Well the Mini Cooper lives, sort of that is. It is having an error code with one of the O2 sensors which is on order and scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. Since I have to wait I decided to take on another project that has been underfoot in the garage, rebuilding of a TH350 transmission for a 1969 Chevy C10.
As of tonight I finished tearing the transmission down and cleaning the baked on gasket off of the case. The transmission originally came out of a 1973 Chevy Malibu and has never been rebuilt so the gasket was very difficult to scrape off of the case.. Next step will be to clean the case and prep for the rebuild.
Will take a good pressure washing and quite a bit of degreaser and elbow grease before it is ready for reassembly.
Since May of 2017 I have left my Mini Cooper on jack stands taking up space in my garage. This week I finally worked up the nerve to work on it again as we are once again down a vehicle, our Kia Sedona is on its last legs, engine has a death knock and both back doors have broken in the last few months. So I broke down and started working on the Mini again.
I started by taking off the cylinder head to assess the damage.
Cylinder head removed and head gasket inspected, gasket is shotPistons and cylinders look good, water jacket around cylinders not so much
I spent several days cleaning the oil pump and the water jacket around the cylinders before reassembly with new head gasket and bolts.
Cylinder Head reinstalled
So 3 years of not touching the car I had to remember where all of the nuts and bolts belong which was not too easy. Frustrated with myself for not being more organized when I tore the engine down, but, in the end I got everything back together.
All back together except the passenger wheel, fender and grill
Moment of truth came and the battery had died, charged it overnight and only succeeded in a swollen battery. Replaced the battery and fired it up, was awful, sputtering and backfiring. So I shut it off and started troubleshooting the problem, seems both intake and exhaust VANOS solenoids were a problem. VANOS is an abbreviation of the German word for variable camshaft timing variable nockenwellen steuerung. So I pulled the solenoids and sure enough the were both in need of replacement.
The black rings should be shiny metal, instead they are baked on plastic and oil
Ordered the replacements from Rock Auto, chose the 3 day DHL delivery option, well that was a mistake as the should have arrived on Wednesday, instead I am still waiting on them to arrive and they are sitting in Atlanta in a status of with Delivery Carrier. Not too happy with DHL at the moment, I could have saved money on shipping and went with USPS and I would have the parts on Monday. I still have no guarantees that I will have the parts Monday as I may be waiting for DHL to have enough packages to drive the hundred miles from Atlanta to Columbus. A real WTF experience.
Some days there is nothing but the heartache. Nothing but the pain of loss dragging me down into the depths of despair. Days like today I feel so alone, I want to talk but the words just wont come out of my mouth. I am still grieving in my own way, even if it means all I do is suppress my feelings, pushing them down and bottling them up. It has always been easier to keep it all in rather than deal with the pain, even if it feels like sometimes I am going to break. I think the hardest part, why I suppress how I feel is the mood swings I experience. I could be in the middle of depression and numb the next moment, or happy, who knows. It is also difficult to speak when the words may take hours to string together coherently.
White southerners want to celebrate their “confederate heritage” but expect African Americans to forget about slavery, Jim Crow and the continuing systemic racism. WTF
Words all jumbled up in my mind, wanting out of their prison. They are banging on my skull, screaming incoherently; failing to grasp the futility, not understanding that in the cacophony they produce, I simply cannot think coherent thoughts that would release them out into he world.
There is a knot in my stomach every time I sit down to write lately. It is almost a fear, but I am not sure what I am afraid of, whether it is what I will write will be bad or just that nothing intelligible will come out. It is almost like a type of writers block. Another frustration to work through.
I miss you Mom. This is the first Mother’s Day without you here and I miss you very much. The pain of your passing is still too raw and the new normal of life is still full of sadness.
Some days are filled with nothing but pain. Physical or emotional the pain is real. Together they are a damn burden. Sometimes the burden just feels like more than I can bear and I don’t know how to go on. Days like today I crave cigarettes more than most other days, 14 years without a cigarette and the addiction is still there. I am starting to think it will always be there hanging over my shoulder, just waiting until I am weak enough to give in. That one day when the pain and grief are too much to handle and then it will be all down hill from there. Today it is pretty close, even the medicine is not helping.
I think once things open backup I am going to get some grief counseling since I have not ever come to terms with the loss of either of my parents, I just bottled it all up in side the same as I do with all of my heartache. I am at the point where there is not any more room left in the bottle and I am ready to explode, or melt down, maybe both.
I have an essential tremor, essential in that it is not a familial tremor genetically inherited. Somedays it is imperceptible, almost like a slight vibration, other days it is a noticeable tremor in my hands and arms; then there are the times my whole body shakes, my wife Phoebe used to notice when we had a waterbed I would shake in my sleep. What makes it such a frustration is I want to draw and paint, but I am a perfectionist and so the imperfection of the lines I try and draw is like nails on a chalkboard to me. The simple truth is I need to learn to accept the tremor and own it in my art work, I need to incorporate it into my own style and learn to loosen up. I also need to suck it up and use the tools available to me such as rulers when I need straight lines, or curved rulers when I need curves. Just one of the many things in my life I need to work on.
