Spun by Checker and bought a foot of 5/8″ Good Year heater hose yesterday. The leaky section was inaccessible from the engine compartment, and blocked from below by the front axle, lateral link, and steering telegraph rod. I managed to squeeze my arm between the axle and lateral link to get a 10mm ratcheting box wrench on the Toyota hose clamps and undo them. I knew very well that whem I popped the old hose off, the remaining coolant would spill on me, and as predicted, it went in my eyes, nose, and mouth. Continue reading ‘Hose’
Author Archive for risu
Page 83 of 95
On the way home from the Ditch ride with Chris and Root, my temperature gauge went up toward the “red” zone. At home, the reservoir hose was bubbling furiously into the tank. I let it cool overnight then checked around. There was a small puddle under the front axle. Orange coolant was dripping from somewhere mid-block.  Oh no! Head gasket!  The coolant was clear and the oil was not milky. Whew. A careful examination revealed a leak from a small hose section between the block-mounted oil cooler and the coolant pipe from the water pump (Land Cruisers have integrated oil-to-water oil coolers, not those sissy add-on mini radiators).Â
Hopefully I can get it fixed today. I dropped by Toyota Parts and Clyde got a new thermostat and associated gaskets rolling – I figure I’d just as well change those since the last time I had an overheating problem it was that component. It was not readily apparent if the thermo was dead and the overheating blew the hose, or the leaky hose dropped the coolant level to the point where the truck overheated. The FJ80 is 17-years old, so the current thermo is about 10-years old. I’ll spin by the generic car parts store and get some hose – the bad section is just straight, so I don’t need a proprietary Toyota part.
Oh, and Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
This past Friday, I rode the rooty climb up the hill up from the District park side. The trail was clear but a little indistinct at the bottom because of the fast-growing wedelia covering the line. The uphill was as heinous as I remembered it being. Along the way, there were two new chicken families, with mother hens and tiny egg-sized chicks. They had no fear of humans, as they waited until I was almost running over them to go cackling and peeping into the underbrush. Continue reading ‘Hyoko Ride’
Talking bike with Chris all afternoon inspired me to get out and take a spin yesterday.  Scat and Root were going to hit the jumps, but I didn’t get the email about that until after noon yesterday, so I didn’t have my ridy kit with me. The sun was still high when I got home, but it was overcast and a little windy out. The Moment was as it was after the last ride. The shifting was fine and the suspension felt nice… the back brake felt a little pumped-up though – I’ll have to check that out later. I did my normal loop, but from the top of WCC, I saw that the State or C & C workers had cleared away a lot of brush, African Tulip trees, and invasive Albizia trees on the hill behind the District park pool. Root and I explored this hill many years ago and found several well-used trails. In recent years, the hill had become overgrown, thus attracting wild chickens and druggies, so I hadn’t ridden there in a while. The brush clearing has made it at least unattractive to the crack-heads and paint-sniffers, so I took a spin up the steep, chicken-infested hill to check things out. The trails were still there, but there was a lot of trash scattered about. I might have to add that back into my neighborhood rides – the rooty melaleuca climb, the scenic hilltop, the moonscape chicken drop-in. I went back to WCC and did a couple more laps before heading home.
D = 11.88 km (7.38-miles), Vavr = 16.7 km/h (10.4 mph), Vmax = 36.6 km/h (22.7 mph), T = 42-minutes
Okay, to start, this isn’t an FTP thread…
Got back in to Sapporo last evening -Â just barely.Â
Friday was clear in Sapporo, but cold. We caught the highway bus to Niseko Annupuri Resort (2180 yen PP) via Otaru (not the Nakayama-touge route). The weather in Niseko was overcast with the portent of snowfall. After checking in to the Northern Resort Annupuri and attempting to find somewhere for lunch, we walked down to the ski center for lunch at the cafeteria. I had a Hamburger with pilaf for 1100 yen. The meat slab was good and big (A-), but the “pilaf” (C-) was just rice with a hint of butter and frozen mixed vegetables mixed in (peas, carrots, corn). Back at the hotel, we were picked up by Minami-san of Niseko Adventure Center for a snowshoe tour. He drove us over to the gondola in a Toyota Hiace and out came the poles and Atlas snowshoes. The poles were mystery ski poles, so were of a fixed length which I thought were too long, even if the session was to be all downhill. We caught the gondola up to the top station, where it was snowing nicely. Continue reading ‘White Hell’
Caught the bus out to Sapporo Kokusai yesterday. It was clear and sunny as was the day before. I still managed to find some untracked riding in the center bowl and in the secret trees, but it was settled, old powder – fun, but not wonderful. The sunny-side faces were windpacked and had a melt-crust, but the sheltered sides were fine. I took a break and had a “pizza-nan” and coffee set (750 yen) at the little snack shop at the top of the gondola (they used to be down midway by the slow old pair lifts, but moved to a more accessible location). I had a little incident with the paper tube of sugar for my coffee. While shaking it gently from the end to clear some air space to tear it, the paper disintegrated – sending granulated sugar everywhere. Darned those foreigners! Don’t they know how to open a paper tube of sugar? Lucily nobody saw me do this, and I managed to clean it all up. Food was more snack-sized. Probably a bit pricy for what I got. (B) The clear sky had turned a little hazy by the time I got done with lunch. A hint of snow began to fall. On the bus ride home, the haze in the sky was becoming more pronounced – snow was on the way. Dinner was sausage, kraut, some kind of gratin thing, and sauerbraten at a German restaurant. Had a good hefe-weisen too… can’t recall the name right now… Georg Someone & Sohn… All the food was really good (A, except the sauerbraten which was an A-). Around 7000 yen for everything including beer, dessert and coffee. Continue reading ‘Feast or Famine’
Okay, I found it. The Indian restaurant in Sapporo run by Indian nationals! They have a tandoor! They make mango lassis! Taj Mahal on the B1 level of Sapporo Factory mall, on the Northeast side. I even got to order in English! We ordered samosas, lamb biriyani, and chicken tikka masala. It was all very good. The nan that came with the chicken was enormous and slathered in melted butter. The lassis and samosas were around $5 each, and the entrees were around $10 each, so the total was around $35 or so for two. The entrees included the rice or nan, so those didn’t have to be ordered ala carte. They had chana masala – I was torn between that and the chicken. I’ll just have to go back!
Highly recommended
Four out of four grinning monkeys
In anticipation of some B/C work in Niseko, we went to Takino Suzuran park in Southeast Sapporo on Saturday to try out snowshoeing. We caught the subway down to Makomanai and got on the same bus line that heads to the Geijitsu no Mori (art/sculpture garden). Takino is a Natonal-Government-run park offering various activities year-round. In winter there are XC ski trails, a tiny one-lift ski/board slope, a tube/sled park, and snowshoe trails. The snow as coming down pretty heavy in the morning. There was easily 10-15cm of unsettled fall overnight. The snowshoe and poles were free. They had pretty nice hardware – Tubbs shoes and BD poles! Continue reading ‘Stay out of the Moors…’
Got in last night a little late. The flight was delayed due to non-arrival of aircraft. Maybe 30-40 minutes behind schedule. There was a light snow falling ant the temp was around -6C. I was just happy the flight wasn’t cancelled.
I can’t get the IE Outlook interface to work here for some reason – I can check my mail, but I get some “file…text…unsupported…something” error if I try to send something. That makes me cranky. Some issue with the language version or something. It used to work fine. Had the same issue at 2 different locations.