Well, now that we have off-street (and unpaid street) parking at our new place, we brought the Silver Bullet out.

Had to jump it at the farm, and again at the gas station (where I plugged the jumper cables in backwards to a stranger's car!!!), but now it's here, safe and sound.

Time to join Oregon Volvo Tuners, and dust off that IPD catalog.

Saturday was a shopping day.

I gracious offered to chauffeur my Wife around, with the caveat that I was not going to enter any of the stores -- I was going to work on the car.

So that's what we did. She went inside and competed against vast hordes of sale-crazed ladies, digging through enormous piles of boots-on-sale, while I quietly worked on the car, in a parking lot 2.5 miles from the store -- because there were so many hordes of people that drove there.

Here's my list of accomplishments:

- I mounted the cup-holder (made of wire and with designs of sunflowers) with a custom bracket to the dash area in front of the passenger seat

- I covered some bare wires, briefly searched for the fault in the turn signal lines, and then just installed an auto-reset circuit breaker instead. Turn signals now work

- I ripped out the 120-volt led that I thought would do a better job of dash illumination than it did and replace it with two, red 12-lamps. Now the dash is lit up at night. Spectacular.

That's ME! I can spot a cherry Volvo from MILES away, just ask my Wife! I sing out every time I see one...

Yes, believe your eyes.

I have created a front-loading bike rack for the Ol' Silver Bullet. It is a homebrew design, made out of a pair of old handlebars (the ones that came on the original incarnation of my current bike, that I replaced with a straight (and short) bar).

Now I can easily load the bike on the front, secure it with the built-in bungee, and toodle off down the road to park the car.

Whence I return, via pushbike, to our home. Ingenious.

My working on the car in snatches, bits and pieces here and there continues...

On the list of now working:

- turn signals
- reverse lights (!)
- tail lights

Still not working:

- brake lights

So the state and fate of the car has been a sorry saga this last week and a half. First the "light out" warning light came on, presumably for the right tail light that was out.

It was not as simple as blown bulb, nor as simple as a causelessly-blown fuse. Because I checked the bulb, and it lit up fine in the other socket, or with 12V applied directly to it, and fuses kept blowing when I changed them.

So I cut the wires to instrument panel bulbs (they didn't work anyway) after much measuring with the multimeter and much analytical and mathematical thinking.

I had logically (and then physically & electrically) isolated the source of the short. I re-applied the now tail-light-only circuit to the fuse box, and the fuses held and the tail light lit.

It was at this point, that, to my dismay, I realized that the brake lights no longer worked. How long had it been going on? Certainly longer than since cutting that wire, so that was ruled out as a cause...

Well, the brake lights are still not lighting, except for the middle one, which I plugged into my switch-controlled aux circuit. Yes, that's right, I have to flip a switch to light my brake lights, (hopefully) synchronized with my actual braking (or not -- BACK OFF! I'm slowing down! But not really! Actually I'm accelerating! But you stay back there!).

Tomorrow I track the brake pedal switch wire to the relay and re-wire the back brake lights.

In other good news, I found the wire that goes to the reverse lights, and I don't think they have EVER worked since we owned the car. They are now actuated by a clear white light (which matches the reverse lights themselves) switch coming out of the center lower dash area.

The turn signals were a casualty of this week. I was working on other things (the brake lights), and thinking of how I could extend the turn signal switch to be actuate-able with one hand whilst that one hand also grips the steering wheel. During that brainstorming, I attached a handle to the existing switch... And about a minute later I put too much pressure on it and snapped off the handle from the existing switch. So today I rewired the turn signals into two SPST, momentary-contact, normally off switches, ones with big RED buttons...

The Sunflower Curtains are hung in the Silver Bullet. She has officially become a camping vehicle. Now, one of these days I will replace the seals on the back windshield (and the entire windshield, if I screw up) and she will be a WATER TIGHT camping vehicle. Even better.

The Ol' Silver Bullet has had some real rough starting days this past week, and finally today she didn't want to start at all. I rolled up my sleeves and cleaned out the distributor -- there was some moisture under the cap and the contacts were a little oxidized and messy. I also tensioned the belts -- I didn't realize how loose they were, and they had been squealing since I had them done months ago. So then she started right up... But I still think I need to slap some new plugs and wires in there.

I biked the 7 miles to get my car this morning in only 30 minutes, though by the end of it I was getting tired and committing that oh-so-grievous sin of bike riding, thinking like a car. And you know what THAT means: stopping at red lights, going the right way on streets, no sidewalks. So I took even longer than I had to.

And I got the car back, after a tidy sum of money, let me tell you. They replaced the front transmission seal and the rear engine seal, which is a heckuvalot of labor. I would have done it myself but... it was a heckuvalot of labor. Probably would have taken me 2-3 days, by myself, and been rough. And I've got things to do right now, let me tell you.

But anyways, now the car has more power than it ever has had before -- but it also revs high. I think perhaps the overdrive solenoid didn't get hooked up or something, because it's not kicking down out of fourth (I think). It's probably getting terrible gas mileage too, but oh well. I'll take a look at it soon. Maybe it's just better because the whole system's tight-as-glue now. I dunno.

But I can make the rear end bump and shake at 75 mph @ 4,000 rpm, accelerating uphill. And that's quite something, ladies and gentlemen, for a 15 year old, 4-cylinder Volvo.

Three brake discs down, one to go. The car's up on jackstands for hopefully the last time for a while... I have discovered that the key is to jack it up, dis-assemble it, spray it real good with WD40 and walk away. Come back hours (or days later) and the rotors come off real easy like.

Perhaps THIS is the reason that my car has so many indentations in the roof! There are FOUR people dancing on top of The Silver Bullet in this picture alone! [July 2004, photo credit prob due to P.B.]

I starting working on the car yesterday, with the goal being to replace all four brake discs with new ones, and to install brand-spanking-new pads as well.

However, when I lifted the car with my trusty floor jack, this happened:



But it still lifted fine, so I threw jackstands under the car, and went to work. It took me a while to figure out how exactly to take the caliper apart and support it so that I did not have to take the brake hoses off. Then I discovered that the durn rotor was stuck on, so it took me a lot of WD40, pounding, hammering, malleting, pushing, and cursing to get the blasted thing off.



Here's how I supported the caliper:



And when I finally got it off, I compared the old and the new discs side-by-side:



And here's a shot of the whole operation. I started on tire number 2 today, but I still haven't got the rotor off. I think it's stuck worse than the one on the other side.

So the 'Bullet needs a new tie rod end on the front right, which shouldn't be too much trouble... And auto places generally charge (at least) 100% more on parts, so... I'm doing it myself. But not right now. I got two new signet tires on the front, and the dudes sort-of aligned it in the process, so I didn't have to pay them the extra $60 to align it (which they wouldn't do because it needs a new tie rod anyway). Anyways, that gets them customer loyalty, 'cause I'll go back there when I do need the alignment, and probably back there when I need new tires again too. So it's a winning deal for them to be straight up and honest about everything.

I dropped the Silver Bullet off tonight at my friendly neighborhood mechanic's. I was going through my records and realized that I hadn't so much as looked at the timing belt in 100,000 miles, give or take some. So I thought I'd have them inspect and or replace it for me.

It grieves me to have someone else work on my (beloved) car, but it makes more sense for me to go to work and make the money and then give it to them, because this job would take me more time than it takes me to earn the money to pay them to do it for me... Still...

This is a picture of the current blinker controls in The Silver Bullet.

(1) is the lead for the left turn signal
(2) is the power coupler
(3) is the lead for the right turn signal
(4) is the toggle for the relay for the headlights -- normal/brights

In order to signal, you simply pinch either (1) or (3) together with (2). During the length of the contact, the blinkers will blink.

To turn the high-beams on or off, you simply touch (4) to a ground. However, for special effect, I like touching it to (1) or (3), which causes a wild spectacle of blinking lights as the headlights toggle.

Silver's back on her feet, so to speak.

Turns out that the engine codes do not lie: Silver is being held up by a bare wire on the RPM sensor (probably my own doing with hooking the tachometer in and then having the yokels fix the dash light while I was gone, messing up everything under the dash), and the fuel pump relay is blown.

Two things I could easily fix myself, but I. don't. have. the. time. Better to just work the day instead, and make some money. And add this repair to the long list of expenses I have yet to pay.

But it's time to stop doubting Robin & my opinions about car trouble. We were both right on.

The two most important things on my desk this evening.

One's a rusty nail (left).

The other (right) is an Ammeter that originally was in a MiG jet. It's going in the Silver Bullet soon. Isn't it beautiful? I bought it from a Ukranian...

Just got done working on the car.

The rear left wheel's left brake pad had worn all the way down to the metal, and it was ugly. The other side was worn down to just past the groove side.

I took the wheel off and put new pads on both sides, and then took it for a test spin. It works perfectly, despite the deep grooves that cover 60-70% of the radius of the disc rotor. The brakes feel fine, but I get that rotor resurfaced this week. But, all in all, the operation was a success.

Once I got into the city this afternoon, Silver started making some bad brake noises. Like grinding and scraping metal, even when I wasn't braking.

So I stopped and check it out, and sure enough, there was a big groove carved out of my left rear rotor. Damn!

Had to drive more on it tonight, and tommorrow gotta take the wheel off and see if there's something messed up with the pad. Damn!

I may have to replace the rotor and the caliper. Damn!

UPDATE: The rotors only cost $33. So it's not that bad.

I just changed the oil on my car, as well as changing a few key components in the electrical system.

I had left this electromagnetic switch in there, and it was slowly, constantly draining the battery anytime someone left the key switch on. Which was like every other day.

So I have been jumpstarting my car every other day.

And on the odd days that I don't have to jumpstart it, the slow leak in the front left tire has drained it completely.

So I'm either inflating a tire or jumpstarting the car or both anytime i want to use it. It's enough to make someone want to walk everywhere, or alternatively, go nowhere.

But I believe that some small things that enforce patience should be built into all of our lives. As long as they make us stronger but don't make us snap.

Anyways, the oil. As a testament to my incapacitated (due to illness) mental state, I made the biggest mess that was possible.

"Oh, I know, I'll pour gallons of oil into this already half-full quart can. That will go over (pun intended) well."

"Oh, let's spill oil all over the headers. And the exhaust manifold. How about over the entire engine block? Yeah."

You get the picture...