Busy busy weekend. Spent all day Saturday between shopping and visiting in Bemidji.
Went over to JimJ's on Sunday afternoon with Matt. Matt went to look at JimJ's ham shack and I took the Voyager so I could use JimJ's heated shop and work on making the doors lock. Since I have been unable to lock the doors I have been unwilling to carry my tools in it which has been rather inconvenient. Took apart all the latch mechanisms, cleaned them out, lubed them up. Found one that had a flipped spring, fixed that. Now all the doors lock and unlock properly.
Helped JimJ some with his sisters Geo. She hit a moose the other night which kinda skooshed down the drivers corner of the roof. JimJ cut the roof off along with the bent front piller and got another roof with pillars. We got it pretty well aligned by the time we left. JimJ made reinforcing brackets to weld inside the pillars, so we were able to set the roof in place then bolt up the doors and test for alignment. Pretty tricky and far beyond anything I would have attempted, but I think it will turn out nice. He is going to clean up and put in new undercoating and add some foam insulation in the quarter panels. It should be a pretty nice ride when completed.
JimJ loaned Matt a couple of Radios to listen to, now Matt needs to build a couple of Antennas.
Now I need to determine the next priority for the Voyager Project. Should I replace the (dead) factory stereo next? Fix the (frozen) Parking Brake next? Replace the Heater core next? I suspect that I will be replacing the stereo next, I really miss having tunes. I do have some heat, and I haven't yet had a car in MN that had a working parking brake.
What I'd really like to do is put this power train in my black Voyager body which is in much better condition and add the Turbo from my Caravan to the Voyager. I think a Black 89 Voyager with a 5-speed 2.5 Turbo would make a nice ride. We'll see. Before I can do any of that I need to fix a Horizon and a LeMans and a Gladiator.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
Friday February 10, 2006
TGIF!!! Been a long week. Might take a trip to Bemidji this weekend if anyone will be home there (hint).
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Thursday February 9, 2006
Busy day today. Good to hear E&J are still kicking. Voyager gas mileage is improving; up to 21 MPG last night. I hope to get that up to about 25MPG, I still haven't done a lot of work on it that I would like to. Maybe when the weather gets warmerAND it is not snowing....
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Wednesday February 8, 2006
-10F this morning; drove Gladiator. Dings in Voyager windshield better than they were but not as good as the kit implied. My guess is that it should NOT be applied in cold weather. Try again this summer and see if it works better.
Monday, February 6, 2006
Monday February 6, 2006
Thought I should enter something, but don't know what.
There are a few dings in the windshield of the Voyager, so I bought a windshield repair kit at wally-world. It doesn't say anything in the instructions about temperature, just says that it must be applied in the shade and then moved into direct sunlight or use a UV lamp to cure the resin. Don't know if temp got over 15F yesterday; but it was the first sunny day that I wasn't doing umpty-nine different things so I decided to try it. Put an electric heater inside the Voyager to try to keep the glass a bit warmer from inside and then followed the directions. Resin didn't want to flow into the cracks as described by instructions. We will see what happens.
Left the heater in the Voyager all night. -5F this am but inside of car nice and toasty. Unfortunately, by the time I had driven up to the corner this morning the engine hadn't warmed up yet and it was starting to cool off inside. Heater still not as good as Gladiator. Have to work on that some time .
See ya next time.
There are a few dings in the windshield of the Voyager, so I bought a windshield repair kit at wally-world. It doesn't say anything in the instructions about temperature, just says that it must be applied in the shade and then moved into direct sunlight or use a UV lamp to cure the resin. Don't know if temp got over 15F yesterday; but it was the first sunny day that I wasn't doing umpty-nine different things so I decided to try it. Put an electric heater inside the Voyager to try to keep the glass a bit warmer from inside and then followed the directions. Resin didn't want to flow into the cracks as described by instructions. We will see what happens.
Left the heater in the Voyager all night. -5F this am but inside of car nice and toasty. Unfortunately, by the time I had driven up to the corner this morning the engine hadn't warmed up yet and it was starting to cool off inside. Heater still not as good as Gladiator. Have to work on that some time .
See ya next time.
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Wednesday February 1, 2006
Happy Birthday, Evan!
Drove up to Oak Hills today and surprised Evan for his birthday. Drove the Voyager for its first real road test, it did very well. Gave Evan a car for his birthday (a small toy one, hehheh).
Found a great website, http://ejmas.com. Lots of Martial Arts info there and well worth a visit.
Drove up to Oak Hills today and surprised Evan for his birthday. Drove the Voyager for its first real road test, it did very well. Gave Evan a car for his birthday (a small toy one, hehheh).
Found a great website, http://ejmas.com. Lots of Martial Arts info there and well worth a visit.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Monday January 30, 2006
Boy O boy, ain't I a great blogger. I promise to make more of an effort to keep this up somewhat better.
Worked on the LeMans most of the weekend. New master cylinder, rear wheel cylinders and front calipers, new shoes and pads, and one new brake line. Still need to bleed the system, hopefully more lines won't break.
Mostly fixed the heat problem in the Voyager, backflushed the heater core. Now instead of getting 60 F air from the heater I'm getting 110 F. Not as good as the Gladiator's 130 F, but I'll take it for now.
Wouldn't ya know it, I almost get the other two running correctly and the Gladiator, old reliable, starts to have brake problems. Pulls ferociously to the right in a hard stop. I guess I'll park it for now and get the LeMans done.
New network is almost there. Don't go IP in a large phone system unless you have plenty of time and money to throw at it. 10 weeks since we brought it online and went live and we still have glitches. IP Telephony is SOOOO dependant on having perfect network connections, not tolerant like a PC. When someone moves a large file across the network (all the time with digital imaging) the burst of packets even over a 1 gig link will cause the phones to drop out and sound like a bad cell phone. Even though they are on separate vlans and with QOS and bandwidth limits. I have the Extreme Networks support people looking into now because it shouldn't.
Got a bunch of 78's and victrola records from bro, used to belong to dad and grandad and ?, they pretty much date from about 1908 to 1957. Borrowing a friends 78 rpm turntable to rip them. How about "The Three Little Pigs" as told by Al "Jazzbo" Collins? Or "Avalon" by Al Jolson? Or "After Taps" by Kate Smith? Most of them are pretty rough but still good listening.
Finally got around to getting Myst V End of Ages. A little tougher then I remember Riven to be. I missed Myst IV, I'll have to get it. Myst V is very specific on hardware requirements, fortunately so am I and I have the correct sound and video cards. Before I saw the requirements.
That's enough for one sitting I think. Later!
Worked on the LeMans most of the weekend. New master cylinder, rear wheel cylinders and front calipers, new shoes and pads, and one new brake line. Still need to bleed the system, hopefully more lines won't break.
Mostly fixed the heat problem in the Voyager, backflushed the heater core. Now instead of getting 60 F air from the heater I'm getting 110 F. Not as good as the Gladiator's 130 F, but I'll take it for now.
Wouldn't ya know it, I almost get the other two running correctly and the Gladiator, old reliable, starts to have brake problems. Pulls ferociously to the right in a hard stop. I guess I'll park it for now and get the LeMans done.
New network is almost there. Don't go IP in a large phone system unless you have plenty of time and money to throw at it. 10 weeks since we brought it online and went live and we still have glitches. IP Telephony is SOOOO dependant on having perfect network connections, not tolerant like a PC. When someone moves a large file across the network (all the time with digital imaging) the burst of packets even over a 1 gig link will cause the phones to drop out and sound like a bad cell phone. Even though they are on separate vlans and with QOS and bandwidth limits. I have the Extreme Networks support people looking into now because it shouldn't.
Got a bunch of 78's and victrola records from bro, used to belong to dad and grandad and ?, they pretty much date from about 1908 to 1957. Borrowing a friends 78 rpm turntable to rip them. How about "The Three Little Pigs" as told by Al "Jazzbo" Collins? Or "Avalon" by Al Jolson? Or "After Taps" by Kate Smith? Most of them are pretty rough but still good listening.
Finally got around to getting Myst V End of Ages. A little tougher then I remember Riven to be. I missed Myst IV, I'll have to get it. Myst V is very specific on hardware requirements, fortunately so am I and I have the correct sound and video cards. Before I saw the requirements.
That's enough for one sitting I think. Later!
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