DanzBB the Blog

Exhausted? (exhaust leak)

Dan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:16:28 +0000

Another day in my ongoing Model A adventure. Wednesday I had two of my Model A mentors stop by to look over the car–they immediately recognized the symptoms of a manifold leak and sure enough, when I sprayed some water on the manifolds, the exhaust side was leaking. Bummer! Though luckily it’s an easy fix… or is it?

Well, it turns out that it’s not QUITE that simple, as there are a number of issues. One is that the manifolds were on with Home Depot-quality bolts and split lock washers, rather than the studs, compression washers and nuts that are supposed to be on there. Two is that the exhaust manifold clamp that clamps the manifold to the exhaust pipe is messed up. So it’s still leaking. Also, one of the stud holes is stripped out.

Anyway, there’s more to do to tackle this, including trying to straighten out the exhaust clamp, helicoil or re-tap the hole in the engine block, and put everything back together again with fingers crossed. At least it’s a 3-day weekend!

Not Partial to Partial Grapes

Dan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:02:38 +0000

Here’s our little one. She has a unique way of eating grapes: she picks up a grape, bites off half, puts it down and then moves on to the next grape. Apparently only whole grapes are suitable for eating. Partial grapes must be abandoned on her plate. So when I give her ten grapes for lunch, she eats five… ten halves.

By the way, that last shot is her eating string cheese, not grapes. But it shows her general eating style–cram in as much as you can as fast as you can. Did I mention that she’s now wearing size 4t, just one size down from big sister?

Radiator Leak

Dan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:57:35 +0000

Looks like my radiator has some pinhole leaks :-( I noticed the A was running a little hot on Friday so I added coolant Saturday. Looked at the radiator and saw that it was weeping coolant even at “room temperature” so there are definitely some leaks.

A new radiator runs about $600 from Brassworks, so I think that for the moment I’m just going to monitor the coolant level and deal with it later. There are a bunch of other things I need to get to: finishing the seat belt installation, adding the turn signals, adjusting the timing and brakes. But eventually I suppose it will have to get done.

First Day of School

Dan — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:23:27 +0000

Our big girl’s first day of school was a success. There were a few tears right at drop-off time, but overall he teacher said she did fine and from some of the things she said it sounds like she actually had fun :-)

These pictures are of her and the mama settling in and playing with play dough.

Mini Cantaloupe

Dan — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 03:12:08 +0000

These are growing in our garden. Delicious, but bite sized :-)

Model A Homecoming Video

Dan — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:05:33 +0000

Thanks to mom :-)

Seat Belts Installed

Dan — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:18:04 +0000

In the cabin at least. But more work remains to be done–I’m not completely comfortable with the way that the angle iron is attached to the seat frame. I need to add some additional steel bracing so that I can be confident that the belts will hold if needed.

I’ll add a picture to this later.

Jungle-like Garden

Dan — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:12:00 +0000

OK. So I was a little skeptical the first time my wife suggested looking into “Earth Box” gardening containers. But we wanted to grow some fruits and vegetables in the back yard for the girls to see (and eat). So we bought some and they’re pretty much as good as the advertisements.

The cantaloupes are the ones running riot. They’ve grown down from the steps onto the concrete and headed back up to the top of the deck. There are four or five good sized melons on that vine, along with another two-dozen flowers that have the potential to grow into more melons. The honeydew are also going gangbusters, with three melons right on the box cover that are each already about six inches around.

The only thing that hasn’t done well are the strawberries. I think that the fertilizer was a bit too shallow and only one plant is still alive. Oh, and the watermelon didn’t make it (in the same box as the other melons). The herbs grew great–our basil has grown to tree-like heights and the lettuce did fine, too.

So I can definitely recommend these things if you have a limited area (but room for vines to spread) and want to grow something.

First Commute

Dan — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:38:16 +0000

Drove the new car to work this morning…

Made It Home

Dan — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 15:42:18 +0000

Well, I picked up my car today. It’s a long drive from Santa Clara to Quincy (10 hours, round trip) but I made it. The F-150 and trailer I got from U-Haul performed fine and the only trouble I had was traffic–there was a car fire on 80 on the bridge over the Sacramento River that had the freeway closed. So I sat for about half an hour while they put it our and cleared it up.

I’m glad to finally have the car in the garage. It fits fine after a little reorganization. Evelyn was still awake when I got home and she sat in the rumble seat (“my seat” she now calls it). I think mom took some video of me driving it into the garage, so if/when she sends me a copy I’ll post it.