a photoblog of what i did today.....

[glatt]

I assume they are stealing cable, but I thought signals were scrambled these days and you need a box at the set.

[xoxoxoBruce]

But if you have the wire, you can pick up a box at the cable company's office. They don't ask how you got the wire. Plus that may be an accumulation of years of DIYers.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by glatt

I assume they are stealing cable...

Yeah, but, who? Perry Mason couldn't figure that shit out.

[glatt]

Restored some slightly cloudy headlights today.

Before: The headlight has been cleaned and dried and masking tape to protect the surrounding area.





Now I'm sanding it with the coarsest of 4 sanding pads. The one marked #1 on its face. The kit provides a spray bottle of soapy water for wet sanding.





I dried it off and you can see how super scratched that first grit of sandpaper made it.





So then I sand in the other direction with number 2, and it's already looking a bit better.





On to number three and then four, always sanding perpendicular to the last time to get rid of the scratches left by the earlier grit.



And then after you go through all four grits, you switch to the abrasive polishing compound.

[glatt]

It was exactly like toothpaste, except without the mint smell.

After you polish for a while, you buff it out until it shines.

Then you open a sealed pad that has a damp wipe on it, and wipe the lights. Once that dries, you open a second pad that contain a kind of varnish, and spread that as evenly as you can over the lights.


And then you are done. The pictures don't do it justice. They look remarkable better. These 13 year old headlights.

[chrisinhouston]

Well this is from the weekend. I went to the annual Land Rover event here in Texas known as SCARR, South Central Area Rover Ralley and was one of about 200 participants with LRs of all kinds. Had a great 4 days of camping out and driving all kinds of trails. The dirt up their is really red, kind of like a Martian landscape in places with all the red dirt and rocks. My car held up really well despite smashing one of my alpine windows at the back when I got too close to a tree and the roof rack support got knocked loose and broke the glass. Had a great thunderstorm rip through camp on Friday night, it was all I could do to keep my dining fly from going airborne.

Think I will get out the pressure washer today and knock of most of the dirt and dried mud I brought back with me.

[glatt]

Wow. Looks like you had a blast!

[zippyt]

thats the way a 4x4 Should look !!!!

[zippyt]

So what do you do with a WaldoMarto frame pool that the wind killed and you had to take a box cutter to clear out all the nasty plastic ???

You make a Garden table for your wife !!!
first you scrounge up the nuts and bolts ,
then piece it to gather ( a few speed screws to hold a few pieces to gather ) ,
then you start laying out the slats ,
nope that wont work ,
nope not enough of those pieces to make it work ,
Hey what about ,,,,,, yeah that works , cool ,
then you spend the afternoon remembering Why you DON'T weld for a Living,
Its not finished yet but ill post some pics of my nasty welding so Bruce and buster can Laugh at me

[glatt]

Sweet!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by zippyt

Its not finished yet but ill post some pics of my nasty welding so Bruce and buster can Laugh at me

Not me, every time I have a project that requires welding, just about the time I get my chops back, it's done.

[busterb]

Sorry zippy, but I can't see anymore. That looks good to go to me.

[Griff]

I gotta learn to weld.

[glatt]

On Saturday morning I did some car work.

The brakes would pulsate more than I liked when stopping hard. Probably warped discs. The discs were also rusty and would rub a little bit just driving around. I had replaced the pads several months ago, and they still had plenty of life left, but I had done a half-assed job of it by not resurfacing the discs.

So rather than trying to find a shop to resurface the old discs, I spent $22 each for two new ones from Amazon. Much easier to click a few times and have them delivered than drive around looking for a shop.

The old discs:


And the new ones:

A lot of rust visible still on other stuff, but everything works well and is solid. I went through almost two cans of brake cleaner, and also lubed the sliding pins and pad retaining clips. These brakes are amazing now. No pulsating and you can stop on a dime. It's fun to slam on the brakes and see how fast the car stops now.

[glatt]

I also worked on a broken door handle. The old plastic cracked when a passenger opened the door with a little too much gusto.

I ordered a new door handle on Amazon for only $12. Amazon has everything.

Anyway, the old one come off by removing a screw and sliding the housing forward half an inch.

Then you remove a thick wire from a clip.



Install in reverse.

A pretty easy job if you don't leave your screw driver in direct sunlight for two hours in its little greenhouse case where it will heat up like white hot steel and burn your hand when you try to put a white hot bit into it.