Mission Acomplished

There are few things a person would find going to the dentist more appealing than some other activity, but I have a few. Of course going to the dentist rather than to a funeral of a good friend would make the list, but I have another. Mechanizing on an MPV van.
 A few months ago we bought a used 2000 Mazda MPV van because we needed one. We sold our faithful Nissan Maxima, and joined the mini van life. With two kids and service day requiring a constant changing of car seats, we thought it would be the right thing to do. And for the most part I am a happy minivan consumer. Recently there has been a reoccurring problem with the van that was getting worse by the mile. It was the dreaded PO300 random miss fire! As it turns out, there can be a many different reason for an engine to randomly misfire. And for the most part it is impossible to diagnose beyond the fact that it has a random misfire problem. So I gathered my scattered wrenches and put them in a neat pile to begin the task of fixing this dreaded problem. It had gotten to the point that I was certain that the van would not make it home some day. It would most likely be on a rainy day, with frogs, or a complete an unexplainable eerie darkness to boot. I went to my favorite place to buy parts, O'reilly's, and bought some new spark plugs and ignition wires, or at least they were supposed to be. I came home and went to work on it so I could just get it done and over with. After being under the hood for less than 90 seconds, I knew I was not going to like working on this van. It turns out in order to change the spark plugs and ignition wires on the thing, one must remove the intake manifold so that you can access the plugs to do the job!

This requires the unplugging and disconnecting several  electronic sensors and vacuum hoses, and the removal of a few odds and end and various unknown, but surely useful  mechanical devices. This is what happens when you shoehorn a V6 motor in to an engine bay designed for a four cylinder. I hate it when that happens.
 I  started taking the manifold off, after I found out that many shops charge $400.00 to change the plugs. It took me longer to locate a 7 mm socket than to do most of the work. After a day or so, I did get it tore down and started removing the plugs. Before you do that, you must remove the ignition wires. They, of course, were stuck and required more than the usual force to remove them. They finally came off with some persuasion from a long handle screwdriver, and a small stick of dynamite. I noticed that the plugs did not look bad enough to be replaced, but I was going to anyway after going this far. I then began to wonder if the coil pack was bad. Maybe it was, maybe it was not. I was not going to chance it as it would again require taking off the intake to replace.
 I called up O'reilly's and they had a cheapy one for $65.00 and a Borg Warner for a little over $90.00. I went with the Borg. I did not want to have to do this again in just 20,000 miles.
After putting the coil pack on, I noticed that they had sold me ignition wore boots, and not the complete wire set. So the next day I called and sourced a set from O'reilly's again. I went to town to exchange my boots for a complete set of wires. Just about the time he set them on the counter I realised I left my wallet at home on the work bench. I take it out while I am mechanicing as it seems to irritate me further. Now it was really irritating me that it was home! But after my credit for the parts I brought back I only lacked a little over $3.00 having enough. So the guy behind the counter gave me a discount that made it even and I got my wires.
 This evening I got it all put back together. It ran like it should, smooth and no stumble. I drove it to town and filled up with gas and went through the car wash to clean it up for service tomorrow.
 One thing that helped out allot was when I took the wires off of the engine, I took a video of where they all went with my cell phone. I replayed it when it came time to rewire the engine, and it saved me time and trouble.
While I was doing all of this mechanic stuff, I was also gathering and boiling sap for maple syrup. Which I need to go check on now.
Adios for now!

Sap Sippin' Feb 13

Well the sap has really started to run today. YA! I've got our sap cooker fired up. I have gathered about 16 gallons of sap since I got home this evening at around 6:00. That was about 2 hours a go. I've got to keep the fire hot in the old cooker, if I aim to stay ahead of the trees. It seems to me this years sap is much sweeter than last years. So I am hoping for a good year. I hope to make about 2 gallons of sap this season. We usually find a wa y to use it up, and we gift a few jars to a friend or 2. Nyle LOVES the stuff on his pancakes. He is pretty much spolied on it now. I admit, I like it better than any store bought stuff you can buy. Even the "100% Maple Syrup" that we bought did not taste as good as this stuff.  It is nice to have some warmer weather. It was up in to the mid 50's today. We still have snow and ice that has not melted still on the ground. The thermometer says it is 50 degrees out there right now.
Nyle is spending the night at his grand-parents house. I think he will be fine. He has sheepy with him.
I got the goat and dog fed and watered. I am sure they are happy the weather has warmed up too. I am looking  to have for our first goat kids at the end of April. I hope we do not have problems with the neighbors dogs.
Anyway, I just wanted to record our first "real" day of sap flow. Feb 13 2011.

Fishing for fun

The other day I was researching things to do with a preschooler, like Nyle, and I found some pretty neat stuff. One was a fishing game that you could build together and then play together. Basically you take a couple sticks and tie strings to them 3-5 feet long. Then attach some magnets to the end of the string and tie the other end to the "poles". The you can cut out some paper fish together draw some fins and a mouth and eyes, and ears if you  make them like Nyles' fish, and put 4-7 staples in their "mouths" so that they can "bite" the hook. It takes about 15 min to make one of these and its loads of fun for every one. I put my fish in a big cardboard box so that it is somewhat of a challenge to hook one.
It's better than watching TV all day. And it is interactive fun.
Give it a try! I am thinking about making more poles and fish for a kids party this year. This could be one of the events.
Have fun!

It's A "NEW" TRUCK!!!

We bought a new truck today. I think it is the nicest vehicle I have ever owned. I hope it lasts untill armagedon, or longer if needed.
 The guy we bought it off of was a J.W.
I guess we are everywhere!

Skating on thin ice

We took Nyle to his ice skating lesson today. He is doing a lot better. This is his second time getting on the ice. I though he did real well. Probably better than I could! It has snowed alot lately, and been the coldest it has been all year. I looked at the temp this morning, and it was 5. Too cold! So we stayed in most of the day. I did feed the goat and the dog. And a little water in their buckets. I am sure it is frozen solid by now. Well I will add more to this post later.

Spider man-Baby

Today I got to baby sit while Jen went and cleaned a house. Owen gets  really cranky when mom goes off to work. Today was one of his crankier days. It was a challenge to even get lunch fixed for the boys without Owen going in to hyper-crying.  I got a picture of him trying to break out of the upstairs "jail". He looks like "spiderbaby" trying to climb the gate at the top of the stairs.

This evening we had Jake and Ashley over for dinner. We had one of my favorite dishes, spaghetti. And we had salad too with all the side stuff like tomatoes and and stuff. We also had thousand year old dressing. We had to dig out and old bottle of Ranch that was a bit old. It expired in 2005! It was only 6 years past that.

So we did not eat that, but the rest was nice. We also had brownies and ice cream for desert. Nyle really liked that part. Here is a photo of him enjoying a little bite.

 All and all, it was a nice evening. It warmed up some today, but the sap did not run. Maybe tomorrow we will get some going and we can start making our syrup for the year. I hope. That's all folks!

Fix it again

This morning I am JB Welding the "dog ear" on the float of a carburetor. Ths carb is off my Gravely 2 wheel tractor. The one I use to plow snow. It is not working at the moment. I tried JB Weld o it yesterday, but this morning it felt a little weak, so I put another batch on it. You can see where I have gummed up a bunch of the JB weld around the base of this "ear". This little piece holds the float rod in the carb. Which is the needle valve to turn the gas on and off in the carb. Without this, my Gravely will not run. And I nee it to run because we have a lot of snow on the ground at the moment.

In the mean time we are keeping a warm fire, knowing that this snow will be gone soon and we can get back to making maple syrup again. That's the best part of February.

You all stay warm!