Get Off Pine Sap With Rubbing Alcohol

I got an advertisement from Mary Janes Farm magazine today that told me I could get pine sap off my hands with rubbing alcohol. I will have to try that. So far, the best solution that I've tried is dirt. That requires a lot of scrubbing your hands with dirt to get all the sap off and then a lot off scrubbing your hands with soap and water to get all the dirt off. Alternatively, you can just get enough dirt into the sap that it's not sticky anymore, wash your hands, and live with a dirty spot on your skin until it wears off. Rubbing alcohol sounds like it might be easier.

Chicken Mansion

Andrew did most of the work on this project, and he took all the pictures. That's why he's not in any of them.

I'm cutting pieces for the trusses in this picture, but you can't see the miter saw

Andrew constructed a jig for quality control (no wavy roofs for us)

 We have truss issues (get it? get it?)

paint, paint, paint

Buddy says "what are you doing up there?"

Cupola Roof

Almost done

Hopefully my next post will show you a picture of a chicken house with hardware close, door and chickens...

Andrew Builds A Record Stand

So back in December, Andrew did something really cool (not that he doesn't to really cool the all the time.) He designed and built a record table for Sarah. Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures of the process.

Andrew putting the finish 

This stuff really stinks. Notice the professional grade respirator that he is wearing. 

It dried over night and then we drove it up to Seattle.

Any trip to Seattle must include a stop at Vivaci.

Notice how perfectly the records fit. There is actually a lip to make it so that you can push them back without having them come out the the back of the stand.

The finished product in its new home.  

He did it all without fastener. It's held together with geometry and reinforced with glue.

Also notice how the receiver (the black thing) seems like it's floating. That's intentional. 

What a beautiful record stand. What a talented Andrew.

Adventures at the Junk Yard

Andrew and Craig look like prairie dogs

Here's what I was up to a few weeks ago. Craig is looking for an exhaust system. Andrew and I are looking for new-old bumper brackets for the pickup. The ones it had wouldn't really protect it from anything. No smashy, smashy. Success!

Happy pickup. The volvo has been getting all the attention. Good old trucky has been a little jealous.

Such a patient truck. The bumper bracket are in our possession. Now we just need to find a few hours to install them.

Something is missing.

Wedding, Car, Frazzle

A few days ago, I woke up and stared sleepily at the September calendar hanging on the bedroom wall while the alarm buzzed. That's when it hit me. Holy crap! I'm getting married in less than two weeks. I knew this already of course but for some reason the magnitude of it hit me just then. Let's just say I hadn't actually looked at the place that Andrew and I had reserved for a reception. We'd only seen pictures on the web. There were some rather pressing questions that needed two be answered before the party. For example:
"Where, exactly, is it?" ...  "Are there picnic tables?"
I knew the general location, but ... well I'd never been there. I suddenly realized why some member of my family have been getting stressed about my lackadaisical approach to planning my wedding reception. I guess I've been to preoccupied with car work, getting rid of clutter and figuring out how best to work with the child I've been babysitting to worry that much about a party that was more than a month away.
Honestly, I do not regret my priority setting, but well, the time has come. Head counts and lists must be made. So, I've been busy as has Andrew.
Wedding plans have taken a priority but the car project has not taken a back seat. We both dearly want this car to be running and out of the driveway because if it's still sitting there by the time school starts, it will sit until December.
We've made two trips to Portland in the heat of the day. Yuck. For one of them we picked up Mom and went on into Washington to explore the park where we're having our reception. It's very pretty BTW (that's By The Way), and it does have picnic tables.
The second trip was all car. It took us to the junk yard and the DMV. But I was on the phone a lot figuring out wedding stuff. If I'm not careful, I may end up trying to serve the guests greasy old bolts and putting cake in the car. The heat has made scrambled eggs out of my brain.
Eggs. That reminds me... but I'll tell you about that later. Posting with title of "Eggs" coming soon....

The Volvo Project -Putting the Engine Back Together

Andrew Tightening the lower head bolts on a shiny rebuilt head.

The angle gauge.

 Do you look at this picture and think "hmm. Science." Well I do. It's interesting how having things all shiny and adding a gaugy looking thing makes a person think science. 

The bolts that attach the lower part of the head to the engine blocks usually have toque specifications. Tighten to 55 ft lbs for example. However Volvo tells the user to tighten the bolts to 44 ft lbs then turn the bolt an additional 130 degrees. That's what this fancy looking gauge tell us. Just how far has Andrew turned this bolt. This part was nerve racking. Stripping or breaking these bolts would be bad. The last 20 degrees of the turn on nearly every bolt made an ominous creaking sound, but all seems to be well.

Andrew turns the angle gauge.

Few! That's over. Time to pack up for the night.

 The head (the top half of the engine) took so long in being refinished that Andrew and I lost momentum on this project. Now that we finally have the part, we don't have the drive to go and finish it all in a day even though we probably could. Instead, we've been working on in for a few hours each day.

Another day. 

The top half of the head is on. So are the CAM sprokets.

Line up the marks on the cam sprockets.

 To get the timing right you have to line up them marks on the sprockets with the marks on the timing belt cover.
You don't want to get this wrong. With this kind of engine having the timing off results in bent valves. In other words broken head. That's how we got this car in the first place.  Somebody was dumb and didn't change the timing belt. It broke and we got a cheap car to fix up.

Technically there are no gears in this picture.

 Did you know the difference between a gear and a sprocket. Well aparently those things on my bike that I've been calling gears all these years are actually sprockets. Gears hook to other gears. Sprocket connect to belts of chains.

Yeah I don't just take pictures. Sometimes I crawl under the car.

The Epic Water Pump Saga

Two weeks ago I bought a new bathing suit. It is red, black and awesome because it looks like a super hero outfit. I resolved to do pilates for 20 minutes every day so that I could wear my new bathing suit and look like a super hero. Do you know how many times I have done my 20 minutes of Pilates? None. Not once.

The day that Andrew and I sold my old Honda, we went and bought a broken Volvo. We new it was broken and we bought it with plans to fix it. It needs a new head because, it had a timing belt snap so it has bent valves. That is sad for whoever had it last but happy for us because we have a good car to fix up. By the way, the head is the top half of the engine. Engines generally come in two parts. The air and the fuel lines and such attache to the head. The fixing-it-up adventure has been full of twists and turns. We decided to replace the water pump while we had the head all taken off. That shouldn't have been very complicated, but it was. Here's how it should have gone. Take off the old water pump. Take off the old gasket. Scrub off any bits of the old gasket that are stuck to the engine block. Put on the new water pump.
That's how it should have gone. The new water pump kit didn't come with the right number of bolts. Since the water pump bolts only have to be torqued to fifteen foot pounds (that's not much), we reused one of the hold bolts. It snapped off.
That is bad, very bad. It's two tight a space to fit a drill into and we don't have the equiptment to take the engine out. There was enough of the bolt left sticking out that Andrew managed to cut a slit into it with his dremel. He and our friend Craig, who was over hanging out, backed the bolt out with a screw driver. Okay crisis averted.  
Next day, we head off to Robnuts, the local hardware store to get new bolts. Put the water pump back on. One to the new bolts strips the threads in the block. It wasn't even all the way it! (Consternation. ) WTF? Andrew inspects the bolts. "Uh, Jenny, these are two short."
Me-"but they were what came with the kit."
Well they were the wrong bolts. Back to Robnuts. New bolts and some heavy duty Lock Tight for the bolt with barely any threads. New water pump installation complete. If the water pump ever needs to be changed again is will be a pain in the arse to get that bolt off.
The head has been extra special as well. The one we got from the auto wreckers is damaged, so we have to take it back. Andrew took it apart to put new seal in it so now we have two put it back together. That will mostly be Andrew. I will bring in soda, and hand him tools. The Andrew is powered best by Subway, soda and Redbull. He tries to be healthier when he's not working on such finicky stuff. Anyway, we're getting sending the head with the bent valves to be rebuilt. In the meantime, there's the upholstery. 
So, I may not have done much to build my super hero abs but I have built a semi-permanent layer of grease into my fingers. It gets into the little cracks in my skin where it valiantly resists all scrubbing. I don't think my buffness campaign is going to work out, but I do know a lot more about cars. I may just have to wear my super hero swim suit and look like a not so ripped college student. We'll see.

Sold the Honda
Sold the truck bed liner
Found a home for the extra chickens

All my craiglist selling is done. No more confusing text messages! Yay!

Playing Mechanic Round 2

Changing the head gasket on the Honda turned out to be a lesson in communication for Andrew and I. We messed up our first replacement gasket because we were out of sink setting down the head. That lesson cost us $23.99. It also forced us to halt our work until the morning. Really pretty cheap when you think about it. Just imagine how much couples pay for counseling just trying to learn to communicate. I was still kinda bummed though. If I had more upper body strength we wouldn't have made art out of a perfectly good gasket.

Other things that I learned from this adventure.
1. It is hard to find machanic gloves small enough for me
2. Working without gloves results in boo boos.
3. Fingerless gloves from the dollar tree work pretty well
4. That one thing is an intake manifold
5. That other thingy is an exhaust manifold
6. Dirty oil stinks. Pew
7. Clean oil smell ok
8. Andrew is fun to work on cars with

After purchasing the second gasket, the head went back on pretty well. We thought the car wasn't really fixed, though. When we started it up, it continued to spew white smoke (really steam) for some time. Andrew was expecting this. The volume however threw him off. We thought we needed a new head until this morning when I went strawberry picking with Nicole.

Well, like a genius, I locked my keys in the pickup forcing Andrew to drive the Honda to come get me. By the time he got home again, the Honda had stopped spewing steam. The catalytic converter (I'm still not quite sure what that is) holds on to the water for a while after you change the head gasket. So until that water has all been heated up and sent out the tail pipe the car continues to "smoke" even though the problem has been fixed. The end result is... IT'S FIXED! IT'S FIXED! heee heee ha ha!
THE END... I hope.

Playing Mechanic

I've been playing mechanic with Andrew. Together we replaced the break pads on the truck. Andrew fixed a part that was seizing. I was very helpful for that part because I handed him q-tips and got him a glass of soda. I changed the IAC valve on the Honda with Andrew supervising. I cannot for the life of me remember what that acronym stands for. Internal air compressor? Intelligent amazing component? Ah yes Idle Air Control. That's the 8th time Andrew has told me that.
 That fixed the idling problems but there's there white smoke and the water in the oil. Blown head gasket you say. Probably says Andrews. We are replacing the head gasket tomorrow so we'll find out.

Something in the Chicken House

Uh Oh. There's something in the chicken house!

It's a Lion!

 It's a cat? It's a fat cat. It's Julius with a funny hair cut!