Talk about wanting to choke an automotive engineer or seven:

The black duct work (didjanotice the gorilla tape repair? it’s been on there for four years) is the intake. We aren’t in the area of the leaking hose yet.

The hose in the bottom center of the pic has a pinhole leak under the visible clamp. The other clamp is tucked under the throttle body. I have to remove the throttle body just to touch the clamp with more than a finger.

Not looking like an easy repair yet.

Sure is black in the throttle body. I’ll worry about that later. The clamp on the right side is the same one from two pictures ago. The hidden clamp has been removed and the hose is ready to come off. I took it off, went to O’Reilly’s, and wonder of wonders they had the exact hose I needed in stock on the shelf. Bought some anti-freeze while I was there.

Sure wish I had looked closer at this picture before I ran to O’Reilly’s. It would have saved me a trip. The sharp-eyed among you have already noticed that the shaped hose was not the major leak source. Yes, I had this puppy buttoned back up before you could say Jack Frost – fired it up, and was floored when water was leaking out from the same spot. I tore it back apart, and got the offending short hose off – I had to cut it, and wrestle the clamps off. Another run to O’Reilly’s, a section of straight hose (and some gasket material, because my haste caused me to break off a piece of the gasket, and I had to make a new one … ) and I was ready to button it up again.

This one shows the new shaped hose in place – notice the lower hose, just lurking there, laughing quietly to itself as I stand back and take a picture of my handiwork, confident that I have solved the issue …

All buttoned up, ready to go. After I replaced the lower hose, I had lost any sense of wanting to take pictures, so I didn’t take a second picture after the final assembly. Someplace along the line, I shorted something out, and the Rhino wouldn’t start. Pastor Mike suggested I disconnect the battery, and let the computer reset. Initially, it still wouldn’t start. After a little time, it finally started. Like a dummy, I had not disconnected the battery before disconnecting the electrical connections you saw in the first picture.

Lesson learned.

Update – turns out the starter solenoid is fried. or frying. it occasionally starts, but just as occasionally it decides not to. i have to beat it with blunt objects to get it’s attention. not too bad when you are dressed for working on the car, but in your white dockers and light-colored polo shirt, it wreaks havoc on the clothing. oh, and it was raining today when i got off work and the solenoid didn’t want to work.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

… I have once again fallen off the soda wagon. It’s been happening for a while, and now I am admitting it – I am back on the Coke. Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, straight Coke … you name it, I’m drinking it.

Except Diet Coke. The sweetener they use (aspartame – blech!) leaves a nasty little aftertaste in my mouth.

And, don’t believe the Coke ads about Coke Zero tasting just like regular Coke – it doesn’t. It actually tastes like an unholy blend of Diet Coke and [shudder] New Coke. Good grief, do you remember that taste? It’s been pretty much seered into my memory from when they were saying that the New Coke would be replacing the Classic Coke.

Yeah, that didn’t work out too well.

In other news – the US has hit it’s debt ceiling. There have been comparisons (for those of us too dumb to know what they mean (like a certain 52% of the voting public)) to your credit card spending limits. Now, the administration is worried about not having enough money to finish bankrupting the country.

Here’s an idea – quit spending money you don’t have, you new-coke-personified-as-a-president.

Chat ya later…

So – Friday I was a bit frustrated. With everything.

Let’s start with one of my favorite topics = drivers. Or, more accurately, non-driving operators of motor vehicles on the roads of Maricopa County. (please note – if anything i write about driving habits offends you, perhaps you should re-read a few things – like the part that offended you, the driving manual, the part that offended you, and the driving manual.)

Things I have noticed about the traffic laws of Arizona – most of the people doing the non-driving are not here – shall we say – with the full approval of the government. Yes, I know that’s how you drive where you came from, but that’s not the custom, the norm, the law here. Pedestrians DO have the right of way – in crosswalks either marked or implied (and in this case, “implied” has a legal definition – that is, at intersections, and then only parallel to the flow of traffic). They do NOT have the right of way, or the right to expect to survive, when darting across five lanes plus a turn lane during rush hour dragging their defenseless and learning-a-bad-lesson children behind them. If you do not follow the law, do not act put-upon if I do not yield to your arrogance or stupidity.

The center turn lane is just that – a turn lane. By occupying that lane, you are implying/indicating/insinuating that your next move is going to be a left turn. This is the only legal maneuver allowed from the middle turn lane on roads equppied with the turn lane. The turn lane is not a safety spot to use when trying to get into traffic. It is not an extra lane to be used when the traffic is moving slowly and you are much more important than everyone else following the law. (true story – i was eastbound on glendale ave, in the left hand lane, approaching 51st ave, when a monte carlo passed me on the left, swerved across my nose and two other lanes, to get into the right turn lane and – pull into the gas station – as the group of cars i was in was approaching the traffic light which had just turned red, and we were all slowing down. if he had stayed behind us all, he would have had a clear shot to the gas station without endangering three lanes of traffic and anyone thinking about making a left turn going west) At the same time, just because someone pulls into the middle turn lane to make a left turn, if you are headed the same direction that person is, you do not need to stop. Neither does the person in the lane next to you.

The most frustrating item on Friday? The Road Rhino popped another hose. No, it’s not one of the hoses that had recently been replaced. It is, instead, a hose that is part of a cluster of bypass hoses (the qx4 has more bypass hoses than anything else, i have yet to figure out why) located under the throttle body. This means that the intake/induction piping and tubes need to be removed, along with the throttle body itself, in order to replace these hoses. And yes, I’m going to replace all the hoses in that area at the same time – what, do I look slow? I’ve learned THAT lesson – to avoid any issues in the foreseeable future. That is a job for this afternoon, after church.

For now, I”m off to church. My prayers are with you all, even if you don’t believe the same way I do.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

So many things, so little patience to actually write about any of them.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

214

I hit a milestone the other week – one year at the new “job”. That means that bennies start kicking in – like accrued vacation. So, I took Saturday as a vacation day.

Initially, with my day off on Friday, a vacation day Saturday, and the store being closed on Sunday, we were looking forward to having a long weekend together, as a family, for the first time in a while. We were full of grand plans, like clearing out the detritus of living in the same place for more than ten years and having a garage sale. That fell apart on Friday, when I didn’t get any sleep Thursday night and spent the day taking care of MEG while TMBWitW was at work – normal Friday stuff, except I didn’t get the chance to go through the piles and start filling the garage with sale items. Then, Friday night, we ended up staying up way too late, doing things around the house – laundry, dishes, etc. – and figured the heck with it, we’ll just sleep in.

Saturday morning (late morning!) we met pastor’s wife and the girls for breakfast (Pastor had to work at the hamburger joint) at Denny’s. You know, where the Baconalia thing is going on? Well, I had the bacon breakfast. Two eggs, hash browns, bacon, bacon, bacon, and a side of bacon. Yummers.

MEG and I attended the birthday party of a young man from church – it was at Castles ‘N Coasters. A great day for the park. MEG was looking forward to the roller coaster. She kept begging me to take her on the roller coaster. Until the first loop, that is – then she was willing to wait a few years before she did that again. She had the height to ride, but not the upper body strength to keep her head up in the high-G sections. Other than that, she enjoyed the day, except for the waiting in line parts.

Mother’s day went well, except for the part where we, as a family, were going to pick out a couple of pretty things for TMBWitW (i try to avoid buying things for her without her knowing about it, no, there is no surprise, but the satisfaction rate is way up while the return rate is way down). That just never happened. Sunday evening we had dinner at Denny’s (i don’t know, it just worked out that way). I finished my dinner with a sundae.

A Maple Bacon Sundae.

Now, I am not one to avoid sweets very often. I love me a good sugar rush now and again.

However.

Oh, my goodness. I could not finish the sundae for all the sweet syrup and ice cream. Don’t get me wrong – I managed to find all the bits of bacon hidden in that frozen delicacy – but the syrup is just over the top.

I highly recommend the Maple Bacon Sundae for all your sugar rush needs!

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!