Non-Routine Maintenance

On Friday, I got the car titled and registered. I'd peeked at the air filter during previous trips under the hood and knew that it was disgusting, so we picked up a new one. There are seed shells and poo nuggets all over the engine compartment, so I knew that at some point a mouse had been living in there. It wasn't until I lifted up the old filter and saw the filter box looking back at me, though, that I realized the mouse had never moved out. Luckily, I know what to do with unwelcome tenants.

Barbequed Dinner

As you might imagine, given my claims to nerdhood, I don't always excel at things generally described as manly. I am pretty good at Halo, I do have a fantasy baseball team, and I have recently completed car repairs using JB Weld and duct tape. However, I like Jane Austen, I'm not very good at most sports (I think the fact that I do have some natural talent for gymnastics works against me here), I have picked matching fabric combinations for my wife's sewing projects, and I know the proper use of a semi-colon. Suffice it to say that when I do something particularly manly, like dirt biking or paintball, I like to make a big deal out of it to reassure any onlookers that my Y chromosome is not only alive and kicking but hairy and sweaty too.

A few weeks ago, barbecued chicken sounded really good for dinner. Since I was going to be out over the grill anyway, I figured I might as well cook the whole dinner there. I decided to boost the testosterone level of garlic bread by toasting the bread over the coals. I made up for the olive oil and rosemary (what a pansy sounding spice) on the vegetables by wrapping them in foil and throwing them over the fire too.

Surprisingly, I didn't burn anything, although it probably would have been more manly if I had. Everything tasted really good so, unfortunately, nobody got any extra hair on his chest.

I was particularly proud of my bread. It got a nice smoked flavor from the mesquite branches I put on the fire. So so good.

So, in summary: +15 Chuck Norris points for making my whole meal over the fire. -3 points for using rosemary.

Better'n Baling Wire!

I have a new car! It's a '92 Nissan NX-1600. It's got 182,000 miles on it. Until last week it didn't run and until yesterday, it had a constant 5 Amp parasitic load on the battery. But it's a sexy red color and has a stick shift. Sure, 5th gear doesn't work and it's possible that there's a mouse living in the air filter box. But it's mine...and did I mention the stick shift?

Turns out it was remarkably easy to fix. There is a super powered stereo amplifier in the trunk that appeared to be taxing the battery. Once I disconnected that and replaced the battery, the car started just fine. The parasitic current load was a little harder. I wondered if the amp had damaged the alternator as well so my friend Nick came over yesterday to help me take that out. After a run to Checkers to have it tested (it worked fine) we put it back in. In the process, we were admiring the wear on the power line from the alternator to the battery. Nick wondered aloud if that might be the source of the drain. I wrapped the wire up with electrical tape, re-attached it and voila, the drain was gone.

The previous weekend, after I'd gotten the new battery and started the car up the first time, I noticed that the idle speed was so low that the car would stall if I didn't keep revving it. I also noticed a black plastic reservoir with a charred hole in it coming off the air filter box. (This is probably a good point to mention during the tenure of the car's previous owner, there had been a fire in the engine compartment. It had something to do with forgetting to put the oil cap back on) Since I had no idea what the purpose of the black reservoir was, I didn't know if I should be concerned or not. Nick was fortunately experienced enough to know that the reservoir was important for air flow in the engine and that a big hole would cause a.) dirty air to enter the engine and b.) reduced air flow into the engine causing idling problems.

In true McGyver fashion, we fixed the hole with a combination of JB Weld, an old Tupperware container, and duct tape. Since the hole was on the corner of the reservoir, we cut out a matching piece from the Tupperware and glued it with the JB Weld. The duct tape was because we were too impatient to wait for the JB Weld to cure. Here is the finished product in all her jury rigged glory:
And now? Yep, the car runs fine. The battery charges with the engine running. The AC works better than on our Saturn. We took it for a test drive and nothing broke. I checked the battery voltage this morning and it's still ok. Now I just have to get the thing licensed and insured and we will officially be a two car family. I feel so American!