Monthly Archive for June, 2012

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Studly

This Saturday the plan was for Scat to cruise over and we’d continue working on the grill area of his sled. The rally FX was still in the garage as it was when I got it towed home. The only thing I had done was pull the CV shafts and put in a spare set scavenged from the carcass FX. I however hadn’t tightened anything down, so before Scat showed up, I torqued everything down to spec. As long as I had it up on stands and half the wheels off, I figured it’d be a good idea to rotate wheels. Charged up the air and hit the lug nuts. Odd, one was being slow. The other 3 spun right off. This last one wasn’t. This is the first time my IR impact gun was having problems and I was pretty perplexed.

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Mariner’s Ridge Yet Again

Sunday, 09 June 2012

Chris, Dave, and Root hike Mariner’s at night, though not on a full moon.

D = 4.16 km, Vavr = 3.0 km/h, Vmax = 9.7 km/h. T = 1-hour, 21-minutes

GoPain

Hot out of the labor camps of Chine, I got my hands on the GoPro Wifi combo kit. The WiFi Bac has been in development for a long time, it was talked about by GoPro many months ago and now finally has made an appearance in retail stores. Some people have been able to get some that were “accidentaly” released by Beast Buy. BB supposedly has an exclusive with GoPro to be the first to sell them so had them ahead of time but were not supposed to sell them before the official date. No worries for GoPro, being perhaps clever the camera requires a significant firmware update so all these people who got them ahead of time had useless little plastic bits with buttons you could press, make symbols on little displays, and plug them into USB ports and make them warm.

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Pomposity

It’s pretty difficult starting a sentence with, “so I was listening to NPR this morning…” and not come off sounding pompous.  Both Fabio and I are guilty of this!

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Mamaya Hatogarashi Musubi (Onigiri)

I’ll sometimes grab a salmon-on-multi-grain-rice onigiri from Mamaya on Shirokiya’s second level for a snack after work on days I linger in town instead of going straight home. Today, they had something new – Hatogarashi onigiri. The English translation on the label said “seasoned redpepper [sic] leaf” so I gave it a try. The flavor was similar to a takana onigiri, but with a hint of smokiness, and maybe the suggestion of tea. The rice was seasoned, so was slightly tan, and also had shiro goma (white sesame seeds) mixed in. With that whole pepper leaf thing going on, there was a light capsicum burn in the aftertaste. Very good. Continue reading ‘Mamaya Hatogarashi Musubi (Onigiri)’

Shafted

Dammit! It’s not looking good, all the online Toyota parts sources I’ve checked so far tell me the CV’s are discontinued, none in USA. One guy who brings in OEM JDM parts is going to check if Japan has them, in which case he said it’d take a couple months to get, curses! I could try the junkyards, but the FX16 is a bastard child, the only cross that shares the same shafts is the diesel Corolla. I’ve never seen one of those. I’m not sure if just the ends are shared with any other model, possibly the AW11 MR-2 as it has the same bolt on flange at the transaxle side. Of course that means I need to find some MR-2’s in the junkyard, which isn’t exactly common either now. There is a possibility the next gen AE92 Corolla GT-S shafts might fit, it would be the one piece spindle at the transaxle side instead of the two piece bolt together. If I have to that would be ok, although the two piece is very convenient for servicing, it’s what allows for 20 minute shaft changes.

It is so close to us.

Today was that Venus Crossing, but I only had a Panny LX5 and free cardboard ND filter, but I think it came out okay.

June Patches

Dave at Mojo Tactical actually got these in at the end of May, but I didn’t get in there until this past Friday.  This Weyland Corporation patch from Orca Industries in desert colorway references the early iteration of the sinister company in the Alien/Predator/Prometheus canon.  From Aliens on, it’s the post-merger Weyland-Yutani Corporation, so this is from the Alien versus Predator to Alien timeline (which Prometheus falls in the middle of).  Again, like most of Orca’s homespun patches, I don’t know if this is licensed or not.  Still cool though.  Patch measures 3″ x 1″.  The hook-and-loop backing on this one isn’t as tenacious as it should be, especially at the acute top corners.  Wear yours to the movie premiere!

$8 USD plus sales tax.

Recommended for fans

Please Do Not Panic

That was kinda amusing, just got a call on our home phone from Habib claiming that my computer was full of “junk and viruses” and that he’d help me. I was tempted to play along and see what he wanted me to do, but I didn’t feel like spending any more time once we got to the point that he asked if I could go on my PC.

More Shaftness

Sheeze, what to do? The Drive Shaft Shop wants OEM shafts to work with but I’m not sure if the ones I got left are. I don’t see the typical Toyota part # stamped on it, but it kind of looks OEM because the shaft has machined down sections that the aftermarkets don’t seem to bother with. If I can find them in stock, I could go through Toyota, but thats a pretty penny, anywhere from $800 online to $1400 at Toyota Hawaii.