pboehmer.com

2018.01.09

Spent some time on New Year's eve fixing various issues with the MAME cabinet. On the list was pulling off the monitor surround since the new monitor was a little different than the dead one, the volume control that was attached to the surround was flaky as all heck and needed to be replaced, and the very dim marquee lighting.

Pulling the surround was pretty easy since it was just held in with brad nails. I think the next one will be either bolted or screwed in for even easier removal. The previous volume control and sound amplifier was just hacked up from a set of PC speakers and for that, I upgraded to a Dayton Audio amplifier kit from Parts Express (#300-385). This kit is nice because it has a remotely wired volume control that will be attached to the monitor surround.

I had switched from cold cathode to a hard PCB LED strip years ago and over time it was starting to dim down to just barely visible. I upgraded the single strip to two flex strips (Parts Express part# 073-108 )to bring things back to life.

Hoping to have some time in the next week or so to cut out a new monitor surround. I'm also thinking about having an overlay printed to put over the surround for some added bling.

2017.12.19

It's been another hectic month building up to Christmas. Since work on the Chrysler has been completed, I've changed focus to my MAME cabinet. Over the past 6 months or so, I've been trying to get specific games that I used to play as a kid, namely Dragon's Lair (and SpaceAce), as well as Tron, Spy Hunter, and my current obsession, Star Wars. With the Daphne Emulator installed and integrated to AdvanceMenu, I was able to get just about all of the old Laser Disc games working. I had a wireless flight stick style joystick that I haven't used in years working. Using that along the with spinner wheel got me an "almost" playable Tron. Need to do some tweaking with the joystick and maybe some practice.

That leaves Spy Hunter and Star Wars. As some of you know, these have very specific controllers, both of which, are very hard to get a hold of (or outrageously expensive). I think my 2018 project will be the fabrication of a controller based on Star Wars, but altered just enough for Spy Hunter. Stay tuned.

I also managed to finally get my own welder, which I've been playing with as well. I've been wanting a welder for some time and the stars have finally aligned. I opted for a Vulcan Omni 220, a combination MIG/TIG/Stick welder that runs on 120v and 220v, pretty much a do all wherever unit. I'm currently using it for Flux-Core MIG welding. I'm hoping to get some gas and try some aluminum TIG welding soon.

2017.11.03

Hanging my head in shame as I post this. Turns out that my oil leak was actually a coolant leak. Before you laugh at me too much, the Zerex HOAT antifreeze the 300 takes is yellowish/orange in color, not much different than fresh synthetic oil and the weep hole for the water pump is right over the oil pan gasket. So it appears that I have a water pump to replace in the near future. The strapping the exhaust to the drive shaft cross member was actually the opposite of what I needed to do, resulting in the worst rattle conceivable. I managed to take care of the noise with a couple of spacers on the driveshaft cross member (keeps the driveshaft from touching the ground in the event of a failure) dropping it about 3/8in. The new exhaust was 1/4in bigger in diameter than stock, so apparently there is very little tolerance.

I've been plenty busy with work the past two months. We've been pulling down our fixed wireless broadband equipment off of towers. The equipment was EOL'd 5 years ago and was not a whole lot better than dial-up for internet speeds (768/256). Just good enough 10 years ago, not a good solution nowadays. Equipment that can provide speeds for today's internet is just too expensive to invest in, so we (my work) are ramping up FTTH (fiber to the home) deployments and filling dead spots with Satellite broadband.

So, this means that my time as a tower climber has pretty much ended. My last climb was on October 25th, a 300ft tower in Madison, IN. Pretty much killed me, not helping that it was a fairly cold day. I have mixed emotions about not climbing anymore, I did enjoy it for the most part, though I think I will enjoy winter and spring a heck of a lot more from now on. Here are pictures from my first (July 13th 2007) and last climb (October 25th 2017).

2017.09.05

Took advantage of the three day weekend to finish up repairs on the Chrysler. On the todo list this time is replacing the passenger side exhaust manifold due to the broken stud, and to replace the passenger side drive shaft that I dorked up trying to reinstall it last weekend. I was a bit anxious about the manifold, specifically breaking the block bolts, but they came out without much fight. Not much room to work in, and my forearms and hands payed the price in blood and layers of skin. I was surprised to see that the manifold had a significant crack in it when I pulled off the heat shield, so it worked out for the best that it was replaced. The drive shaft replacement was non-eventful.

I didn't get a chance to test drive before going off to work this morning. There are some unexpected rattles with the exhaust. My new exhaust sits a little lower than the OEM and was hitting the cross-member when hitting hard bumps resulting in a clunk. I had attempted to remedy this by strapping the exhaust pipe down to said cross-member. I am assuming that there is still just enough gap between the pipe and cross-member that its rattling. Another thought is the manifold heat shield is not sitting right. More time on the lift, sarcastic yahoo.

2017.09.01

The oil pan gasket repair turned out to be a clusterf... That's putting it lightly. Started around 9:00 Saturday morning and didn't even make it to getting the pan off. Hindered by both axles being stuck in the hubs, a snapped exhaust manifold stud, and to top it all off, the lack of a 12mm long allen key to remove the oil cooler left me in the rather humorous predicament:

For context, the oil cooler is the finned object to the left. Thinking (stupidly) that I could work around it, I used a ratcheting wrench to loosen the nut while obviously not paying attention. This specific wrench is the flip type, one way tightens and you flip the wrench to loosen (or vice versa), as opposed to the type that you give a tug to change the ratcheting direction. So, here I am with the bolt all the way down to the oil cooler, and no way to tighten it back up and no where to go. At that point I called it the night frustrated, tired, and depressed.

I spend most of the day Sunday trying to drill out the broken exhaust stud and trying to recover the stuck wrench. A lot of time spinning my wheels trying to figure out how to remove the transfer case only to find out that I needed to remove the drive shaft and that would have required all new bolts. Game over! I called it quits Sunday afternoon to go out and try to purchase a 12mm allen key and a temporary bolt for the exhaust. Since this is my primary mode of transportation, so I had to take Monday off work to get a functioning car for work. Seems the 12mm key is a unicorn, as no one locally had anything over 10mm in-stock for sale. Big box stores, auto-part stores, hardware stores, nobody. Thankfully, Amazon Prime came to the rescue with next day delivery. I was able to get a hardened 1/4in bolt and nut from he local auto-parts store as a temporary band-aid for the exhaust.

Monday was the day. Early start at 7:00a after wife and daughter leave. Managed to get everything back together and working by 3:00p. After it was all said and done, I had been able to replace the driver's side half-shaft and intermediate shaft. In return, I was not able to replace the oil pan gasket and managed to destroy the passenger half-shaft's CV boot trying to get it back into the hub. Monday night, I ordered a new exhaust manifold and passenger half-shaft.

It's been four days since that "repair" and I'm still in some state of shock on how bad that went. In an interesting twist, my oil stuck seems to have stopped. I'm hoping re-torquing the pan bolts fixed the small leak, but I'm not holding my breath.