Transfixed

So as soon as I found out that some goober had ruined the threads that retain the speedometer pinion I had to fix it. This feature resides in the rear main bearing housing for the transmission and pretty much requires full disassembly of the transmission. OK no problem.


This picture shows the 1st gear synchro where you can clearly see some damage.


Here is a shot of the synchro pulled out with the bad dog (the bar on the left of the screen). That notch is not supposed to be there. The piece was pulverized by the gnashing gears of the transmission. About 2 hours for disassembly. Now that I've done this and have a couple new tools, this should take about 30 minutes.


About $150 worth of parts and six hours later I have a rebuilt transmission. Another hour later I had it installed in the car. This is a major step toward getting the car out of the garage.

The transmission is installed in the car, prop shaft bolted on, new mounts and cross member installed. Tomorrow I'll install the clutch slave cylinder, starter motor, bleed the brakes and take her off of the jack stands for the first time since she went into the garage the first of the year.

Parking Strip - Weed Farm

What to do with that strip of land between the sidewalk and curb in front of your house? Well mine is a haven for weeds and, again, cat poo. The weed barrier was showing through in some spots and generally looked like hell.

Executive decision! Saturday I started to scrape off the top layer of dirt, poo, weed chaff & whatnot. Starting to look good you say? Yes I would agree. Of course J says I need to take the level down about 3" from here - oy my aching back. But lowering the grade will help with sidewalk runoff.

Sunday morning we wake to rain, torrential downpour, monsoon? Well at least it's a warm rain. Welcome to the mud flats of St Johns.

This strip is belongs to the City of Portland and they are particularly vague about what is and is not allowed to be placed here. Garden boxes you say? Well that's OK unless a neighbor complains about it and you might be on the hook for fines up to $1000/day. Are trees OK? An Oregonian article from earlier this year sheds a little light, or shade, in this area. I love tree lined streets even though the sidewalks suffer from root lifting and the home owner is responsible for the maintenance of a tree that benefits all on the street. The Portland Green Streets Program is great but it's pretty much reserved for professionals.

So no permanently installed structures, anything placed in the strip must be <3' tall and portable. Sand set pavers may be installed without permit provided you stay <50% of the strip area, yadda yadda yadda....

Maybe the weeds weren't so bad after all.