Long time, no write. I’ve got the time to write this morning, but I really have no idea–as usual–of what I could write about. And my feelings about writing something are kind of “meh” right now.
Part of my problem is that it’s been so long since I’ve sat down at the keyboard–I’m not sure what there is that I should try to catch up on. I mean, I guess there’s a lot, but at the same time, there really isn’t.
As a quick thing, I guess I could touch on recent Instagram posts.
The draft inducer on the furnace died. I discovered that a couple of weeks ago, but only took a picture of the thing the other day, after I replaced it. What had happened was back over the summer I had replaced the house water filter–not just the filter, but the whole system–and didn’t quite give the PVC glue enough time to cure before turning the water back on. So, after a little bit of time, the pressure overcame the weak bond and popped the joint apart, allowing water to spray everywhere. In the spraying, water hit the furnace and traveled down to the inducer motor, and it eventually rusted up. A week or so ago, I went to the furnace to see if she was up and running for this winter, and when she failed to fire, I went through the troubleshooting chain and discovered the draft inducer had seized. I took it out, smacked it around, started prying at the blades and got the motor to break free; re-installed it, and furnace fired up. Since the thing was not at 100% and now very noisy, I went ahead and bought a new one. So, yay. We now have a happy furnace.
I bought a slide hammer puller set the other day to try and battle Ashlee’s Durango. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. I’ve been trying to replace the lower ball joints because they’re approaching their end of life, and the truck is just giving me nothing but trouble. In order to replace the ball joint, I need to pull the hub out of the knuckle. I have yet to succeed. After a day of fighting to get a rust-welded rotor off the hub, I started my attempt to separate the hub and knuckle, which eventually led me to buying the slide hammer. My hands have just about recovered from trying to use that thing–I totally pissed off a nerve in my right hand, slamming that weight around. While taking a break and pausing to fight with the feelings of defeat, I came to the realization that I wasn’t just fighting the hub and knuckle, but I was fighting the axle and hub as well. While the axle had moved just slightly when I had started, that was no longer the case–it apparently hit it’s own little ring of rust within the hub and has now gotten stuck, keeping a death grip on the hub, as well. So, now I’ve got to add replacement hubs–and hopefully not axles–and some MAP gas (because all I’ve got right now is LP) and heat the hell out of the hub and axle to get them to separate. I’m counting on ruining the hub and cooking the bearings in going that route. I pray that the axle won’t be affected.
Well, I guess that’s all I have time for. Gotta head to work, now.