Vincent The Dragon

People wonder why I have a hard time finishing one...welll...because things like this happen.

So...truck is almost paid off and sure enough that is when the transmission takes a dump....

Fun times!..the trans is heavy as fuk, it's a 4x4 so the truck is heavy as fuk and I am totally not looking forward to doing this out in the yard since this thing would not fit in my little garage even if I tried. I don't really have the right things to do this but I will make due. Luckily though a long time friend of mine managed to find me a transmission jack to borrow and also lent me his large floor jack. Today's project is getting the heavy used replacement transmission that everyone hopes will work out of the back and under the carport so I can start the process of building platforms under the truck to jack it up high enough to do this swap.
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So...we do not get to have many get-a-ways.
So when the chance came along to go to the Cincinnati Zoo on the cheap, we did and it was great!

Cheap hotel, drove there, tickets were free.
I have never been to that zoo and I highly recommend it...so much to see and do and they have tons of events from time to time .

I may post a followup that highlights just our favorites pictures.

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relaxing with the spoils after a days work.

Stripped, caulked and ready for primer...which i seem to be out of.

Thankyou Wuf for the beer!
It's my favorite and it's mah birthday so he got some for me to enjoy.

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So..took..well, was highly encouraged to take Friday off as well as the holiday. Eee, i have like 100 hours of vacation and since I am low on technicians, I have been told I am not able to take consecutive days off...but they must be used or I loose them.

Anyway...Got the water heater closet painted and the shelves back in place. Now I just need to drill the hole in the floor and run the emergency valve line and then work the door frame back into place.

I also have a new project. I bought dads old Yardman.
They don't make things like this anymore, its a nice powerplant. The engine runs just an hydrolic pump and a PTO so it's nice and strong. The frame is build like a brick shit house so it can take some heavy lifting and work. I need to work on a few minor things...steering...give the PTO a good look at since it's not been used in a while, the break disk needs looked at and I think the hydrolic valve that runs the transmission may have some blow by as the trans likes to creep.

None of this is difficult I think...The tractor has a 3 point in the back so once i find a drag blade and/or drag box then I can fix the yard and the driveway which are getting realllly bad.

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oh..that little drip we still had will be easy to fix...um..nope. Life refused to just let me reseal the threads on the one di-electric nor did it let me just float some more solder on the valve that was drippy...it made me pull out some more pipe, purchase some new elbows and di-electrics and re-work the damn thing...so far so good, i see no leaks or drips.

All repaired and mostly installed.

I still have to clean up wiring, add some components and fine tune some of the units configuration (The manual does not read very well).

So..the water heater was found to be leaking. Apparently for a while. Black mold under the tiles. It's been a very long weekend. We started draining the old tank Friday, it's now 10:50 p.m. on sunday and we now have hot water. Parts of the project went as expected. parts of the project went sideways for a while. I still have one verrrrry small drip from one of the solder joints that I will deal with later. Thank you to my Husband for being understanding. Thank you to my mom and step father for all they did to help this weekend. Thank you life for smacking me around for all of it so far so that, while I am not prefect at it nor proficient, having the skill set'ish to get this fixed

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See...and then right on Que of something actually working, I go to the closet to get some cleaning supply to clean the mildew we keep getting on the ceiling of the bathroom....
It's not coming from the threads of the element.

So...yard tractor's front tires keep going flat.
This is not abnormal for those cheap turf tires lawn equipment comes with to do this.
They dry rot and crack and since they are only 2 ply, they leak..
There is nothing wrong with the tread or the tire really, for the speeds and PSI they operate on, no need to replace tire just put in a tube.
So I got some tubes, spend most of the day trying to wrangle the damn thing into the tire. I don't have the correct tools of course and nothing about the procedure went well.
6 hours later, i now have 2 inner tubes with screw driver puncture holes and I gave up...The yard is a mess...would not matter anyway since we are flat broke as always and there is no gas in the tank.

So I moved on to a project I have been working on, fixing up an AV signal processor/surround sound amp that a friend gave me.
We can't have new things, only old shit and hand-me-downs since life is determined to shit on us at every turn.

I enjoy fixing things...It's hard without the proper tools.
It seems I did manage to replace the AMP chips without breaking anything by using not the best or correct tools.
I don't have a full set of spare speakers lying around to really give the amp a 'burn in' test so if it fails, i'm sure it will do so after I have spend a ton of hours re-doing the AV rack in the living room.
I will be adding those two hand-me-down Yamaha's to the current speakers, most of which are part of the 5.1 system I bought like 25 years ago, to bring the thing up to 7.1

As you can see, I have my helper getting in the way the entire time.

So..like..been having this odd smell in my car and have not been able to track it down...couple weeks ago i rummaged around pretty hard in the car...Now the smell got worse.

like something died in it smell.

Found it now, when i moved the spare tire last time, i smurshed the baby mouse living in the car.
How he got in there is a mystery as I keep my car fairly clean.

Been detailing and shampooing the inside, scrubber out the spare tire well with pinesol.

This..is a self drilling sheet metal screw....There is a new dollar store being build on my work travel route and its one of those cheap metal clad steel frame buildings.

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William was going to have to travel for a work thing but it switched from mandatory to elective.
Instead we picked up a few cheap poles and got our fishing license.
Going to go out this evening and see what we can find and then again Sunday, perhaps a bit on Monday.

My Grandfather served WWII, my Dad is a Marine...many other of our family members have served and we thank them all for their sacrifices and service.

This is my fishing good luck charm, It belonged to my grandfather. Needs a new line break pad..thing..but its still mechanically sound.
Perhaps I'll locate the part to fix it.

Started working on the AV signal processor / AMP
This this is a real bugger to take apart, never seen JST connectors like this.
Also, the power connectors are not on connectors that remove, they are soldered to the boards.

The vacuum rework station I got worked GREAT. the inline amp chips just fell out with ease but...
oops, the second chip is different than the one you could plainly see si I'll have to amazon another chip before I can put it all back together.

Hopefully I'll remember where all these wires go...meep...

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I have not been coming up with much to say because I can't find anything good to say.
Life it seems is just bent on constantly trying to beat us into the ground.

Well...A good friend of mines AV amp / signal processor seems to have pooped its output amp chips.

It's a really nice amp, I have wanted to replace my 20+ year old amp for years.
As such he kindly gave the thing to me and if I fix, i can haz.

I have been tinkering at electronic repairs since I was little but have never had the right tools really.
It's been 'my turn' to buy something for myself for some time now and hoping that, due to some small breaks in our financial situation, me purchasing new output chips and a proper solder re-work station don't come bite us in the tail.

Perhaps even I can recoup some $ by offering some small equipment repair services.