Biohazards

I want to write longer blog posts. I don't know why. Suffice to say, this would not be one of them, because I know not where to begin.

A couple of weeks back, I ran out of shampoo. The girly had a bottle of shampoo she wasn't using, so I used it instead. It smells like flowers.

I found during my shower last night that the thermostat on the water heater was tired of supplying heat. Since it was nearly 90 degrees, I had no problem with a cold shower in principle, though I did feel slightly annoyed that it seemed hard to wash the shampoo out of my hair. After my shower, I went down stairs and played with the water heater until it lit up.

Everyone at work complimented me on my hair.

Thanks guys!

The girly just inspected the bottle of shampoo she gave me. It turns out it's not shampoo, it's conditioner.

The implications are far reaching.

What else that is not shampoo can use to clean my hair and make it smell nice? Do I need a second substance at all? I have used dish soap and ivory bar soap on many past occasions. I think a detergent to get the oils out is important.

Now my head itches because it thinks it hasn't been washed in forever, but it feels and smells all nice and clean.

The implications: so far reaching.

Herndon Drone Surveillance Squad

While other explanations are certainly more factual, it appears that the Town of Herndon has decided to use drones to enforce the one-chicken law. Rumors have swirled that Herndon locals have been stuffing their coops with chickens, geese, and goats in an act of unparalleled civil disobedience, mistakenly believing that whatever they grow and eat in their backyards is none of the towns business. However, the town has a firm policy about local protein consumption that is part of the master plan, and it must be enforced through all means necessary. The master plan clearly states that town residents will eat free-range beef from cows raised on at least 1 acre of open pasture per animal, a requirement that the majority of residence are not able to meet on their suburban plots. While using chickens might appear to be an adequate, if not healthier substitute, adherence to the town master plan is compulsory. The people must eat beef.

In order to circumvent complicated and protracted house to house searches to seize and remove hens from insurgent yuppy backyard cultivators, the town may now be using their new found powers (as defined by the PATRIOT-Act/P0w4z! amendment) to employ air strikes to enforce the one-chicken policy. In principle, this keeps the courts unplugged with pesky locals demanding change, and keeps town staff from having to do valuable footwork. Certainly Herndon will become the suburban utopia we all dream of thanks to this wonderful development.

 I assume, since I saw no apparent projectiles traveling from the drone to local chicken coops, that excess chickens are either not-present or mus-identified as geese or children or something.

A close up of the Herndon Chicken Drone. You can see the highly sensitive fowl detector perched on the top of the unit scanning for excess hens, chicks, and roosters. It also appears to carry a broiler beam (the dot on the underside) so that town officials can flambe excess stock at range.

Exhaust Redux: Cutlass Ciera Central Exhaust Pipe Replacement

I follow my blog readership statistics fairly carefully, so I know quite a bit about you. One would think that readers would be into photography, and maybe other dorky science stuff, but no, people come here looking for information about how to fix their old cars. Readers really like big color pictures. You want to know what he classic picture is on this blog? Nothing Roller Derby related! Instead, it's the picture that shows the exact location of the flame trap on a b230f engine.

I wouldn't call myself the living total codex of car repair, but I do have some stories to tell.

Here's another:

A few week ago, I was riding in the ChevOldsmoBuiac with the girl, and noted that I couldn't hear Wait Wait Don't Tell Me for the deafening roar the car was emitting. Upon our next stop, and poked around and discovered a lovely large hole in the central exhaust pipe that runs from the catalytic convert.

This discovery was a source of massive dismay. Like the muffler I replaced last fall, the pipe pretty new, circa 2007 vintage. I just replaced it! It's not rusty to speak of! Except, of course, where the holes rusted through. I am beginning to think the Cutlass Ciera is central a giant exhaust system conspiracy. I'm pretty sure I have had some exhaust problem every year for the past 4 years.

Exasperation and an order to Rockauto.

Whilst waiting for the delivery, I employed a random piece of flashing I found blowing in the yard and some pipe clamps to muffle the rumble. With few exceptions, any piece of sheet metal (pop can, soup can, house parts), tin snips, and a few clamps can solve quite a few exhaust problems, at least until safety and emissions inspection time rolls around.

When the time for replacement came, i decided to try a new approach to exhaust repair, and used the sawzall to cut the old pipe into small pieces instead of trying to snake it out in a single, pokey, rusty piece. I didn't have the sawzall before, so this was a new experience, and it saved me a lot of grief.

I also discovered more holes by the hanger

And further more at another elbow...

...along with the original holes I found. Really, it was becoming more of an exhaust channel than a pipe.

When I cut the pipe from the car, I found that most of it's metal was still there. It was only rusting in certain spots, near welds and bends, and near the seam. The zinc coating must have been applied to the sheet metal before it was formed.

In contrast, the exhaust hangars I constructed from springs and rubber strap continue to function very well.

The stainless steel bolts I put on the exhaust flange were almost new looking. The entire system really should be made from stainless steel.

Random rubber strap outlasted the pipe. Maybe it will outlive the next one too. I cannot even remember what the hanger it replaced looked like.

To get the stub out of the 10 month old muffler, I had to slot the middle with the sawzall, then hammer a big flatblad screwdriver into the gap to pop out the old pipe.

Not content to stop playing with powertools, I flattened out the crimp in the muffler flange with a c-clamp, and then tried to return the flange to as close to round as possible. Of course, it still, barely, would not couple with the new pipe, so I slotted it with the saw, then hammered a section of old pipe in and wiggled it around to trumpet it.
Here, you can see the expanded slot and the mark where the crimp used to be.

All the sawzall cutting ended up saving a bunch of time... It still took several hours from start to finish, but the project didn't take all day. I'm not sure how long it would have taken to get the pipe out from under the car with the muffler rusted on, or even then, how long it would have taken to separate the stub from the muffler, or open the muffler to accept the new pipe. Previously, I may have thrown in the towel and bought a new muffler or scrolled out the stub with the dremel. Having tools is great.

In that vein, I'm beginning to have fantasies about getting a wire-feed welder. While it might be better to discuss these fantasies with my therapist, the welder would let me patch exhaust pipes with generic parts (less time lost to shipping) and finally get the exhaust hanger situation straight, and fix a few other sheet metal related projects that I've been ignoring or flat out scared to start.

Computer Perch

Inspired by ongoing issues with dog hair wrangling and a general desire to make things look neater by not piling them on the floor, I added a computer perch to my desk.

I learned a few more things about structural integrity and fabrication. First, designed that attempt to hide structural fasteners are hard to fabricate, because (secondly) hidden structural supports can be quite weak. I used to L-brackets under the perch to attach it to the table, but it was unacceptably flexible... I ended up putting additional wood screws straight through the table legs into the perch to get a stiff attachment. Without some kind of rib or webbing, it's very hard to get a stiff, hidden joint across two narrow contact surfaces, like a 1.5" table leg and a 0.75" plywood board.

I was not particularly interested in spending money on the project, so I used what I had around, raiding the spare screw jar and cutting some scrap plywood leftover in the barn. We I to do it again, I would probably use several very long screws in a future design.

My big bar clamps continue to make construction tasks easier. A brilliant invention.

I am generally pleased with the outcome. The goal of minimizing the cords and computers on the floor is within reach. Also, although it looks a little precarious, it's almost impossible for the laptop to fall out of the partition: the gap between the partition and the legs is too narrow. The mouse cord now has some slack in it.