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And the world trembles....
Mar. 22nd, 2005 07:33 amI became a paying member of LJ today....
Mar. 22nd, 2005
Tyres and Other Annoyances
Mar. 22nd, 2005 04:59 pmI have a '96 Rodeo, the spare tire is on one of those tailgate swing racks and had a pretty good cover when I bought the truck about 3 years ago. The cover had a 3" cut in it from who knows what, and the stitching had torn slightly probably from heat rot, but was otherwise good. The tire inside was immaculate! It's a factory original tire that has not had a single mile of traffic on it.
Sunday I got my truck washed as my girlfriend is coming into town Friday. Monday I drive to work, a whopping three miles from home. Monday at noon I leave work to go to school, I have a public speaking class from 1-2:15. I get out to my truck and the spare cover is in tatters. The only thing that I can figure is (a) someone vandalized it and pulled it apart, or (b) washing it weakened the threads, then exposed to sunlight for several hours and wind pulling on it from driving in just plain did it in.
It looked horrible so I wanted to remove said cover. There's only one problem -- you have to remove the tire in order to take off the cover. The problem is that I bought locking lug nuts and a service shop lost the frickin' key. Isuzu wants something like $40 for a new one.
Christmas of 2003 saw a costume party out at Rich & Karyn's. The theme (normally renaissance) was beach bums and pirates. So I got my sword, an eye patch, bandana, and swim trunks and came as a pirate on vacation. I was the only pirate, everyone else came as a beach bum. So I got not only best pirate costume prize, I also got best costume as I was the only one who put even a modicum of effort into it.
Well, that night, after the party broke up and Rich finally kicked us last dead dogs out, I walked out to my truck and found that three of my four road tires were flat. My truck had been vandalized and three tires ruined.
Fortunately a friend gave me a ride home, and my parents were able to go out the next day (Sunday) and wait for a tow truck to take it to Firestone to get it re-shod. I was tied up video taping a college choir or something.
The next day my dad is taking me out to Mesa to pick it up. I call Firestone to make sure everythings OK. Well, theres one problem: they cant get the tires off because the lock for the locking lug nuts is not in the truck. My truck had been serviced a few days earlier at work (I was working for a taxi company and they had their own service shop) and the bozos had put the locking lug nuts back on and had then lost the key.
Somehow, I know not how, Firestone was able to get the locking nuts off and replaced my tires. My Rodeo ended up sans one lug nut per tire, Im not terribly concerned as its a six lug nut pattern, so I lost about 17% holding strength, I can handle that since its strictly street driving.
The missing key was not an issue until yesterday. So after dinner I went to my dads house for some help getting the lock off the spare. For spare tires, its not a lug nut, its an actual bolt with a lock-pattern head that screws into a plate on the swing arm of the carrier.
We tried the easy stuff, using vise-grip pliers. Didnt work. Tried grinding up the bolt a bit to get a better purchase with the pliers. Still no dice. So dad decides to weld a nut to the top of the bolt. Good idea, but we had a terrible time getting a ground. Eventually we get a good ground, dad is welding away, gets the nut attached. Then he takes his hammer to smack off the crud from the welding process, and the nut breaks off!
Fortunately the heat from the welding disfigured the bolt enough that at that point the vice-grips could get a secure purchase and the bolt was successfully removed.
WEE!
So now I have to see if my favorite heavy-duty sewing people can fix my tire cover.
Well, time for me to head home and to see how the email submission system works. I have a feeling its going to copy the footer that Yahoo includes on every email message. Sometimes you just have to live a little and experiment!
Sunday I got my truck washed as my girlfriend is coming into town Friday. Monday I drive to work, a whopping three miles from home. Monday at noon I leave work to go to school, I have a public speaking class from 1-2:15. I get out to my truck and the spare cover is in tatters. The only thing that I can figure is (a) someone vandalized it and pulled it apart, or (b) washing it weakened the threads, then exposed to sunlight for several hours and wind pulling on it from driving in just plain did it in.
It looked horrible so I wanted to remove said cover. There's only one problem -- you have to remove the tire in order to take off the cover. The problem is that I bought locking lug nuts and a service shop lost the frickin' key. Isuzu wants something like $40 for a new one.
Christmas of 2003 saw a costume party out at Rich & Karyn's. The theme (normally renaissance) was beach bums and pirates. So I got my sword, an eye patch, bandana, and swim trunks and came as a pirate on vacation. I was the only pirate, everyone else came as a beach bum. So I got not only best pirate costume prize, I also got best costume as I was the only one who put even a modicum of effort into it.
Well, that night, after the party broke up and Rich finally kicked us last dead dogs out, I walked out to my truck and found that three of my four road tires were flat. My truck had been vandalized and three tires ruined.
Fortunately a friend gave me a ride home, and my parents were able to go out the next day (Sunday) and wait for a tow truck to take it to Firestone to get it re-shod. I was tied up video taping a college choir or something.
The next day my dad is taking me out to Mesa to pick it up. I call Firestone to make sure everythings OK. Well, theres one problem: they cant get the tires off because the lock for the locking lug nuts is not in the truck. My truck had been serviced a few days earlier at work (I was working for a taxi company and they had their own service shop) and the bozos had put the locking lug nuts back on and had then lost the key.
Somehow, I know not how, Firestone was able to get the locking nuts off and replaced my tires. My Rodeo ended up sans one lug nut per tire, Im not terribly concerned as its a six lug nut pattern, so I lost about 17% holding strength, I can handle that since its strictly street driving.
The missing key was not an issue until yesterday. So after dinner I went to my dads house for some help getting the lock off the spare. For spare tires, its not a lug nut, its an actual bolt with a lock-pattern head that screws into a plate on the swing arm of the carrier.
We tried the easy stuff, using vise-grip pliers. Didnt work. Tried grinding up the bolt a bit to get a better purchase with the pliers. Still no dice. So dad decides to weld a nut to the top of the bolt. Good idea, but we had a terrible time getting a ground. Eventually we get a good ground, dad is welding away, gets the nut attached. Then he takes his hammer to smack off the crud from the welding process, and the nut breaks off!
Fortunately the heat from the welding disfigured the bolt enough that at that point the vice-grips could get a secure purchase and the bolt was successfully removed.
WEE!
So now I have to see if my favorite heavy-duty sewing people can fix my tire cover.
Well, time for me to head home and to see how the email submission system works. I have a feeling its going to copy the footer that Yahoo includes on every email message. Sometimes you just have to live a little and experiment!
Today is a good day. I got my VPN connection into work functioning late last week, and tonight I got my remote desktop working! HUZZAH! It's going to make it so much easier to make my 40 hours when even more school starts next week. My Saturday course starts this weekend, then the follwing week I pick up a Monday/Wednesday class from 5:30-10pm.
It is going to be more than a bit of a grind. I think Sunday will be spent with the phone unplugged and the cell turned off.
In other news, I was surprised that LJ trimmed the traditional Yahoo Mail advertising footer. It'd be nice if they didn't chop lines at 40 columns, or whatever it is. I'll have to try sending from my Cox webmail client tomorrow.
It is going to be more than a bit of a grind. I think Sunday will be spent with the phone unplugged and the cell turned off.
In other news, I was surprised that LJ trimmed the traditional Yahoo Mail advertising footer. It'd be nice if they didn't chop lines at 40 columns, or whatever it is. I'll have to try sending from my Cox webmail client tomorrow.