Spud's blog: What's Up - Late June 2022

"Everyone prefers belief to the exercise of judgement." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Trying to drop a post now and then, so that this doesn't become a dead blog! In any event, this is a brief update.

I made a run into Coeur d'Alene a few days ago to pay bills, and to have the tires balanced on the Subaru. Ever since I put the summer tires on, the Subie has been experiencing a nasty shimmy at 70 mph, which is the speed limit for most of my commute. It's always done this when the summer tires are on it, but this year it's worse than it's ever been. At times the wobble is almost scary, then it fades out. It comes and goes every 30 seconds or so.

The guy at the tire shop said that the rims are bent. I can believe that, as I've had the wheels balanced before, with very little improvement to show for it. I bought the car in the winter, when the stock rims and winter tires were on the car. The rims for the summer tires also came with the car when I bought it, and were apparently Craigslist specials. Maybe someone else bent their rims and put them on Craigslist instead of throwing them in the trash.

Below: Bent aftermarket alloy rims with summer tires.

The stock rims for the Subaru are 15". I like that size - 15" tires are cheap and plentiful. Below: Stamped steel OEM Subaru rims that are not bent, with studded winter tires mounted on them.

The nice guy at the tire shop said he could get me a set of 17" replacement rims for a mere $840.00 - a great deal, he told me. I pointed out what he failed to mention: 17" rims would need 17" tires, and how much would the total be with the new rims and tires? Just over $1400 - To get rid of a wobble.

I told him to put the tires back on the car while I thought about it. I thought about it all the way home. When I got home, a couple of things happened.

First: I placed an order for Pirelli P4 all-season tires to put on the original Subaru rims. Those rims are currently sitting on a tire rack in the shop, with a set of worn studded snow tires on them. When the new tires arrive, I'll have them installed, and see how well they work in the snow. Cost: $411. Balance and installation will bring the total to under $500.

Second: When I got home, the house key was no longer on my key ring. The only people besides myself who had those keys were at the tire shop. Either it fell off when I handed over the car key, or I handed over the car key and the house key, as they were on the same ring in my pile of keys. Since the registration in the car has our house address, I had to assume someone had a key to the house, as well as the home address.

It was a stressful, sleepless night. I nodded on the couch with the bird gun, which I had loaded with slugs. The following morning, I removed all the locksets, and took them to the Home Depot hardware guy, who re-keyed all of the tumblers, and made enough keys for the family, plus a couple of spares. Last time we had this done was when we first moved in, just in case the previous owner had not kept good custody of his keys. It was a huge relief to have all the re-keyed hardware installed on all the exterior doors.

The next project was to fix the snow plow. At some point in the winter, I managed to ram a huge ridge of pack ice underneath the snow. I was clearing at the mailbox on the road, and under the snow was a 2-3 inch ridge of ice. Ice builds up when the mail and the newspaper delivery drive on fresh snow, crushing it into an ice bed that sticks to the asphalt. I hit the pack ice with the plow and bent the mechanism. The plow was sagging at the pivot point, where you swivel it left or right.

Below: Looking down at the pivot mechanism for the snow plow. The bolt with the grease fitting is the pivot point for the left-right swivel of the snow plow blade. There are upper and lower plates that hold the frame for the plow blade, and those plates got spread when I hit the ice.

Below: Side view of the plow pivot. I had to take the plow apart, haul the right hand part of this assembly over to the hydraulic press, and squeeze the top and bottom together about 1/4 inch. It took a few tries, as the steel kept springing back.

Eventually I was able to get the slop out of the pivot, to the point where it was difficult to slide the frame into the slot that I'd tightened up. The plow is now very tight-fitting, and has fresh grease everywhere, so it's ready to go for this winter.

Lastly, I finally got the mower deck repaired and installed on our field mower. We have two riding mowers - one for the lawn, and another for the property. The one I use for the property used to be pretty nice, until I started running over rocks, dirt piles, sticks and tree stumps hiding in the weeds. Last time I had the deck off to replace the spindles and blades, it wouldn't go back on right. I finally got off my ass and figured out what was up. I hadn't installed it correctly, and also a cable had come off a pulley, so one side was drooping.

Below: This cable had popped partially off this pulley, which is made from nylon. The cable had made a gouge in the pulley, but with a little heat, the pulley more or less came back in shape.

Now it's all fixed. I want to mow right now, before the grass dries up and becomes a fire hazard.

I posted in April about being unhappy with the Black & Decker battery maintainers that have been failing. I finally bit the bullet and bought some much more expensive transformer-based chargers. These too are "smart chargers" that won't try to put a charge on a dead battery, but they probably won't fail and create a dead battery out of a good one.

Lastly, seeing how it's finally riding weather, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the pre-ride inspection of the Honda. Not ready for riding... Yes the front brakes need a rebuild. Not unexpected on a 2005 model bike at this point.