I just have to ask one question: When installing an oil filter, and it says that once the gasket grabs, you are supposed to turn it one quarter turn, does this mean to a dealership that you need to torque it down until the 8' breaker bar you are using snaps at the strongest point?

And on a related note, the Subaru dealership in this locality is both the most ridiculously expensive car repair facility I have ever had service performed by, but months later I discover they also don't know what they are doing.

The other day we went to Lowe's, and picked up a lot of supplies to prepare for Spring.

One thing we picked up was a lawn roller. I attempted to build my own, but that was a horrible disaster. I decided that it made sense to just buy one.

Another thing we bought was a ladder. We looked at a forty foot ladder, but there was no way we could transport it, let alone where I would keep it.

And then I bought a mole trap. If I can't kill these vermin using these traps, the next thing is a backhoe, and a few tons of cement....

We bought some new blinds too. We went with a nice 2" plantation plank style. They are very good at shutting out the light, but they are also incredibly heavy. When you pull on the cord, you really need to pull on the cord.

Long day ahead of me. I should have probably stayed late last night, but we had house guests. I'm afraid that I am going to have to go to work this weekend, too.

I wish there was someone out there that I could throw this whole project over the fence to.

I had another crazy idea yesterday. I want to expand the capabilities of my Battlebot to equip it with a wheelbarrow. So here are some quick ideas I had:

A pager style personnel tracking unit.
-This would track the person using the thing so that it had something to follow. This eliminates all the crazy vision systems that would need to be in place to track a moving object.
-Follow, Stop, Dump, and come closer commands.
-Emergency stop.

Either a remote computer tracking everything and doing the heavy thinking, or a computer on the barrow-bot.
-Path tracking.
-Path planning. This would include the ability to not only follow the path of the person when they are outside the distance set in the software, but also ignore the path taken when the person is close to the robot. I don't want the robot taking the same pattern when the person is moving around the robot, once the person leaves the range.

A pneumatic lifting mechanism that would dump the wheelbarrow.

GPS on both the personnel tracker, and the robot.

The ability to remove the wheel barrow from the robot. This would allow for moving the wheel barrow around without the robot, or vice versa.

I am sure there is more, but I think this is a good idea.

So I got the engine off of the floor. I used the cable hoist, but swapped the J-hook out with a pulley. It worked, but it was still pulling the shelves closer to the engine. So, I gave it a couple of cranks on the cable hoist, then lifted the engine by hand. It worked, and I had the engine about 1 1/2 feet off of the floor.

Then the floor joist I had the pulley bolted to split, threw the pulley at me, and dropped the engine on the floor.

Luckily, I wasn't hurt and the engine only sustained a punched in oil filter.

So, I did what I should have done in the first place. I waited for my buddy to get home, and had him help me lift it. A 2x4, some chain, and some grunting and we had it in a wagon. Now I can at least move it around easily. I still need to get it on a stand so I can drain the oil out of it, and strip the nasty cruddy paint off of it.


I also had a guy come by to take a look at the sunroof off of the ZX2. He had come by a little while ago and took some measurements, but today he was back with the promise of buying it. He just wanted to take one more measurement. This time he needed to see what the roof line on the ZX2 looked like compared to the car it was going into. Unfortunately, the sunroof will not fit in a Thunderbird. The ZX2 had a greater amount of curve to it then the Thunderbird. Crap.

Now I have to go through the trouble of re-posting the sunroof, and maybe finding someone who will buy this thing. So if you know anybody...