Mrs. Beard's BMW X5 got an oil & filter change, plus 10 liters of DEF

Woot! Finally finished sewing a few patches on my mainsail. Thread tension was a bit loose and causing a mess of thread and loose stitches. I need practice but am happy now it turned out.

My son replaced the headlights and turn signals on his "new to him and free" 1995 Toyota Corolla station wagon.

This car was bought new or nearly near by my friend Rod who was living in San Francisco. He drove it for 24 years until he died this month. It doesn't look like much but is a solid vehicle. Rod's widow gave the car to my 19 y/o boy who is thrilled, partly to have a reliable car, and partly to have Rod's car. I went through the service records and it looks like Rod had the car serviced regularly, including timing belt, and the indicated 123K miles is correct. This will be a nice car for my boy and/or spare family wheels, since the Vanagon is so temperamental.

Threw a coat of primer on this somewhat dilapidated garden bench that I picked up at someone's curb a month ago.

I scraped as much of the loose stuff off and spray a can of rust converter on it last week.

The end pieces are very solid, the wood also, but those two crisscross back braces are a little sketchy...lol.

For free, I'm just going to give her a couple coats of paint and get as much mileage out of her as possible.

I already have two others that are similar, plus three more that are handmade and much simpler in design.

I'm a big believer in having benches in the garden. Sometimes you just need to sit and take it all in.....

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the old chainsaw. No progress today
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Ugh! Drywall so the wife can paint.

Finally got around to getting a new flag up on my flag pole. Ended up replacing everything except the pole. Excellent investment as I can't remember the last time I felt the sense of patriotism I did tonight after I got her back up.

I had to buy a carriage bolt and coupler nut to accommodate the addition of the light. I opted for an eagle vs. the gold ball that seems to be the default. That's what I had before anyway. :) Sprayed everything down with a corrosion inhibitor.

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That's pretty cool, Baz. Is that a ring light at the top? Does the pole "hinge" at the base to accommodate maintenance at the top? Nice work!

Thanks, Herr Oberst! Yes, it's a solar LED light designed for this purpose. The pole consists of about 4-5 segments...each about 3-4' long...so you can just lift off the entire pole to get to the top. The bottom segment is attached to a base that is buried and secured with concrete. The pole is very lightweight and easy to lift off it's base.

I was trying to load more pics with my post but had a devil of a time getting them loaded. My Internet connection has been very suspect of late.

Here's some pics of the top piece:

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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1554266962.JPG

So cool what they do with LED's and a small solar panel. That looks awesome Baz!

Thanks, Nick - and I agree.

This brand had a high rating on Amazon, which is why I bought it. Not expensive at all either. I still have a halyard to bring her down to half mast when appropriate but nice to keep her flying 24/7 otherwise.

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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1554298325.JPG

I'm going to do this at my Mom's for her flag pole also, now that I have the routine down. ;)

Today I'll be replacing the plugs in my trusty freeway flyer Honda.
Seems it tossed a code for a #3 cyl mis-fire, all do to the VCM which causes the car to run on 3 cylinders when in Eco mode. At least it isn't using oil like some do.

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#3 is on the left, #6 is on the right.

Work continued last week up at the new shop too.

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Mezzanine is almost done.

Just put a coil in 1 the other day. Pretty impressive it so well on 3/4. Swap the coils to make sure.

I just fixed my neighbors kitchen sink. I did construction for 10 years and havnt seen anything this bad. His cabinet is sealed off underneth so he didnt know it was going on but he had a leak and thought it was from the winter freeze. It wasnt. Mice or rats ate the entire drain! The Y pipe and P trap were trashed. They didnt touch the thicker pvc just the thin stuff. And also the dishwasher drain hose was eaten the whole way. Thats not all they ate huge holes in the bottom of the dishwasher plastic. I managed to piece together a new drain with stuff i had. Last year he had a similar problem his house didnt have water pressure because they ate the well hose going to the pressure tank and it was flowing out. I dont know how they ate all that with water squirting out in their mouth! I burried what i could and put metal screen around what was exposed. This was in the crawlspace under his house. He is too weird to bother with mouse traps. I just hope they dont get at the wires and burn down his house.

my roof

for pictures https://talk.roofing.com/t/i-need-a-cat-5-hurricane-proof-roof/21160/16

Toilet flush valve. Yay.

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Building an 18" subwoofer for my stereo

Recently finished painting the cabinets in our master bath also, which took about 10x longer than I expected

so cool

I took this car apart 10 years ago to swap the motor and trans into another Formula Vee I raced for 10+ years. I've been hauling it around through a couple of moves. Finally decided to pull the parts together and re assemble it. Thankfully I found all of the hardware I needed. Took a couple of days to figure out how it went back together and get it complete. Not running yet but a solid roller. Now I need to get it sold!

Before with the rear frame assembly removed including engine and transaxle;

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Assembled. Needs a few additional things and to be fully plumbed and wired;

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Took the last 2 weekends off from the rental houses to try to make some progress on my rollback project.
I should have the floors/rockers and cab mounts all welded up by days end today .
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I pulled this to replace it with a used motor 3 weeks ago. The motor I got from LKQ, was toast, oil chips in the pan, and beautiful blue/'purple on one bearing cap.
It took 3 weeks to find another one . LMU 225 hp motor.
Getting it dressed to go back in this week. what a pia .

2001 TT Quattro.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1554581848.jpg
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Something is not right here

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Nothing wrong with the valve - pipe broke right at the outlet so changed everything out.

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It’s Golden Week in Japan and we’re mostly just staying around the house...always some maintenance or projects that need doing.

Cut a lot of wood and fiddled with my old chainsaw
Kids rode the old go kart around the neighborhood until the brakes needed to be bled.
Thinking about trying to repair my used power washer.

I got my wheel horse deck all put back together. The belt was bad and with the angle drives you have to take it all apart to get the belt on. When i got it apart basicly needed an entire rebuild. the bearings were bad the gears needed to be shimmed tighter and the cast iron plate on the bottom was broke so i had to add braces. I got it all done and mowed the lawn. stalled it out here by the pond and it wouldnt start again because the starter belt was chunked apart. Fixed that in the field and finished up. Parked it in the garage and now there is oil everywhere. Seems like the pan gasket is bad so i guess iv got to pull the engine out. One problem after another. No wonder it was free :rolleyes: Im sure ill be leaking after 50 years too :D
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Over at Mom's house today and in honor of Mothers day, I resolved an issue with one of her pavers that was sticking up from a rogue root from that Lady Palm. A 5-10 minute fix. :p

Then tonight I built a new leg assembly for a picnic table seat, which was a PITA because I'm not a very good carpenter and there were a lot of angle cuts needed! No pics...lol....

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In LA staying with my "LA parents", two wonderful people who practically adopted my wife and I when we were young-uns living in the City of Angels. They are older now and some things in their house need doing. I've been polishing their copper pots, fixing broken lamps, little stuff like that. I also got her a sous vide machine, she's a fantastic cook and always likes learning new recipes and techniques.

I'm installing trim (cutting all the angles) in the downstairs bathroom, and painting it to match. Last Fall, I tore the bathroom down to the bare studs, and widened the room, with all new floor, ceiling, fixtures, plumbing, and electrical, while also closing off a brick encased window, and insulating the entire room.

It now looks really good, and is so much more useable. I just need to build a sliding barn style door with hardware, to match the vanity, and it will be done.

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Cleaning up my parking lot. While no actual work was done here, I finally got rid of this huge piece of shat after 3 years of sitting in my lot .
My buddy Tod, lost 3rd gear , drove it home several hundred miles in 2nd gear, spun a rod bearing then let it sit .
His town flooded and this van went under . 2 years later, the township is complaining about all his junk cars in his yard, so he begs me to keep it at my place .
I tell him 6 month limit. It will affect our friendship if you abuse it. I work really hard to keep my place clean, and junk free.
3 years , and hundreds of phone calls later, he finally let me junk it. I feel like I just peaked everest .
There was so much mold, I would not even open up the doors

Thanks for sharing, Fred. I always look forward to your posts - especially those involving your work.

Isn't it amazing how time flies and you end up with so much stuff sitting around....accumulating?

Last month I finally got rid of two non-working pieces of equipment - an old irrigation trencher and a 32" walk behind mower that was taking up real estate in my side yard - so I think I know how you felt getting the van evacuated today.

This afternoon, I added a section of shade cloth along the front of my house where I have select plant materials in containers. It faces East and after losing my two big Queen Palms in that location to Fusarium Wilt earlier this year, I really needed to get some relief back from the sun. Sorry no pics.

I also trimmed some palms at one of my accounts this morning.

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http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1557970485.JPG

getting rid of junk can be one of the hardest things to do, or it seems like it at the time

I just replaced my old 93 suburban with a 2003 suburban and I'm having a problem calling the 1-800-cars for kids to take the 93 away

I replaced its tranny 12 years ago and last year it started slipping out of OD with only 38k miles. I got another beater but one that is a decade newer and now I'm in the process of debugging it

eventually the 93 has to go and its not worth anything

yesterday I threw out a set of 28 year old Metzler tires for my airhead, they still had tread and were not cracking but I kept asking myself "why am I holding onto these tires?"

still throwing out rubber bumper bits from my 76 911S

Installed new upper and lower control arms, sway bar bushings/links, leveling kit, front rotors, brake pads front and rear on my 14’ F150.

New 20” Expedition wheels and tires scheduled for Monday.

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I too support Rocket Slide having its own thread...

I support Rocket Slide having its own thread with scantily clad models cavorting in and on the rocket goodness.

I want Fred to put that van on it's rear and and make a climbing toy.

One of my friends of a friend tried to do that to his grandparents at the farm. Some POS rusty pickup that had a blown engine and a bad transmission. He promised it would only be short time. It was, but only because the grandfather called a scrapper out to haul away for other scrap he had, and the scrapper gave him 30 bucks for the pickup. It was several years before the owner of the truck called and asked about it. The grandfather said he sold it for 30 bucks, and then bought some beer with that money and pissed it all away.

check youtube for the technique. Basically cut a relief, heat the pvc pipe with a torch, it softens and you can peel it off, leaving the fitting. I've done it to fix a toilet flange on a slab, saved me from cutting concrete.

Saw saw. Best root killer I’ve ever owned.


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Might have to pull that off while the wife is at work! I'll be sure and start a thread. Got a little sidetracked the past few weeks Fix-It'ing both of my aging parents. They're back home now and hopefully on the mend.