coolant leak

noticed coolant dripping from between my bellhousing and the dust cover plate but cannot see how the coolant is getting there.  have not been able to locate the source of the leak and i'm wondering if it a head gasket issue or a freeze plug.

i have noticed another leak coming from behind the first port of the exhaust manifold and don;t know if it is a freeze plug or a head gasket failure.  i was hoping that my engine issues would hold out ntil winter time for me to fix them and not miss out on any fall riding time.  

i'm torn about trying to replace the head gasket myself or having the local shop do it.  

one of the reason's i wanted an older model cj was so that i could work on them myself, but i'm not sure if this fix is over my head.  

another afternoon at soccer practicce

head gasket problems

so i might have head gasket problems on the cj.  here's my leak.

rust problem

new money pit

1981 jeep cj7

a few hangs

model 36 project

i recently received a model 36 that  i was told was given by my grandfather to my grandmother's sister.  an identical one was given to my grandmother, who gave it to my mother.  so, at some point, my grandfather bought them and now my mother has one and i have the other.

problem is, the one i got was in bad shape when i got it.  it looked like it had gotten wet.  the finished was damaged and the inner workings have begun to rust. so, i decided to try to reblue it myself.  if that doesnt work, i will take it to bridsong & assoc. for a two-tone desert sand and black teflon finish. 

at any rate, i have been able to remove all the upper mechanisms rather easily. however, i am unsure how to remove the block behind the trigger lever.  can anyone recommend the best way to do this.  i need to remove the block and the triger to mitigate the rusting behind them.

all suggestions are welcome.

the crapper is done...

i thought this project would never be finished. ol' lady wanted tile floor.  she found the tile for $.11/foot, so what could i say? she wanted the old tile and mortar bed removed so new tile would be flush with the wood flooring into the bedroom.  finally got the old tile mortar bed out only to find that slab was not smooth and level and drywall behind the throne had rotten due to getting wet (and therefore woudl not hold new tile baseboards), so, smoothed and leveled the floor, replaced sheetrock, trimmed the cast iron pipe, filled the void around the drain pipe, installed tile flooring and baseboards, installed new closet flange, reinstalled toilet and there you have it.   

repurposed steamer trunk

 so my ol' lady has this old steramer trunk that has been in her family for decades.  it has seen better days and has spent most of it time with us out in the shop collecting dust a rusting out.  well, since we turned the playroom into a movie thatre, ive beenlooking for something to hold extra blankets for sleepovers and what not.  a friend of ours has a large armoire that holds blankets and pillows, but something like that is too big for theatre 506.  so, i cleaned up the steamer trunk, re-finished the metal hardware, added nylon casters, and there you have it, a repurposed steamer trunk perfect for the movie room.   

drain problem

so i removed the toilet and old tile in order to install new ceramic tile flooring.  the old closet flange had rusted thru and was about an inch above the height of the new flooring.  so i removed the old cast iron flange and cut the pipe even with the new floor.  my problem is that i'd like to use a twist-n-set pvc replacement flange instead of a cast iron flange. however, the hole in my slab for the drian pipe to come thru is about 7" diameter and the drain pipe is 4" diameter, so there is a void between the outside wall of the pipe and the inside wall of the slab and i cant secure the flange to tghe floor with crews or bolts. what do i need to do in order to secure it to the floor to keep the toilet from wobbling under the weight of the user?

im thinking that my only option is to use a leaded cast iron flange or fill the void with cement/mortar and glue the flange to it.   

now for the component cabinet/bar

when we bought the house 4 years ago, we found this sideboard buffet in the attic of the shop.  i've been wanting to refinish it and use it in the house somewhere.  so, we decided to use it as the component cabinet will also double as a dry bar.

    

i removed all the dry rotted wood veneer, sanded it, primed it and painted it. here's the halfway cabinet and bar.

i still need to drill out the access holes in the back, install stemware racks in the cabinets and tile the top with leftover granite tile form the kitchen countertops.

getting started....

stacie went to savannah with friend on July 7-10.  so, i removed the ceiling fan, painted the crown and ceiling a dark brown, installed four recessed can lights, and hung blackout curtains over the front window and doorway to the dining room. 

always wanted a home movie theater...

i love watching movies.  i hate going to movie theaters. luckily, i finally talked stacie into considering turing the front living room into a home movie theater. this room was formerly the kid's L-shaped yellow with green poca dotted play room.  when we remodeled the kitchen and added a wall to make a formal dining room, we turned laney's bedroom into the kids' play room and moved laney's bedroom into the office.  so now i have a 17x13 living room to work with.  the only condition is that the piano has to stay.

when i finally got the go ahead from stacie, we still had not replaced the crown molding we removed when we added the dining room wall.  she helped me with that so that we could have a some-what completed canvas to work with.

here are some before pictures with the crown molding installed:

After the crown was replaced, the plan was to remove the ceiling fan, paint the ceiling and crown (to disguise the unsightly seams), install can lights, hang a projector and hang surround sound speakers, slipcover the loveseat and chair, and build a component cabinet/bar.

the calorie counter

so im trying to lose a few pounds. i joined a mens' small group at church about 6 weeks ago and we're supposed to  be doing the first place diet.  my mom is leading the women's group and stacie signed up.  i dont know why she thinks she needed to sign up for that particular small group, i can only suspect it was more of a "lead by example" kind of thing.  she makes losing weight look way too easy.  anyway, i'm 32 and have been overweight almost half my life.  with two kids who i can barely keep up with, i figure now's the best time to make a lifestyle change. 

i haven't followed the diet like i should.  i have, however, cut out the soft drinks and i'm now trying to eliminate the fried foods from my diet. im also trying to reduce my portion size and have started walking around the lake.  after six weeks, i have lost 8 pounds.  i still find it discouraging trying to keep up with calories and fat grams and all that stuff we should be doing with the first place diet. 

that is until recently when stacie showed me the "calorie counter" app for our htc hero cell phones. whoever came up with this idea is a genius.  you can enter the foods you eat throughout the day and it will keep up with the calories and other nutritional infomration in order to give you a picture of how you did for that particular day.  if you register on the website, you can sync your daily diet calendar and track your progress.  here's the coolest part...instead of plugging in the serving sizes and calories, you scan the UPC label and it will tell you the nutritional information for that food.  the app also has all the major restaraunt chains and their nutritional values. 

today i ate lunch with stacie at her school. i'm convinced her third graders thought i was a complete idiot or at least extremely OCD when i took out my phone to take pictures of the food labels for the baked doritos and cholcolate milk.  i was pleased to find that after breakfast (5 ritz cracker for 80 cal.) and lunch (five dollar footlong=570 calories, baked doritos=90 cal. and two cups of chocolate milk =320 calories), i had only had 54% of my "RDI" ( based on a 2000 cal/day diet).  in the past, i have been known to take down 2000 calories at breakfast.

so we will see how it goes.

where were you at 12:01 on march 20?

so, stacie is an avid twilight fan.  i think she has read the series twice. by my calculation, that's about 5072 pages.  while i haven't read a single word of the series, i have seen the first movie...more than once.  if you know anyone that is interested in the movies, you know that new moon has been released on dvd and went on sale at 12:01 on saturday, march 20. so i ask, where we you?

i was at the local walmart, just as any other loving husband should would be when asked by his wonderful wife to go with her to be one of the first to own it on dvd. i have never been the type to camp on the sidewalk for concert or movie tickets.  i have never been shopping on black friday.  truer words have never been spoken when i say that i have never been involved with anything like what i witnessed at walmart on saturday morning around midnight.

we got to the store about 11:15 to assess how this deal was going to go down.  the parkng lot was relatively vacant.  we got a parking spot really close to the front door.  as we were walking in, we fell in behind two early-20's young ladies and knew right away that we would be seeing them again back in the electronics section.  by the time we made it in, we had some call-in orders from carrie and jennifer. under no circumstances were we supposed to leave the premises without four copies of new moon and one copy of twilight. so we made our way to the back, just to see if they had put the displays out and already had the movies on the shelf.   at this point the crowd was sparse.  but at 11:45, it looked like a mini-convention.  folks of all ages and from all walks of life. 

you got to give it the folks at walmart.  clearly, this was not their first rodeo.  they were trained in the finer points of crowd control and misdirection in order to avoid pandemonium.  a sales associate gained everyones attention by handing out a pop quiz on new moon.  fifteen multiple choice questions that could only be answered by the most devoted twilight fans.  whoever got the most right would get a free edward or jacob water bottle. the mother of all contests.  especially when taking into consideration that the questions were based on the movie version of new moon instead of the book version.  10 minutes to answer 15 questions.  i was less than surprised when one of the two girls we had seen coming in won by answering all but one question correctly. based on her confidence and demeanor, i am convinced that the answer key was in error and the girl had really answered all the questions correctly.

now i have absolutely no training in the social sciences.  anything that i might think i know comes merely from brief research skewed heavily in favor of my bias for what im trying to prove or convince others about. i'm sure clinical therapists and academics would have had a field day with the behavior of the customers waiting to get their hands on the coveted two-disc special edition new moon dvd.   when those who missed the first several questions realized they were not going to win a free water bottle, they started trying to figure out where the pallet would come from and angle for position closest to where they though the displays would end up. 

so im sitting back watching all this unfold when i realize stacie had wandered off. i noticed the familiar screeching sound of rolling display racks and see something heading in our general direction.  it didn't take long for everyone to know where they needed to be.  i was fully expecting at least a fist-fight between the ones that absolutely had to have the first one sold. much to my disappointment, all that happened was the cranky sales clerk telling a lady that she need to back off and just be patient, that they had enough for everyone.  apparently the lady in question had snatched four copies off the display before the sales clerk could stop her. (did i mention that under no circumstances were we to leave without four copies of the movie.) by the time the remaining water bottles were given out, the display was behind the counter manned by at least two clerks to assist in rationing out the movies.  the customers were ordered asked to  make a single file line at the register and advised that they would be receiving some kind of free twilight/new moon fan poster or something like that.  thankfully, stacie wasn't interested in the freebies and suggested we go ahead to the front of the store to check out, which was all in all uneventful. we dropped off one of the call-in orders at the hospital and made it home by 1:15.   

Viking Cooking School

so i've never been interested in cooking. as far as i was concerned, it was a means to an end. stacie seems to get quite a bit of enjoyment in creating cakes for friends. as for me, i just didn't get it. that is until we went to the viking cooking school in greenwood. i've never had any interest in going. as a matter of fact, i had never heard of it until jim took kristy for a weekend get away. kristy seemed pretty impressed by the gesture. when i was trying to think of something stacie and i could do togther for our anniversary, i remembered how much jim and kristy had enjoyed their experience.

on wednesday, i bought tickets for the friday "enchanted evening" date night class and made hotel reservations. i broke my hand thursday night. on friday we left vicksburg at about 3:45 and rolled into greenwood at 5:45. i expected the cooking school facilities to be tied into a viking manufacturing plant for some reason. much to my surprise, the school is located in a non-assuming store-front building nestled in the heart of down town greenwood across the street from the famed alluvian hotel.

when we got there, we perused the wares store and discovered there were alot of must haves that we simply don't have. once everyone showed up, we were taken into the hands-on kitchen where we would be preparing our meal for the evening. for some unknown reason, i was under the impression that each person was going to be cooking their own meal and it didnt take me long to come to the conclusion that i was at a severe disadvantage with a busted paw. clearly, i would be relying on stacie to cook both her meal and my meal. much to my relief, the five couples were split into a group of three couples and a group of two couples and each group would cook the meals. thankfully, our group took up my slack.

we started with a salad made with avacodaos, brown sugar bacon, grapefruit, lobster tails and fresh greens. hands down the best salad i have ever eaten. next we made grilled veal chops with angel hair pasta. i'm not exactly sure what a truffle is, but i did learn that truffle oil does wonders for pasta. we finished off the meal with a mint custard with chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate covered mint leaves. probably the best meal i have ever had a hand in making.

stacie and i are almost done with our new kitchen and i'm starting to think i would enjoy us cooking meals together. we might have to start shopping at williams sonoma if we can ever get done at the home depot.