Classin' Up the Joint

It occurred to me recently that I haven't done much at all to 3 since I got her. I swapped the rims and tires, as well as the 512 Labs exhaust system, backup camera and the speakers, and had the rear window re-tinted, but that's about all I've done to her. Finally did a couple more things recently.

I'd picked up a Vue instrument cluster last time I went to the junkyard (well, technically the time before last, but I digress) and have since installed it. Prior to installing, I realized a flaw. The front plastic had a little crack on the bottom edge. Ended up pulling the front off the one that had been in there, and after a good cleaning, put it on the new Vue cluster.

I'm THRILLED with it's looks!!! Takes the feel up a couple notches!!!

The night illumination is even better!!! Interestingly, the needles aren't illuminated unless the car is running!!!

Only a few shortcomings. Foremost, the check engine light is on. There's no codes, but apparently it doesn't like the new home with slightly different body. If I'd read a little more on the swap forums, I might have picked up on that. I saved the one that had been in Scruffy after swapping the one with the working lights from 3 into her, because I may need to swap that back into 3 to get her smogged. Just under that, you'll see another flaw, now the fuel side arrow is pointing to the wrong side.

Finally, the trunk open icon has the image of a boxy car instead of a coupe. Ah well, still like the look.

Finally, I got the replacement headlights!!! They look great!!!

Don't forget to visine your headlights!!!

Maximum Cuteness

Finally did it!!! Spent some of the money my parents gave me for my birthday and did as I said I was thinking of doing, and got a new pair of headlights for 3!!! They look great!!! When I'd swapped the ones into Scruffy that I'd gotten from the junkyard, I just took the before and after pictures with my phone, and the GIF I made up you can totally tell the angle wasn't the same. To try and get a better effect this time, I used my Pentax DSLR for the pictures. I knew there were some old pictures on there, so I retrieved them while I had the card out. Guess what!!! They were almost all cute grandkitten pictures!!!

Look at that upside down snuggle head!!! Squweeee~~~~!!!!

Loves for grand-cat-ma!!!

I think he knows when the flash is about to go off, more often than not when taking his picture, he's got the semi-squinty eyes!!!

There's an open-eyed shot!!!

A lot of the pictures I was trying to get him with his tongue out, licking water from the faucet, as he does. Since I was already in the GIF-making mode, I made this one up. Like most of my GIFs, it's not great, but gets the idea across.

Lick it up, boy!!!

Pretty OK Wolf

Most years we go on some sort of epic vacation. This year, with my wife having mobility issues, not so much. We did go to family camp, and that actually somewhat spawned this little trip.

I always need to get my vacation picks in at the end of the year, and always try to get the week for that off. Well, at the end of last year I was told what week it would be, and I requested and got that week. A few months in, I was told it was actually going to be the week after that. Grrr.... I looked, and the only days that week that were still available were Tuesday through Thursday, so I requested those days. Friday is my normal swap day, so that was OK, and Saturdays are a special circumstance, and I was able to get that moved over a week, too. That left Monday, and I had a personal day I could use on that, so I did. Still had the week before off (except the Saturday in between the two) as well as around ten days in a row at the end of last month where I'd been thinking of going on a vacation. I was considering making up another post of a month plus of not working very much. Mostly it consisted of family camp, getting my wife wrenched on, and a fair bit of the recent work I've done on Scruffy.

But that week before family camp!!! It was right in the midst of a heat wave. I had the thought of getting a room near the beach and just enjoying the sea breezes, but we ended up going to the Great Wolf Lodge in Garden Grove!!! It's not cheap, and the rooms aren't anything much special, but they do have an indoor water park!!! See all our wolf ears??? The pricey lodgings come with a set of those, so, worth it, I guess.

There's my wife and the raccoon character, and me looking like a third wheel. Couldn't get the boy in on it. Except for the first shot, I didn't get any of the water park, so all the shots of it are stolen. They've got all the water park staples in there!!! Wave pool, lazy river (which I'd thought would be an inside and outside deal, but no), kiddy climbing fort with slides and a giant bucket that dumps every several minutes, racing slide, and various other slides.

Even if you're not able to check in early when you get there, they give you access to the water park starting early on. We got there, and headed in. Of course, my wife was in her wheelchair, and after we were there a few minutes, a crew member came by and offered to get her a water wheelchair!!! Rolled her into the wave pool, she got in the lazy river, and we rolled by the splashy fort.

One unique slide they have there is the Wolf Tail, where they put you in what looks like a teleportation chamber. Stand up, leaning against the back. They close the chamber. It has an amplified heartbeat going on. Then the bottom drops out, sending you straight down!!! Into a twist, then a splash down trough. The place seems to be geared to younger kids, so there was usually almost no wait to go on it. I did, several times!!!

All the slides are in the far corner, and there's an extended portion of the roof there to accommodate them. The tube slides and the raft slides actually go outside the building, then splash down back inside. All the tubes are enclosed, though.

The side by side racing slides also do something unique I've never seen before, they all start out in tubes that make a loop before going into the side by side.

One of my son's favorite things to do at water parks is the lazy river. Hard to mess up a lazy river, right??? Well, he wasn't such a fan of this one, it moves pretty swiftly, so I guess not lazy enough for him!!!

So what was the consensus on the place??? Well, you save money on sunscreen!!! First water park I've ever been to where I didn't feel broiled afterwards!!! It was much more comfortable than an outdoor one, being climate controlled, and not cold to where you'd be freezing after getting out of the water. Down side, you have to have a lot of chlorine in all that water, and being contained in there, after a while it feels like it's burning your airways, especially if you're climbing to the top of a slide.

Oh, and just found out that my niece is working there now. Good for her, they should have plenty of money for her!!!

After we stayed our two nights there, we went to the Orange County Fair. That was a lot of fun, too. Wouldn't have stayed as late as we did, but it turned out there was a monster truck competition that evening that we had to stay for!!!

Hits & Misses

So if you recall my last post about Scruffy, I ended it up with the tale of the dash lights having issue. I ordered a pack of LED light bulbs that were supposed to fit my panel. Come to find out, GM in their infinite wisdom made the light sockets hard wired to the lights. I was able to change them out, but it is a rather time consuming task, and for some reason, the outside gauge lights would not work. Got the odometer light working, and the top lights and center gauge lights, and they all look really good, but those outer ones... grrr....

Somewhere in there, I came across this bit of information: some of the later model L series and Vues use the same arrangement of gauges, but with white faces!!! I had been looking at white gauge face overlays and considering doing that, but this sounded even better!!! I considered, and decided that I didn't think that aesthetic would go as well as what I'm heading towards with Scruffy, but with the silver shade of 3, I think it will go quite well. I went to the junkyard last Saturday after work for another of their 40% off days in search of some 16" Ion factory alloys (more on that later), and picked up this cluster out of a Vue, with the nice chrome look bezels to the gauges. Figure I'll swap the one from 3 into scruffy, and hopefully all the lights in that one will work in there. Also picked up another set of visors for Scruffy (ever since we bought her, she came with what looked like pillow case material stitched over the visors; rendered the mirror on the passenger visor unusable, and more recently the clip on part of the drivers' side broke off) as well as the window switch panel to work in the new style console. I'm thinking of buying myself a pair of headlights for 3. Found out there's a place that sells them with blacked out area between the reflector areas, and they look pretty good, but I think the factory style will go better with the silver body.

Way back before the transmission incident, I had taken Scruffy down to my parents' house with a glasspack muffler and a set of flanges. I've been running the original replacement from baby since she found her voice, but it's a bit loud with that deal. Besides, Jade has that same canister style, and it leaks like crazy!!! I'm actually surprised she passed smog with that big of a leak, and I want to put the old one from baby in her next. ANyway, I managed to get one end welded up, and realized it was coming out too short. Ah well, I've got more pipe from the other taken off systems around, I'll finish that off later. Transmission intervened, and it had been a while. A couple weeks back I got back over there and finished off the task. Once again, I'm happy with the results and new, slightly quieter note.

Way back when I got that system made up, I'd made mention of the crappy hanger they'd put on the end. Well, last Thursday it came apart!!! Going out of a driveway it scraped a little, then the rest of the drive you'd hear it scrape when you'd hit a dip. Finally got it detached from the suspension!!! I was glad to have it loose from there, but I'd mothballed her until I could come up with something.

That something was this!!! Bought a rubber insulator mount clamp and some bracketry from my work, and with much modding I managed to come up with this hanger for now. Already better than what was there, but I want to weld on longer bars to the pipe and have a better mounting. A few days before, also made up some bracketery to mount the rear facing camera in both Jade and Scruffy. Also picked up a new battery to replace the slow cranking one, saving $15 getting a Die Hard from K-Mart instead of Sears!!!

Also found a real nice looking pair of headlights for Scruffy at the junkyard. Really improves the look from the front!!!

So about those wheels... Saturday last week after work I go to a pick your part searching for them, and found they only have one with 2 of what I'm looking for. Front left and rear right, both with only one lug nut holding them on. Tried jamming stuff under that front wheel to keep it from turning, and finally see a slot the right size on the brake caliper, jam a screwdriver in there, and succeed in loosening the lug nut!!! Sweet, the back should be easy, just set the parking brake and go to work!!! I go back there, and it's happening just like I planned, got my breaker bar on the nut, and it feels like it's loosening. Nice!!! Until I realize it's rounded off the nut. Forget it, I'll go to another one on Monday and get 'em. Took the younger with me again so he could stand on the brakes while I loosen. Find two there, with four on one and two on the other. For some reason, the one with two, they'd put 65 series tires on them instead of 55's, so it looked strange and I'd be searching for tires real soon if I got those, so I head to the other one. I have the boy stand on the brakes (which wasn't too effective, it was low on fluid) and go to loosen the front one. It spins a bit, but I already know it's secret and still it with a screwdriver again. Start leaning on my breaker bar, and it feels like it's loosening, then I hear a cracking noise... I had a 1/2" to 3/8" adapter on my bar, and the small end was twisting off!!! Grrrr.... I'm done. Found a window regulator for Jade and called it on that one, too.