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I'm finally getting a much sought after LCD TV! I got a bonus from work, and the wife and I decided that an LCD tv was far overdue. We're going with a 32 inch widescreen model. I can't wait for it to arrive.
I've finally gotten around to taking more pictures of my CJ7. Seeing some of the other body work people have had to do on their CJs makes me think that repairing my tub is well within the realm of possibility. Of course, first I need a place to do it, and the time, and money. It's amazing how life just gets in the way of having some fun.
Sorry about the lack of updates recently. A lot has been going on the past couple months. For one, I got married at the end of July. Then My house sold...or so I thought, so I was trying to get everything I had left there cleaned out. Unfortunately, 1 week before the closing was supposed to happen, the buyer backed out because his financing fell through. So, now I'm back to trying to sell it again. Talk about a nightmare. Anyway, I'm back now. I'll try and be more diligent about updating the site from now on.
As much as I love my CJ, it's starting to piss me off. A new oil leak a few weeks ago is making me consider scrapping the current engine and finding a new one. Or at least going through a complete rebuild of it. Unfortunately, I don't have much space to do that in. Combined with trying to sell my house, and getting married this week, I haven't had any time to work on it either. Hopefully that will change in a couple weeks though. Hopefully!!
Well, I managed to get all 4 tires changed on the CJ last thursday. In addition, Aaron brought over his Honda, and we managed to fix his headlight. Some little plastic piece broke that held the bulb into the lens assembly. When he talked to a repair place about it, they said he needed a new assembly for 200 dollars. I convinced him that we could rig it, so he brought it over to my brother's shop, and we went to work. It turns out that getting the assembly out of a honda is a royal pain in the rear. You have to take off the entire front bumper. Anyway, he got it out, and we managed to get it to work identical to the original with a slightly modified washer. It just took a little grinding on bench grinder. Anyway, back to the jeep. Like I said, I got all 4 tires changed, but didn't get the brake lines flushed. At the end of last week, I priced out what it would cost to do a complete overhaul of the brake system. This will include new rotors, drums, pads, brake hoses, brake lines, plus a conversion to power brakes. All in all, looks like about 600 dollars. Of course, that could be cheaper if I don't go with the pre-formed stainless steel brake lines. That would save me about 120 dollars. But, I think the simplicity of them is well worth it.
Well, the day has finally arrived when Project CJ is getting some new tires. They're nothing special, just some 31x10.50x15's that I bought off of a friend. The tires on it now are almost completely bald on the insides in front. Time for a steering alignment?? I think so. That will be happening soon too. Also, I'm going to try and get the brakes flushed tonight. I know they need it. I'll let you know how it all goes tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Well, it's official, the CJ is just going to have to sit for memorial day weekend. I haven't had time to swap the tires, or take a look at the brakes. Maybe sometime in the next month I'll have a chance to do it. Here's to hoping.
On a side note, Aaron and me are working on new couches for around the fire at camp. Well, not really couches. But, first some background. Shortly after we got the camp, we inherited a new couch for it. So, we were wondering what to do with the old couch. Eventually, it made it's way out to sit in front of the fire. That's where it stayed for 2 years. It got covered with tarps so it never got rained on, and it was really quite comfortable. But, 2 years did take it's toll on it, and it had to be retired to the local transfer station. So, last night, Aaron and I took plans for an adirondack loveseat and made one of those. We figure that eventually we'll need another one and a chair to take up the space around the fire. Now we just have to finish assembling it at camp. That's one of the many memorial day weekend projects.
Well, it's been a while since I've written an entry here. So, here are the updates. First, I haven't had time to get the CJ out of storage and take it for another ride anytime recently. Which kind of sucks. It really needs to get out and stretch it's legs. And the weather is starting to get nicer, so I would like to get it out and go for a ride. On the plus side, this weekend is memorial day weekend, and I may take it up to camp. I've been checking out some of the USGS maps of the southern adirondacks, and there are really quite a few "Jeep Trails" marked on them. So, there's a chance I may go exploring which could be fun. First thing I have to do is put the new tires on it though. So, it may not happen afterall. Once I sell my house, things will be easier. I'll have more time to get things done. I can't wait until I don't have to worry about that anymore. With any luck, it'll be sold by the beginning of July. Here's hoping...
Since last weekend was nice, I decided to go out and start up the CJ and take it for a little ride. Well, starting it turned out to be a little bit of an ordeal. It did fire right up at first, but then shortly thereafter, died. A couple tries later, and the battery was dead.
This meant it was time for jumper cables. After a couple of start attempts, it finally stayed running. This was followed up by a trip to the gas station to fill the tank, and a couple mile drive. Then it got interesting. It backfired, and died on me once. It sounded like it flooded itself. A couple taps on the carb, and it fired up again and was running fine. Drove it around for about another 40 miles before putting it away again. I'm hoping that it just had to do with not putting any fuel stabilizer in it over the winter. I guess only time will tell. The next nice weekend, I'll get it out and take it for another ride.
So, after a couple days of people looking at my webpage from the joomla forums link, I finally got some good feedback. First, I needed to add my own favicon instead of using the default Joomla one. Now, I would have noticed this if my laptop actually downloaded and used the favicons. After installing firefox, I see what the problem was. That was an easy fix. Second was some advice on not having both a top and side menu. The more I thought about this, the better it sounded. first of all, I didn't really care for the menu on the left. The text seemed a bit small, but making it larger didn't really seem to look right. By putting all the links on the top menu, I think it does draw your attention to it more. So, Thanks for that bit of advice. I've also gone and updated the forums to a new version to get some added functionality. That way if they ever get used, they'll be in better shape to start with.
Oh, yah. One thing I forgot. I removed the date from the top bar and replaced it with the search box.
Looking around through the Joomla.org forums yesterday, I discovered an area to get feedback on Joomla related sites. So, I figured I'd put the site up there with the hopes of getting some solid feedback to build the site upon. I'm sure there are lots of improvements that can be made, I just need the push in the right direction. I know what I think looks/works well, may not be what others think. Anyway, 24 hours later, and the only feedback I've gotten is "Looks Good". It's nice to hear, but there has to be something that needs changing, or improved upon. Anyway, I'm still waiting for it. In the mean time, I'm just getting lots of views.
A couple weeks have passed since my last entry, and I keep hoping for warm weather to get here so I can start playing with the jeep again. Unfortunately, it seems like it's never going to arrive. This last weekend we got snow/slush and rain. And this week is onlly going to make it up to the mid 30's. Talk about a poor start to the year. I hope things get moving soon. On the plus side, my house is on the market now, and will hopefully be sold sometime soon. This will at least give me the extra cash I need to fix some things up on Project CJ. In the mean time, I'm just going to keep thinking warm weather.
Well, no progress on project CJ this weekend. Instead, I used my free ticket to whiteface and had a great time. Normally spring skiing at whiteface is terrible. But, saturday was excellent. Granted the snow was wet and heavy, but it was at least soft, and there was plenty of it. Last year, we were dodging rocks left and right, but this year, it was (for the most part) white on the whole mountain. Talk about a last hoorah. My ski stuff is now put away for the winter. I now have my weekends back... sort of.
The bumper design has been started. It's posted under Project CJ. Anyway, after round 1 of design, I got some good feedback from the folks at rec.autos.makers.-jeep+willys group. I'll sumarize them here. First, reduce the thickness of the metal, too thick would make it not really a bumper, but more of a battering ram, and likewise, might tweak the frame in an accident. Not good. So thinner it is. Plus, that will make it lighter. Second, shackle mounts should go through the bumper to both front and back for added support. I forgot to add places to hook safety chains as well. These were the big 3. Other comments included adding crush sleeves to the connection points on the frame, and making sure there was enough room for a pin on the hitch. All good comments, all incorporated into design 2, which should be posted soon.
Well, I started up the CJ7 this weekend, and it started up on the third crank. Not bad for sitting idle for a good 5 months. It got a good 15 minutes of time to idle and get warmed up so the battery could recharge. Now I just need to fix the small coolant leak at the intake manifold. I already have the gasket, just need the time to work on it. Hopefully, that will happen fairly soon, (if I ever finish the house).
The six week ski lesson program has officially ened at Willard. So, my weekends are free again. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy skiing and teaching, but by the end of the winter, I'm ready for a change of pace. Of course, the change of pace now is working on the "extra" house that we have so that it can be sold. I'm hoping to have that done by the end of March. If all goes to plan, that will leave me with my weekends free to start work on the CJ7 again, and the disposable income to put into it. All I have to say is that it will be nice to have free time AND money to work on it with.
Well, I think I've decided to definitely make some air tank bumpers for the CJ. Now I need to come up with some plans to do it. Time to break out the tape measure and start going to work. Of course, that means visiting the Jeep in storage. Time to see how many mice made it a home for the winter.
Now that the days are starting to get noticably longer again, I'm starting to think about what my next project for the CJ7 is. My inclination is to build myself a set of custom bumpers that can double as air storage tanks. My only concern is what they are going to look like. As it is, I know someone who is a welder by trade that is willing to help me out with welding them up, so that's not a concern. I'm sure I can handle all the drilling and tapping required. I just want to find some pictures of what a custom set of bumpers would look like. The last thing I want is to have a crappy looking set of bumpers hanging off the Jeep. So, if you have built these, or know someone who has, send me a pic or two.
And the Valentine's Day snowstorm of 2007 is done with. All told, we got about 20 inches of snow in Albany. Not bad considering up to this point we've only had about 3 inches. I just can't wait to get out this weekend to ski on it. There should be some nice bumps on the mountain to play in.
So, it's Valentine's day, and there is a huge snow storm hitting us right now. Of course, the moron that I am, I came into work. Actually, I there is a big meeting this afternoon that I can't miss, so I figured it would be best to get into work while the roads were still somewhat drivable. Hopefully the roads won't be so bad when I have to go home. On a side note, I'm starting to research event add-ins for the website. I'm looking for something that will allow users to create their own events and invite only the people that they want to. Unfortunately, as I'm finding out, most of the canned options don't have this functionality. They make all the events public. I might just have to find one that's close, and then modify it to suit my needs. I think this will end up being a project for march.
I'm getting the feeling that this is going to be a slow week for the webpage. As much as I'd love to sit down and work on it for a few hours every day, work is a bit crazy right now, so that's not an option. Also, I'm trying to get a house ready to sell, so that's sucking up most of my evenings. Maybe once the middle of march gets here I can start working on it a bit more. Until then, I think the site is going to have minimal work done on it.
After a little more playing, I've added some of the functionality back to the site that I had before. Users can now send messages between one another, leave a post in other user's guest book and upload images to their own gallery. Oh, and the forums are back, but I haven't had the time to populate some groups yet. I hope to keep increasing the functionality of the site over the next few months. Here's to hoping!
Ok, so the site has been going through some serious updates lately. I think I've finally got a layout that I'm somewhat happy with. I think I screwed up the previous backend stuff the point of no return, so I wiped the whole site and started fresh. Hopefully this time I'll be smart and test stuff offline before putting anything online. So, at this point, users can set up a bit of a profile, and write blog entries. As I get more free time, I'll work on addition other features.
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