Bowlcut’s little piece of the world

Well its official now.  The NX is gone, she drove away packed to the top, with the new owner just about 10 minuets ago.  Im now back down to just one car.  Feels odd.  I liked the security of having multiple cars around just in case.  I dont know why, cause Ive only used it in an emergency once.   It was nice having that safety blanket thats for sure.  But, it was just another thing sitting, taking up space, taking money, requiring time…so it went.  Think I may go see what rental car coverage will cost on my insurance and just use that.  I have full coverage on the Altima still, may keep it that way and see what that extra bit will cost.  This is a start of life zero I hope.  First decluttering.  I let every piece of SR20 related junk go with the car…I felt no reason to keep it.  I dont plan on owning another one so why keep it?

Now…what to do with more of this junk…now can i find a way to make 500 quick dollars to pay off one of my nagging loans.  And i do mean nagging

Well I did basicly nothing this weekend.  Which is somewhat odd, I barely even did any work which is the mostly odd thing.  But it was kinda odd and felt just as odd.  One thing I did today was replace the emissions part on the Altima.  I drove it for a while today, usualy when I reset the ecu it pop’s the check engine light within the drive home which is about 12 miles.  I drove atleast that much of stop and start, then cruising speeds.  So far it hasnt come back on so I think that got that.

The thing right now is, I think Im super sensative to the car.  Because Im feeling every little bump, every little lurch, every little hickup.  I cant tell what is normal and what isnt.  I cant totaly tell if the car has been fixed totaly yet or not.  I do need a new valve cover gasket.  Pulling the plug wire today didnt yield the pool of oil I was expecting.  So my thought that the oil was fouling the plug still causing the miss isnt happening.  This is now a mystry.  Is it really missing, or is it just normal.  3rd and 4th gear heavy load full throttle, I cant feel anything abnormal.  I would think a miss would really show up in that situation.  Only time I really feel anything is light accleration or steady state cruising.  So is that just normal stuff, bumps in the road, or a real miss.  I am going to do some highway driving here in a day or two and see how crusing on the interstate.  Trying to figure out if my butt is just super sensative, or Im just a tard…thats something hard.

I have to get this fully sorted out in 2 weeks.  Cause on the 7th or before I plan on going to Atlanta.  So I need to make sure everything is good.  If not, Ill be renting a car going one way in it each day and just rely on my friends when Im there to haul me around, which should work.  I just dont want to do that, and dont want to have an unreliable car.  So thinking I may have to cruise out somewhere to a friends place one way or the other on the interstate this week to test the car out.  meh…ok back to doing nothing

Well my pockets are quite lighter today.  Had to renew the tag’s on the NX, that was 80 dollars over the 10 for emissions testing which blows.  Then 200 dollars for the tune up parts and emissions equipment I needed to fix the Altima.  And my back is now very tired, thinking of an early retirement to the bed.

I dont dare say its running well, mostly cause there are still things I have to do.  I need to replace the valve cover gasket now.  When pulling the plug wire off number 2, i got a big sucking sound…to be greeted with quite a lot of oil.  The inner gasket had failed at some point.  So she was full of oil.  Had to remove the valve cover to get the rest of the oil out, and parts of the plug wires.  But an hour later I had completed everything and the car fired up.  She runs way smoother than before, well when it really messed up.  She runs as smooth as she once did.  I still have to crawl under it sometime this weekend to replace the emissions piece.  That should be an easy fix, maybe an hour.  But…its running again.  Drove it home, leaving the NX in the parking garage.  Brett and I will do musical cars tomorrow sometime.  Now…I think Im going to lay down.

Well I was talking with a friend today.  Stating that my main car is like a tank, it just runs well all the time.  I even thought about what I was saying and rebutted it with “most of the time she runs well enough,” hoping that was enough.  Little did I know, I had already cursed myself.

I head out at a reasonable time from work.  Thinking, get in the car, call my friend for a quick chat on the drive home, make my way home, warm up my dinner, and set down to a relaxing evening.  Oh…that was the idea.  What reality was, get about half a block from the office and the car is noticeably rough.   Dipping into throttle makes it really sputter.  Light throttle she goes along but isnt nice.  I think well its done this before just push though.  About half a mile down the road…figure its not going well, turn around and head back.  I get on the road back to the office and clutch in coast all the way back just in case.

I pull into the parking garage, thinking to leave it near the bottom just in case I need a tow so I can roll it out side easily.  So I get down and pull the codes off the ECU.  Have Calum look them up, cylinder 4 miss fire.  Pull the cap of the distributer off, it looks ok.  Rotor looks ok as well.  So go to pull the plug wire, its really tough to get off but with a little force, read in here use the handle of the pliars as a lever, to pop off the wire.  I dont think I damaged it, but when I put the multi meter to it there was no continuity across the wire.  Thats I guess the bad thing here.   So looks like that car is telling me its time for a tune up.

Ive priced it out, about 80-100 dollars for the tune up parts using Nissan parts.  Haven’t priced out O’Reilly’s yet but dont know if I want to.  Then that emissions control valve will be atleast 90 dollars as well.  Great stuff, hope this fixes the car.  I have to get it working by the weekend.  The NX I have to go get tagged tomorrow so I can drive it without worry.  But its eating gas like mad, think a bad o2 sensor.  And it needs me to align it.  Since removing the old suspension, it changed the toe…and its a bit off at the moment.

So lesson learned here….dont ever say your car is running well….its a curse.

Well I did it today.  I have had this little game for a long time.  I remember doing it back in Boy Scouts.  Go out and try to get yourself lost.  Its actualy pretty hard to do sometimes, cause the mind will find ways of not letting you do it.  But I went for a ride today cause I was bored.  Sky looked like it was straight out of the Simpsons, so blue with such white fluffy clouds.  I took off and took back roads up to Clarksville.  Then I wanted to get home by way of Dickson.  I have done this before, so I saw a road I always wanted to know where it went.  Plus I have been on highway 48 too many times anyway.  So off I went…50 miles later I ended up back on 48, about 3-4 miles north of where I was.  So one HUGE ass loop.  I was so lost at one point I found a place with a cross road sign and good cell signal to find a way home.  One good thing about the Treo is Google Maps app on it.  So I was two turns away from 48, but never would have known it.  Problem was the river.  You cant cross it but at like 3 spots from there to Nashville.  So that kept screwing me up.  I couldnt believe I actualy felt lost enough to get directions.  I was amazed.

Yup been on an airplane now…  It was mostly non eventful.  Tho Calum gets jumpy at any slight bit of turbulence.  It was nice being almost 1000 miles away in just a few hours.  That trip would have cost me around 32 hours of my life just driving there.  It was a fun weekend tho.  Good to see a bunch of old friends that Ive not seen in a few months.  Like those guys a lot, just a bunch of cool racer dudes.  Weekend was long as usual.  Anytime you are working on cars it just seems to just go on and on, then you never seem to get enough sleep.  Then put on that the flight, I was beat the last couple days.  Still a little tired and not getting enough sleep.  It will work out soon.

Now its back to work and sitting here waiting for stuff to do.  Got stuff I should be doing but at the same time I dont want to do it…  Ok back to work.  Oh check out the video of us breaking in the motor…  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRzTTTZ31M