"Driving Ms. Swan", the Continuing Story....

Well, I've been banging away on my 1985 Supra in preparation for the "Supras in Vegas" show in September.

Got the gearbox oil changed, and my "Short Throw Shifter" installed.

No, it's not the "snick-snick" you'd get from a Hurst Competition PLUS shifter, but it's light years ahead of the one that was in the car. Part of the installation was the removal of a totally worn out metal/rubber/metal bushing in the shift rod inside the transmission, and replacing it with a bronze "Oilite" bushing kit made by one of the Celica Supra forum members. This change, along with replacing the plastic bushing on the bottom of the ball that engages it with a superior grade Delrin plastic, and the new shifter, made a tremendous improvement.

Today I pulled the driver's side strut/spring assembly out so I can replace the top strut mount plate, shock absorber insert, and install the new front spring that drops the car about 3/4".

I was planning on replacing a lot of other parts, and now after evaluating the general state of the suspension, it looks like I'll be replacing a few other things. I already have the parts, so rather than pulling it all apart later, I'll just do it now, as I have all the PROPER tools to do the job.

The top strut mount plate was full of cracks and splits, and looked pretty scary from the top. After removing it, I spent some time checking it, and some of the cracks go all the way through the rubber. The bearing was also very gritty and rough feeling, and all the grease was dried up. It's lasted 30 years and 167,000 miles, so I think it's due for retirement!

The lower control arm bushings have some nasty cracks in them, and the rubber boot over the ball joint is split allowing all the grease to come oozing out. Since I have these parts on hand, they'll be changed.

The flexible hose to the brake caliper was in worse condition than I expected. The outer jacket was peeled away in several places, revealing the fabric reinforcement inside the hose, so that definitely has to go! I have a full set, front and rear, of stainless steel braided lines that I'll be using as replacements. I've used these before on other cars, and besides being very sturdy, they also give a better pedal feel due to the fact that they don't expand when you hit the brakes.

The pads in the caliper looked almost new, as well as the rotor, but they're being replaced as well. The rotors are StopTech "Sport Rotors", drilled for cooling, and the pads are high-performance ceramic "street" pads. And the brake system will get a flush and fluid replacement with DOT4 fluid.

And one surprise was the rubber boot for the tie rod arm that comes out of the steering rack. It's split, also, like the one I already knew about on the passenger side!

Again, I ordered two boots, so those will be swapped out.

And I'll be scrubbing off all the accumulated grease/gunk/road grime, and hitting any bare metal with a shot of paint.

Godspeed, Mike.......

I'd write something poignant, but I'm not, and never will be, good enough to eulogize Mike....

 

Godspeed, Mike, and God Bless your family. Thanks for all you did.

HAARP to Reactivate in 2017

Oh, boy. The conspiracy nuts will have a field day (no pun intended) over this one.

Courtesy of the ARRL:

Let the conspiracy theories resume! Alaska’s High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) facility will reopen in 2017. The sprawling facility now is under the ownership of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and the UAF Geophysical Institute is preparing HAARP for a new sponsored research campaign that’s set to begin early next year, UAF Researcher Chris Fallen, KL3WX, told ARRL.
“This involves, for example, reinstalling the vacuum tubes in each of the 10 kW amplifiers — eventually 360 in total — that were removed by the US Air Force [the facility’s former owner] for warm storage in the main facility,” Fallen said. He noted that the transmitter shelters have been unheated since the previous campaign in the summer of 2014. “The five generators — approximately 3 MW each — have recently been tested individually and are verified operational.”
Fallen said the HAARP ionosonde (DPS4D “Digisonde”) will be brought back online. “Some instruments on site need to be repaired or replaced,” he said. Those would include riometers and a UHF radar. “Optical instruments will be brought back. The flux-gate magnetometer is operational again.”
Fallen said other researchers are planning to install instruments at the science pads. “We are still investigating models for increasing Amateur Radio involvement with HAARP, which, in addition to announcing operating schedules, can potentially include hosting one or more ham stations on or near the science pads,” he said.
UAF describes HAARP as “the world’s most capable high-power, high-frequency transmitter for study of the ionosphere.” Constructed in 1990 at a cost of some $300 million, HAARP over the years has inspired a wide range of conspiracy theories that became grist for late-night radio talk shows. Some have claimed that HAARP’s 3 GW transmitter and 30-acre antenna farm have been used to control the weather, while others have argued that HAARP has caused earthquakes.
The FCC recently granted two Part 5 Experimental Service licenses for HAARP ionospheric research “across multiple bands.” WI2XFX will cover experiments in discrete parts of the HF spectrum, including 2650-2850; 3155-3400; 4438-4650; 4750-4995; 5005-5450; 5730-5950, and 7300-8100 kHz. A second Experimental license, WI2XDV, covers ionospheric research between 1 and 40 MHz.
UAF is hosting an open house at HAARP, located near Gakona, Alaska, on August 27. The event will feature facility tours, a mobile planetarium, a permafrost exhibit, science demonstrations and talks, and barbecue.
Fallen will deliver a free science lecture on Friday, August 26, at the Wrangell-St Elias National Park Visitor Center Auditorium, “Radio Modification of the Ionosphere, and Who Uses This HAARP Thing Anyway?” in partnership with the Wrangell Institute for Science and the Environment (WISE)
HAARP is aimed at studying the properties and behavior of the ionosphere. Operation of the research facility was transferred from the US Air Force to the University of Alaska Fairbanks last August, allowing HAARP to continue exploring ionospheric phenomena via a land-use cooperative research and development agreement.

Democrats vs Republicans

Found this over at Common Sense Evaluation.

Sad but true.....

"Phase 1" Painting Finished

Living room and dining room areas are done, and put back together.

Kinda shot the "Working on my Supra all weekend" plans, but, sigh......

Not sure what the wife has planned next, but I'm sure it will be another "Big Deal".

Going to a meeting tonight of the Los Angeles Area Council of Amateur Radio Clubs, which is an organization composed of all the Ham Radio clubs in the area. I'm the rep for the Battleship Iowa Amateur Radio Association, so I get to go to attempt to keep BIARA informed of future plans.

LAACARC is the group that puts on HAMCON in SoCal every few years. Since one of the clubs has backed out this year, we'll be hosting it again at the end of 2017. I'm planning on being out of here by then, but I'll help right up until we move.

Prepping the House For Sale, Part 1

Of no doubt MANY additional posts.....

Even though my wife is vacillating a bit on moving, we've started doing the first of our preparations to sell the house we're in.

Yesterday we cleared out the living room and she started patching all the cracks and dings in the walls so she can paint.

The house has settled noticeably since I moved in here 7 years ago (been that long?), due I'm sure to the extreme drought Southern California has been having.

Parts of the back yard have slumped, the dirt is pulling away from the foundations, and the front porch has settled enough that there's a definite gap where it meets the house.

Her oldest son filled the gap with expanding foam when he hung the new new interior and exterior doors, but we have to come up with some kind of trim strip to hide the foam.

That'll be "on me", as he works even slower than I do! I have to cut him some slack, though, as doing doors is what he does for a living, and while he does superb work on the doors, door frames, and other trim, he's used to having the rest of his crew finish up all the little details for him

SO.....yesterday my wife scratched out and "vee'd" all the cracks, filled them with some new high-tech glop she bought, and this morning she sanded the filled spots. She just finished masking off all the trim, and she'll do the painting tomorrow. Then I can help her move all the stuff back, and the dining area and living room will be finished.

We did the bathroom late last year and it still looks good. She did the front bedroom early last year, and since it's closed up all the time, it still looks fine. That leaves our bedroom, and this room, the "Radio Room" to do.

Not sure when we'll do our bedroom, but I suspect THIS room will be the last one we do......

Time to head out to the garage so I can unearth all the stuff to rebuild the front suspension on the Supra, which is this week's project.

Can't Think of a Title, So TGIF!

Except for those of us who are retired, when everyday is Friday!

Enjoy the cartoon from our friends over at Hope n' Change Cartoons.

A Moment of Silence Please......

Back in the LBC.....

Uneventful flight from Denver, long ride in a SuperShuttle from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, and one extraordinarily happy dog greeting us when we got here.

We had a great breakfast at The Silver Grill Cafe on Walnut Street in Fort Collins, and I *highly* recommend the place.

If you're ever in Fort Collins and need a good breakfast or lunch, go there, you'll love it. Great food, great service by a friendly staff, and reasonable prices.

Trust me, you could do far worse than this place, and spend more to boot.

And it's actually 10* COOLER in SoCal than in the Denver area!

Last night there was a severe weather alert on the radio with "golf ball sized hail, torrential rains, and wind exceeding 75 MPH" for the Fort Morgan area and Weld County, I could see the clouds that had been building up in the East all day, and they looked pretty nasty, but all we got in Fort Collins was a bit of drizzle.

SO...now I have to start the process of dumping a lot of unneeded radio stuff on eBay. Mostly radios I either bought to restore, but they were too far gone for my skill level, and several that I got started on before I moved here, and LOST various bits and pieces of.

Well, I most likely have all the parts, but they've been separated from the radio far enough that they might as well be lost!

I've got two Knight-Kit Star Roamer short-wave receivers, a Collins 75S-1 HF receiver, a Drake R4-B receiver with a matching T4X-B transmitter, and a Heathkit GC-1 Mohican short-wave.

And I also have an ICom IC-970 2M/70cm all-mode rig that I have apart, but all the parts were carefully packed, and that one will most likely get put back together. It was from a heavy smokers shack, and was crusted with crud, so I *had* to take it apart to scrub it.

And I'm sure I'll find more "treasures" to get rid of once I start going through all the boxed up radio stuff that I never unpacked after I moved in here almost 7 years ago!

Had a great trip, but it's good to be back home, even if home is in Kommiefornia.....

A Few Pix from The Kid's House

Had a very relaxing day out boating on the Horsetooth Reservoir. Our daughter-in-law's father has a small boat that we've been out on once before, two years ago when we first came out here. It's a very pleasant day, and we usually motor out to one of the many coves, and pull in close to the shore, tie up to a tree, and have a nice picnic lunch.

While we were there, a group of people came in towing a large SeaDoo with some kind of large pipe coming out of the side. Turns out it's to power one of those watet-jet "FlyBoard" things, and once they got it assembled, the guy and his girlfriend took turns putting on a show for everybody moored in the cove.

I didn't get any pix because I was floating on a REALLY BIG inner tube, but everybody else did, and as soon as they email me the pix, I'll post them here.

Here's a pic of the garage/shop at the kid's place:

And here's the view to the North:

To the East:

And a bad, blurry pic of some barbed wire for wirecutter:

My wife has (finally!) received all her documents from the people handling her retirement pension, and she's mulling over her options for staying to the end of the school year next June, or possibly leaving earlier, about the beginning of 2017. This would give us plenty of time to get everything in order, get the house all squared away and on the market, and get a good chunk of our stuff "podded" and shipped ahead of us. Our in laws have offered us storage space to keep things, and have even offered to let us stay with them until a house out here closes, and we take possession.

So, we're laying the foundation for our move, and really looking forward to it.

House Hunting in Fort Collins

Well, we took the afternoon "off", hooked up with the realtor, and looked at five houses.

The first one was really nice. 3br, 2ba, nice family room, wood-burning fireplace in the living room, and a little gas "fireplace" (more like a stove) in the family room. 12,000 sqft lot, BIG garage with a workshop AND a third added-on garage bay at the very rear of the main garage.

Asking price was $289,900, and it had one offer.

Next place my wife fell in love with.

FIVE br, 3ba, fully finished basement ( with two of the fully-conforming bedrooms and 1ba in it), 14,250 sqft lot, but only a one-car attached garage, BUT it has another driveway alongside leading to a nice fenced-off "RV Storage Area", which would have plenty of room for an additional two-car garage/workshop.

$275,000 with three offers, but the owners were more than happy to allow us the run of the place while we looked.

Third place was a "Brady Bunch" tri-level ranch house, but my wife, who'd never been inside a tri-level before, decided she did'nt like AT ALL, so "tri-level" will get added to the "NOT" part of my searches.

It was around $280k.

Next place was kind of a modern style, with vaulted ceilings and lots of wood work, but was fairly small, on a small lot, with no room to really do anything with.

Very nice house, beautifully maintained, wonderful wooded lot with HUGE trees (the whole neighborhood was like this), but just not anything like what we're looking for.

Last place was a "Oh NOOOOOO!" kind of place. 3br, 1ba, dinky one-car garage that appeared to have been a living space at one time, and LINOLEUM FLOORS in two of the bedrooms!

One of the bedrooms had some, uh...."unusual" light fixtures hung from the ceiling, and my step-son busted up and said "GROW ROOM!" as soon as he saw them.

Even the realtor said the place was over priced, and we all had a good chuckle about it.

I had a fairly good idea of what areas I think we'd both be happy in, but my wife is still "learning" these things. She can't read a map to save here life, so when I show her things on Google Earth and Google Maps, she just can't make the connection to the real world.

The first three places were up in the North part of Fort Collins, and the LaPorte area, the area I'd really like, and she pretty much agrees with me now that she's had her "boots on the ground" in those areas. It's close to important services, like a good hospital (we're not getting younger!), a 20~30 minute drive into Fort Collins proper for "Major Shopping Excursions", and yet far enough out that it feels like rural living.

After living in the L.A. area for the last 34 years, I'm sure ready to get back to something like the area I grew up in, and she's pretty tired of the traffic, congestion, and crime, too.

Took a few pix of the area outside Bellvue where the kids are living now, and I'll get those posted tomorrow. I wouldn't mind living there, but my sweet little wife wouldn't like the isolation.