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Oct. 25th, 2010 10:50 amI can't seem to manage my posessions when I travel. I forgot to bring my shampoo and conditioner that I'd left in Kenosha last I was there back to Chicago with me. At least they'll be there next time. I've also misplaced my long coat and my wooden comb. I'm hoping they're in the same place. And finally, I took my brother's USB cable with me. I am also missing the stylus for my drawing tablet, which I think may be in my parents' house. Somewhere. Not so great.
Disregarding such issues though, the past couple of days were very nice. In no particular order I watched four or five episodes of Pawn Stars with my brothers, had dinner with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
serinthia and todd_riverden, and spent a few hours with Juan and his awesome fiancé.
Even though we had a little rain as we worked on the car in the morning, that went away after an hour or so and the weather was so nice afterward that we decided to eat lunch (my weekly free Toppers food plus some breadsticks) outside at a picnic table on the lake front.
I had great food at Serin's place too, where she made some chicken parmesan. It was also my mother's birthday, so there was cake and pie! I didn't have any though; it was special gluten-free stuff and it was all hers!
Juan fixed the exhaust on my car. (It was so neat watching him use a hydraulic expander to widen the end of thick steel exhaust pipe to fit an extra piece in. Fluid dynamics rule. The force required to expand steel pipe like that must be amazing.
Anyway, my Swift is much quieter again. Quiet enough that I can once again hear the grinding coming from first gear. I'm not going to worry too much about that though. It's been like that since I bought it, and I've changed the transmission fluid. Hopefully it'll last me a long time, and when it dies I'll get a new transmission. Even if first gear were to suddenly fail, I can start it in 2nd, carefully.
Juan had the parts ready to do the wheel bearing, but before going ahead with that he looked more thoroughly to find the source of the noise since he'd already replaced a wheel bearing on the suspect side before. This time, he found the source; it's on the passenger driveshaft. He's going to do some research on where to get the part, but he may have to disassemble the car to get a part number off the one that's there. We'll figure out when that can be done before my trip. It won't be a safety issue for a while.
So far I'm into this car approximately $1400 dollars. If the bearing fix is another couple hundred, that's still pretty good for a car that's really exactly what I wanted, that makes me really happy, and that's super-cheap to operate. I love my little roller-skate.
Disregarding such issues though, the past couple of days were very nice. In no particular order I watched four or five episodes of Pawn Stars with my brothers, had dinner with
serinthia and todd_riverden, and spent a few hours with Juan and his awesome fiancé. Even though we had a little rain as we worked on the car in the morning, that went away after an hour or so and the weather was so nice afterward that we decided to eat lunch (my weekly free Toppers food plus some breadsticks) outside at a picnic table on the lake front.
I had great food at Serin's place too, where she made some chicken parmesan. It was also my mother's birthday, so there was cake and pie! I didn't have any though; it was special gluten-free stuff and it was all hers!
Juan fixed the exhaust on my car. (It was so neat watching him use a hydraulic expander to widen the end of thick steel exhaust pipe to fit an extra piece in. Fluid dynamics rule. The force required to expand steel pipe like that must be amazing.
Anyway, my Swift is much quieter again. Quiet enough that I can once again hear the grinding coming from first gear. I'm not going to worry too much about that though. It's been like that since I bought it, and I've changed the transmission fluid. Hopefully it'll last me a long time, and when it dies I'll get a new transmission. Even if first gear were to suddenly fail, I can start it in 2nd, carefully.
Juan had the parts ready to do the wheel bearing, but before going ahead with that he looked more thoroughly to find the source of the noise since he'd already replaced a wheel bearing on the suspect side before. This time, he found the source; it's on the passenger driveshaft. He's going to do some research on where to get the part, but he may have to disassemble the car to get a part number off the one that's there. We'll figure out when that can be done before my trip. It won't be a safety issue for a while.
So far I'm into this car approximately $1400 dollars. If the bearing fix is another couple hundred, that's still pretty good for a car that's really exactly what I wanted, that makes me really happy, and that's super-cheap to operate. I love my little roller-skate.
