This is what happens when the sliders on the original brakes on a 112,000 mile Camry decide to seize up and wear one pad down to the backing plate.
“It’s making a little noise…”
Archive for the ‘Automotive’ Category
When I update WordPress more often than I update the blog, that’s a bad thing.
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008Yeah, I suppose I should probably update in here more often, though it feels like I don’t have that much to say. I suppose I can throw out an update on the crap I’m working on…
Can I sell it yet?
Saturday, August 9th, 2008Agh. So the Volvo’s tags are up this month and last weekend I ran it through emissions. It’s never given me any trouble passing before, but the results this time:
HC: 0.73 out of 1.60 – Pass
CO: 3.85 out of 15.00 – Pass
NOx: 5.25 out of 2.50 – Failed miserably
Well, that sucks. So today I went and did a once-over tuneup of the car – I Seafoamed it, then changed the plugs. In the course of changing the plugs, one of the plug wires (about 2 years old only) lost the crimp on the end so I had to drop $30 on a new set. And then, as a last-ditch effort, I disconnected the vacuum advance from the ignition – apparently the computer likes to put the timing on the ragged edge of pinging, which isn’t helping NOx.
The results today?
HC: 0.31 out of 1.60 – Pass
CO: 2.82 out of 15.00 – Pass
NOx: 2.57 out of 2.50 – Goddamnit.
I don’t want to use up the one voucher this car has for an emissions bypass since that may seriously hinder my ability to sell the damn thing, so I just dropped a bit under $100 total on some cheapo catalytic converter and O2 sensor on eBay. The converter had been replaced at some point by a previous owner, with a generic one of course, but I have a sneaking suspicion the fact that they used one that expected AIR injection (as evidenced by the giant open port on the side of it) on a vehicle without that may have contributed to the early demise.
So with about $50 in the tuneup itself, $27.50 wasted on the first two tests, and about $80 on additional parts, this cheap car is proving to be not so cheap anymore thanks to the damned sniffer.
Thank god for good brakes and good tires.
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008Thanks to the brakes and tires on the Miata, I was able to stay out of this by about 10 yards:
That would have been unpleasant.
My view on the 92nd Indianapolis 500
Monday, May 26th, 2008I’ll just cut right to the chase and give a list of points:
- People need to learn how to brake for the pits. On several occasions people were laying on the brakes mid turn four to slow down for the pits – the first two times this happened it took out Graham Rahal and Marty Roth, who were both forced high in the ensuing traffic jam.
- People need to learn how to not make stupid crashes. Two unprovoked spins during yellow-flag conditions. One near miss – one of the Conquest cars was flying through turn four too fast during Graham’s caution, nearly slammed into a safety truck, then nearly hit the pit wall by diving too far low to avoid it.
- Tony Kanaan, Sarah Fisher, and Marco Andretti – ultimately just a bad situation. Marco shouldn’t have tried the move on a teammate at that point in the race, but TK had enough room to make it stick. Sarah Fisher was the real loser in that because TK will still have a ride next week / year / probably longer because he is a damn good driver. Sarah is a good driver, but at this point for whatever reason not good enough to obtain serious sponsor money – to see someone who is running well on a shoestring go out like that is heartbreaking. (I didn’t really care about Roth crashing because, well, he sucks.)
- Danica and Briscoe. Danica probably needs to get better at picking her battles – but I think if you put every other driver out there through that situation, at least some of them would also want to give him more than a piece of their mind. Briscoe needs to shut his damn mouth – Danica’s brakes won’t do her any good when you basically T-bone her. I’ll go ahead and join the crowds saying Sheckter should have Briscoe’s ride.
I really do wish the end had been better – it really ended up being anticlimactic, since Dixon had just enough to not let Vitor have a real shot, and Vitor had just enough to not let Marco have a real shot. I also wish the conditions had been more pass-friendly – I’m guessing the fact that this was the wettest May on record kept the track extra green since it was punishing anyone who went high.
All in all, though, the trip has been a great success and I’m sure I’ll be back out here again next year.
Posting from Indianapolis
Saturday, May 24th, 2008Well, after a flight that could have gone horribly wrong, we’re here and enjoying life.
How could it have gone wrong? Well, to start, when we got to Sky Harbor, the line at the Midwest counter was huge. Thankfully, it was only long because they hadn’t opened yet – but as someone who has flown almost exclusively Southwest over the years it is definitely a change to fly out of there with what is considered a minor airline.
Taking off was a bit of work too, since for reasons unknown our plane was delayed in getting into Phoenix, so we were delayed getting out. They were nice enough to give us our connecting boarding passes early (Midwest Air flies everything in/out of Milwaukee) which ended up being a very good thing. We sat in the plane on the tarmac for easily half an hour to an hour before we finally got to take off. The flight itself went well, though thanks to all of the delays we had to literally run from the MD82 we flew in on to the CRJ200 we were flying out on – total time in Milwaukee of maybe 10 minutes including time taxiing in both planes. At least Midwest’s cookies are good!
The short flight from Milwaukee to Indianapolis was actually kind of pleasant – smaller plane, much quieter plane, and delightfully short.
Ate at PF Chang’s (at Circle Centre mall) for dinner, after spending what really was too much time trying to find our hotel. While waiting to get in there we saw a two-seater Indycar driving around downtown – unfortunately, I didn’t have anywhere near enough time to even think of grabbing my camera and getting a shot of it.
Today so far has been split into the Infiniti Pro Series (aka Indy Lights) race, which was originally scheduled for yesterday but was rained out. It was a great race – I’ll post photos and a few short videos later when I have time to go through them all. They pulled four wide down the straights and three wide in the turns!
Lunch was at the Mug-N-Bun, a little drive-in food place that looks like a dive but has some great tenderloin sandwiches and some KILLER home-made root beer. While there, we ended up eating lunch with one of the engineers for the Andretti-Green Racing team, who was gracious enough to invite us over to the shop Tuesday morning before our flight for a tour. That should be pretty sweet, to say the least.
We also had a few stops through some of the many racing teams based in Indianapolis running open houses today – most notably Don Schumacher Racing and Guthrie Racing. Plenty of photos from there too that will be going up later.
Right now – just killing time before the “Night Before The 500″ race at IRP – er, O’Reilly Raceway Park.
Vacation time – and a new toy
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008I love weeks like this – specifically, the week before Memorial Day weekend, because it means continuing a family tradition (even if it is only in its second continuous year) – flying out to Indy for the Indianapolis 500.
Weather’s looking great so far:
Beats the rainout we had last year. Same seats so we’ll have the same view as last year, and I’ll be packing a camera with me again – just not the same one. Last year I took a full-on DSLR setup, consisting of a Canon Digital Rebel XT (aka the 350D), along with the kit Canon 18-55 EF-S lens and a Tamron 70-300 EF telephoto lens. I managed to get a few decent photos, but the problem is that even though the kit I took is nowhere near the level (and size and weight) of equipment my wife hauls around, it’s an awful lot of gear to pack into a small bag, throw on a plane, haul into the Speedway, keep propped up on my lap, keep protected from the always-present threat of rain, and actually shoot with in the confines of a single seat in the bleachers.
So we picked up one of these – a Canon S5 IS. The resulting photos will probably be a bit noisier than what I would get from the XT, but it has nearly the same reach on the lens (35mm equivalent: 432mm) as the XT / 70-300 does (480mm due to crop factor). It’s also considerably smaller, doesn’t require lens changes to get to the wide end of the spectrum, and can take some decent video, too – something that, as far as I know, no Canon DSLR does.