Hang In There...It'll Be TGIF Before You Know It...

 And I've been keeping busy doing some yard work some wood cutting/splitting/stacking, cleaning the house for SLW, and just enjoying a nice, quiet, mundane life.  BTW...the new Hammer Drill splits small logs quite well, once they're dried. And it drove the ground rods in quite well, too.

Took the Supra out the other day for a couple of hours, and came back all invigorated. It's not a powerful car, with only 165HP in a 3,000 pound car it can't be, be it's very rewarding to drive it quickly. It's an "Analog Car" without Traction Control, ABS, Air Bags, or any of the other electronic nannies today's cars have. With the suspension work I did it corners extremely flat and predictably, and the larger, wider wheels with modern low profile tires give it an astounding amount of grip. The upgraded brakes are so good I constantly worry about getting rear-ended in traffic, as almost happened a couple of times back in Long Beach. Still have a bunch of cosmetic and interior work to do, along with some well overdue maintenance items (cam drive belt & tensioner, for one), but I don't want it off the road again as long as it was last time, so I'll portion out the remaining mechanical work into "weekend sized" chunks, and get the tasks crossed off as I do them.

The Pioneer cassette deck is on hold for now, pending some discussion with Those Who Know About These Things. I have a few things to try based on suggestions, but for now it's off the bench, as I really, really, really want to get my SX-980 receiver finished and back in service. I was almost finished with it, and then I found some scratchy, noisy switches that (still) need cleaning, and as I was doing the dial alignment, I noticed I hadn't properly cleaned all the dial behind the glass. Since that requires pulling the front panel (again), which is also required to get at the dirty switches, I put the project on hold while I did the Great Heathkit Audio Analyzer Rebuilds, which wound up taking months longer than I anticipated. I learned a tremendous amount in rebuilding the two analyzers, both honing my tech skills and i understanding how the measurements are made, which leads to a better understanding of what the measurement is all about. Worthwhile, but very time consuming.

And then I decided to get a cassette deck.......what was I thinking?

Anywhoo, just been hanging out with Pebbles while SLW is out, and using the fireplace a lot. I spent a couple of hours figuring out how the pull-screens in it work, and why they were so awkward to use. Turns out a couple of places had come unraveled, and were dangling about getting snagged on each other. I double twisted a few inches of stainless picture hanging wire, strung it through the floppy parts, and secured it off by twisting the ends together. Works fine, and now I can easily slide the screens back-and-forth.

And it beats paying $300+ for a whole new glass door/screen assembly, as I can't seem to find just the replacement sliding screens.