Im babysitting my nephew. Not the rant. Hes spit up on me 4 times. Not the rant. I gave up my Saturday night of E36 M3ty zombie movie and nachos and cheese in my underwear on my recliner for this. Not the rant.
The rant is his dog. I am scare to death of dogs. Been mauled a few times. His is a berkeleying HUGE German shepherd. Its holed up in the basement for the night as courtesy to me. But it just wont quit barking at every footstep i make. If im perfectly still, its quiet. Fart, step, cough, scratch my nose, you think its defending America against the commie invasion.
9 hours later, and 2 trips to oreilly the passenger side drum is done. berkeley drum brakes hard.
So homeboy finally mailed the title for the van that I bought from him. And guess what? Its not in his name. It still has the business that he bought it from and is signed by that business's COO. He bought it from them and just threw his dealer plates on it. He never changed the title to his name which surprises me since he was able to register the vehicle and carry insurance on it. Maybe he did it through his business?
I've never ran into this before. I thought about applying for a duplicate title but they are $75 here and you have to verify ownership of the vehicle. I was going to try to get him to "sign" the duplicate title and just roll with it since it does not list the actual owner, just the business that owns it.
I wonder if I can get him to sign next to the previous owner's signature as a co-owner and push it through since they only care about the owners listed and their signature(s). But all of my sale paperwork (BOS and POA) only lists him not the other guy.
This is so damn frustrating. I want to get this thing on the road so I can downsize my fleet so I stop getting hammered on insurance.
On top of that, we agreed that he would reinstall the roof rack as part of the deal. Well guess what was not on the van when his driver delivered the van 7 hours after the agreed upon time? I'm not saying it was deliberate but there has been lots of miscommunication on this sale. The seller is 2 hours away so its not like I can just stop by.
I've got the entire interior of the van tore apart in my garage so I can clean it out and ensure that I eradicate the roach infestation. Everything was filthy, which was to be expected as this was a work van.
I was planning on laying down some underlayment since I have everything removed from the interior but I really don't want to put anymore effort into this thing if I run into a dead end on the title/registration.
Nothing is ever easy it seems like 
In reply to stanger_missle :
Pretend you never looked at the title. Bring it to the DMV like the rocket scientist you bought it from doesn't exist.
In reply to Appleseed :
I would totally try that but since I had to take a small loan out to buy it, my credit union has to have eyes on it. They seemed placated with the pic I emailed them that I took with my phone of a photocopy of the title. I have to mail the title to them along with the sale paperwork and registration forms (I rolled tax, title and registration into the loan) so they can mail it to the state, who will issue me the registration. They don't know the name of the seller's business so I hoping I can just add his name to the title and feign ignorance. I am worried that if both signatures are on the title that my credit union will question why they only have one name on the bill of sale and power of attorney. I hope they don't look too far into it.
Mothers and daughters.
I dozed off last night in front of the tv to be awakened maybe 10 minutes later by Tiger Mom and her eldest spawn having some sort of screaming fight. No idea what caused it or even really what it was about. I have learned not to interfere!
TM wouldn’t talk about it when we went to bed and got up a few minutes later to carry on said “discussion” in person. Not the most restful night for me and still no idea what happened. I’m guessing the usual button pushing on both sides (spawn is 18 and starting to stretch her wings in preparation of moving out)
2 hours of yelling, hammering, beating, kicking, and driving around the gravel driveway with no brakes and I STILL can't get this berkeleying wheel off...
I'm going to put the 4Runner up for sale today. I wanted to drive it to 500,000 miles. We got to 450,000. I love it, but itake just too old and too rare (rare for northern Illinois) to be a reliable winter truck.
So it's time to go.
It feels like selling your favorite dog.
YouTube keeps throwing ITB-equipped Miatas at me.
Not now, man, not now.
14 berkeleying hours and I still don't have brakes. I'm seriously considering lighting the damn thing on fire at this point. So it can sit there and think about what it's done for the next until hell freezes over.
Adjusters: Frozen. Drums: Rusted on. Wheels: seized to hubs. And now? a leak, at the brake distributer on the diff. Passenger side, the side that DIDN'T blow out on me but I replaced proactively, is leaking at the fitting. Just gushing fluid when you hit the pedal out from the fitting along the hard line. Looks like a bad flare. So much for premade brake lines being such a time and headache saver.
Why is nothing I ever do in life easy? It doesn't matter what it is. I always get EVERY part of the "if it could go wrong" list. I get all the "Well we've never seen that before". I get the E36 M3ty lying scumbag family. I always windup with some bizarre "special edition" of whatever vehicle/tool/product and it always requires all kinds of special parts that are just barely different from their dime a dozen counterparts yet cost exponentially more.
I just can't berkeleying win. Ever. With anything.
berkeley.
I guess on the plus side, today I learned I can chuck a 17inch steel wheel with tire on it a good 50 feet in a bout of rage when the hammer I'm swinging trying to get the stuck wheel off a hub bounces off of it and hits me in the leg.
RevRico said:
I guess on the plus side, today I learned I can chuck a 17inch steel wheel with tire on it a good 50 feet in a bout of rage when the hammer I'm swinging trying to get the stuck wheel off a hub bounces off of it and hits me in the leg.
Im sorry you have had a bad day but the laugh I got reading that was great. Pyro is looking at me kind of kinda worried like.... I am laughing because of the mental picture and because I am glad I am not the only one that has done something like that.
Three words - Blue, Tipped, Wrench
Any engineer who designs a connection whereby a steel bolt is threaded directly into an aluminum casting, and said connection WILL need to be disassembled in the future, in order to service something else, shall henceforth be drug out into the street and shot, with aluminum berkeleying bullets.
imgon
HalfDork
4/8/19 7:08 a.m.
In reply to RevRico :
I feel your pain brother! I too always get the part that is held on with 6 different size fasteners of which 4 are specialty security tip tools only available from an obscure eastern european tool maker. The last car I sold needed new pads and rotors, that should be about an hour long project, right? Four hours later, I still didn't have the passenger rotor off the car. After another 4 hours I managed to get both the front rotors removed, with only minimal collateral damage. Good luck on getting the leak fixed, take a deep breath and know we have your back.
If your restaurant has run out of syrup, perhaps that would be worth mentioning to people when they order pancakes instead of when they ask for it after their pancakes have been brought to the table.
Back in to work after a week off for vacation... and I'm sitting here staring at the computer screen trying to remember what exactly it is that I do here.
Rants from vacation:
The Dancer complains all the time about her new computer (previous-generation Mac Mini). To be fair, she also complained all the time about her previous computer, and at least half of her complaints about the new one are things that can be resolved by simply showing her how to do what she wants to do (usually involves looking in a different directory- she cannot seem to grasp the concept of filesystems at all). But there's little doubt that the Mini is solidly slower than I think it should be. So I did some Googling and came up with a possible solution. However- it requires restarting the computer. And she always has something open and unfinished that can't be closed so I can't restart the computer to try the fix. After all of the week prior to our vacation week I tried but she always said there was something that couldn't be closed- and she begged off saying that we should just do it when we got back from vacation. Guess what didn't happen?
The Dog decided he had to vigourously and violently defend his yard from the threat of another dog being walked on a leash on the other side of the chain-link fence at the back of our property and in the process tore part of one of his paw pads. So we spent the last day and a half trying to keep a bandage on it largely to no avail- to such no avail that we had to break out the hydrogen peroxide to make him vomit after we were concerned (correctly) that he had eaten the bandage and wrapping.
Had someone contact me just before we left for vacation about the Rampage- but they live in Texas and wanted to try and work out meeting up halfway to get it, eventually also offering if that wouldn't work to just come up to get it. I told them that we were going to be gone on vacation and I'd not be able to do anything until we got back. Called after we got back- and they're no longer interested. Cannot believe how difficult getting rid of this car has been, and we could really use the money from selling it to bolster things as we get to needing to buy some more things for the cabin (like all of the appliances...)..
Speaking of which... for once, things with the cabin are at least moving forward, though still more slowly than we'd like of course. Which is a problem, because there's barely a month left until our original construction loan and insurance expire- and we can't see how the builder is going to remotely be able to finish things up before then. SO, we have to extend the loan and, probably, pay for another whole year of insurance on it.
Stupid sore throat with enough congestion and swelling that I was awakened by what seems to be temporary sleep apnea way too many times last night.
One more reason to hate swap meet school bus shuttles, I suspect.
RevRico said:
I always windup with some bizarre "special edition" of whatever vehicle/tool/product and it always requires all kinds of special parts that are just barely different from their dime a dozen counterparts yet cost exponentially more.
This pain I feel. I almost cry when the part's slinger asks what part of the year a car was made. I just know it's going to bite me in the ass and cost 3 times as much.
Toyman01 said:
RevRico said:
I always windup with some bizarre "special edition" of whatever vehicle/tool/product and it always requires all kinds of special parts that are just barely different from their dime a dozen counterparts yet cost exponentially more.
This pain I feel. I almost cry when the part's slinger asks what part of the year a car was made. I just know it's going to bite me in the ass and cost 3 times as much.
I almost bought a 1990(I think) Audi for rallycross years ago. Pretty much no rust, ran great, but needed a power steering pump. There were three different pumps depending on when it was built. Not to mention the ultra expensive fluid they required. I passed on buying that one.
Sonofabitch. Neon just started misfiring like a motherberkeleyer after running FLAWLESS for 800 miles. And the only codes are miafire codes.
Its so raining hard enough i cant see the end of the hood, and i need to get my daughter from dance to girlscouts.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuui........
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
Raining, and misfiring... Sounds like wires and/or coil pack, no problem.
In reply to Knurled. :
Was able to limp it home. Its more a matter of everything ive touched recently breaking. Pretty sure i could break air at this point. Doused in pramitol earlier tonight when the backpack sprayer broke. Truck broke. Neon broke. Broke my sawzall helping dallas this weekend.
I think its officially berkeley this E36 M3 o'clock for today. Ill look at the neon tomorrow morning. Thankfully I have fresh plugs, wires, and possibly a coil on hand.
eastsideTim said:
Toyman01 said:
RevRico said:
I always windup with some bizarre "special edition" of whatever vehicle/tool/product and it always requires all kinds of special parts that are just barely different from their dime a dozen counterparts yet cost exponentially more.
This pain I feel. I almost cry when the part's slinger asks what part of the year a car was made. I just know it's going to bite me in the ass and cost 3 times as much.
I almost bought a 1990(I think) Audi for rallycross years ago. Pretty much no rust, ran great, but needed a power steering pump. There were three different pumps depending on when it was built. Not to mention the ultra expensive fluid they required. I passed on buying that one.
I still wish I'd gotten that car from Hardesty, but I guess his wife said no.
I bought the Quantum instead.
If you saw what 20v 90s are going for nowadays... sheesh!
Fun fact: Despite being on the same chassis, the 90 and the Coupe Quattro in 20v form had different front brakes. Not different diameter, different hat height. And sometimes people would convert one way to the other, so you didn't know exactly what you had until the wrong parts that you'd special ordered 2 weeks out finally came in.
In reply to Saron81 :
I'd fix it. That is still in the "tread" zone, further evidenced by it being inside the area where the ground was scrubbing. It's not in the unfixable, flexible sidewall or shoulder area.
SWMBO is telling me I'm putting too much effort into cleaning and detailing the 4Runner I'm selling. She has no clue. I've looked at thousands of ads for cheap cars. The dirty inside and out ones I never give a second look. If the seller doesn't give two E36 M3s how it looks, how was the rest of it treated?
I'm not that guy. The new owner deserves at least clear windows. So a quick vacuume, window wipe and general tidying up are in order. If the 3-4 hours I've spent net me $100-300 more because it looks nice, that's a pretty good hourly wage.
I wish she could see that.
