Monday, September 11, 2006

Monday blues...

Never plan anything for a weekend, lol!

Mine was to try and rebuild the rear brakes on my Chrysler. (They haven't exactly been working right for a couple of months, but when I do them I need someone to pump the pedal for me to bleed them. I have been waiting for a weekend when we were both off with no other plans, and thought this was the one.)

After I jacked it up and soaked the bleedscrews in penetrating oil, Dottie said we should really shop for Caleb's upcoming birthday. I figured I'd be back in two hours, no problem. The shopping goblins had other thoughts however!

We have 3 grandkids, all moving into the "Gameboy" age. Their dad also has one, so we were trying to find one in a different color to make things easier to keep track of. 3 colors are readily available. After 5 hours of shopping and finally giving up for the day, I came home to check the net and found out that the only others are pre-packaged special editions not available everywhere. By then it was dark, of course.

The "Omnicef" they gave me for an antibiotic works like some kind of "cleaning agent" on me, I've been eating those little pills from Wal-Mart with regularity, and maintaining control of things enough to function, but occasional rounds of frequent trips to the bathroom have been interspersed through the last 4 days; Dottie had been craving "Gorditas" for a while, so that was dinner Saturday night. About 4AM Sunday I was regretting those...and off and on for the rest of the day!

Sunday I tracked down one of those special edition Gameboys, cobalt blue, problem solved. That afternoon I crawled under the back of my 26 year old Newport and realized that the "box" that attaches the leaf spring to the axle on the driver's side was completely rusted through and bending open; the passenger side is thinking about it.

Deciding that adding any further load to it (i.e. braking forces) is only going to add to it's demise, I let the car down and gave up on that for the weekend, figuring I'd call a spring shop today and be able to get a pair of the boxes for $50 or so.

No such luck; a dealer item, no longer stocked or in use anywhere on earth (after many phone calls and a lot of surfing). The best advice says to buy other spring pads, cut off the old ones (torch work) weld on new ones, and rebuild them into something else. Several hundred dollars if I do it myself, more if I pay someone, for something I'm only trying to limp along for 18 months or so before I scrap it! Ain't gonna happen!

These have probably been this way for a while (explaining the funny wiggle I get out of it every now and then), but the idea of driving it now that I know brings a bit of dread. I don't even dare make the extra trips to go the gym in it, figuring if it has "X" number of trips left before the axle lets loose, I should apply them all to going back and forth to work...

I don't know where this is going to end up, but I have to go figure something out!

alan

4 comments:

Hawaiianmark said...

Glad you got the bugs out'cha.

My Lady C and I, we once had a 63 falcon. It needed new oil seals. After taking it apart 4 times, and having it leak everytime we put it back, I was ready to shoot it, and myself.

It was about 6 hours work tear down/put back.

We were using 'new' rubber seals.

My father - in - law (God bless 'em) finally says - "hmmmmmm maybe the 'old' style fabric one would work better"

One more 4 hour day, and she ran like a champ for a bunch more years.

Hope your carwheela worries go away as well.

Aloha

alan said...

Mark-I remember those rope seals my friend, and watching my Dad change the upper half of one in a '63 Ford Wagon with a piece of cable and a clip called a "Sneaky Pete" because that way you didn't have to drop the crankshaft...

We planned on buying a pickup in about 18 months, depending on what I can figure out, it may come sooner...

Thanks for the good wishes!

alan

alan said...

Jen- Sometimes you just have to. The other option was buying some kind of "skins" to put on one, but not knowing how long that would really last, especially at his age, lol!

Cherish= Thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one, but for your sake I wish I were!

alan

Kranki said...

Oh man! Total frustration. It is never the simple job you think it is going to be. I know cars are inanimate objects but sometimes they seem like they are out to get ya.