| Subject: |
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Humidity and other benefits of living on the right coast |
| Name: |
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Tom |
| Date Posted: |
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Jul 12, 08 - 1:35 PM |
| Message: |
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I'm "doing humidity" right now which is why the A/C is running full tilt and I haven't been outside today except to collect the paper this AM. I dislike it intensely as well but until I retire, I'll have to bear it. When it gets really bad, I wear shorts, T-shirt, etc. to work and wait an hour or so to dry off before changing into my work clothing.
I'll have to venture out though, since I have a lot of projects underway and cannot let them languish.
I see those tour busses all around town during the summer tourist season. The double decker busses, "Trolley" style busses, and "DUKWs," the old Army amphibious trucks, are the tough ones in this weather - no A/C. On real hot days, half of the tourists aboard are leaning out the windows trying to cool off in the hot, humid breeze with looks of desperation on their sweat-streaked faces.
The best time to visit this neck of the woods, IMHO, is fall. The entire east coast is at its best then: good weather, beautiful colors, lots of countryside events underway - fall festivals, farmers markets, etc., plus the tourist crowds are smaller and most of the humidity is gone.
Back to projects in the humidity:
You car guys out there will get a chuckle out of this: I've never gone this far into an engine before: I'm trying to replace the head gasket in a 93 Ford Escort Wagon and have the exhaust and intake manifolds (plus radiator, alternator, and other engine "peripherals" removed. I now have to jack up the engine to remove a motor mount just to get the plastic cover off the timing belt (Cripes! Couldn't they position it just a little further away from the mount so it can be done more easily?) At least I have a hydraulic jack plus 3-ton supports.
The mount nuts don't want to come off and the head gasket bolts, all eight or ten of them, aren't budging either, although I haven't put max pressure on them yet for fear of shearing one of them. I soaked them in some kind of powerful liquid wrench last weekend and then tapped them all fairly hard with a hammer and then left them to marinate in the liquid wrench. I hope it has done its magic by now.
A torque wrench, valve spring compressor, a better set of deep sockets, new timing belt, possibly new rings, new plugs, new catalytic converter and oxygen sensor, new coil, and (I hope not) a new cylinder head assembly are on my shopping list. I don't yet know if the head is cracked and I'm not sure how to discover that unless a crack is clearly visible.
Since I'm going to have all this stuff off anyway, I figure I might as well replace the above.
The gasket blew about a year ago and I bought something called "Steel Seal," that worked OK for about 7 months when the seal it created blew. Since then, the car has been sitting waiting for this work.
Any suggestions or mechanics' tips will be most welcome, such as what do you suggest for a good torque wrench that won't cost more than +/- $100. I had one many years ago and was an el cheapo. I sheared a bolt head off and threw it out. |
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