I’ve noticed something in my recent orders from Amazon, and it kinda bugs me. It’s the shipping. Pay more or get a membership and you get faster shipping, opt for cheaper and you get slower shipping, right? I usually am not in a rush so usually go cheaper, but noticed it wasn’t slower shipping, rather you are paying to get your stuff sooner. Instead of sending the items out cheaper USPS, which sometimes would arrive quite fast, they would hold my order until 2 days before the quoted arrival date, then ship it out 2 day UPS air. So yes, it arrives by the date they said it will, but the freight cost is the same to them. I still order from them, but it doesn’t leave a good taste. Oh, and their packing is usually pretty lame. Pick a box bigger than the item, throw in a few air packs, throw item in, ship it. Its amazing my camera was ok rattling and sliding around in the box. I guess if items get damaged in transit, its nothing to them to replace it.
Archive for the 'rant' Category
You know you’re getting old when you lament all the places that used to be. There’s a couple long timers closing up shop. Not being huge on Hawaiian food, I’ve never been there except to service their register, Ono Hawaiian foods on Kapahulu closing soon. Yotekoya Ramen in McCully shopping center used to be our go to ramen but many other options now exist. We’ve moved on and so have they this weekend. Marukai at Ward will be closing end of September. No official date announced, but Ward Warehouse will be closing too.
Sitting here eating lunch and i notice this blurb on the package of my favorite tea, “100% real ingredients.” WTF is that supposed to mean?! You mean theres food out there with imaginary ingredients? Virtual ingredients?
It’s nice to post a non-rant about customer service. You might recall (did I post about it?) that at the last rallycross event, I snapped one of my custom Driveshaft Shop shafts. These were 2/3 custom and supposed to hold up to hard use. I was well outside of the warranty period so was not expecting much, but I contacted them. DSS quickly got back to me and told me they would remanufacture and replace the ends, they had some suspect heat treat on parts around the time mine were made. All I have to cover is shipping, and they are now on their way. It took a while because the guy in charge of rolling the shaft splines had been out with a serious snowboarding injury, lol.
Part two of the story is that the shaft that broke was inside the differential side, in the KAAZ limited slip. To extract the broken part, I ended up welding a bolt to it and slide hammering it out. Ends up that I didn’t need to, could have inserted a rod from the opposite side and hammer it out that way, 20/20 hindsight. Anyway, doing so left bits of slag and the splines in the LSD were scratched. So I contacted KAAZ USA who also promptly replied. They gave me an initial estimate, which was far less than I expected, unless the housing was damaged. I shipped it off to them for closer inspection. They told me the damage looked worse than it was and said it should be fine if they just cleaned up the splines and bearing flange. The rest of the unit was in good shape and since they were in there they rearranged the clutch plates to shift the more worn ones around. They charged me nominal labor, the shipping charges came out far more!
I just finished reassembling and reinstalling the transaxle, which went in surprisingly easily. One kick and it slid back together. I guess having done it more than a half dozen times I’ve gotten the theorems down.
So shout out to The Driveshaft Shop and KAAZ, I would not hesitate to heartily recommend them to anyone!
Oh hey, there’s HFD Air 1 at Koko Crater. They must be having fun with the gusty winds, although it has died down from earlier this weekend.
The saga of the FX. Was working on until midnight last night, the day before event. Last I wrote I think was the starter, which I bought replacement at oreilly and changed. The alignment seems off, it makes an awful grinding and screetch. It starts though. Then battery went out so bought a AGM at oreilly that was a hair too big. Fit! Car started, went for test drive, got a block down street and the charge and brake light flickered on, bad alternator. Fortunately had spare, which actually was the one off old engine. Got that changed and finally got on rode to attempt break in at about 10:00pm. Went to town, kalihi, turned around, did a bunch of on a off freeway loops in the kapiolani-kaimuki area, then the check engine light came on and the engine got boggy. Got home with 40 miles on odo, that would have to do for initial break in, did a oil change, swapped ECU, and went to sleep.
This morning car seems to be working good, skipped my usual stop at Foodland to pickup lunch sandwich. Ran morning heats nicely. First run of afternoon heats and after fast straight, powering out of sharp left suddenly lost power. Engine revving fine. Krap. Sounds like driveshaft, again. Towed back to put, looks like shaft might have just pulled out of transaxle. Pulled stuff apart and tried to pound shaft in, wasn’t moving past a certain point. Pulled it out and this is what we found.
If its any consolation, I’m not the only one. Counting mine we had a total of 4 broken drive shafts.
Now waiting for tow.
Damn rental Altima bit me which sealed the deal for me, I do not like. The rear trunk has no damping so sprung up when I lifted the edge, this wasn’t the problem. The problem was I bent down to retrieve box from trunk as the trunk cleared, but it bounced back and slammed my head. Curses! I didn’t realize at the time that it actually drew blood. The other thing that bugs me are the brakes are super grabby. I had one of these as a rental a couple times back and recall that too, heck maybe this is the exact same car? Keyless entry and start are a neat novelty.
wouldnt you know it, I go to put the last part on, the air intake, and the banjo bolt plops out. So now I have that original bolt, the shiny junkyard one installed, and a spare I also grabbed at the junkyard yesterday.
Oh, and I found the keys, they had fallen off shelf where I usually keep my keys, but instead of falling to ground where I searched, the got caught in some cords so were dangling midair. Hopefully tonight will be the big moment!
bolt. The engine is all together and back in the FX (engine leveler good!), there’s a few things to tighten up, hook up the radiator, plug back in the electronics, fill everything up, except for one bolt. Unfortunately it’s a special bolt, a banjo bolt for the fuel rail. I don’t know where the heck it went. Oh yeah, I don’t know where the keys went too….
Aw crap, spoke too soon, looks like the clutch plate is in backwards! It seemed to go in only one way but I think it wrong, there’s no engagement of the drive wheels. Dammit, gotta take things all apart again!