This Wasn't On The List

There are a lot of things to get done at Christmas. Most of them are self imposed. Tasks such as helping my wife decorate the house for Christmas, buying gifts for immediate family and serving in Christmas ministry opportunities are all typical examples. To make sure they all get done, putting things in a list works well at our house.

Earlier today I completed the purchase of something that wasn't on any of those lists, prior to the start of this week. The purchase involved a new (rebuilt actually) one of these:


For those that may not recognize it, this is a Honda transmission. Not exactly what most people think of first in terms of giving and receiving at Christmas time, but there it is. In our case, it was exactly what we needed after our van started having major problems shifting out of second gear.

Since we bought the van, all our service has been done at Metro Honda in Union county. They've always seemed a cut above the typical dealer service experience, but until now we've not needed anything other than routine maintenance. This was a lot bigger. Long story short, they earned our trust and gave us great service. We'll definitely continue going there, hopefully for a lot smaller items, in the future.

There's probably a larger set of thoughts here on trust, planning, control and flexibility but those will be an exercise left to the reader. Right now, I'm just happy to have the van back and be able to get back to things on the original list!

A Different Kind of Memorial

This post is being written on Memorial Day and it would not be right to let the occasion pass without an open "Thank You" to all the men and women who have served the United States in conflicts far and wide so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today. We are created in God's image according to His purpose and in this fallen world it is the soldier who gives us our freedoms. So to all those who have served, Thank You.

That observance having been made, our household can be as distracted as any American's and we often see a long weekend as an opportunity to get more done. Excusing the play on words in the title, that usually makes for a different memory - usually one anchored to a full weekend of home repairs. That actually hadn't been the case this Memorial Day, until 9pm last night when we noticed water coming from under the dishwasher. Sigh.

The next two hours were spent pulling the dishwasher out, drying everything off and finding the leak. Turns out it is where the motor shaft enters the impeller. Something that might be able to be fixed with a new seal seat ring or seal head inside the impeller. Problem is that the shaft has rusted slightly and is fused to the impeller assembly. Not an uncommon problem according to the repair forums, but one that will potentially result in damage to the motor to pry apart. At that point its not worth it to me to replace both the pump and impeller assembly on an 11 year old dishwasher.

Definitely in the category of things I didn't plan to do when I got up this morning - go shopping for a dishwasher. Oh well, I have the ability and freedom to be able to do so. For that, I am thankful.

Happy Memorial Day to veterans everywhere!

Successful Operation

This week's operation was a success by any standard. The old part that was causing all the trouble came out without any complications. It was actually an easy operation on a body that is considered old by today's standards. Everything is closed back up and functioning fine.

I'm talking about our main home computer of course, a commodity PC purchased for a rock bottom price about 4 years ago. The power supply quit working a week and a half ago and I've been waiting to be able to install the replacement. It was satisfying that something made to compete in a very thin profit margin environment was also designed to be serviceable. In an increasingly disposable, impatient society that seems a rarity.

My "other" operation was a success this week also. Thanks to all who prayed for me and my family during that time. I won't be like new as fast as our computer, but I'm doing very well.

It Just Didn't Seem Right

One of the projects that I'd planned over doing over the long President's Day weekend was repairing my Airdyne. The offset pin holding one of the pedal arms sheared a couple of weeks ago and needed to be replaced. After locating a parts supplier, I thought it would be a relatively straight forward repair after extracting the sheared pin.

However, once the nut was off on the pedal arm, the assembly below - inside the pedal arm - was revealed.








As an added distraction, the part shows an offset between entry and exit to to the arm.





Soooo.....the question is - how do you remove a threaded on one end, smooth on the other, offset "bolt"?

The answer is you realize it isn't a bolt, but rather a wedge pin. Its way too tight to be pulled out by the non threaded end or simply tapped out from the other. The only solution is to put the nut partially back on to increase the surface area while protecting the threads - and give it a good hearty blow with a hammer. Once removed, it looks like this:




Like everything, its easy once you know how to do it. However, getting there took more than a little thinking, experimentation and in the end web searching that found an exploded parts diagram.




Until then though, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Hitting a threaded part with a hammer just didn't seem right.