It's the little things

You know what they say about "for want of a nail, the shoe was lost...". Well with cars it's often the little things as well.

Today's project was to drop the transmission out of the 914. I always know it's hard work to get this out without dropping the engine as well, but I also seem to forget just how hard it is. My hips will be sore for days despite having the benefit of some of Linda's scrap quilts to lay on.

This was needed because of about $7.00 in parts being missing. The previous owner skipped a lot of steps in putting this car together, and the last time I did a clutch on the car I failed to check for the presence of the pilot bearing and felt pad. Without them the input shaft wobbles and wears away the input shaft seal. Some cars don't use the bearing so I forgot, and now I get to pay the price.

The timing of this job was because last week the clutch went out and I thought I had a broken clutch cable. Since removing the cable is part of removing the transmission, I figured I may as well do the big job. It turns out the cable is fine, but again the P.O. had cut a corner and I hadn't noticed. This part is available in an $18.00 metal version, or a $5.75 plastic version. Guess which one was in my car? When the ears shear off, pushing the clutch pedal no longer moves the clutch arm. Thanks to Pelican Parts, the new piece will be here on Wednesday. As an added benefit, Ellie now has had her first experience of pushing one of the family cars - it's a rite of passage!

Of course, I can't blame all the hard work on the previous owner. One of the classic things that is often forgotten when installing a transmission is reconnecting the ground strap - you don't know it until you try to start the car and the starter turns verrrrry sloooowly. Well, it hides above the transmission and is hard to see in the dark. When you fail to take it loose when removing the transmission it adds an hour of frustration to what should be an easy job. Oh well.... at least John Mayer's new "Born & Raised" album on the CD player was a good listen!

It's the little things.

Quilts & Camping

This past weekend was the annual Strawberry Festival in Stawberry/Pine, AZ and the annual Strawberry Patchers Quilt Show. It's a weekend that we always look forward to because it's a whole craft fair event with great food vendors and we get to see quilting friends that we don't see the rest of the year.

Overall, the show seemed to be a bit "off" this year, with lot's of edge-edge quilting and fewer custom quilting examples than usual. We go to shows like this because they provide inspiration and ideas so this was a bit underwhelming. Still, there's no such thing as a bad quilt show so it was worth going.

Here's some samples from the show. (I thought I had more, but it turns out that I've only got these two. I don't know how I managed that.)

Debbie Stanton's quilting really brings out the notion of a fish swimming in a streambed.

An interesting take on a log-cabin block.

After the quilt show we picked up a couple of grilled brats and a big bag of some great kettle-corn, then headed back up the rim for camping at Kehl Springs. This is a primitive camp on Forest Road 300 that is free (since it is primitive) and always seems to have a spot available (again, because it's primitive - we think.)

Kehl Spring seems to be more of a "seep" than a spring, but we are in the dry season right now.

It's a nice quiet place for lots of reading and relaxing.

Wild Columbines along the road.

I'm not sure what these are, but they'r pretty and plentiful.

This butterfly decided that Linda's hand lotion was pretty tasty.

We had to work pretty diligently to get it to leave her finger and fly away.

We took a hike up to the top of the ridge. It's a wonderful view of the Mogollon Rim.

We took the phone along to use the GPS so we could figure out just what we were seeing.

That's Payson, almost due south. We figure the straight line on the left must be the highway north of town.