Happy New Years

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas. I got to see my son for most of my visit to NW Indiana and my nieces as well. First time we had a whole crew going to my cousins for Christmas get together in quite a few years. Had a nice dinner at my brother's house. His girlfriend is a great cook. Was nice to visit with my brother and Vella. Could not ask for better winter weather. It didn't snow until after I was back home. My kid is still off for another week, so he got to enjoy the holidays for a change. He usually worked them before. He got in at the Ford plant a couple months back. One less thing to worry about. Did miss seeing Og while I was up there. No time for a Cabella trip either.

 Went down to Whitakers gun shop in Kentucky yesterday. It was a nice journey. They had several M1A's, but not the exact one I am looking for. Had a good day today. The sun was out most of the day and it was in the 60,s. Suppose to go back down to normal tomorrow. Might head over to the club for a little target shooting tomorrow. It isn't suppose to rain. Hope everyone has a safe and happy new year.

Back on line

Laptop bit the dust. Battled through the Christmas crowd to get a new one at Christmas sale price. Still trying to resist urge to beat the old one into rubble. It won't let me transfer my  photos out no matter how I try. It can not see it's dvd burner. It does not want to see the flash drive. Hard drive on it is dying fast. Each startup reveals more bad sectors. I usually have photos backed up on cd, but failed to do so during the car rebuild. So much for Dell. The computer isn't that old. It does have a western digital hard drive. When I use to build my own desktop pc's, I quit using western digital due to the fact they have a high failure rate. They honored the warranty, but you get tired of packing up drive, sending it back, and waiting for a replacement to arrive. Not to mention having to reinstall everything including the operating system and all the updates.

Merry Christmas everyone. Stay warm and safe.

Happy Thanksgiving

Have a great Holiday everyone

Time to find a new barber

I went to get my haircut and find the barbershop closed. So as not to make a complete wasted trip, I went two doors down to a nice little store that sells military surplus and other memorabilia. The owners son has a space set up where he sells some old odds and ends as well. I checked out some of the military stuff, but his father wasn't around, so I couldn't check on the prices of items of interest. I did find a nice little oddity. His kid had one of the original Lynyrd Skynyrd Street Survivor albums with the flames in the back ground. The album released at the time of the airplane crash, and they did a recall of the album and rereleased it with the band standing against a plain black background. It isn't worth alot, but I still have all my old LP's and thought this would be a nice one to keep. Upon checking out, I asked about the barber. Come to find out they were running a meth lab out of the basement. Can't beat that for a cover. One old grey haired barber and what appeared to be his wife doing the hair cutting. Back to finding a barber that actually cuts the hair the way you ask them to again. Oh well, I guess it will be easier for me to find a new barber than the crackheads finding their new supplier : )

After 100 years

Mark Twain's autobiography (part one) comes out Monday. Have to make a trip to the bookstore. Read everything else he has written, will be nice to get some fresh material. Suppose to be three in all. Just in time for winter reading.  Leave it to Mark Twain to delay the release of it until one hundred years after his death.

The beast lives....

I went through the wiring harness and fixed a couple of shorts. One wire had almost no insulation on it and the copper was green. This was the wire that ran from the ignition switch to the starter solenoid. I cut it out and put a new run in. I put all the connectors on and turned the key. Just a click. I check things again. I put new cables on positive side, but negative is the old one. Changed cable out and car cranked good. Cranked it until gas hit carb. It fired and purred nicely. The carb needed no adjustment and the timing was almost dead on. I filled the radiator and let it run. When I shut it down, it hadn't occurred to me to dig up the radiator cap, so coolant flowed onto my garage floor. I put the cap on and started her back up and let it run for a while. After I was happy that all was well, I shut it down and taped the harness back up. After taping, I snaked the harness back through all the holes and plugged everything back in. Once again, I start the engine up. She is running fine and I start checking the lights out. Headlights and taillights come on fine. Try the turn signal, the engine dies. Turn signal off and restart engine. Try signal again, engine dies and smoke comes from light switch area. Had enough fun for one day. Engine runs. I will have to check the light situation tomorrow. I did not have the lights plugged in earlier when running engine, so I am hoping it is just a short in the harness that is only a foot long and runs from turn signals to the harness that I worked on today. Maybe it shorted out while I was plugging in back in to main harness.  Well, at least it runs and no fluids leaked out of engine or trans so that is good.

Found elecrical gremlin

A little work with the meter and I found the starter has a dead short. Disconnected it and checked all the fuses. Fuses were all intact. I still did not have lights, radio or any electric anywhere. It dawns on me that the new negative cable is not grounded to chassis, just the engine. I run jumper to chassis, all electric works.Starter is only $45, but the sticker on it shows it is only two years old. It worked fine when removed so I don't understand what the deal is, but I will swing by tomorrow and pick up a new one tomorrow. Should be able to crank her up then unless it finds something else to puke out. Should be running out of old components. I checked all the lights and need to troubleshoot the back up light switch which shouldn't be a big deal. All other lights and blinkers work fine as does radio and interior.