More Neighborhood Changes Pending....

 The house at the end of our cul-de-sac is being sold. I received a listing for it in this morning's email, and the listing stated "Under Contract before Publishing", indicating nice houses in nice neighborhoods are still "hot" here in FoCo.

 

4br, 3ba, 3100sqft, 11,400sqft lot, and it sold for $475k. One across the street at the end of the cul-de-sac recently went for $550k, but it was bigger, and extremely nice inside, with a gorgeous yard.

I've received listings for what appear to be decent houses at decent prices here, and the house sits on the market for 30, 60, 90 days -or longer-, and then either drops off the MLS rolls, or goes up for rent.

Even though I've been watching the market here about 7 years, I'm still surprised when I see some properties languish, while others never really make it market, or sell in a week.

Of course, since we're no longer actively seeking a house, I haven't seen any of the properties that look "OK" in the listing, but fall apart when you open the front door and go inside, or get a close look at the exterior trim, windows, siding, roof, etc.

And whoo-boy, did we ever see a few of those when we were looking!

Still, it's good to see life go on, and I'm wondering who the new neighbors will be.

Fort Collins Residents Attack Antifa Thugs after Veteran In Wheelchair Assaulted

 Totally missed this yesterday, but thanks to extexanwannabee, now I know about it.

 

I usually have a scanner running, but unless it's a call to/from the Larimer County Sheriff, or the Colorado Highway Patrol, I won't hear it. Ft. Collins turned on the encryption for ALL police radios after a one-term Chief of Police thought it was a good idea.

Full article is here:

Antifa Beaten After They Allegedly Went After Man In Wheelchair: ‘You Guys Came To The Wrong City’

Holy Smokes.....What Hit Me?

No, not the truck, it's sitting in the driveway just fine.

 

Had a really bad night Wednesday, stayed in bed all day Thursday, and now it's Friday.

 

No fever, but plenty of chills, shakes, sweats, and going "projectile" at both the ends. Really made a mess in the bathroom, but SLW cleaned it up while I was sleeping.

 

Yeah, she's definitely a keeper!

So I don't think it's "The VIRUS!" because no fever, and I almost feel OK today, but a bit weak from no food for two days.

Been drinking water and Gatorade, and maybe (that's maybe) I'll have a slice of bread later.

I'm thinking more along the lines of "Food Poisoning", or maybe some "24-Hour Bug", but never had much belief in those.....

Back to bed. See you all tomorrow.

Bedliner and Tonneau Installation

The people at Colorado Bullhide called last night informing me they had a cancellation, and asked if I would be interested in bringing the truck in today to have the bedliner and tonneau installed.

YOU BETCHA'!

So I dragged myself out of the rack this morning at 0630, jumped in the shower, got dressed, and headed down to Windsor. I got there about 5 minutes after they opened at 0800, talked with the owner Dan a bit, and then they pulled the truck in the shop and got to work on it.

I was back on the road and headed home at 1230, pretty good service! I'd been corresponding with Dan over the last week with questions about it, and was satisfied that they knew what they were doing. He confirmed what I'd read on several pick-up truck forums, that the materials used were all very good, and the surface preparation is the most important thing, just like doing bodywork.

The three big suppliers are Rhino, Line-X, and Bullhide. Rhino and Bullhide are a bit softer than Line-X, and are easier to crawl around on without leaving scraped off skin on the liner, and also easier on your knees when you're in the cargo bed. Line-X has the reputation for holding up slightly better if you regularly haul thing like gravel, bricks, and concrete blocks, but it's a small difference. He also had samples of the various products, removed from junked trucks where he knew what materials were used. One interesting thing were the several sections of OEM (factory applied) bedliner. If you held the stuff up to the light, you could see pinholes and voids in it, indicating it hadn't been sprayed on very thick, resulting in it not being as durable as an aftermarket applied coating.

Here you can see the thickness:

They removed the access panel in the tailgate, sprayed it separately, and reinstalled it:

Sure is dark in there!

Even though it's cured enough to use, I'll wait until tomorrow to install these "Bullring" cargo tie downs:

The above picture shows them in the "stowed" position. When you need to secure something, the U-shaped ring pulls out and snaps into position:

Ant the tonneau cover is really nice. Very solid, and easy to latch/unlatch, and fold the sections up.

These are the two new LED light fixtures I installed. The "four tube" one is 6000 Lumens, and really lights up the engine compartment, and the "two tube" fixture over the bench provides extra fill-in light.

The orange extension cords run to the garage door openers, and no, I did not install them! The black hanging cord on the four-tube fixture *is* my responsibility, and I'll be extending it a few feet so it can be dressed-in properly and reach the new switch boxes I built a couple of weeks ago.

Later tonight I'll take some pix of the tires from the Jeep, and that %$^#^(! "Snow-Joe" electric snow blower so I can get them on nextdoor.com, and get rid of them, freeing up a bunch of space on SLW's side of the garage.

Katy Lied!

Well, "Katy" doesn't speak much, so I can't verify the truth of the post title.

I *know* I've lived where these little guys live, but I can't remember seeing any before....

For reference to the post title:

Man, this "new" Blogger interface SUCKS! Tried FOUR times to link the song from YouTube, and no dice.

Why do they have to screw with this stuff? It was working...LEAVE IT ALONE you morons......

And Down in the Basement....

We have some R/C stuff going on, or soon will be.

I FINALLY got the Pandora Celica XX clear body I ordered, along with some wheels that look "kinda-sorta" like the ones I have on Ms Swan.

Imagine this in white, without the crazy negative camber on the wheels, and not lowered so far.

Body still in box.

And the rims.

These were as close as I could get to the rims on my "1:1 Scale" out in the garage, and while they're not very much like the ones I have, they are "period correct", so they'll do.

These are what's on the "real" car now.

This will probably be a winter project, except for masking it and painting it, which has to be done in a WELL ventilated area, and by changing the body and wheels/tires on my little Trans Am car, I can run in a different class to get more "seat time". I'm typically a bit better than "middle-of-the-pack" when I'm racing the little car, which is about where I expected to be. These old eyes and reflexes can't keep up with The Kids, but I've surprised a few people with some of the moves I've done (pulled?) out on the track. Hey, one of the Rules of Racing is that if you see an opening, that will advance you, go for it!

And I've been really good at avoiding pile-ups, which happen occasionally.

Still tinkering on the "Speed Run" car, and should have that one ready to go back out in a week or so. Had some "issues" getting the correct "bullet connectors" for the power wiring, and had to modify the chassis a bit to fit the new speed controller. I was really hesitant to take it out and let it rip because the brakes on the speed controller I started with were soooo bad. Even going into the set-up menu and turning the braking force to the maximum (only 50%) didn't help much. The new controller is a high-end model from Castle Creations, about the best you can get (and Made In America!!), and has much, much more adjustability, up to 100%, which generally locks the wheels, so some experimentation is required.

And the new truck is very, very nice. Great ride, brakes, handling, good stereo, and so far (with 255 miles on it) we're averaging 20MPG, better than my Jeep which was doing about 15MPG. Our insurance went up a whopping Twenty-Eight dollars, which really surprised me, as I thought it would go up enough to maybe add another zero to that figure, but nope.

Meanwhile, Back IN The Garage......

We have stuff to finish my Supra front bumper!

This is the special primer, the Bumper Bite, and some more of the urethane repair material. This time I got it in the tubes, vs the syringe-type container. You get three times the amount of product, for 50% more in price. A much better deal.

And some plastic covers for the two window wells in the front of the house:

These should help with keeping leaves and other wind-blown trash out of the well, and hopefully will help mitigate some of the heat loss out of the two downstairs windows in the workshop, and maybe help with the drafts, too.


And I built a couple of switch-controlled outlet boxes for the new work lights I hung in the garage.

These will go on the wall behind the workbench, and control two the 48" LED fixtures I hung a week or so ago.

And Sweet Little Wife got new shoes for her little Hyundai, Pirelli Strada "All Season" tires. She also got a less-expensive 5th tire on a steel rim for her spare, as Hyundai did NOT give you any kind of spare tire at all. Just a little air compressor, a container of tire sealer goop to use with the compressor, and a can of Fix-A-Flat.

She was not happy when she found that out! Now I have to go online shopping for a suitable jack to stow in the trunk.

And since we traded-in the Jeep, I no longer have a need for my "summer tires", and as soon as I take a couple of more pix, SLW will put them on nextdoor.com, and out they go!

Plenty of tread left. They're not even half-way down to the tread wear indicator bars.

Now I can get back to this, and then put the front end back together, and DRIVE her....

My "Little Red Truck"

As promised (with mediocre photography), here she is.

When they named this color "Red Hot", they weren't kidding.

It's RED!  Like Fire Truck red, but redder.

Took it out today to run some errands, pick up stuff from Home Depot, and took a longer way home than I usually do.

It runs great, rides nice, has good power and great brakes, now has 220 miles on it, and I'm learning and customizing all the different screens on the "Infotainment" and Navigation systems.

Any Spray-In Bedliner Recommendations?

We won't be able to get the new truck until Wednesday afternoon. It's 120 miles to Colorado Springs, and you have to go through Denver on the I-25 to get there.

And then do it again to get back.

With traffic, and the Denver area is starting to resemble Lost Angeleez in that respect, it's a good four hour round-trip, plus any time the guy spends there in the dealership.

Since this was Dealer Trade, or "swap", our sales guy called us this morning and told us they had to drive one of the trucks they had in stock that the Colo Springs dealer wanted down there, and then return with our truck. I suppose the other dealer could have sent somebody up here with it, and picked up the exchange vehicle, but oh, well....this is how it's working out.

And then after it gets here they're going to check it out to make sure it got here OK, and then clean it up all shiny-pretty (yeah, run it through the wash rack...) for us, and that takes a bit of time. So, we get it tomorrow.

That leaves me 24 hours to scout out where, and possibly what brand to look for, to get the spray-in bedliner applied. And find a tonneau cover. And maybe some side steps, but SLW has said several times when asked that she didn't have any problems getting in and out of it. I've always found that the side steps are nice in really muddy/snowy conditions, so they might get shopped for next Spring....

So, does anybody have any experience with spray-in bedliners? I looked online at the 4x4 and Off-Road places we have here (there's a zillion of them), and most of them do bedliners. They might farm them out to the same place for all I know, because In Ye Dayes Of Olde, that stuff was a PITA to apply, and was toxic, nasty stuff that took specialized spray guns to shoot.

I'll google about a bit and see what I can find, and start calling.

Hmmm....seems like it's a popular topic for discussion on the forums....

For a tonneau cover I was looking at the rigid ones that "Tri-Fold", but I saw some nifty roll-up ones that weren't too much more. I just wonder how well they work with a layer of snow on them.....

Negotiations Successful!!

Well, it's a done deal.

I didn't remember that SLW said we were meeting the salesman at 1400, so I got there 30 minutes late.

D'OH!

It turned out for the best, as she'd already hammered the guy down to $500 more than what we had decided was a "Fair Price" based on what other dealers were advertising for a very similar, but not this *exact*, truck.

And then they gave us $700 more than what I wanted for my Jeep, so it's a wash AFAIC.

After running our credit, we qualified for a better rate than what they normally offered to "Qualified Buyers", and even without playing any finance games "To get that monthly payment down to where we can get you in this car today!", the monthly payment wound up being about $75 less than what SLW had calculated, and she's really good at this stuff.

So, we pick this up tomorrow....

And say good-bye to my beloved Jeep.

Yes, I Haz The Sads......

She's been an excellent vehicle, never letting me down, and never costing any more than routine maintenance, gas, tires, and the upgrades I did to the "Infotainment" system.

As the appraiser was walking back in after his test drive, he said "Nice Jeep". I'd imagine it'll go to auction, or maybe somebody who works there will buy it.

Preps for Negotiation at the Chevrolet Dealer

Well, we're taking The Lord's Day off from car shopping, and playing with our grandson.

But that doesn't mean I can't do a few things after worship...!

I actually got my rear-in-gear today and repaired the peeling headliner in the Jeep. I peeled it back a little bit further so I could get better access to the back side of the fabric, and the foam underlayment that it had peeled from. Sprayed both sides with some 3M "#45 General Purpose Spray Adhesive", let both sides get tacky, and smoothed it all out with a very small (SLW calls them "peanut rollers") paint roller, and holy smokes, you can't tell it had ever peeled back!

Also cleaned up the insides some more, the console area, the areas between the seats, and used one of my detailing brushes to clean out all the nooks and crannies on the dash and console. And I hung two "Little Pine Trees" with the "New Car Scent" in the car. Tomorrow morning I'm running it through the car wash at the gas station, and picking the "Full Monty" selection when I punch in what I want.

And I gathered up the title, registration, and other legal things, and put them in a big envelope. We won't need it for a few days, but it saves a last minute scramble.

So tomorrow after noon after his Daddy picks up TLG, we're headed to the Chevrolet dealer to work out a price, see how bad they'll bend me over on the Jeep, and either thank the man for his time, or sign the papers and get the ball rolling. We've estimated what we're pretty sure is a "Fair Price", based on all the discounts GM is offering, and what other dealers are advertising as their "Special Price", or "Internet Price" on very similar vehicles. And I've done some research on what my Jeep is "worth" using the Kelly Blue Book website, and some other resources, as both a Trade In and sale to a Private Party. There's quite a spread between the two, but the number KBB gave me as a trade-in value are very close to what I was expecting.

I'll let SLW handle the "Finance Guy", as she's quite astute in these things. The salesman had mentioned the Finance Rate for "Well Qualified Customers" was 3.4%, and that's about 1% less than our three Credit Unions are offering. Considering we're also going to put down a nice chunk of change, and our credit scores are well North of 800, we might be able to do better, but that remains to be seen.

WSF has been an invaluable help to us in this, and we're in his debt.

UPDATE - Got the Jeep washed, and as long as I was out, got the oil and filter changed. It's needed the oil changed for way too long now, and it's still not a 100% Sure Thing that we're trading it, but it needed it to be changed, the local "Grease Monkey" place had all three bays open, and I was In-N-Out in 30 minutes.

We'll be headed out to the Chevy dealer as soon as SLW gets back from running some errands.....