Sunday, June 26, 2016

Down South Vacationin'

Welcome to the recap of this year's vacation trip!!! A few years back I had the idea of going to check out Dollywood, and finally this year that is what we did!!!

Compared to the perpetual fail of last year's trip, it was a great vacation!!! (On that trip, I could have, and probably should have, and if I ever had the chance still might do a post about the other parts of that vacation that epically failed... Looking at you, Expedia and American Airlines, two companies on my "Do Not Patronize" list since then)

In the second shot, you'll see the cool Dr. Who cats shirts my wife thought would be good to get to travel in!!!

I had the idea of hitting Nashville and Memphis while we were there, but it turns out that Tennessee is a pretty big state, and flying from one area to another would take a while with the NSA lines and whatnot. I had 11 days consecutive, but my son was still in school for the first four, which worked out, as I had time to fix Scruffy. If it hadn't been for the school thing, we may have hit all three areas.

We left VERY early on Saturday (like don't even bother going to bed the night before early) which worked out good in that there was very little traffic on the roads, and the airport lines weren't that bad yet. We got there a bit longer than the prescribed two hours early, and the airline kiosks weren't open yet, then when they were, the TSA checkpoints weren't. Still not bad at all. Knoxville is the closest airport to Pigeon Forge, and there are no direct flights, so it was via Denver on the way there, and O'Hare on the way back. Upon arrival, and even before looking for which way to get to our lodging, we cruised aimlessly into Maryville, where we happed on the Dead End Barbecue, which turned out to be as good as it sounds!!!

Didn't do much else after checking into our room that afternoon, just reset our sleep clocks!!!

As you may expect, the whole of the area of the state we saw is very lush. Lots of little creeks and streams, hills and valleys. Oh yea, and humid, too!!! Not Florida humid, but still more than home. Seemed like for most of the drive we were on two lane country roads, very picturesque!!!

Got the three day passes for Dollywood and Dollywood Splash Country. Had a couple days where we weren't at those parks, but it turns out there's a LOT of other things to do in the area!!!

There is a new coaster at Dollywood, the Lightening Rod, the fastest wood coaster in North America, with a power launch. Looks awesome, with turns banked to near vertical, but both days we were there it wasn't open. Something like that happened last year, too.

Other things to do around Pigeon Forge??? There's an Alpine Coaster, with one or two person sleds, almost bobsleds, that are right on the mountains. You control the brakes, but they really aren't necessary!!! They are worthy rides, and we ended up going twice, once at night.

Of course, there's also the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We heard of a hike out to the Chimneys that we did one afternoon. Only two miles, but upsy most the way in. That is where I got most of my pictures on my real camera, and worthy of a post of it's own. Maybe that will happen.

According to a statistic I just made up, Pigeon Forge has the most go-karts per capita of any town in America. Seems like at least half a dozen places down the main drag. Mini golf and arcades are also abundant. Made it to the Titanic museum, but not the Elvis museum.

There is more to come...

Friday, June 17, 2016

Life Hack (SAW!!!) My Car

Back in February I did my last Life Hack post, about a way to stop small water leaks in your car. I had made mention that it works more often than not, but that very incident that inspired me to write that post turned out to not be one of those times!!!

I had been driving my wife's car, Scruffy, around that time, and it had begun to give me the low water light a couple times a week or so. Huh. I didn't ever see any water at the pump, radiator, or hoses. It wasn't leaking from the heater core. Not losing a lot of water, and never getting hot. Well, I'll season it with some pepper, and if that doesn't do it, it will surely get worse, and I'll be able to see where it's coming from then!!!

Well, it got worse, but I still never saw a place it was leaking from. Finally, it got to where it was needing filled up any time you would drive it for about 15 minutes. The only thing I could come up with was a leaking head gasket burning off water, but it's not running bad or showing any other symptoms. I ran it past a friend of mine who's an awesome shadetree mechanic, and he suggests a compression test to tell the tale. My wife drives it over during the week, and he does the test. Compression is good, so he leaves it running a while to get it hot. I just had been driving it, he left it in one place, and it made a puddle after a while!!! He checks it out, and where the overflow line goes back into the system is leaking some. He touches it to see if it's loose, and the hose fitting breaks off!!! I had known the 2000 and up Saturn 1.9 engines had plastic intake manifolds, but didn't realize that this skinny little part was on it!!!

Turns out there's a couple companies making a repair kit for this problem. First thing, though, had to get it back home to work on, so the tiny little hose barb you see in the first couple pictures is the fix I did on it. Got a stainless hose barb and epoxied it in place!!! That part worked fine, but in the second picture you may be able to make out a crack running down the large hose fitting that I added in a helpful arrow to. I bought it from CarSaturn, who seem to be the original, and looks like a better quality part. A little bit more, but I think it better to buy from the originator, and it's made in the U.S.A.

To install is a little bit involved, as it requires the removal of the intake manifold. Not super tricky, but a lot of things have to come off to get it. Here's something I noticed when I got it off, the EGR tube comes way out into the airflow of the intake. Common sense to me always dictates that the smoother airflow you have, the better things are going to run!!!

So, while I had the hacksaw out, I shortened that sucker up, too!!!

And hacksawing??? Yes, that's exactly what you end up doing, is hacksawing the end of the intake manifold off!!!