Monday April 3, 2006

A tiring weekend. Worked on the Voyager. The problem with the Speedometer was a bit frustrating but was rather obvious once we figured it out. Last fall when I was getting it running I discovered that the Speedometer cable sheath was broken, so I pulled the sheath from the 89 Voyager and installed that. It installed OK and worked fine -- until it quit working on Wednesday night. The cable looked good. But, when I drove the car down the road with the Speedometer romoved and held my finger on the cable I could feel the cable turning but if I put ANY pressure whatsoever on it it would begin to 'skip'. I pulled the gear drive from the tranny, it looked OK, but I was convinced that something was wrong with it. Matt pulled the drive from the 89 Voyager. We were surprised to find that it has a very different cable connection from the 88; the 'nose' where the shaft is connected is longer. This means that when the 89 cable was connected to the 88 drive that the cable was barely into the gear instead of the inch or so that it should have been. Installed the 89 drive in the 88 tranny and it works great.

The wheel bearings on the Voyager appear to be OK. Couldn't get the lug nuts loose but I pulled the dust cap and there is plenty of grease. They are just a bit loose but not badly. I can hear the brakes grinding on the right, so I do need to replace those first chance. I will keep the lug nuts soaking in penetrating oil and see if I can do that next weekend.

Picked up the trailer. I need to raise the hitch on the van 6 inches which seems a bit much. I need to study the trailer a bit and determine if I can lower it any. Bed height is nearly 4 feet! But it is heavily constructed, whoever built it did a good job.

Spent most of Sunday going thru slides. Saw more photos of myself and my siblings than I ever knew existed. Found a set of slides of Christmases from 1953 to 197? Kinda funny to see Dad when he was a kid, I don't recall ever seeing pictures of him from then. Also some pics of one of Dad's boats, and family and friends that I had forgotten existed. I have gone thru nearly 1500 slides now, one tub down and four to go. I hope to start scanning them soon and adding them to the Hartshorn.org website.