After two evenings of one hour grinding each with a air die grinder, I finally got the second post bolted down. Have yet to fill up the oil and fire it up yet, but the mounts for both posts are in now!
Author Archive for taro
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Picked up the Sam Adams harvest variety pack and this Dunkelweissen was the special edition one that caught my eye. Pours a cloudy brown with a moderate head, persistent carbonation. My sinuses are still suffering congestion, but the aroma has smokyness expected of the darkness, yet its not as strong as might be expected. There’s a citrusy tang and a touch of spice with a bit of bitter taking over, and then a pretty clean finish. I like this, I definitely could get into this beer. I’d almost call it a Hoegarten dark. I give this a solid 3, maybe even 3.5 out of 4 unfiltered monkeys. The only thing holding me back is I can’t trust my lack of nasal capacity.
In the course of the week, I found some conrete anchors in stainless steel that will work. Drop in style which are shallower, but I needed to go up a size to somewhat match the weight holding capacity. Saturday Derek came over to resume this project and we proceeded to drill out the first hole to the larger size needed. 
And here I am being the epoxy ninja cutting a portion of this epoxy Tootsie roll putty to plug up the bottom of the hole we drilled all the way through. Some tacky and stinky stuff. The first anchor goes in and we pound it home. After this is in we drill the other four holes. Concrete dust makes a very effective clogging agent that quickly plugs up my shop vac, but aside from this things go pretty well. Going with the upsized anchors and bolts, there now is very little room for error, but it looks like we got it right and one pilar is finally secured. Continue reading ‘Root’s Speed Shop-Half Speed’
OK, everyone tease me some more, yes I think I now have all the operational Corolla FX’s on Oahu. If not, I have the majority stake. Yes, I bought yet another just a few hours ago. It was actually brought to my attention by more than one person from different forums on the net. I guess in the online world I’m also the FX Guy. It’s a regular FX16, so it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, but mechanically its got everything that counts, so that makes it the race candidate. And that is the plan, to become the rally-x machine! It’s in stock class, but is stripped down so is the lightest version. One of the major selling points on this most recent FX is that it has working A/C, so I think that maybe be stripped out and find its way into my current daily driver FX16 GTS. However I don’t think the newest FX member is not going to be ready for the next rally cross, which is in two weeks. On the drive home I detected some issues. There is a brake pulsation, which the previous owner told me about and included new rotors and pads he had bought but never installed. Aside from that there were some problems that I noticed on the longer drive home. There was an engine stumble that became really noticeable when pressed and the RPMs approached mid-range. There also is some kind of suspension issue, feels like the rear right side. Possibly the strut is blown. In steady state the car feels fine, but when a bump is hit the car wallows and acts odd. I’ll have to take care of these before its race ready. But at least it doesn’t have under dash neon, steering wheel bolted on with wiggly lamp shade spacers, fancy rims held on with two threads, or the various other hacks of the previous two FX16’s.
Update, last Sunday Fabio came over with impact drill and bits and we laid out the lift and started to drill the mounting. There was some delays as we went back and forth to the store to get various bits (literally) that we’d realized we would need. The pilot hole actually went fairly easily, but when suddenly I heard a change in the sound I got a little concerned and started poking around. It turns out that with the short 6″ bit we had already drilled through the conrete slab and hit aggregate. The slab was right at 4″, and looking at the provided anchors and the spec documents, this was not going to work. Calls around to the home improvment stores open on Sunday did not come up with any anchors we could use. 
Denied! So we will have to try again this weekend, with larger but shallower anchors. We’ll see how it goes!
It’s here! Waiting in the driveway when I got home was this mysterious looking plastic wrapped bundle. The newest toy to add to the “shop” was delivered today, less than four weeks after I ordered it, nice! So what is it? My very own two post hydaulic automotive lift. It’s a 6,000 lb capacity mid rise lift from Danmar called the Maxjax and it’s selling point being mid-rise is that it does not require a high ceiling, most standard residential concrete floor will meet its requirements, and the other point is it’s “portable”. At 800+ pounds, you probably won’t want to pack it into your car to take to your buddies for a weekend project, but what it means is it can easily be broken down into smaller parts and the posts can unbolt from the floor and be wheeled away into a corner to be stored, leaving the garage space fully open after your done.
Little Inyou here came out to check it out too. Haven’t quite decided on that name for kitty, but I think it’s works for her black and whiteness. Inyou is yin-yang.
Anyway, after dinner I set out to unpack it. I wasn’t sure about moving all these hunks of steel by myself, but I didn’t want to leave it out in the open. With judicious use of my car jack and my favorite SGI rollie plate, I was able to unpack everything and move it into the garage with minimal strain. Happy with that! I think it would be advisable to use steel toe shoes as parts did come clanging down a few times pretty close to my toes, but I avoided any injuries.
Stay tuned for a report after it’s installed!
As in years past I made it to the Okinawa Festival again this year, and once again the weather was clear and almost brutally sunny. What with the worldwide economy as it is, it seems there were less visiting acts, but nevertheless the quality was good as always. One of the performing groups that stood out for me this year was not a traditional Okinawan art group, they were the Okinawa Prefecture Junior & High School Wind Ensemble Select Band. I’ve seen and heard a fair share of both local and visiting school bands that ranged from good to good effort. Watching these kids in T-shirts and jeans set up they seemed a pretty typical school band group, which set me up even more for the surprise. From first note to last, they simply stunned me. This was coming from middle and high school kids?! I had to justify it in my mind that these kids were Select, basically All-stars of Okinawa school bands. I did hear one reed instrument squeek, but aside, these kids would put many a professional ensemble to shame. They apparently had done some earlier performances one of which was for Niu Valley Intermediate. I dunno, if I had heard them when I was there I’m not sure what kind of effect it would have had on me. I wonder if it would be like when I see videos of BMXers or Trials riders throwing down technique so great that it despires me. I know, thats not a real word, but I think you understand. They are just so good that it makes you realize how piddly you are and that there is no hope that you will ever be anything like them, ever. Anyway, I enjoyed their and all the other performances.
The crowd didn’t feel larger than last year, about the same. I noticed they were more frugal with the food, at the conclusion of the festival just about all the food booths were out of food, even the andagi was sold out so I couldn’t get any last bags of that doughy, oily goodness.
Another nice festival, my only criticisms of this years event is that the Olelo camerapeople were really annoying this year. Previous years they didn’t really bother me, but this year they were constantly in the way blocking my shots. Another is the sound people had lots of problems this year, even though its the same people. And finally the layout when they got the bon dance going was super congested.
Well, I’ll have to go through my pile of pics and see if I have any possiblity of wining something in the photo contest.
It’s been months since I last went to a Taco Bell, but I found myself in need of a quick lunch and decided to visit the Kapahulu one. The featured specialty items caught my interest, what they are calling “Cantina” style tacos. Soft corn tortilla tacos in either chicken, steak, or carnita fillings with chopped onions and cilantro. Each is roughly $2, and thats about all you get, a double soft corn tortilla with those ingredients, wrapped in foil, and a lime wedge. I have to give them credit for actually offering something that is more than just a rehash and recombination of their existing ingredients. I got a two pack of chicken and carnita. The chicken was quite dry, flavor alright. The carnita, being pork, was less dry, however the overwhelming flavor/spice seemed to be salt. Squeezing the lime into them helps, but after taking a few bites to sample the flavor, ended up putting on hot sauce.
That drink is also some new thing, “Sparkling Limeade” or something to that effect. Pretty much lemon lime soda with some syrup that is the limeade component, and a lemon wedge. Not bad, but you don’t get much for the money.
So the verdict? It’s something different to try than the usual whatever supreme, but ends up rather unexciting. And not filling. The more real mexican places have nothing to worry about. 2 out of 4 mexi monkeys.
Discovered at Marukai, something all computer users should find useful, Mouth Pads!
I like a tight rear end. I picked up my diff and axle housing from Pacfic Automotive on Friday. Ken was still working on the axle bearings, and was going at it with an air chisel when I went to his shop. I’m glad I left this job to him. I’m sure I would have been cursing at that point, & my rickety mystery China hydraulic press would prob be in dangerous shape and no longer a parallelogram. When I got it back home, I repainted it with my favorite kryptonite paint, POR-15. Thats the stuff I used on my control arms where I forgot to press a metal sleeve out of and we had to torch the end to heat it to extract it. The paint was intact and pretty unscathed even after that. It’s name is Paint Over Rust meaning you can paint it over surface rust. The surface does need to be clean of oil, I can never seem to get it totally clean of that, I have some spots where the paint didn’t stick. But if the paint sticks, look out! If you get any on your skin, that’s it. If you don’t immediately wipe it off, it’s there until the layer of skin peels off. Painting implements are pretty much toast afterward. Its not cheap stuff, buy only what you can use, once you open the can any left over is pretty much toast. They advise you to use some kind of scoop to take paint out of can, you get it on the lid lip and when you close the can, its toast. It’ll seal up the can tight and you’ll end up destroying the can reopening it. If you keep it clean, you can extend storage a bit by sealing it tight and in another container with dessicant, this paint is moisture cured. Oh well, I made a mess of things so this entire $30 pint goes for painting the rear axle. Continue reading ‘Tight Rear, Loose Rear’