It is the season for roof repair. I am finally starting to patch up the flat part of my roof that sits over the extension that makes our bedroom quite a bit larger than the original design. The folks who added the extension were not too creative. The roof over it is not perfectly flat, It seems to have a very slight slope, The problem is the flat roof is connected to a pitched roof that has a valley where two facets of the pitched roof meet. That valley empties out onto the flat roof. At that point is what my wife not very fondly calls "super leak". The only thing that slows super leak down is a coat of roof sealant. That works till the next freeze thaw or several torrential downpours.

What I am doing is patching up damage from the winter ice that caused the front fascia to come loose. I am replacing wood on the top where it was soft and building up the front so a new fascia made of treated lumber can be attached with hopes of it staying there for a few decades.

We want to eventually sell this place and move out of the city but at the present time it needs a little TLC to get it in shape to sell.

I have been toying with the idea of putting rubber on the almost flat part but most paint on rubber mixtures say not to put on asphalt roofs and this flat roof has had quite a few layers of regular black roofing tar on it. I guess I could put new wood over the old wood with tar on top and then paint the rubber on that.

The other issue is the house has a full basement but the extension is on a footer of some kind. That means the extension probably moves up and down a little bit compared to the rest of the house and that tends to crack the asphalt sealant when there is a freeze thaw cycle. I might be able to get away with just putting rubber sealant on the flex point and use regular asphalt sealant on the rest.

Time will tell.

Tags: roof repair
Current Location: home
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: blessed silence

The comatose Saab 900 Turbo that my Son-in-law owns is running again.

I stayed up after work Sunday evening and went out to breakfast with Daughter and Son-in-law. Wife was laid up due to a sore knee and did not want to either step down, (Fiero), or Step UP (Jeep or Van).

I grabbed my small bad of tools and the new ignition module from Rock Auto and off I went in the Fiero to Home Town Buffet. A good breakfast was had and we then headed out to Children's place.

I wanted to test the coil so I completely removed the coil and hooked up a battery charger capable of about 8 amps so I could touch it briefly to the primary circuit of the coil with the secondary circuit placed right next to the negative post of the coil. There was no spark from the secondary circuit. I finally detected a very minute spark , of less than 1/2 a millimeter, That coil was toast.

I told Son-in-law that we need to get a replacement coil so we do not ruin the new ignition module by hooking it up to a failed coil. I asked him to do some checking and we found an Advanced Auto Parts store that, get this, did not have the OEM coil on hand so would have to special order it for about $55.00. BUT, they had a "high performance" coil that they had in stock for $35.00.

I brought the old coil with us and we went to AAP in my Fiero. Watching a 6' 8" fella fold himself into the passenger seat of the fiero was quite inspiring in a Houdini sort of way. The new high performance coil was on the counter when we arrived and it was the same diameter as the old coil and maybe a 1/2 inch or so longer. No problem, we bought it and headed back.

Once back I hooked up the new coil and then put the new ignition module in place. We routed the wires and made sure the distributor cap was in place. We cleared the engine compartment of miscellaneous tools and old parts and Son-in-law cranked the car to start. One second of cranking, Two seconds of cranking, (fears start to form), 2 and 1/2 seconds of cranking and VROOM, the engine starts.

The engine sounded good.

The new coil is "shiny", looks like chrome, Son-in-law is very pleased.

I do happy dance.

Son-in-law did make me move about 30 feet away from his car and made sure it still started. Somewhere I have developed a reputation of thing working when I am near them and things no working when I am not near them.

The Saab passed the dzimmerm is out of the building test.

Tags: auto repair saab 900 turbo
Current Location: home
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: blessed silence

More work on the Jeep.

I had put the Jeep back together after it has been stolen and we were driving it for the first time yesterday. We took it grocery shopping and it said the coolant level was low. I also noticed drips under the radiator area.

My first conclusion of a radiator coolant leak was wrong. The cooling system had been purging itself. of air pockets and it had been sucking coolant from the coolant reservoir which cause the reservoir to get low. That was fixed by adding some fluid to the reservoir.

The drips were another issue. The drips were ATF (automatic transmission fluid). I was not sure exactly where the ATF was coming from as there are two connectors from the Transmission to the radiator as well as the power steering unit which also can use ATF as power steering fluid.

After examining the issue and testing it I found the leak appeared to be coming out of the top transmission cooling line connector. I tried tightening the connection, but the leak remained. I finally removed the steel line that goes from the rubber line to the radiator and found it kinda gunked up. Cleaning the gunk did not stop the leak. I decided to replace the steel line. I looked on line and called one parts place but there were not any pre-made lines for my vehicle. The steel line is 3/8 inch diameter. I found a length of 3/8 inch copper tubing I had laying around for emergency fuel line repair. ATF cooling lines are not under that much pressure so a copper line should work ok. Steel is stronger but also corrodes more and because steel is stronger is is also more brittle so it will not deform to create a seal when a fitting is tightened down as easily as copper. Also, I had the copper on hand.

This became a mini project as the steel line had a "quick disconnect" on the end that went into the rubber line. That type of connection means there is a ridge about 1/2 inch from the end that a plastic retainer attaches to so it keeps the steel line inserted into the rubber lines connector. The rubber line has an o-ring inside it which does the actual sealing but the plastic retainer had to hold the steel line in place or it will pop out from even a little pressure. The copper tubing did not have that ridge of metal.

I have copper washers that I had bought for raw materials for various projects. I found one that was close the right side and bored out it's inside diameter to 3/8 on my drill press. I then wedged the washer onto a old 7.62x25 empty shell casing I had laying around and put the shell casing into my drill press and proceeded to file the washer down until it was the correct thickness. I tried several things to machine it down and finally ended up using a dremel tool as being the quickest and easiest way to remove the metal. I then forced it onto the end of the copper tubing and soldered it in place with rosin core solder, (no corrosion).

I cut the old steel line to remove the fitting that attached the line to the radiator. I put that over the copper tubing and then flared the copper tubing with a double bubble type flare. I had the flaring tool from an earlier project. I then bent the tubing in about the same shape as the steel line.

I installed my home made ATF coolant line and the DAM THING STILL LEAKED.

Now, I was fairly certain it was not the copper line connection that was leaking. When I installed the radiator it came with several fittings to get the radiator ATF coolant lines connected. I had used two fittings that matched the connections I had to work with. There were other fittings for other diameters and threads and several that appeared to be identical. The fitting I had used looked just like one of the other fittings but I decided to try the other one to see if perhaps there was some minute flaw in the one I had happened to pick. One thing I noticed was the one I removed had contact marks from the brass I had screwed it into but that those contact marks only went about 75% around. The other fitting I tried also seemed to screw a little further into the fitting. I am guessing the first fitting I had tried to use was mis-machined with an incorrect bevel on the side that was supposed to mate with the fitting on the radiator.

The proof was after replacing the fitting the leak appears to have stopped. I will need to test it for a few days but I am guessing that was the issue.

My testing involved placing a paper towel around the fitting area and tie wrapping it in place while I start the engine and put the transmission into reverse, and drive, and back again several times while holding the brake so the jeep does not take off. In all previous tests the paper towel came back with pink stains on it from the ATF. This last time there was no ATF stains.

I would like to thank my daughter for the idea of using paper towels to spot the area where the leak was coming from.

Tags: jeep repair
Current Location: home
Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: blessed silence

I had a thought about the nature of peace. Real peace is only had by those who have passed on.

What we really want is controlled violence.

What we do not want is uncontrolled violence.

So I guess it all comes down to a matter of control.

Humans are by nature violent. I am not talking about going around clubbing each other on the head, though there is plenty of that happening at any one time. What I am talking about is we are builders and innovators and doers of deeds both great and small. All that activity is, in my mind, a form of violence. Building a chair requires turning a certain amount of wood into sawdust. It also requires boring holes and gluing or nailing or using helical fasteners of some type. There is all kinds of violence in those activities.

Creating an automobile requires wrenching ore from the earth and heating it until it melts. Forming it with great pressures and joining it with welding, which is a very violent activity as far as the metal is concerned. We haul fluids from great depths of the earth , which means we have created rents in the crust of the earth. We process that liquid under heat and pressures and we get plastics, which are again heated and extruded, or oil, which is heated and purified, as well as gasoline, same as the oil. We sacrifice groves of trees to documentation for said automobile and its design and its repair manuals.

For computers the basic components are sand that is heated until it melts and purified by processes I am unaware of but which likely are quite violent.

We are surrounded by violence but we revel in it as long as it is controlled.

dzimmerm

Tags: nature of humanity violence peace
Current Location: Work
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Blessed silence

Some Dimbots stole my Wife's Jeep. It is an old jeep. It is not worth a lot of money. They ruined the radiator, probably by setting in the jeep while it was idling until the temperature went beyond redline. The radiator had a 1.5 inch by 4 inch section of plastic underneath the radiator cap peeled away.

Back to the story though,

I am on my way home from work. I am about to pull into my parking spot in front of the house when I get a call on my cell phone from the Wife. "The police say someone stole our jeep". Ahem, I drove around back and sure enough the jeep was gone. The snow was untracked and it had started to fall around 2:00PM that Sunday. We had the jeep out that Sunday morning to go to breakfast with my Daughter and Son in Law. The jeep was stolen on a Sunday between 11:00AM and 2:00PM given the untracked drive way.

How might you ask did they steal it without us noticing? Well, the back of the house does not have windows. I built it that way on purpose to limit break ins from the back alley. I park my car in front of the house on the street and we also keep our Van out there. The jeep stays in back most of the time as it is easier to unload groceries into the garage from the jeep. The driveway also makes it easier to avoid tracking in mud and snow when getting to and from the jeep. We have a gate across the entrance to the driveway but since our annoying neighbor moved we have not had the need to keep it closed and locked as we had no issues with things being messed with after they left.

The police left a voice message on our answering machine. I contacted the police impound lot and they did not know anything about the jeep. I tried calling several different places at the police department and finally contacted the local route officer that had called us. He called the officer that found the jeep and that officer said the jeep was in the process of being towed to the impound lot and that it would be there by the time I called back. Sure enough I called the impound lot and they found it. I found out I had to pay $125.00 to get my jeep out of the impound lot. I was told the $125.00 was for towing expenses and the city did not make any money off of it. The jeep started after a jump but quickly began to overheat. I turned it off and found the large hole in the radiator I mentioned at the beginning of this post. We ended up towing the jeep home with the van. It was slow going but we made it home ok. We then put a tarp over the jeep and called it a day. I had to work that evening so nothing was really done other than I bought a replacement radiator from a local Advanced auto parts on my way home from work on Tuesday morning.

Total damage so far to the jeep is as follows.

Broken radiator.
Broken front rubber bumper pad
Broken passenger side rear vent window
Broken passenger side door lock
Broken glove compartment door lock, (dimbots did not even realize the glove box was not locked)
Broken ignition switch and missing ignition lock cylinder
Broken heart of Wife, it was her baby.

I have ordered and received replacement parts for most of the broken stuff. I have replaced the radiator but have not tested the engine yet due to not wanting to make the vehicle drivable until locks and window have been replaced. The engine did start ok at the impound lot so I am guessing the overheating did not affect it much. The engine has a lot of miles on it and the age may have protected it from seizing after the radiator blew.

We will add a few security features I will not detail here as this is a public forum. No need to give the dimbots advance warning.

I am going to make sure it is not nearly so easy to break and take the next time. I really despise those that prey on folks that are just getting by. I am handy and do a lot of my own work, otherwise this could have set us back by thousands of dollars rather than hundreds. The jeep only cost me about $1600.00 and it was fully paid for so I did not have collision and comprehensive on it. As such I am having to pay for all parts myself and do all the work myself. It is pretty cold right now and that is limiting the speed of repairs.

dzimmerm

Tags: jeep stolen repair unhappy
Current Location: home
Current Mood: disappointed
Current Music: blessed silence

I had not attended a funeral in decades before this year. Now I have been to 2.

I was trying to decide what vehicle to drive to visit with my Sister and attend her Husband's funeral. I had a choice between a 1990 chevy astro van and a 1986 Fiero. The Van is a vehicle we keep for light hauling and the occasional time when either my Wife's jeep or my fiero is being repaired. The Van sits a bit higher than the fiero but the Van needs work done on it's brakes and it needs work done on it's exhaust system.

I finally decided to take the fiero after weather reports showed severe clear between my house and my sister's house.

The drive up was uneventful. The Fiero performed well and got close to 30mpg on the long highway stretches.

The funeral was also uneventful. I got to see all of my remaining family except for my eldest sister. I also got to meet a number of my sister's in laws that I had never seen before. They all were a nice bunch of people.

I had intended to stay until Friday but I got the bug to take off Thursday night. My sister's place is nice enough, she got it remodeled inside recently, but I got a bit bored and I also got the feeling the clear weather was not going to hold.

The trip back was also uneventful. I did have to pull over into a Mall parking lot and rest my eyes for a few minutes.

I got home about midnight and went to sleep shortly after that.

Now I had slept and can continue the last two days of my long weekend.

Tags: another funeral
Current Location: home
Current Mood: awake
Current Music: blessed silence

Time to post one of my rare entries. It seems to be a slow time for some other posters and that gives me a bit more free time to think about my own posting.

Thanksgiving was not much of a celebration as I spent about 12 hours of it devoted to work. I work in operations and since I don't have small children or grand children to worry about I figure it is better me than the others who do. They did order in food for our shift from a local restaurant named The Dutchman. The food was not very impressive for me as I am still a vegetarian. The mashed potatoes were ok and the rolls were good. The only stand out food for me were the pies. Dutch apple, Pumpkin, and Cherry. They ordered more food than was needed so I ended up taking a full Cherry pie home to share with the Wife.

My daughter called me last night and asked why the fuse was blowing when she plugged in her 9 strands of Christmas tree lights. Hehe, yeah. apparently the lights she has have a 3 Amp fuse in them. I tried to explain that if she tries to draw more than about 330 watts through that fuse it will blow. I recommended she get extension cords and run no more than 2 or 3 strings of lights piggybacked one after the other. She complained that it would make stringing the lights a lot harder and I said it was the only way to make it work with the setup she had. I think this is the second Christmas for my Daughter in her new house and I think She and Hubby have gotten some of their debt paid down so they are enjoying it more this year. She was in good spirits when she called.

My Family is doing ok as far as I know. My Mom and 2 remaining sisters and brother all are doing well as of the week before Thanksgiving.

I am taking a little bit of time off as my shift changes from the end of the week to the beginning of the week and the change would have left me with only one day off between 4 days of work. I took 3 days off and am enjoying about a week away from the grind. I did actually get a few projects done so far and I hope to complete a few more before work begins. December will be an interesting month as I took every Wednesday day off. That means I will only work 12 days in December. I am calling them my 12 days of Christmas, ha. I do get Christmas off because it falls on a Thursday and I am working the front part of the week as I mentioned earlier. Because I took off every Wednesday I also get Christmas Eve off, which is really rare for me. I normally work Christmas for the same reasons I work Thanksgiving and other holidays.

I am a lot more burnt out this year than in previous years. I think I may be due for a change. I have been with my present company since May of 1997 and my job has changed a lot since I started. I was desktop support, than Lan Admin, then special projects for year 2000 readiness and then desktop support again and then operations monitoring and remote patching and repair and that has continued up to now.

Like many organizations we are feeling like General Custer at the Little Big Horn, "Where did all those Indians come from?" . Our management has a team in India that will be taking over a lot of the Tier 2 work we normally do. I have been told that I should not worry as the "follow the sun" model still needs disaster recovery and business continuity so north America will still need to be available to fall back to if India goes dark. The recent horrors reported by the news in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) highlight the fact that India might not be as stable a location for operations support as was earlier thought. I was unhappy to hear about what happened in India as I do not favor anyone benefiting from the effect of terrorism, even myself. One of my co-workers said he was happy about the Mumbai attacks as it made our job more secure. I doubt that assessment as our company has invested a lot of money into bringing India online and if that money is wasted the company will try to recoup it's losses by removing personnel. We are operating so thinly right now that we have to juggle shifts anytime vacation is taken. There is no fat in our local group though I can not say about the other center. We used to have 3 centers in north America but we closed one and now we only have two. Our center did move several of the folks from the closed center to us but it will take time to see how they integrate and if they will continue to remain with our company.

Peace to all who can handle it.

Tags: reflections on the ending of 2008
Current Location: home
Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: blessed silence

I have not posted here lately as I have been using myspace instead. I went to myspace primarily to leave a message for my niece in law. I may start leaving messages here again as livejournal is a cleaner format. I get real tired of all the myspace doo dads that they keep throwing at me.

Tags: myspace livejournal
Current Location: home
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Blessed silence

The Daughter called me up and said her Jeep, the one that she drove us all the way to Hundred WV and back in just the day before, caught fire in the rear driver side brake area.

She put the fire out with a garden hose and asked me what to do. I said that it sounded like the brake caliper had locked up in the squeeze position. The Daughter made some calls and arranged to have her car trailered to the dealership where she had the extended warranty with. I went and picked her up early in the morning on Tuesday, 9/2/2008, from the dealership. We had some breakfast and we went to a bookstore to look for books. The new Terry Brooks book, Gypsy Morph, was out and the Daughter wanted to get it. We did find it and I bought it for her with the understanding I get to read it soon, :). The Daughter got a call from the dealership saying it would take them a day or two as the caliper and the associated rubber brake line needed to be replaced and they did not have the caliper on hand. We drove back to my place and I let the Daughter drive the old Chevy Astro Van I use for light hauling back home so she could use it to go to work.

I got a message from the Daughter Today, Wednesday, 9/3/2008, that the dealership had her Jeep all ready to go. The Wife and I went out to lunch at a local O'Charlies restaurant and then headed home. The Daughter drove the van back to my house and I drove her to the dealership so she could get her Jeep back. She was quite happy that all was now well with her Jeep. I had a fairly quiet drive back home though it was during rush hour.

Now I need to try and get my schedule turned around so I can be awake for work on Thursday night.

Tags: jeep repair
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: Blessed silence

It was a good funeral as funerals go. Everything went as planned. The only slight issue was one of my Wife's relatives drove up just a few minutes late and they did not come up to the grave site.

There were only my Wife's two nieces and my Daughter as well as the Wife and I representing the family. There was a Lady minister that said a few words and the funeral director. There was also the internment crew that was ready to get to work once we left. The Mother in Law's remains looked like her. The funeral home did a good job of selecting the casket and the apparel.

The cemetery was peaceful with no bad vibes. It was warm. The drive to the funeral and the drive back was uneventful.

We did stop at a restaurant in Hundred WV that had excellent food and very low prices. It was just family with the Wife, Wife's two nieces, my Daughter, and I.

Mr. Power of Attorney and his family did not show up. They also did not answer their phone when I tried calling them several days before the funeral.

Mr. Power of Attorney was not missed by anyone.

If you wonder what funerals cost in Hundred WV when you are trying to be respectful but also thrifty, I can tell you that this small funeral cost me $4,589.04 . This was out of my own savings and checking as the Mother in Law did not have any insurance that we were aware of and Mr. Power of Attorney did not pay any of the expenses. I have hopes that Mr. Power of Attorney might come forward and assist with the Mother in Law's final expenses but I am not holding my breath.

The Wife is dealing well with her loss and I am dealing with mixed feelings about the whole thing. The obvious thoughts are mortality and meaning of life and other miscellaneous musings.

Tags: mother-in-law funeral expenses
Current Location: home
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Blessed silence