Remix Review

I've been using the photos remix tool quite a bit. The younger says I'm a Facebook mom with it, that's fair. I figured I'd do another “instant” post with some of the pictures from the past year re imagined.

To start off, I took the picture of the Simian Button Man from the cover artwork of Down at Flathead, from the literary stack post. Looks like it changed 'em into a rodent Button Man!!! I enjoyed the read, but it felt like it lost the thread and found other threads. When we were on Catalina, I asked a few of the locals if they knew the author, I wanted to ask him what happened to the moon buggy!!!

I'd made mention of having gifted a stuffed Alan to a friend, who now has it on her shelf next to a plastic Perry the Platypus. Since platypuses are already a strange mix, remixing the picture made him into a duck!!! And Alan looks a bit like a dinosaur.

On the same post, I'd shared the X-ray of my broken metatarsal. It got the break fairly accurate, but I'm missing my second toe!!! It's hard to believe that it's been a year since I broke it, it's mostly fine now!!!

I'd made a post from a couple of events, the belated Valentine's Day dinner, and our trip to a Kings game. From the first, I took the picture of my wife with her chocolate malt, and it changed her into a Disney mom!!!

I took the picture my wife took of me doing the re creation of the burrito and quesadilla attacking pictures, and... well, it took it from a side view to a front view, and less of an attack on the food!!! Also, now that I think about it, kind of made me into a Disney dad!!!

And, the selfie of us in the stands at the Kings arena...

And Bailey waving the Kings flag!!! I'd done it as a claymation look, too, and it changed him into a human!!!

I did a lot of car stuff this year. Most of it was on the Studebaker and Kutcher. The main thing that I accomplished with Zonker is to get her to pass smog!!! At some point in there, I'd decided that I didn't have nearly enough pictures of Zonker with the top down, so I took some time on a sunny afternoon and drove over to a local park and took a few shots. As always, the drawing look of remixing the picture yielded a nice result!!!

Another shot, it made it into a hard top!!! As far as I've been able to tell, only the Pontiac sibling came as a hard top. There have been a couple of companies that have done hard top conversions, but you know what??? I don't think I'd want it as a hard top!!!

Had the engine rebuild and swap done on Scruffy, as well as replacing the battery and getting some junkyard parts (including that very cool instrument panel!!!) for her. More on the engine swap to follow...

Another thing that I did a good amount of this year was going to the beach!!! I had been thinking of going there today, for New Years, but it was drizzly most of the morning. Anyway, I did another line drawing of the composite picture I'd done of the younger and friend at Horny Corner, and it came out pretty good!!!

Did a second of the same picture in the claymation style, and it came out funny!!! Looks like they're buried in the sand!!! To be fair, the original was only from the waist up.

Did the picture I took at Grill 'em All of Surrogate giving his sister the side eye. Not bad. Funny, it put a boat in the background with an umbrella instead of a sail!!!

And a shot of the sunset at Santa Monica beach as a painting!!!

And the inheritance of the Studebaker... has ended up taking up a good amount of my time!!! I have yet to finish the intended upgrades to the fuel system, and once I do hopefully it will be fairly roadworthy!!! Remix made it into a cartoon!!!

And in the drawing style, it came out great!!! Also got the Falcon in the picture!!!

The Gaslight Anthem and Counting Crows concert was a great show!!! The drawing of Adam came out great...

The claymation look rendering of the same picture, not so much!!!

I love the way this picture of the Casino from Descanso beach came out in something of an art deco style!!! This is actually an older picture, because we never made it over to Descanso beach this year. I had done a drawing style of a picture I took from the ocean side, and it came out pretty good. Then I did the same picture in the claymation style, and it came out looking not the same... it showed the front side, with a sign on the top, “Avalon Casino”.

I love the way the picture I took of Surrogate making breakfast came out!!!

Not shared, but one of the pictures I took while we were on the Casino Tour was of one of the restrooms. It looked very period correct, and upscale from what you see today. If I ever do manage to do a full post on that, it may be included, but for now, here's a selfie of us in the mirror, remixed as a drawing!!!

And the picture from when we bought our hats in 16-bit!!!

And from the ridge tour we went on...

And Sid!!! Can't forget the world's greatest cat!!! Here's how he'd look in his tube in 16-bit!!!

The picture I took of the guys in their Halloween costumes came out looking great, they look considerably more menacing in the remix!!!

When I had the engine swapped, I'd asked the guy to hold onto the engine he took out (which, if you're keeping track, was the one that originally was in 3). I'd not followed up with him afterwards, and had figured he'd probably recycled it by now, but he called me about a week ago about it. I asked him if he could break it down and give it a cleaning, and I'd pick it up. This Monday I picked it up, and it's much easier to move around when it's in pieces!!! As predicted, the crankshaft is scored, but he says it'll clean up no problem. Anyway, I stored the block, head, and crankshaft in a basement corner and took a picture before I put the box of covers and internals on the top, and remix came up with an interesting take!!!

And that time that Sidney was curled up in the trash can!!!

From our trip to the fondue place on our anniversary, I actually had AI modify the picture. I asked it to change the pot to a cauldron full of a questionable green liquid, and put a hooded cloak on me!!!

Keeping in the same theme, I took another picture from years ago, our crow friend on the iron chair, and it remixed it to be quite Halloween-ey!!

Golden Hour

A week back, I took Scruffy for an alignment. Having the front subframe removed had messed it up. The update on the swap, I ran into an issue bolting the transmission to the engine, and ended up damaging the pump on the transmission, so, since I've never had too much luck working on transmissions, ended up having it towed to the transmission shop. When I picked it up, started off with the oil warning light on. That spooked me, I shut it right off, and checked the oil. All the way full. OK, must be the wire to the sensor or something, right? Start driving it back, and after a while, it goes off, but the low coolant light starts blinking. That doesn't concern me much, I hadn't had a chance to do anything with the cooling system other than fill it with water and cooling system flush, and the needle is in the normal area. It turned off a few miles later, but then the temprature light went on, and the gauge heads to the top!!! I'm in traffic, and before I could even start working my way off to the side, the gauge drops, and the light goes off. Then the oil light comes on again. Once I got it home, I drained, rinsed and filled the cooling system, and checked the oil pressure wire. Everything looked good, and it never came on again. Passed smog with no problems, and other than the alignment, everything is fine!!!

The alignment shop I use is in Glendale. I had gone after I got off work. I asked the tech about how long he thought it would take, and after he told me around 45 minutes, told him I was going on a walk. Since I've been seeing it for years but had never been there, I headed straight for the local graveyard!!!

Imposing brick walls and an iron gate surround the property.

Within, there is much beauty among the dead.

Many statues, and great views of the surrounding area.

It's been years since I've gone through a graveyard taking pictures. I remembered why it works out so well.

I haven't been getting as much walking in as I would like to these days, with the time change it's not as easy to get out in the afternoons before it's getting dark. This was a great one, not only did I cover a good amount of distance, but I got to do a bit of uphill walking, too!!!

On the subject of it getting dark early, it so coincided with my walking time that I was in the right place for the "golden hour", as the sun makes it's final descent on the horizon.

I was glad to have been there for it!!!

All in a Day's Work

I've been wanting to get the engine pulled out of 3 for a while, but as always happens,life gets busy. The plan, of course, was to swap it into Scruffy. Well, smog check time is coming up, and the P0410 air injection code has been coming back on and off. Took it over for the check, it had been a good spell without the light coming on. Less than a block away, it comes on. Sigh. I pull off onto a side street and reset it, then for the check, it hadn't gotten enough data to re calibrate it, so it failed. He checked the exhaust afterwards, and it's got a little smoke coming out, and he says it fails for that, too, but I think he wouldn't have gone there if the computer check had passed.

So, this weekend took it down to my parents' house where there's a big, flat driveway and went to work. It drove way better than I'd thought it would, with the steering wheel all tweaked. To make things easy, the hood comes off first, and since it was tweaked, pulled the whole front bumper cover off, as well as the headlights. The bumper core had an amazing crease down the middle, and the side of the frame rail was nicely accordioned, but I didn't get a shot of that.

Of course, it's not a one-man job, at least not for me!!! I enlisted the younger boy, and he comported himself quite admirably, considering he has close to zero experience working on cars. There's a multitude of little stuff to disconnect and remove, and he helped with a good amount of it, as well as the actual removal. Pretty much got all but one thing disconnected, the connection from the steering rack to the column. Started lowering it down, and that side wasn't dropping.

Speaking of dropping, that was the method I elected to go with, disconnect everything, unbolt the subframe (only 4 bolts!!!) then lower it out the bottom. I'd heard of people doing it with lifts, and figured I'd have to drop it, then the weight would shift more to the back, and I'd probably have to raise the body some more. Got it dropped, and it's within a couple inches of clearing. Got on the back bumper and bounced on it, and it looked like there was close to enough room to slide it out. My son couldn't get it moving, so we switched, and got it rolled out!!!

There it is!!! Gotta do the same to Scruffy, and I'm planning on unbolting the engine from the transmission, and swapping it to the recently rebuilt transmission in Scruffy.

All in a day, I couldn't be more pleased with the progress!!!

Bool Hunt

All of my nonexistent readers are probably well aware that I end up going to the junkyard on a fairly regular basis. This post will cover a few of those trips, as well as filling in a bit of recent history.

About a month ago, I'd finally gotten Scruffy over to an alignment shop to get the rear tires pointed in the right direction. This is the only car I've ever had where I've had a rear tire wear and alignment issue, probably because nearly all of the cars I've owned have had solid rear axles where alignment isn't a thing. The others not in that category, I haven't messed with the ride height, so there's that. As you can see, they were REALLY worn down for about two years of wear!!! The alignment shop had told me that the camber was still a bit out, but to come back when I'd replaced the tires, with a little advance warning, and they would install a camber kit to correct it. Yesterday I finally got a replacement pair.

Prior to heading over there, on Friday evening, I opened up the back of the two machined look rims I'd picked up, with the idea of getting a full matching set on Scruffy, at which point I realized that the one had a significant abrasion on one opening, where it had peened the metal out, so I decided against using that one, for now. It also had quite a bit of scuffing on other areas, and I took some medium-fine sandpaper and 3M pads to one such area, to see if I could get it looking decent. Looks like all it is is through the clear coat or anodizing, whichever it has. About a half hour's work, and it came out looking quite good!!! Anyway, left that one off for now and now have 3 out of 4 the same.

Now, for a few weeks back background. The second to the last week I was working at the physical building, on Thursday they were doing Wuhan Flu testing. They were having us come in at the time of the testing, wait for the results, then, if negative, report for work. My appointment was for noon, so I got to go in a bit later. Oh yeah, spoiler alert, around 400 employees still working there, and not a single positive!!! Anyway, about a mile from home, it started running really rough, with not much power. I drove it almost to where I get on the freeway, and pulled into a gas station to see if I could see anything. Restarting it had done nothing, but plugging in the OBD scanner showed multiple misfires. I turned around to go home and switch cars, and getting to the uphill area discovered it didn't have enough juice to climb the hill. Called my wife and had her bring her car down. Used her car that day, and did a bit of research. There were several things, but the consensus was to start with the spark plugs and work your way down the systems. No idea when the plugs were last changed, but never hurts to have new ones (so long as they are OEM NGK copper core ones, not any exotic metal ones, as they have a high fail rate in Saturn 1.9 engines, due to the waste spark system they run). Also, while I was getting the plugs, I got a crankshaft position sensor, my reasoning being that the sudden failure seemed consistent with that. Replacing the plugs did nothing, so I headed back up the hill and took the plug wires, coils and ignition control module off 3, and went back down and replaced all the units on Scruffy. Viola!!! No cumbersome crankshaft position sensor replacement, which I was not looking forward to. Just to see what would happen, I put the units from Scruffy back on 3. Moved the issue to that one, as I figured it probably would. I figure it was likely the ignition control module, as I've had coils fail before, and the OBD will show the coil specific to two cylinders missing.

So, now 3 is fairly undriveable. Not like I'm driving it much anyway, but I want to be able to move her around, not to mention I'd rather have everything going if and when I swap the engine out. The ignition control module is around $85, and most of the consensus is that you are better off getting an OEM used replacement from the junkyard anyway, as most of the replacements have a high fail rate. Off to the junkyard!!! Coils are pretty reasonable, but control modules are supposed to be in the $50 to $60 range. Since the double coils mount to the module, I figured I'd pull the whole unit and try and pass it off as a coil array. I also was wondering if they were the same unit for the generation 2 and SHOC models. No one seemed to have that information, but I could probably look up different years and engines and figure that out if I wanted to. I took a look around at earlier SHOC models, and even a generation 1 SC2 and they all appear the same. Anyway, to be safe, I got them off the same year and engine SL2. Funny thing, there didn't seem to be much body damage at all, but both of the airbags had been deployed!!!

When I got to the checkout, the cashier was questioning the pricing, noting that an array would be more expensive, and it was actually two coils, which would be cheaper. He called over a supervisor, who told him to ring it up as two coils, and put the module as a bracket. He noticed it had the wire connector socket, so rang it as a electrical connector. Two coils at around $13.50 (plus $1 core charge) and $2.75 for the ignition control module!!! Score!!! The exhaust manifold was removed from the SL2 I got the goods from, which gave me a chance to get a better shot of the exhaust air injection ports. They look equally as plugged up as Scruffy's had been!!!

And there's that 1st generation SC2. While very little is common to the later ones, they weigh less, and the style is growing on me. I actually like the SC and SC1 front ends with the fixed headlights, which I believe are the same from the doors forward as the sedans.

Now, from quite a while ago when I'd gone to a junkyard near my work, and they had almost exactly the same as 3 on the other side of the wall, I imagine pre being put in the yard, but possibly to be sold. Even has the same rims as 3 originally had!!! In other news, I came across an ad for the same year, color and wheels as 3 with 95K miles, and a busted up front bumper and driver's side fender and mirror, plus a check engine light, asking $1800. I sent them a message that, considering the condition it seemed about $500 to $800 too high. I'd take that deal, if it seemed OK and could pass smog, which of course it won't with that light on.

A couple of the cars of interest there that time were this 60's Mustang with little left but the firewall and the undesirable 6 cylinder engine. It's very rare to see anything that old anymore.

Up next is a early 70's Celica, another of those you never see anywhere anymore!!! Someone had done a terrible job of putting a whale tail spoiler on the trunk, looking like it's about 20 degrees from where it should be. Has the distinction of being similar to the one we had. Of course, it has the unique pull out handles. The steering wheel was removed, but still inside, so I was also reminded of the style of the horn buttons, double circles on each of the three spokes, cheaply made so the ones rotated around it end up upside down!!!

And finally, the junkyard I went to this weekend, a while back there was this pretty nice '64-'66 Suburban in the lot. I noted it because it's similar to my GMC panel truck.

I know I've used the phrase "bool hunt" in previous posts, but I'm not sure I've ever explained it. It's from the Stephen King story, "Lisey's Story". It's where something will be hidden and the other person has to find it. Also in the story is the mention of a "blood bool", so take that for what it's worth. It's been years since I've read that one, maybe I'll dig it out, I quite enjoyed it. Stephen King is a very talented writer, but he's also an old crank who keeps yelling at the Commander in Chief to get off his lawn.