Back to it

We had a nice little trip up to Tucson this week, staying in the Quality Inn Airport for two nights. The hotel made this journey a pleasure... everything was clean and kept up, the price was right and it was an easy drive to all the places we had to go to spend our money. We took our time and rested up, took a swim in the pool, went out to eat, took naps.

The stop at San Xavier Mexico Insurance, where we have our internet orders sent, was almost like Christmas. Included in the pile of goodies was the new piston and cylinder set for the Westfalia Vanagon camper we own. And now that the parts are here, I'm back at work on the engine.

Also in the pile was a USB digital interface to plug microphones and stuff into for recording music on a computer... and the new computer (previous post).

I also picked up some tools at Harbor Freight... an air sander, an engine stand, sockets for big stuff, tarps to cover some of the projects I'm working on, etc.

I should have the motor finished this week, but that's pure speculation. Today when we drove into Guaymas to pay our rent, I stopped and bought some spark plugs. There will be other stuff to get I'm sure... San Carlos really needs a car parts store.

In other news...

The photo below is a nine pin molded plug that connects a controller to a 400 watt sound system I bought a few years ago. It stopped working because there was, I guessed, a broken wire inside the plug. This is not a part I can order anymore, the system was discontinued. So I had this wonderful stereo collecting dust because of a cheap little plug. I said to myself, "Self? I bet you could fix this plug yourself and get your stereo back."

I took a single sided razor blade and started carving away the plastic covering and discovered the blue wire to its pin was broken off. I went back up the wire and open up the sheath, clipped the blue wire, stripped it and ran a substitute wire to the plug and it works just fine, thank you. One of the nice things about this repair is that this system isn't residing in a landfill because of a tiny little flaw. And it sounds awesome.