More Car Stuff

Mostly because of my newly acquired inheritance, I've been getting in a good amount of car work in these days. As always, there's more to do!!!

Not chronological, but to start with, I bought a new deep cycle battery to use in the Hawk, and put the one I'd borrowed from the Falcon back in. I'll also mention since I don't have a picture to go with it, one of Kutcher's tires had a nail in it that I removed and plugged the hole. I'd bought a tire plug kit from my previous job, and this is the first time I used it. I've seen them installed before, but have never done it myself. Either I should have gone at the tire more and oversized the hole more, or it's harder to get in than I thought, I had to fight it to get it in!!! It's holding fine, though. The tires are all getting worn, and I'm thinking I'll do something I've been meaning to do, take it for an alignment, and buy a new set of tires. The oil change light just came on, and it will be the first one I've done without being able to buy employee price oil. One of the driving lights burned out, but I bought a pair of yellow ones to replace the factory white ones with not long after we bought it, and this may be the perfect time to install them!!! Oh, and I bought myself a pair of ramps to make some of these maintenance tasks a bit easier.

I'm also planning on doing a repair on the bottom of Zonker's front bumper like I did on Scruffy, it has a little portion in the middle that's hanging down now. That was a big part of the reason I bought the ramps!!!

On to the things I've done to the Hawk, I got all the window tint removed from the front windows. It wasn't as difficult as I'd thought it was going to be.

Also got a reflection of Zonker and of an unmentioned cat with coffee T-shirt my wife got me in the window picture!!!

One of the first things I did to try to get it to run cooler was to flush to cooling system and install a high flow thermostat. After I drained it, I removed the thermostat and added the flush, ran it for a while, and drained it again. As I did this, I got a better look at the sketchy looking routing of the upper radiator hose. The water pump and air conditioning compressor run off one belt, and the alternator drives from the A/C, and the hose was running between the two.

While I had the hose off, I got a look at the groove it had cut in the hose, and did not like the look of it at all!!! On my first run to the local auto parts store, they were good enough to let me go behind the counter and see if I could find a molded hose that might work better. A portion of part number D72224 turned out to work quite nicely!!!

My other thought was that the upper radiator hose appeared to be higher than the radiator filler, which could possibly cause a bubble in the system. I found a filler neck tee that I planned to put in place of the splice junction. I made the first purchase from my former work for a U-bolt to use as a solid mount for it, and added a bracket to hold it between the belt. I also tensioned the belt a little more.

After I'd done all the cooling system work, I was thinking I should have got some T-bolt hose clamps from my previous work while I was there (I'm not paying their shipping costs!!!) While I was looking around for something else, I located a couple I'd previously bought!!! Makes for a cleaner looking installation!!! I'd run it a couple of times in the driveway for around half an hour at a time, and the temperature didn't get all the way up, but the first time I noticed the electric fan wasn't coming on all the time. I cleaned the terminals and it seems to be working fine ever since.

I had ordered pizza a couple of nights later, and the younger and I took the Hawk to pick it up, as well as try it out and see how it did. It made it without and cooling issues, but it would surge while driving. Steady throttle, and it sounded like I was on and off the pedal. On the way back, I thought I'd take the less steep but longer back way up the hill. Around half way, it starts acting like it wants to cut out. I throw it in neutral and rev a few times (still acting like it's running rough and not really wanting to run) then try going again. It stalls out. I re start it, and it wants to die again, then does. I re start it again, and there's a road going off the side that I'm pretty sure goes down to the next street over. I head down it, and it's doing a little better not climbing, but the road is super sketchy, it goes down to one lane, and rutted dirt!!! I had the idea of taking it down to our street and parking it there, but it made it halfway down the street between, and stalls. I roll it to the side, and try re starting it again. It starts, but it's running really rough. It had gotten warm, but not like when I'd brought it home. I was thinking the heat was causing an issue, so I'd let it sit and cool for a while and try again. Oh yea, where it was, they now have no overnight 2 AM to 6 AM parking now.

We walked up, ate our pizza, and I walked back down a couple hours later. It re started, but was still running rough. I drove it over to the bottom of my street, and it stalled as I was rounding the corner. I was able to re start it, and drove it to the same back way street I'd last attempted, and it stalled out going around that corner, too!!! I called it for the night, rolled it back to the side of the street (no overnight restrictions there!!!) and once again walked up the hill.

The next day I headed down to see if I could figure it out. I was suspecting a fuel delivery issue. I recalled from when my dad had it, it came with a cork float for the fuel level sender, and after 40+ years it just kind of came apart!!! Probably, ideally, I should probably drop the tank and get it cleaned. He had installed an inline canister style fuel filter before the fuel pump, a clear filter with replaceable elements just before the carburetor, and the carb has a built in filter. I took out the clear one to get a look at it, and it was caked solid, and the gas in it looked like dirty brown water!!! Thinking I might be onto something, I headed over to the auto parts store again, and got a replacement for the carburetor filter and the inline filter. I just removed the clear one, planning to get a replacement element at a later time, and put the new carburetor filter in. It seemed to run much better with just that!!! That night, I drove it straight up the front way, and it pulled all the way!!!

You may have heard the old cliché, the old cars, if they break down you can fix it on the side of the road with a screwdriver, crescent wrench, and a pair of pliers. That was exactly what I did!!! Oh, and one of my neighbors driving by told me it's a beautiful car!!!

I cut open the old carburetor filter, and it looked pretty gunked up.

I had ordered replacement elements for the clear filter, but then noticed that the glass was cracked, too, so I ordered a new one of those.

The next day, I pulled it up on the ramps and replaced the canister filter. I noticed it is concerningly close to the exhaust, and decided that I would fashion a heat shield before I wrapped up the work in that area. I used a Monster Energy Drink can, it has to be better than the nothing that was there before!!!

I've also vacuumed it out, and used some carpet powder on the interior carpet, and re vacuumed it. My surrogate son gave me a black ice air freshener. Neither of these has completely gotten rid of the rodent smell, and I laid down another layer of carpet powder and will vacuum it again tomorrow. Should see about getting the five years of dust washed off the car cover, and clean out the trunk. Should also see if the spare holds air, and pick up a replacement tire if it doesn't.

I've figured out some of the operation for the radio, it was a nice HD radio Pioneer unit back in the day, but the antenna doesn't seem to be working. I'm thinking of swapping in the one that was in the Homecoming Saturn, it's got nearly the same function as the ones in Scruffy and Kutcher, and having Bluetooth is always better than off a thumb drive.

One other concerning thing, the voltage gauge... always seems to show on the low side!!! If you rev it up, it'll come up, but cruising or at idle it's well under 12 volts. I'd mentioned the underdrive crank pulley, and had had the thought that the slow spinning was possibly the issue with the cooling. Having read up on the water pump, it seems like they are more than is necessary to keep things cool, even at lower speed, but the alternator could possibly not be spinning fast enough at lower speeds. I had thought of buying a couple of V-belt pulleys and different size cogged drive pulleys and a belt, and making a belt overdrive. Since the aren't that expensive or hard to install, though, I'm thinking of getting a one wire conversion to try out before I go that route. Years ago I installed a GM alternator on the Falcon with a one wire conversion, and it is awesome!!! If you just start it and it's only idling, the headlights and dash lights would be dim, as though it's not getting a charge, but rev it just a bit, and you can see it turn on, and it stays charging strong. No gauge on the Falcon, but from the lights, you can see it working!!!

Oh, and speaking of Scruffy, it developed a freakin' rod knock!!! Right around the time I was having to retrieve the Hawk, and I got the old transmission and engine that had been down at my mom's house. Drove it straight to a shop, and had them do a full rebuild, and swap it in since I no longer have access to a nice big flat driveway to do these things. Set me back probably more than it's worth, but you know. I form an emotional bond with my machines.

Matte Black Cat with a Rat Kings Tat

This week we went to the previously teased Gaslight Anthem and Counting Crows concert. It was a venue I'd never been to before, the YouTube Theater.

The YouTube Theater is in Inglewood, on the same property as our recently added NFL stadium (which I've also never been to before). I had seen a few shows near there at what used to be the Great Western Forum. The first show I ever drove myself to was there, Quiet Riot, with Whitesnake (before most people had heard of them). My friend Sean and I went together. Later we also saw Ratt there, with Bon Jovi opening, back when Bon Jovi had just come out with 7800° Fahrenheit album, so also before most people had heard of them. Much later, my wife and I, along with her brother in law and his wife saw The Scorpions there, around the time their Crazy World album was out. Anyway, the thing I recall from going there was that it seemed like you have to drive quite a ways from the freeway to get there.

But I digress. We got there and parked not too far from the entrance and made our way in. Security is better there in the sense that you don't have to empty your pockets, go through a metal detector, then get wanded down anyway for your belt buckle. I think it was a body scan instead, a guy just ahead of us got pulled out for a more thorough search. Since the place is fairly new, it's real nice, and it was easy to get in and find our seats, which were pretty good. We were on the front row of the first balcony, a bit off to the left. The younger was wondering if there would be an opening act or acts like last time, and I noticed that the setup had a Gaslight Anthem banner, and figured there wouldn't be.

The guys from The Gaslight Anthem start heading out, and Brian Fallon gets on the mic and says his daughter would like to say something. She gets on the mic, and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Gaslight Anthem!” From there they go into a song I wasn't familiar with, Have Mercy. Right after that they go into Positive Charge.

They did two cover songs in the set, and another I'd not heard before and haven't been able to positively identify. Since I'd mentioned Tom Petty in the teaser post, it was interesting that one of the covers was a Tom Petty song, Honeybee from the Full Moon Fever album. I recognized the song from the riff!!! The set list was as follows:

1. Have Mercy

2. Positive Charge

3. Handwritten

4. The Weatherman

5. Dark Places

6. Time Spent Playing By Her Side?

7. Howl

8. Honeybee (Tom Petty cover)

9. Mae

10. Here's Looking at You, Kid

11. Lovesong (The Cure cover)

12. Mulholland Drive

13. The 59 Sound

14. 45

Brian was wearing a hat for most of the show, so he wasn't especially photogenic. Once again, I wasn't able to identify who the picture on the drum was supposed to be, but I tried to get a good shot of it. She looks so familiar, I sent a picture and asked my wife, and she wasn't able to tell, either.

Also noticed that they had action figures on several of their amps!!!

Seven of the songs they did in their set they had also done at the previous show. It was cool to finally hear Howl live, and in the teaser post I'd mentioned Tom Petty, so it was cool they covered him!!!

They did the change over with the lights up, and the partition curtain behind the stage up. It goes back a ways, and they have a roll up door for a loading dock at the back, looks like a good design!!!

While we were driving there, I played Spaceman in Tulsa, and told the younger that I bet Counting Crows will play it tonight. It just seemed too perfect for them not to play it!!! They took the stage, and it was the first song they did!!!

The set list was as follows:

1. Spaceman in Tulsa

2. Hard Candy

3. Mr. Jones

4. Virginia Through the Rain

5. Omaha

6. Cover Up the Sun

7. With Love, From A to Z

8. Miami

9. Colorblind

10. God of Ocean Tides

11. Blues Run the Game

12. Round Here + Raining in Baltimore

13. Boxcars

14. A Long December

15. Rain King (intro with something with the lyric, “It would have been fine if you would have been the one”, another song I wasn't familiar with)

16. Under the Aurora

17. Hanginaround

18. Holiday in Spain

I'd never heard Colorblind live before (to be fair, not a song I'd been clamoring to hear live, anyway) but it was another I recognized from the into riff. They did a cool effect where they did a rectangle cone of light over Adam, with brighter chaser lights going around the perimeter. Also did white spots over the rest of the band.

Before he went into Cover Up the Sun, he spoke of how some songs are fables, but rooted in reality and featuring real people. He said the song features Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and his grandson Clifton Collins, Jr.

Before he went into With Love, From A to Z he told the story of how his dad had to go into the military during the Vietnam war. They'd been in Boston, and ended up moving to Texas, and traveled in their Oldsmobile Cutlass station wagon. After he mentioned the station wagon, the crowd cheered, and Adam said that the mention of the car always gets a cheer!!! Adam said he had a stack of books, and read them and watched the scenery of the Appalachian Mountains and the open plains. And how now he travels the country and sees a lot of it. I always had thought that the storytelling of Cover Up the Sun sounded like a tale of touring the country in a tour bus. The line near the end, “Let that diesel fly”, as well as the traveling descriptions from the first verse always made me think that.

They left the stage after Rain King, and I had a feeling they'd be back for an encore. Sure enough, they did!!! I was thinking that the perfect song to end the show with would have been Bobby and the Rat Kings, but I guess they didn't want to play all night!!! Upon reflection later, I noticed that they didn't play any of the 4 songs from the original Butter Miracle Suite One, all of which I've become a fan of. They did play five of the songs off the most recently released Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets, which I guess makes sense, since Suite One was a few years ago. They did play Boxcars, which has the mention of the matte black cat with a Rat Kings tat that this post title is from (and made me take a look at Kangol hats, to see if any of them appealed to me!!!). After the show, I was looking to see if anyone had posted clips from the show (there are a few), I came across the cinematic official video for Suite One, and it's pretty good!!! Also, it features the aforementioned Clifton Collins Jr.!!! Also where I got the image at the top of the post of the Rat Kings CD.

Oh yeah, I didn't have any trouble identifying the picture of the girl on the Counting Crows drum head, it's the Butter Face girl from the Butter Miracle cover artwork!!!

As we headed out, we swung by the merch booth, to see if there was anything that appealed. As we had headed out of the venue, I saw one guy with a shirt from the hook line from Spaceman in Tulsa, “I'm a Motherfucken' Rock and Roll Star”, that I thought was pretty amusing but probably something I wouldn't wear much. The Gaslight Anthem had one with the lyric from Positive Charge, “It's Good to be Alive” (which, IT IS!!!, and a great sentiment, I thought) with band images underneath that I picked up.

The younger liked the Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets tour shirt, with the dates in a circular pattern on the back. On the front of his, it has Counting Crows, and the sleeve of mine has The Gaslight Anthem. A couple more overpriced shirts to add to the collection!!!

Do the Dew Review

When a company comes up with a special edition or alternative recipe of one of their flavors, it piques my interest. Some of them just sound bad, and I usually won't try it unless I hear otherwise. Other times I'll think it sounds good, and I'll have to try it!!!

The other day I was at Little Caesar's picking up some pizzas, and they had a new Mountain Dew flavor. This reminded me of the time I was there last year, and they had pineapple Pepsi in their cooler. I had to get a couple to try them out, and let the younger try it as well.

It was... different. It wasn't great. It had some pineapple flavor to it, but it was mostly Pepsi flavored to me. Ah well, I gave it a try.

This time it was a mango flavored Mountain Dew. Apparently, Mountain Dew has previously had a mango flavor, Mango Gem, but this is Mango Rush. It's supposed to have some spice to it, but I wasn't feeling it. It has the mango flavor to it, which is pretty good, and pretty sweet. Much better than the pineapple Pepsi, but I don't think I'm getting any more. I bought three cans, one for myself, and one for the younger and surrogate son, and for three cans you spend about as much as you do for a pizza at Caesars.

Here's one I've tried that I really liked, Mountain Dew Baja Flash, that has a pineapple coconut flavor!!! Yes, I like Piña Colodas!!! I know I got it when we were vacationing in Running Springs at the store there, and I think I got it again somewhere else.

While I was looking through for Mountain Dew pictures, I happened on this picture from Christmas 2021. Another collaboration, this time between Pringle's and Halo, Moa Burger flavor!!! I picked up a tube for both myself and the younger. As I recall, this was another hit, meaty and salty flavored. This was also the year he'd asked for some Spamton glasses, which he's wearing for the picture.

There's a web sourced picture of both sides of the can, since my picture came out a little fuzzy. I like that Mr. Pringle got a boom mic headset!!!

Anyway, the mention of the Spamton glasses reminded me that I'd found him a Spamton T-shirt for Christmas 2022. I'd taken a shot of the graphics on it, most likely in anticipation of making a post, and never used it. Here it is!!!

The Return to Dana Point

A couple of things I do quite a bit: Take an early season vacation, and go back to places I've vacationed at before!!! Last month, we did both again!!!

The last time, it was for our anniversary celebration, so this was the first time for the younger. Stayed at the same Best Western in Dana Point, right across from the beach. I didn't opt for the room with the upcharge this time, just took one that sleeps four. I'm not sure they even have one that sleeps 4 with the improved view and balcony, but we didn't use the balcony much last time. The room was on the back side, so possibly a little less train noise from there. It didn't shock me awake this time, so either that was the case, or I was ready for it this time.

First day we were there we headed straight to Selma's again for more Chicago Deep Dish!!! It was a little early, and we did manage to get in on their happy hour for some pretzel bites as an appetizer. It was awesome, as it was last time.

Just as an aside, I had made a trip to a thrift store again to get a “work” T-shirt, and one for a pajama top, since a lot of mine seem to have gone missing. Ended up with three, one is a big, lightweight coral colored one for the PJ's (that I've used for general purpose as well), another is a Buc-ees with a nice Texas theme (it's a medium, so it's towards the smaller size of fitting me well. We'd stopped into a Buc-ees on our Texas vacation), and the final is shown here, a cool design, “McGuffin Creative Group, Established 2004”. Love me some McGuffin!!!

Last time we were in Dana Point, the weather was phenomenal. Not so much this time, a lot of gray skies. When we'd headed out and for most of the drive, it was bright an sunny. Just as we neared the coastline, it got grayer. It was mostly like that while we were there. When we arrived back at the lodgings, one of the guys camping across the street at the beach had a nice fire going in a fire ring. I considered heading over and warming myself to their fire, it's been forever since I've been to a fire on a beach!!!

The next day, we got in on another whale watching trip!!! I located one that was supposed to have underwater viewing pods, that sounded very cool. However, the ship with the viewing pods is being worked on, so we were on a catamaran. As previously stated, it was cold and gray. It has an upper viewing deck, side and bow access, and an enclosed cabin. My wife mostly stayed in the cabin.

The boy and I ventured out to the bow, and the breeze just cuts right through your hoodie!!! Didn't stop us. We headed to the upper deck, and shortly after they announced a sighting, looks like a juvenile blue shark, they said. Looked like the pictures I've seen of the Loch Ness Monster to me!!!

It just cruised along without a care in the world, and we were near it for several minutes. Not long after it was spotted, they changed the ID to a thresher shark. In my second picture, and in real life, you can somewhat make out it's long tail that it uses to smack stuff around!!! Pretty cool!!!

Always love seeing pelicans. Here was a line flying low over the fairly flat ocean. I also love seeing when they're flying high, and spy their lunch and fold into a spear and dive straight down!!!

They headed on, and just a little later, they spotted a pod of dolphins. It wasn't the massive size of the last one we'd seen, but it was good sized, and there was a good amount of action.

Hung around them for a while, then it was time to head back in. Once more, didn't see whale one!!! Ah well, it was still pretty fun. On the way back in, the obligatory swing by the buoy with the sea lions on it.

I noticed that this time, we passed the green buoy, and I was pretty sure the last time we'd gone past a red one. Went back to the pictures from then to confirm, and yeah, it was red. Didn't have a picture from last time, so here's one from 2021, when the sun was actually out!!! (I think it was gray most of while we were out last time as well, but it was clearing by the time we came back)

I don't remember if we had been discussing Chinese food prior to it or what, but I located a Chinese buffet place that we headed off to that evening.

The next day, after having a nice breakfast again at the hotel, the sun made an appearance in the afternoon!!! The younger an I headed across to the beach, and walked a ways up.

Spotted this white, looked like quartz based rock among all the dark ones, so we posed with it.

Later in the afternoon, we finally made the trek down to San Clemente for some Taco Bell. There's another thing I tend to do on vacation, spend a considerable amount of time looking for somewhere to eat!!! I think I was looking for places that serve dogs, and nothing really grabbed me, so Taco Bell never fails!!!

My wife wasn't feeling well, so she stayed back. Of course, I had to head down to the pier!!! Once again, just like the time we'd gone to the Ventura pier, he neglected to bring a jacket!!!

I hadn't mentioned last time we'd been out on the pier, but to the south there's an artificial reef, the Wheeler North Reef, that pokes up above the surface. I didn't get a shot of it, but there the boy is pointing it out!!!

As before, great views from the parking area, so rounding it out with a couple of shots from there!!!

Good Times!!!

Buffalo Milkin' It

Welcome to what could be the final post about last years' Catalina vacation. I was actually just a few days ago looking at rental properties there again, possibly for this year's vacation. I looked at several that include a golf cart, but so far I'm leaning towards trying to get the same place again!!! I had been thinking of making a couple of posts, one with the other travelers fashion, and one with some of the animal life we saw, but there really wasn't a lot of the latter (at least, that was still living!!!)

I've made mention of all these, first up is my wife's coat of many colors. Nice design. After I took the picture, I realized she had layered it with a hoodie that I got her a year or two ago over there as well, also at Yoshi's.

Next up is surrogate son's Stinky's Fish Tacos shirt. Had to take a picture of the front, where it has the Catalina Island branding.

And, the back side, where it has all the LOLs!!!

And the jacket I got for the younger. I like the colors (even though it doesn't really show great in the picture, it's actually a dark green on the sleeves and top), and on this one the branding on the front features the iconic buffalo outline.

And on to the animals, limited as they are. If this was our crow friend from years previous, he's not as friendly as he was the first time!!! Leo's Drugstore is on the corner down from the place we've stayed most times until recently, and they almost always get some of our money!!! The reason I took the shot with the whole name in it is since my mom's car was out of service, another friend of ours named Leo gave us a ride to the landing.

Took the guys on the semi submarine, and got to see a lot of fish as usual.

And the classic seagull on a post!!!