Hibiscus

The richest reds in the morning sun.

The Rumble in the Jungle

Another Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra muffler job.

While there is a lot of disparagement of the accumulation of stuff that happens over time and accrued age, there are some advantages, namely, the possibility of having the thing you need in the house to do whatever it is you want to do is much, much greater.

For instance, I have now pealed 3 different mufflers off the ChevOldsmobuiac. I mean this quite literally: to get the muffler off, the muffler inlet is split in a couple of places and rolled back with a pair of vice grips until it can be pulled free. Over time, I have accumulated a large number of screw-posts for my dremel. The upshot of this is that you can load up four posts and thus spend more time cutting, and less time swearing, since it lets one avoid the frustration felt when a brand new cutting wheel explodes when it touches the piece being cut. Totally useful, though not something I would have thought to purchase on dremel day one, when I was intent on cutting air holes in the side of my mac.

The departing muffler has been unpleasant since day 1. There's always been some exhaust rumble from some where or another, and I've never band able to totally abolish it. Then, in july, the rear hangar ripped off the muffler, and I had to buttress the system with coat hanger wire. A somewhat sturdy fix (compared to the torn hangar) but not quite and certainly not likely to pass virginia state inspection.

Halfway through muffler cutting and pealing. You can also see how close the exhaust pipe rides to the rear axle, which hides the parking brake cable. Remember that little disaster?

Once removed, I discovered that the old muffler was about 10% smaller than the new one. Smaller on every axis!

I reinforced the hangar on the new muffler with a bit of JB weld, figuring that if it would hang on the car for longer. When the two mufflers were side by side, the difference in the hangar quality became apparent too. The old muffler hangar was smaller, lacked guides, and only had two welds, while the new one had three.

The new muffler, by virtue of size along, fits all the hangars in the car better, and so the exhaust noise we've been hearing for years is now gone. I am mystified by the apparent difference in quality between the mufflers. As a normal person, I have trouble distinguishing muffler and intrinsic autopart quality when I buy online or in store. Often, there is no selection to even compare with. I wonder how many other parts I've bought over the years have inferior or superior craftsmanship.

Are Volvos Dorky?

I'm so glad you asked.

I know you asked because you typed it into google, and it showed up on one of todays search terms that led to my blog. (For a long time "Dating a Chemist" was a popular term, but now I'm married, so I imagine "Marrying a Chemist" should be the correct search term, for those of you who know who you are.)

The short answer to your question is "maybe".

To people who own Volvos because they are safe, refined, sensible cars, they are not dorky. For late model Volvos, these people tend to be high income families. Volvos aren't dorky if they are owned by these people. They're the sensible European alternative to a market that is otherwise dominated by nazi sleds.

There is another group of people, almost completely isolated in the pacific northwest and new england, who drive old volvos because they are safe, repairable, and have somehow survived 25-35 years wihout rusting (much). These people are almost certainly driving Volvos with model numbers that end in a "-40". These people tend to be credit card hippies who inherited the family station wagon from the first group, or high income wanna-be hippies (like college professors) who bought one to celebrate getting tenure and never thought about it again. Either group has the financial wherewithal to take their car to Sven the Volvo Stooge for the twice annual 1000$ repair job without pause, and even walk away from such experiences feeling righteously smug, having certainly done some good for the world by keeping their car running. Hippies and professors tend to be dorks. QED.

The last group of people who own Volvos have a strange obsession with driving a boxcar. More than that, they probably want to drive a box car like a sports car. They spend a lot of time ordering obscure parts from europe and obsessing about how gases flow through their "flame trap". They might have any of a sequence of Volvos, but that's hardly matters, because there is always some components from some related model that they wish they had in the car they actually own. These poor saps spend more time under their "reliable, easy to fix" rustbuckets than they do with human beings, which is sad, because real car people usually have an really awesome car to show for their effort. Thus, their obsession with a car with industrial aerodynamics, bus-like acceleration, a design cues only a soccer mom could love, makes them hipsters who believe that they have something cool that was never actually cool, and therefore dorks.

So, there you have it. If you make six figures, don't want seem stuck up, likely have two kids (you should check just in case), and are the first owner of a late model Volvo, you're free and clear and not a dork, just reserved and refined.

Otherwise, if you own a Volvo, you're probably a dork.

Mystery

I finally replaced the brake master cylinder in the Volvo. I have a 740 that does not have ABS, but in ordering parts online, I found that some places don't distinguish. That's bad.

Sadly, I can't tell what was wrong with the old one. The fluid in the cylinder was full of fine metal filings (grey brake fluid instead of clear). The seals all looked fine and were not torn. By rights it should have worked. The only clue I was left with is the body of the piston has substantial wear marks. Perhaps 360,000 miles worth of stopping just caused the cylinder bore to widen enough that the seals didn't flare enough to seal against the sides.

Life is full of mysteries.

Regardless, the pedal is firm now, so I can approach traffic lights without a heightened fear of deploying the airbag.

Pour me a blueberry beer

We brewed a simple honey-wheat ale. To shake things up, we decided to make it a blueberry beer, so we added 5 pounds of frozen blueberries to the secondary fermentation and stirred it a few times. The berries added enough sugar that it bubbled for a day in the secondary fermenter. I've never seen that before. I wonder if all the sugar that went in will mean a higher alcohol yeild. (That's not the goal, it's just a question)

This is what 5 pounds of fermented blueberrys looks like:

For the record, fermented blueberries smell far more enticing than they taste. The yeast is remarkably effective at removing every last molecule of sugar from the berries, so they are actually fairly bitter. That also means that whatever makes blueberries smell great is not related to the sugar contained within.

I recommend straining the berries out of the beer before racking and bottling. They tend to break up and clog the hoses, limiting the amount of beer you can move around and generally causing trouble.We still got 51 bottles (normally it's around 54...), but it took a lot longer.

This is what a case of homebrew blueberry honey wheat ale looks like:

 

...And then there were two

Of course, I wouldn't recommend taking a motorcycle safety course, then getting you M endorsement, and leave it at that. It's just not right. I did wait to complete the process. July is no the time to by a motorcycle. It's summer and people want to ride. The time to buy a bike is in the fall, when people are cleaning out the garage/barn/attic, or realizing that the New Years baby is more real and precious than imagined, and decide that it's time for that thing to go.

 We elected to get another mid-displacement scooter, so we could hang out in the not-so-fast lane together. Top of the list: a Bajaj Chetak at Modern Classics DC and a couple of used Genuine Buddy 125s on craigslist. All had been on the market for a while... easy pickings.

Modern Classics is doing pretty well. Maneuvering through the bikes for repair was a bit stressful. Knocking one over would cause a huge, costly domino effect. I wonder if there was some order. I really liked the Chetak, or at least wanted to like it. Retro manual tranny scooters are cool. But, it was also the most expensive bike (1500$ to purchase, then there is insurance, registration, inspection, and transport from downtown to Suburbistan... probably $2000 total), and Bajaj pulled out of the US market years ago, and parts are getting scarce. Sure, it's a Vespa clone on the outside, but the engine is unique to the bike: it was just one rare broken part away from being useless.
 

That left the two Genuine Buddys. The Girly and bought a new (old stock, no miles) 2009 bike in 2011, and it's been fast and reliable. Both bikes had been used by college students, and thus had significant weathering and various maintenance problems. The 2006 Bike was very pretty. It was metallic orange: never dropped, but also wouldn't start, and the tires were worn to dry-rotting nubbins. In contrast, the red 2007 buddy had a bit of rust and fading from Oklahoma sun and rain, but ran well and had tread. If we weren't in a hurry to be on the road, I would have made a lowball offer on the non-starting bike and then (if successful) gotten it fixed, but we wanted to be riding soon.

Now we have our own little mod gang.

Derby Girl

Some assembly required.

 Batteries not included.

Clickty Click

I heard the soft noise flitting through the house. It didn't want to be seen, but it had to, so it made a run for it. The sound of knitting needles. She was working, with paced rhythm, late into the night. She was knitting her doomsday machine: a device capable of greatly amplifying the effects of global warming in small area. I wondered who would be forced to bear the effects of its imminent deployment, and shuttered thusly.

Reverse Ownership

A long form list of items in our abode that are non-functional and dysfunctional:

An ode to all that must be done

•  Volvo: Whilst repairing the naughty master cylinder, I happened upon the following filthy topics dangling about the undercarriage:

1. The brake lines are have cracked such that the core is visible for all to see: unacceptable. REPLACE!
2. Displeased was I to be assailed with the oozing of fluid from the dainty rear shock absorber. Certainly, an inspector anointed by the Fine State of Virginia(antiq.) would too be displeased with such, and bring harm upon our persons. REPLACE!
3. Wherefore I was testing the new master (and I do not take that lightly!) cylinder, but great clouds of white smoke issued forth from the horse-compartment, blocking my starry headlamps. What of that? When I returned to the abode, I cracked her bonnet and burned the torch on her! Even in the lateness of the hour, it was obvious that restraint had been thrown to the wind, and likewise oil had been thrown from the (now defunct) rear camshaft seal onto hot exhaust manifold, to burn a fetid burn. This too, REPLACE!

•  ChevOldsmoBuiac: Not to be outdone, memories from the parking brake cable fiasco hang near, as do many boxes with shiny things inside. 

1. A fubsy metal bone, a thrust mount, for the front to hold the muscles tight, and abolish the PRNDNRP knicky-knock.
2. A mess of shiney clean pipes fuel lines, to be hidden behind. Lest the holy-waters get pissed upon the burning ghosts going  the otherway, and the ensuring fire of divinity consume us.
3. A muffler, as the the current one is mucked up, and the screamed ghosts do so give us pause.

• Dryer: While on the topic of fire, the household fire box has been unreliable firing our fine garments. It could not make up its small mind whether to warm the clothes or not, and then, to add insult to soggy injustice, would periodically vent gassy emissions that putrefied the air in the yard, ruined the sense of the nose, attract the dog, carrying itself as a useless, flatulent, metal box. The gas valve too: REPLACE!