Shined up the Cutlass
It’s been either way too hot to be waxing the car, too busy at work to get, or the weather hasn’t been cooperating. But I finally got around to getting Andrea’s car all shined up yesterday. I took it out this morning with some good morning sunshine and took quite a few pictures. I think it looks pretty darn good. I wouldn’t mind driving this thing everyday anyway.
This is my favorite picture in the set.
It’s Finished
I don’t have pics of the completed project, but here’s a quick picture I snapped right after I picked it up from the upholstry shop.
I’ll get some better pictures as soon as I can.
You know I really like working on cars, but I can get frustrated. Especially when I’m on a time crunch. I don’t like having to have a car back together by the next day so it can be on the road. Sadly we only drive projects around here! Haha.
I think it turned out pretty good though.
06.12.12Sorry I’ve Been Absent
It’s been busy. I had mentioned in previous podcasts that I started playing Metroid Prime with the intention of playing it until completion. Well the bad news is I’ve been too busy to play any of it for the past two weeks. But then again, I haven’t really been doing any gaming at all INSTEAD of that, so it’s not like I’ve been “cheating”. Though Andrea and I did play some Mario Kart 7 on 3DS tonight.
Other than a whole lot of travel this month. Here’s the big project that has kept me most busy. The vinyl top on Andrea’s car. It hasn’t been too bad. I just hope I’ve done everything well enough that the upholstery shop will put the top on. My biggest fear is that I get it all prepped to go and they’ll say I didn’t do something right. Ugh. Let’s hope not. Really just want to get this done!
Here’s some pics of the process. I’m only going post a few of them on the front page, so click through to see the rest!
This is what was underneath when we took it off.
Here’s the old vinyl that was flapping in the breeze.
Uh oh. This can’t be good. Got most of the old glue sanded off. But the paint underneath is pretty flaky, so a lot of that is going to have to come off too. But what is that drill for?
I had to drill out all the rivets holding down the trim pieces that go around the edges. Kinda apprehensive about drilling holes in an otherwise nice car. But must do what must be done. I was afraid this was going to be tedious work, but the drill chewed right through them!
Time for new Vinyl
I wish I were talking about records…
Actually talking about Andrea’s Cutlass. The vinyl top on the back half of her roof has slowly been coming loose since we bought the car. It hasn’t been too bad, then all at once it really went to crappy. The glue just totally gave up.
She said she could hear it flapping in the wind as she was driving down the highway, so we stopped by the upholstery shop to get a quote. It’s actually pretty reasonable if I remove the old top. So that’s the plan. Infact, Andrea already got most of the vinyl off!
Podcast – Randomness Ensues
Another podcast with an extreme lack of planning. I was just in a decent mood, so figured I’d record and see what came out.
Topics:
- Facebook required for business
- Late getting home
- Enjoying solitude
- Gaming quandaries
- Toronado’s future?
- Podcast Music
- Mystery Song
Previous Mystery Song was from New Super Mario Bros. Wii – Final Bowser.
03.27.12
Monster Truck Rally!
We went back to SWK for my nephews’ birthdays. It was lots of fun. They decided that instead of a pizza party they were going to go to the Monster Trucks at the arena. Wise choice!
I really hate our digital camera. Unless you’re in direct sunlight or your subject is completely still, the pictures are just a blurry mess. I’ve seen cellphone cameras that take better pictures.
At any rate it was alot of fun! I haven’t seen monster trucks since I was probably 12 years old. I don’t know if they’ve changed much. I’d assume they’re a bit more sophisticated now. We got to get pretty up close to them. They look pretty intense. A lot more sophisticated and heavy duty than your average hauler.
There’s a lot of similarities between the monster truck circuit and the pro-wrestling circuit. They both have over the top stories and weird fans. Of course any time you go to see monster trucks you gotta know if “Bigfoot” is going to be there. And he was… technically. I did a little research and apparently there have been 18 trucks that have been “official” Bigfoot trucks. We saw Bigfoot #16. Was probably the nicest put together truck, but the driver just didn’t have the gusto.
The real bad ass was a 68 Mustang called “Ghost Ryder”. This guy was balls to the wall all the time!
All in all it was awesome. I just let myself act like a kid again. The nephews had a blast and all the parents did too! Sadly there were some classy cars crushed that day. Some looked a little too much like mine!
01.30.12
Piped up!
Got the job done! This was certainly one of the smoothest car projects I’ve done. And I’ve heard stories about how much of a pain exhaust work is. Not bad for my first time!
Here's how I've been driving for a while. You can see where the exhaust ended right under the middle of the car.
New tail pipe, and resonator. The actual muffler is further up under the center of the car. It's kind of odd seeing shiny metal underneath there.
There's the muffler tucked up underneath.
And best of all… it’s quiet again!
One Nut Short
This is re-damn-diculous. I ordered my new exhaust from RockAuto.com and everything came in quickly like I always expect. I finally got some time on Sunday to install it. I got it all hung and lined up and went to put the clamps on. I got all three clamps, but one clamp came with only ONE NUT instead of two! So the project is on hold until I can either get another nut or another clamp.
All in all its gone a lot smoother than I had planned. Separating rusty exhaust pieces is never an enjoyable experience. There wasn’t much left of the old system, it has rusted apart where the muffler used to be and all that was left was the old inlet pipe for the muffler and the old clamp. I put the big breaker bar on the rusty nuts and ended up just twisting the u-bolt in two, then just hammered the rusty clamp off. Of course the clamp had become unnessicary as the old pipe had rusted to the surface of what good exhaust I had left. But about 20 minutes with my angle grinder and I was able to pry part of the old pipe off. Then with vice grips I peeled the rusty old pipe off of the good pipe like peeling a banana. Actually went smoother than I had expected.
The good news is that all the new parts fit darn near perfect! Something I’m really not used to. Haha! And if I would have had just that one nut…. I’d be driving it today. It will be nice to have a quiet ride again, but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow. It’s just funny because I had mentioned in a previous podcast that I almost always figure out that I will be missing something to get this job done. I thought it was going to be a tool or something I’d have to buy, didn’t think it would be a single nut that was supposed to be included in the first place!
01.27.12FRIDAY, hells yeah.
Finally getting around to blogging again. Work hasn’t been too bad, but I’ve had enough side job stuff to keep me busy at home. I’ve been doing better about getting up earlier in the morning, so that gives me a little time to piddle around and do stuff like this.
I’m excited to see Mom this weekend. Her and Duane are coming up to hang out. At first I thought I was going to be caught working all day Saturday, but now it looks like I’ll at least be getting Saturday afternoon/evening off. So good deal there. I don’t think we have a whole lot planned, but we’ll kick back and relax like we always do. I know Andrea is excited because they’re brining up a Futon for the basement! No more canvas lawn chairs. I’m sure when people see our setup and then see that we’re sitting on canvas lawn chairs they figure we have some priority issues, which might be true anyway. But when we moved into the bigger place and decided to have our living room upstairs and our TV and systems downstairs, we were suddenly short on furniture. They’re also bringing us a bed for the spare bedroom. So that just leaves one room that we’re just using for storage.
I washed the Toronado a day or two ago. Every time I do I think about how I want to get some things on it fixed up. But then I think again that I need to just keep driving it and have a “beater” as they say, that I can drive without care or worry, especially during the winter time. So I think I talked myself out of repainting it again and redoing the vinyl on the roof. The paint isn’t so bad, but I’d have to repaint it to fix the hail dents… and one thing leads to another, and another. But I do want to keep it reliable mechanically, and fairly respectible looking. So my goal is to get the exhaust fixed (hopefully this Sunday) and find something to fix my cracked bumper filler up front without shelling out the $150 for a whole set. I’m thinking I can take some thin gauge sheet metal and bend it into the shape I need. Finding a piece big enough is the challenge for that right now.
Played some more Skyward Sword last night. Still very awesome. The only part that I’m finding annoying is that you can pick up different items throught the game you use to upgrade your gear. Kind of like Final Fantasy or Guild Wars. Well every time you turn the game on, it acts like you’ve never seen these items before. I have 22 blobs of goo, and next time I go to play and find another, it’s going to stop the gameplay the first time I find one and explain to me what it is again, like I haven’t heard it before. So far that’s my ONLY gripe with the game.
Welp, better get ready for work. It’s FRIDAY! So I’m looking forward to a fairly straight forward day! Hope yours is as well!
01.23.12Half-Cast
I tried recording on my way to work this morning, but the battery died on me a couple minutes in. So I just got the drive home today.
Podcast Topics:
Luke’s First Word
Skylanders
Car Work
Podcast Music
Can you guess what game the last song is from? (Hint: Not Skylanders)
