by waaytoomuchintothis » Wed Dec 23, 2015 5:14 pm
Strange Christmas here. My wife's car came up with an alternator complaint, which should have been an hour's work, but AAAAUUUUGGGHHH!!! Its a Honda and those tiny little Japanese fingers are so much smaller than mine, it took 2 hours just to get it out. I will fight it back in, now that it has new guts, when it finally stops raining. Meanwhile, my friend, the big blue whale Buick Roadmaster I love so much, blew its transmission a couple of nights ago. At 20 years old, and 200,000+ miles, it is hard to complain. But I am studying, and I may rebuild it (overhaul), myself. Hard to trust someone else to do something so expensive and critically important as a transmission on my baby. It still hovers near 30mpg, will do 110mph for hours with 4 big men and 400 pounds of tools in the trunk, so I'm keeping it no matter what I have to do. My Big Blue Whale and I are sympatico! In the meantime, we have no wheels, so my son coming in is very convenient!
So, with my eldest son and his beautiful girl coming in tonight, and my youngest getting more and more healthy at last, my wife and I have been cleaning house like maniacs. Not as easy as it used to be. We are still trying to get the Christmas cards out. We're getting old fast. In the middle of all this, I finally am making progress selling my HO stuff. It has been starts and stops, and lots of email back and forth, but I think I see light at the end of that tunnel. I still have all that 1/24th stuff to sell, but it can wait until after all the rest of this is done. Frankly, I need the space to rebuild that giant transmission. The only way I get through a job like this is to lay out the parts in order on long tables covered with towels. I haven't worked on one for over 20 years, so I have a lot to learn.
Merry Christmas, guys. Stay happy, and spread some to the ones you love. Like HRW guys and their families!