Farewell, My Friend

“Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7

In this life there will be trouble, but you will overcome. I'm glad for the times when there isn't much trouble, or what I have is minor, and count myself fortunate.

Over the weekend, it seemed like our grandkitten was having problems. I had taken Monday off, and after calling around and finding one that was open and could see him, packed the boy up to go to a veterinarian to get him checked out.

It turns out he was having kidney issues, not a lot different than what Leo had, but instead of his urethra being blocked, the ureters from the kidneys to the bladder seemed to be having trouble. These are very fine, and if that is the case, the surgical fix is to replace them with shunts with a port to clean them out as necessary. Not surprisingly, this is an expensive procedure.

The other option is to hydrate and treat the infection, and perhaps it will clear once the inflammation is reduced, and he could recover.

We decided to give that a chance. He was eating OK, and with the pain medicine he seemed to be doing OK. We visited him at the veterinarian's office a couple times. On Wednesday, his numbers hadn't gone up, but hadn't gone down either. Thursday his numbers were even higher. We had to let him go. We visited him again, taking a little bag of the Temptations dairy treats, the only kind he'll eat, and treated him to a last meal and said our good byes.

We have a lot of good memories of the boy. I remember when he was a kitten, he would eat anything!!! He was always trying to get into your food, and one time after we'd had Tommy Burgers, he got the paper tray that the chili fries came in, and ate about ¼ of it!!!

My wife's favorite was at Christmas a couple years ago. My sister and nephew were over, and they don't have an indoor voice, and kept trying to get him to play. My younger warned them, he said he could see his eyes getting huge, but they kept on, and he attacked them both on their heads!!! I tell people the story and say it was the best Christmas ever!!!

He's gotten a lot mellower as he's aged, and he was very friendly to me, giving me head butt snuggles and curling up on me. Recently, he had started doing the same thing with my younger, and even a few times with my wife.

We will miss you, sweet boy.

Car Stuff '22 Recap

It's been far too long. I've put together this post with a recap of the car stuff that's happened over the last year or so.

Back in December of 2021 the starter had gone out on the Matrix. It had rained, and it went out right after that! Just a little after that, one of the coils went out, also after it had rained. Or maybe it was the other way around, it's been a while. Anyway, it doesn't seem to do well in the rain.

The air conditioning went out on Scruffy back in May or June. I was sitting at a red light with the windows down, when there was a very strong acrid smell. I had no idea what it was, until I tried the AC a bit later, and it didn't work at all. Apparently the line to the condenser blew. Of course, I don't have the equipment to do A/C work, so I had a shop doing it. While everything was being worked on anyway, I bought a new condenser and a seal kit.

In May I took Scruffy back to the shop that I had the tint done at all those years ago to get the two back side windows and the hatch glass tint redone. I had found the receipt when I'd moved my office into the corner a couple years back. The side window tint has been getting wrinkled at the top edge, and the back window had developed a bunch of bubbles. It has been bugging me for a while, and I finally got around to getting it done. They were at a new location. This was while I had been going into work, so it was a bit of a hassle, but got it handled.

Near the beginning of summer, the battery in the Matrix began acting up. This was one of the things I'd had an eye on since we'd bought it. The battery it came with was crusty looking, and one of the battery terminals was breaking apart back when I'd done the starter replacement. I held the terminal on with a C clamp. Had a couple of times where it was low to where it needed a jump start, but it worked OK after that. Also had a few times driving with the A/C running where the radio started acting up. Anyway, bought a new battery, and things went OK for a while, then the battery died again. Got it tested at AutoZone, and they said it was too low to judge the condition, so I charged it up and went back. Everything was working fine, but the guy said we had a bad battery and replaced it. I was suspecting alternator issues, and was wanting to get it checked, too, but they said both times that the battery was too low. Oh yeah, I also replaced the battery terminals while I had the battery out.

The registrations were due to be renewed for both cars in September, and they both needed their smog checks. As is always my custom, I did an oil change for both cars before taking them in to be tested, as well as a new air filter for the Matrix and a cleaning and re-oiling for the K&N filter in Scruffy. Things got interesting on the Matrix, when I went to check the oil level, the dipstick tube was broken!!!

The tube seemed to set back into place, so I tried cleaning both sides off and using some epoxy to stick it back together, but that didn't work. Needless to say, the lower portion that was still attached to the engine wasn't very easy to clean off. RockAuto sells a replacement dipstick tube for a quite reasonable price, so I ordered that. It was still giving charging issues occasionally throughout this time, so I went ahead and bought a replacement alternator, figuring that was the issue. The recommendation for replacing the dipstick tube was to remove the intake manifold. Since I had the alternator off, I went in from the side instead, which to me was a much easier way to go... except for it requires taking the serpentine belt off. Of course, I was putting a new belt on while I had all that apart, and that was honestly the most difficult part of the job!!!

The Matrix passed smog without any issue. I took Scruffy over the next week, and the computer wasn't completely ready. The check engine light that I usually get is for a small evaporative system leak, and I'd reset it not long before I'd taken it in. The tech told me to look up the driving procedure to get all the monitors set.

I looked up the driving procedure to get the monitors ready. Had things like start the car and let it run two minutes, drive for around 5 minutes with no more than half throttle, from a stop accelerate to 50 MPH with ¾ throttle, drive for 10 minutes at 50 MPH, then let off the accelerator and coast to 20 MPH without hitting the brakes or shifting, and things like that. I went out around 2 AM to do the sequence so there wouldn't be much traffic to impede. Did the sequence as best I could (it hardly coasts down to the 20 MPH, it'll stay around 35), turned around and did everything but the warm up on the way back, and checked the computer. It didn't have the monitors ready, so I did it again, out and back. Still wasn't showing ready, so I gave up for the night. Did some normal driving over the next weekend, and after that the monitors were ready. Took it back to the smog place, and finally passed with no issues.

I had the thought that Scruffy may be having coolant temperature issues, which was causing it to idle higher that it should. The engine coolant temperature sensor on S series Saturns can be a sore point, causing all kinds of driveability issues. While I was checking into this as a possibility, I came across several owners who had replaced the factory thermostat with a higher temperature unit, with good effect to their MPG. I went ahead and purchased a higher temperature thermostat and a new engine coolant temperature sensor from RockAuto. I had previously replaced the temperature sensor, but they're cheap. I had bought a new connector for the sensor on 3, which had deteriorated, but never had a chance to install it. I flushed the cooling system and installed everything, and filled the system. The next day, I topped off the coolant. From then on, every time I drove it, it would lose enough coolant that the low coolant light would start flashing. I've seen this before... could the higher temperatures have over stressed somewhere else? It looked like it might be leaking from the water pump and slinging it around the belt, so I took the one I had left from the swap back to the store and exchanged it, with the thought that I'd go ahead and replace it. When I jacked her up to drain the system go to work on it, I crawled under and found the hose to the thermostat was a little wet. I found a different hose clamp, and replaced the one that was on there. Seems to have taken care of it!!! Oh, as far as I can tell, it hasn't improved the mileage at all!!!

A couple months ago I was driving Scruffy on the freeway. It felt like there was a little vibration going on. As we were driving along, there was an under body thump, like I'd run over something. I checked the rear view, but there was nothing to see. I noticed that the vibration had stopped, though. I did an under body inspection when I got home, and the front panel under the radiator and A/C condenser had gone missing. I wonder if it didn't get put back on well when I'd had the A/C work done. I don't miss it, but I think it would probably be a good idea to fabricate something for protection down there!!!

The rear driver's side window on Scruffy has developed an issue. I've got a replacement slider that I suspect is all that needs to be done to get it back in shape, but of course that will require taking it apart.

Just last weekend, I went back to the tire place and bought another front tire for the Matrix, the one opposite the one I'd replaced back in March was getting rounded off on the outside, and it's been raining on and off.

The roof on Scruffy is looking pretty bad. It's losing paint in patches. Of course, a lot of the area around the ribs never got a proper sanding. I'm plannng on repainting the roof, quite possibly with a couple of white stripes, making it into the Skunk Mobile!!!