Friends and Family who know me would probably categorize me as a fair and resonable guy and so I feel a little bummed being pissed off to the point that after 15 years of loyalty I'm writing off Les Schwab.

 

I've been a huge fan of thiers for years and done nearly all of my tire related business w/ them for 15+ years, and additionally continually recommended them to others when asked for advice.  However they left me high and dry today and even having followed up w/ the manager there was no attempt to make things right, only accusations pointed back at me that the latest tire drama from them was my fault.

 

So last night as Erin was on her way home from dropping off the baby sitter her tire completely blew out and left her stranded on a dark rural road without her cell phone.  A Maple Valley old timer was kind enough to pick Erin up and get her home, and then turned around and went with me and my buddy Steve to get the tire swapped out for the spare.

 

Once we got to the truck I tried to loosen the lugnuts so that I could get the blown tire off the car and found that the lugnuts were so tight I couldn't even budge them, I mean beyond imagination tight.  So using a 3' cheater bar I had to stand on top of the bar w/ all my 240 pounds to even get anythign to budge....and even w/ the right size tools and plenty of torque 3 of the six rounded off and weren't coming off.  Steve, Randy and I were totally blown away...I have never, ever seen lug nuts put on that tight.  And, of course no one has touched those tires since Les Schwab installed them.

 

But, having worked with these guys before, I was not worried...I figured I'll get it towed (it's only a mile or two away) and they'll make it right.  Well, I was wrong.  I happily payed for the pro-rated cost of the tire replacement and asked the manager what we could do about the tow bill.  Instead of trying to figure out what was going on or working with me instead he accused me of lying to him about having other people working on the tire, told me that his guys took the lugs off by hand in the parking lot and that he doesn't know what the problem was, but that he wasn't responsible.  At this point I'm not happy.  I was up until 1:00 AM getting the truck towed, used the time of three of my friends who between all of us and my 240llbs standing on the end of a 3' cheater bar he's saying they just popped right off and that it wasn't his problem.

 

So, I told him that no one else had been into the tires, 3 grown men who know how to work on cars aren't pulling his leg and that they were way over torqued.  There was no negotiation or offering to cover a portion or anything and then he got pissy with me because my insurance company didn't offer towing insurance and some how this was all my fault.  Again he reiterated to me that he can't trust me that someone else was working on those tires or I just did it wrong, even though I left my wrenches, bars and jacks int the back so he could see what'd I'd done.  So now I'm really pissed and told him that he also had zero proof that they'd put the lugs on w/ the proper torque and that he can't demonstrate that I did it wrong and can't demonstrate that he did it right giving him a chance to comprimise for the sake of customer service, and instead just continues to accuse me of decieving him and that he can't know if I had the brakes done.  So I said pull the tires off and inspect them to your hearts content and look and see what shape the brakes are in (they've never been touched since I've owned the truck) and he said, well maybe you just had them inspected but not replaced.

 

At that point I was done being called a liar by the manager of a company that claims outstanding and terrific customer service and explained to him that I'd finish out the warranty on the tires but then when I needed to replace tires or recomend someone Les Schwab was off the list.  He got all pissy and just handed me the reciept and I was heading for the door.

 

I'm going to follow up w/ the corporate office and see if they'll be a little more reasonable, but what a bummer and now I have to find a new tire company...anyone got any recomendations?!?  ; ^)

Well, I've been busy playing (of course) with tools and machines but ended up on two polar opposite projects:  OverKill (my wife named it) and Dainty (you can guess why).

 

OverKill was really the completion of a project that I didn't finish properly.  Last summer I built a picnic shelter out of lumber that I had milled out of some trees that came down off of my property.  Cedar made up the post and beam construction and Alder provided the truss assemblies, and good 'ol TRM building supplies provided the roof.  Well, I got it all done (did all the trusses, etc by myself) and it sure looked great (or so I thought).  I thought about cross bracing, and thought 'Nah, this thing is so stout it'll be a non-issue'.  And that theory held until the first real windstorm of the winter season.  And, ever so sadly, the shelter tipped over crushing everything under it.

 

So, I was trying to sort out the best way to get this thing back up and ready to keep the family dry while we roast marshmellows, etc?  I didn't want to pull all those little screws out that hold the roof and pull the trusses off....what's a guy to do?  Then it hit me...this was my chance to rent some heavy equipment and 'raise the roof' to get my little creation back on it's feet.  There isn't much you can't accomplish with an 8,000 lb. variable reach forklift!  Now were happy all over again.....oh, and yeah I put some 4x6 cross braces in for good measure this time.  10,000 lbs of force would be needed to shear the braces...and if the wind can generate 10,000 lbs of shearing force then it deserves the right to knock the shelter over.

 

Dainty went a whole different direction.  Along w/ all the Cedar and Alder that was milled out of the trees, I had a ton of maple 1 x 4's rough cut in order to turn into H/w flooring.  I'll spare you all the details of all the tools I've accumlated to make this a reality...but lemme say this.  I thought I was just going to go full blow production line style...dimention all the boards, then groove them, etc.  Well I got about 1/4 of the way through the pile, and had all this beautiful wood and I just needed to use it to build something!  So after some deliberation w/ Erin we decided to build something based on a design we saw at another site (http://www.littlecolorado.com/stock9294.html) props to them for their nice design, and well I shamelessly stole it and used it for project dainty.  This was my first stab at doing something that wasn't just plain old rough carpentry or bookshelf building, instead this was a real peice of furniture that needed all the joinery tricks, door construction, etc.  After working on the project on evenings and weekends for a month or two (along with buying lots of tools, sorry hon!) project dainty is complete.  Take a look at the pictures and lemme know what you think.  You'll see the project was named after the model showing it off.

 

BTW if you're in western washington and would like to get some outstanding mobile milling done on your logs...you need to get in touch w/ Bob Sweazy.  This guy is a great guy to know and to work with, and if you ask nicely he'll bring his woodmizer moble mill w/ him and make you some pretty lumber too!  http://www.sweazeytools.com/

 

Thats all for now....gotta get started on project Hot Stuff.

this weekend we down to the proper-de-de (as Dylan calls it) and partook in the annual spawing of our beautiful NW salmon.  As many of them a dead on the shore you can smell the future fertalizer!

 

This year I did the unthinkable (Ron Sims, please don't yell at me) I caught a live one in a net so the kids could see it up close.  I brought it up on shore long enough for kids to see it and touch it...then I nursed it back into the water where it swam back to join the race to the ultimate finish.

 

Who knows, next year when the kids our out there with their dip net they'll catch this guy's kids?

Wow, hard to believe that summer is nearly gone and the kids are heading back to school and Erin's on her way to Mexico!  We've had a very productive summer, but I still haven't finished all that I'm going to get done.

 

I'll be taking Friday and Saturday this week to finish prepping the property so that we can store our trailer up there and make much more regular use of this beautiful setting (of course, we'd love to build there, but if you know anything about King County, WA I've got a better chance of winning the lottery).

 

Posting a couple pictures of the kids all dressed up for the GEAA annual picnic.  We look forward to this yearly and as usual had a terrific time.  We also won our first 'major award' as the oldest car at the show.  Our 1925 drove us to Orting and back (despite a few pilot errors) faithfully and the generator is finally charging the batter all by itself...hurrah!

 

I'll post pics of the property after this weekend's work so that folks can see the picnic shelter and the work I've been able to accomplish.

 

Laters 

Well she's taken good care of me, but now with three kids I need a little bigger truck, and so the Toyota needs to go. You can view the photos in the photo section under truck. Below are the details:

 

1987 Toyota Turbo Pickup w/ Custom Cab conversion done by California Custom Cabs

$3500 obo
234K Miles, 5 speed turbo 22RTE

30K on rebuilt engine
30K on brand new TEC turbo upgrade w/ 2 ½ in hi-flo exhaust all the way out (down pipe, cat, muffler) (http://www.turboengineering.com/upgr...rt/toyota.html)
30K on resurfaced fly wheel and heavy duty clutch
2” lift
Brand new battery
All fluids switched to synthetic (diffs/tranny)
Straight body w/ some rust in the typical bed locations

Spares include:
Pair of rotors
Set of wheels and tires
Rebuilt A/C compressor and all parts needed for 134a conversion
Extra AFM
Spare Radiator (used, but reusable)

Well I am so happy to say we now have brakes!  What a nightmare it has been trying to assemble all the parts, knowledge and time to get this silly brakes working....but as of last night we are rocking!

 

I ultimately had to by a very short reduced shank 7/16" bit and drill blind into the old bleeder screw hole....then of course I had to grind two 1/4" NPT taps...one longer and one shorter...in order to cut enough thread into the wheel cylinder to put the 1/4" bushing inside of it.  Of course, when I got that all done the orginal acorn nut that fit over the inlet brake line didn't fit....so I had to fabricate a flat, 3/8 X 24 nut to fit on top of the hose connection....phew...that was alot of monkeying around.

 

Needless to say I hooked up my handy dandy homemade pressure brake bleeder and bled the whole system in less than 10 minutes....by myself (note to self....never will I bleed brakes the old way again).  Following that we took our first road test!  Over to Wilderness Chevron to fill 'er up!  Yeahaw a full tank of gas does wonders for your attitude.

 

Following our road test we went to our first Golden Era of Automobiles club meeting and met some really helpful, friendly folks that understand the joy and challenges of pre-war automobiles.

 

Then Erin and I raced back home, picked up the Chrysler and promptly drove the 14 miles to my folks house to pick up the kids.  I can honestly say I never, ever saw myself driving this neat old car considering when I was around 5 years old I was terrified of it and always prayed that it wouldnt' start so I didn't have to go for a ride in it!

 

My dad was excited to see it out on the road (since he road around in it when he was just a little guy) and our kids were so excited to see the car come to pick them up.  Rowan remarked on the way back in 'Mom, Dad we don't need the suburban anymore...we can just drive the old car everywhere we need to go!'.

 

I'll get some more pictures up soon and of course we are looking forward to our first tour this summer.

 

later,

 

 

 

-josh

Well this weekend was primarily consumed w/ father's day duty and a 3 in 1 brake job for some dear friends of ours...well spent indeed.

 

I have been stymied by the brakes on this old girl....the wheel cylinder doesn't have enough depth to get the pipe thread through...so I have to pull the drum...but the pressed on tapered axel drum will not come off without a special tool...that of course no one is making anymore.....so back to the circut to find one of these puppies.

 

It is a 2 5/8" 18 TPI hub w/ a bolt through the center to pull the drum off...so if you have one sitting around let me know.  I'll buy it from you, or borrow it...whichever you like best.

 

I can't wait to get back on the road as I have things tuned up very nicely, and we are all ready to go for a family cruise.

 

later,

 

 

-josh

Well...new master cylinder back from the rebuilder is on the car.  Spent copious amounts of time trying the execute on the bleeding process....but just ended up spilling my own blood sweat and tears!  Talk about a pain.

 

But, there is hope!  I fabricated my own pressurized bleeder to hook up to the reservoir....worked like a bloody champ!  I will not bleed brakes the old fashioned way again.  So I got things all hooked up and had the best brake pedal action you could imagine out of a 1925....and then....I found that the bleeder in the rear was stripped out...so with each pedal press the goodness went down a bit further....until no more brakes.

 

So now I am in the fab business.  I hogged out the previous hole to thread a 1/4" pipe bushing into it, and then tapped the bushing out to 7/16 x 20 for the bleeder.  We'll see what happens next!

 

Also got all the switches working again...man those things were frozen solid.  but none the less it sure feels good to throw the choke, flip the ignition switch and fire it off and drive it down the street......stopping w/ the hand brake.

Well this weekend was a spectacular weekend from the car project perspective.  My trusty brother-in-law came over and we swapped out all the tires.....if you have never done tires by yourself (especially antique tires) make sure you are ready for some real work....Fun...but in a painful sort of way.  But it sure felt good to see the new rubber on those rims.

 

The master cyl is still being rebuilt (should be done today or tomorrow) and then I will have to tear down the rest of the brake system and have the bands rebuilt and the slave cylinders rebuilt as well.  Then I think I will be done for this summer...we'll have a runner/driver that actually stops w/o the help of the parking brake.

 

As to trials...I started working on the fuel delivery problems.  The original vacuum driven fuel setup has been bypassed w/ a modern inline electric fuel pump.  Two bad things are going on.  The fuel always drains back into the tank and takes an inordinate time to come back up to the carb...and when the pump is running but the car isn't' gas just pours from the throat of the carb.  This is a major pain as it might take 3-5 minutes to get it started, and by then I have a pretty good puddle of gas in my garage....grrr.  I tried to solve the problem by putting a pressure regulator into the system (assuming the pressure is just blowing past seals) but that didn't seem to help.  So now I am going to have to get a carb expert involved...as that can't be good.

 

Number two on the 'pisser' list is the attempt at fixing some of the controls inside the car.  Over the years the choke/run switch and the ignition switches have frozen up and then broke.  Folks before me were using vice grips to get them to turn...and of course now they are totally frozen.  Well as I started to investigate I ended up breaking the glass on the gauge...that was a real bummer.  So not having any good glass or lexan to use I made spare parts out of CD cases / hard plastic.  It will hold for now...but I think I will switch to lexan for the time being as it is cheaper and easier to fabricate with.  Now I just need to find a good way to put a new switch on top of the control as the back is an intricately machined piece which I don't want to try and duplicate.  I am thinking of shaping the tops of the switches to a hexagon and then drilling/tapping the shaped sections and threading on a modern switch so that I at least have something other than the nub that is there now.

 

However....on the super cool side of things...the old OOOOGA horn is working again...now that makes all the kids smile.......

 

 

More later..

Well, there is a new member in the Dunn family.  'Bessie' is her name and she is a 1926 Chrysler Six.  My grandfather picked up this car from his used car lot in 1959 for the price of a cab fair after promising he would use it for his family and children.

 

She has been sitting since 1986 and I got her running on Saturday May 13, 2006 and we drove her around the block three times this weekend w/ all the kids and some neighbor kids.  The response was pretty amazing as people grabbed thier cameras, waved and had big smiles on their faces.  It was really fun to break this thing out and our Mayor would love to see us in the Parade this summer.

 

Needless to say getting her road worthy in time for the parade is now our top priority for the car.  This means new tires and brakes.  There are no brakes right now so I had a great time using a combination of going real slow, creative shifting and using the parking brake to stop safely.

 

If anyone out there has some good sources (or even a donor car) I need some parts that will be much harder to find and so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I am looking for:

 

Chrysler Radiator cap (the one with wings)

Choke cable and dash switch

Ignition switch (Day, Night, etc)

Spare hardware such as door handles

 

Also intersted in services for things like brake band rebuilds, chroming and pot metal repair.

 

Drop me a line!

 

 

More to follow as the project progresses.

 

 

-josh

Well, vacation was as usual a refreshing mix of family and activities that we enjoy.  This time relaxing and fishing...oh and seeing some pretty cool stuff out on the Puget Sound.  Let's see, fish, dog fish a 6' shark, dolphins and a seal thrown in for good measure.

 

The best was my first time out on the boat and seeing a shark as big as myself 5' away from me.  That will be for ever the defining moment in my understanding that 'The ocean is bigger than you'.

 

Take a peek at the pictures...lots of fun stuff to see.  Some smaller sharks, and a fish or two I pulled up that the sharks got to first.  Bloody dog fish..no wonder the English like them for fish and chips.