Trunk treasure

 With the help of much grunting, sweating and a flat prybar - I got the rear seat out. Of course that left me with 4 cubic feet of mouse house / birdseed / and unspeakable things everywhere. Now that I contracted hunta-sypho-titus, I believe I can see in infrared.

In the hole behind the seat through to the trunk I found:
  • a bald spare tire
  • a wonky bumper jack and tire iron
  • a starter motor
  • some kind of galvanized chain
  • a spool of string like a surveyor might use
  • old beer can
  • roll of aluminum foil
  • AND ...
    • THE 4th chrome hubcap !!! HOORAY !!
There is more detritus back there which I can't see with a flashlight. I have not gotten the nerve to squirm across that expanse of biohazard to unbolt the latch yet. Need to vacuum out some spiders first - fortunately in the PacNW, we don't have any nasty bug life.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Engine Hoist supplemental

Image
I took some measurements and designed a "Dancing Chic Productions" custom knob for the valve on the engine hoist. The first draft took about 15 minutes to design in TinkerCad and an hour to print. It was a little tight and because I built it just to size. It broke in half as I tried to remove it. I expanded the center hole by 0.1mm which seemed to be the only dimension that needed fixing. I reprinted with 4 perimeter shells and 40% fill density which is a combination that makes for good strength with a reasonable amount of material cost. I used PLA - PET, ABS or Nylon would be 'tougher', but I have very good results with PLA and it is so easy to print. Plus it was what was in the printer when I went to run it. Since it broke on the shank the first time, I reenforced the part where it actually torques the screw by making it oval instead of round. Just putting more material structure to back the turning force. The finished product took about 2 hours to print and used ab...
Read more

It is outta ther ... wait, what?

Image
  This is how the day started: steely eyed and ready to work. A little militant even. Get the truck back, deal with leaves, pull an engine.  On Friday, the tow truck people made an appointment for between 10~11a on Saturday morning. At 8a on Saturday, they texted me that they were ~90 minutes away. At 830a, the guy called me to tell me he was 10 minutes away. Breakfast got cut short  -  but the truck is home. She runs, but she is angry about it. My guess is water pump + the sympathetic damage to the serpentine belt. Leaf collection is boring - but I did break the case on my leaf blower in the process. That added a nice rythmic 'wonk wonk wonk' to the process. I got the hoist into place and ready to work. That is the short version. I really have a lot of space when it comes to parking cars in my garage. When it comes disassembling them - not enough. I hauled the gas tank and drive shaft outside into the front yard. I swapped out the janky front left "driving" wheel/ti...
Read more

No valve for you today

Image
I thought I wanted to remove my valves and valve seats. To do that, I needed a spring compressor tool. These things come in lots of shapes and sizes. Some of them look like a bent fork and rely on having the rocker arms in place (or at least the studs). Some of them look like a giant C-clamp that connects on both sides of valve. They rely on the heads being off. Some of them look like the Recognizer from the movie Tron - with a screw on top and hooks down the side. They range in price from: free for loan at the autoparts store to this thing with umpteen parts for $75. I was going to borrow the one from the parts store - but it gave me the willys. I looked at it several times and kept coming to the conclusion that I was going to hate using that tool or get injured in the process. Oreilly's and Autozone loan the screw-hook Tron thing, but the hooks are not well designed for gripping a heavy duty spring. I am sure with a hose clamp to secure it I could make it work but I didn't w...
Read more