand where this is coming from. There aren't that many gun pics in the hotlink thread, is there a gun discussion that I have missed that warrants looking into? Feel free to PM me.

I need to stop watching the news and to bed.

The weather is nice out- days like this (despite the calls for high winds) I'd be riding my bike if I had my way. But I have a dentist appointment on the other side of town right after work, so I have to drive. With it now running again, that means driving the recently-repaired Park Avenue Ultra.

For those who haven't been following my adventures with this car in the build thread, a quick bit of relevant information- since it is missing the belt routing diagram, I initially got the routing for the supercharger drive belt wrong such that it was slightly rubbing the water pump pulley. After getting a different belt (the Grand Prix has a slightly different routing it seems such that it uses a shorter belt) and fitting it (it worked but also crossed the water pump pulley- just not as badly) I finally found the routing and put the original belt on 'properly'. That was Monday.

Fast forward to this morning. About a mile into my drive, there's a stop sign and a straight stretch of road- so I decide to have a small bit of fun and take advantage of the L67's blower and punch it. A few seconds later I hear a loud 'crack' and the familiar squeal of a belt. Pull over onto a side street and pop the hood- and sure enough, the supercharger belt has popped off and separated one rib's worth of the width of it. Best guess is that when I got on the gas that the old belt (I didn't replace the belts as they were in good shape) had stretched a bit and popped off one of the idlers (I did note that I didn't have to move the tensioner very much to get the belt on once I got the routing right). Pull the belt out and toss it into the car and finish driving in without it.

It's a good thing I already have to stop at O'AdvanceZone this afternoon to pick up a tool to help fix a friend's car this evening so I can just pick up another belt- though it is tempting to just throw the 'wrong' belt on it since it didn't have any problems (though also didn't wrap around the blower's pulley as much and probably slipped more). Is annoying I have to drive to the dentist and back without the supercharger getting and belt power- the car still drives, but obviously doesn't have nearly as much power...

When belts run off the edge of something, that often means something is out of line. Make sure the pivot bushing on the tensioner isn't worn out.

In reply to Streetwiseguy:

Yeah, the Manic Miata threw the blower belt and shredded it completely. It was running slightly off center of the idler pulley. I had to adjust with shims, which made it better, but didn't fix it. Turned out the idler pulley bolt was slightly bent which put the idler in plane, but slightly off-axis, which made the belt slide to one side and overhang the edge a bit.

Streetwiseguy wrote: When belts run off the edge of something, that often means something is out of line. Make sure the pivot bushing on the tensioner isn't worn out.

I'll be checking both the tensioner and the idler pulleys to see if there's potentially anything wrong with them. Personally I'd not complain too much about picking up this replacement tensioner assembly to replace the stock one- the stock one uses as Torx T-50 to move the tensioner and it's pretty much impossible to get even a serpentine belt tool with a Torx bit on it without removing the battery, and the replacement one uses a standard hex drive.

thanks to the cardiologist that almost killed my mom. Long story short, he was the partner to my Uncle's practice and took it over when my Uncle retired. My mom has been a long time patient of my Uncle's due to her having High Blood Pressure and Peripheral Artery Disease.

For the past two years my mom has been complaining of a complete intolerance to salt. Even Salt in the tap water was enough to send her heart into high speed mode with palpitations. The Cardiologist always blew her off and said she was "listening to the devil"

So.. she got a new Cardiologist. The new one orders a whole battery of tests right away and finds that two of the arteries feeding her heart are more than 75% blocked. Monday she goes in for an Arterial Catheter to put in some stents, in the meantime, she is not to do anything more strenuous than walking across the house.

In reply to EastCoastMojo:

You have a PM.

In reply to mad_machine:

My mother had a similar experience, only it was over constantly altering medications and dosages. End result was an aneurism that she was very lucky to even survive, however not entirely intact. She is still physically my mother, but around 1/3rd of the time, she is a stranger mentally.

i will say that the LT1 in the c4 corvette is a fantastic engine.

I will also say that the guy that designed the accessory brackets covering the passengers side water pump bolts needs kicked in the dick. really, and extra 1/4 inch would save me a lot of aggravation and pain.

all for a freaking bad rotor.

Dear MIL: Your daughter normally gets up between 6:45 and 7:30; I get up around 8. On days that we can, we sleep in. Today is my wife's (your daughter's) day off, since she has to work this weekend. Tell me, why the hell would you call her at 6:30AM?

Had a friend come over yesterday evening so I could try and replace a broken wheel stud on the back of his '93 Dodge Spirit. Was hoping that it would be an easy job- but of course, with a 20 year old car with drum brakes in the rear (and not even the easy kind- his has the 'studs and bearing are in the drum itself' variety) it turned out to be a far more complicated job than planned.

Time to actually replace the broken stud: roughly 5 minutes.

Time to get the damn drum off the car and replace the brake shoes that fell apart when we pulled the drum off: about 2 hours.

Have I mentioned how much I hate drum brakes?

Also, when I stopped yesterday to get the replacement supercharger belt for the PAU and pick up the idler pulley I think is the problem, they didn't have any pulleys and had to have them transferred from the hub. So, I get to go back again this afternoon on my way home and pick up the new pulley. Hopefully it solves the problem. Though I am still very tempted to pick up the replacement tensioner/idler assembly just to get rid of that damn T50 tensioner...

In reply to Ashyukun:

Technically they are separate, but they are pressed together and its usually easier to remove the hub and drum together. Usually.

Backing the shoes off is just soul sucking work.

Stefan (Not Bruce) wrote: In reply to Ashyukun: Technically they are separate, but they are pressed together and its usually easier to remove the hub and drum together. Usually. Backing the shoes off is just soul sucking work.

I think after 20 years it's probably more accurate to say that they're one piece, now eternally bonded together by two decades of rust.

The only things I was thankful for in doing the brakes yesterday were a) cell phones, for letting me take pictures of everything while taking it apart to make sure I got it back together the same way and b) that I'd had to do the Prius's drum brakes a year and a half ago and was familiar with the basics of how the brakes worked. The evening would have sucked if I'd been having to learn all of that at the same time (and my friend would have been very freaked out and worried his car wouldn't get put back together...)