pboehmer.com

2015.05.29

I spent pretty much the bulk of the holiday weekend last week working on the 300. I had actually taken Friday off and ended up spending almost 14 hours installing springs and shocks. The fronts only took two hours, but the rear springs were a difficult beast, taking just about then entire day. I managed to finish getting things installed that night, in time to get new tires and an alignment on Saturday. Sunday was my nephews high school graduation, so I spent most of the morning getting the car cleaned up. The new tires had a nice coating of �mold-release� and that's when I made the mistake of spraying degreaser on my newly stripped-of-clearcoat rims, resulting in white patches all over the exposed aluminum. So, I ended up spending all my time trying to polish out the marks. Long story short, we ended up taking the wife's car.

I also was reminded of the importance of working with safety glasses as my ball joint extractor grenaded, sending bits of shattered metal flying in my face. Fortunately, I was wearing safety glasses, so other than a destroyed tool, there were no other casualties.

2015.05.18

After 6 months, I finally was able to get the new bumper and lights on. I did have some issues getting the grill to fit in, but after some finagling (read pounded the crap out of it), I got everything to fit. I had to spend a bit more time than anticipated on a couple of things, namely getting the wiring straightened out, replacing a broken bolt and a rounded off bolt. Started Saturday and was able to finish Sunday. Here are the pics:

New shocks and tires are scheduled to next weekend, so that means that I will be busy getting the summer rims cleaned up. To make the rear springs easier to install, I splurged and purchased a spring compressor. If all goes well, I shouldn't have to drop the rear lower control arms to get the springs installed. Putting the LCAs back into place are a royal PITA and take considerable time.

Also, over the next couple of weeks, I'll be clearing out the garage for the next big step for the man cave. I'm so psyched to have this done, but I don't want to spoil the surprise yet. Stay tuned!

2015.04.06

Got back last week from another awesome vacation with the family. This time we stopped in Burbank and San Diego California. We landed in San Diego, drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to Burbank to see all things Hollywood for a couple of days and then back down to San Diego for a couple of days. We saw Hollywood (Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, etc) and did the tourist thing, Santa Monica Pier, Universal Studios VIP tour (awesome), Sea World in San Diego, San Diego Zoo, the Midway aircraft carrier, and spent a lot of time on the Seaport village in San Diego. All of this in the span of 8 days.

2015.03.19

Just now noticed how long it's been since my last update. I was going to back post, but in the end decided to post a War and Peace edition.

On the car front... I mentioned a couple of months ago (geesh) that in addition to the rear bumper, I had got a hold of a new front bumper. Since the new bumper is a little different, I had to get new headlights, corner lights, and trim. I had purchased headlights last year, but another set came up for sale from a fellow lxforums member that had Oracle Colorshift v2.0 rings installed (aka bling rings/angel eyes). I received them and found out that one of the LEDs had a bad green element. Oracle does not repair the rings, only sells replacements, so this led to the purchase of a hot air solder station and various parts to repair the ring myself.

The new bumper, I also had to do my first paint finishing work. I had both the front and rear bumpers painted and clear coated from a local shop, but they were not polished out (an option I opted for). I mounted the rear bumper as-is despite really needing polishing, but while I was waiting on parts for the front bumper, I decided to take the plunge. There is no worse anxiety than taking sand paper to a perfectly painted part, but after watching a lot of Youtube videos and consulting a co-worker who does auto painting, I broke down and did the deed. It's still a work in progress. I've finished the wet sanding, but still working on the polishing.

On the house front... Work on the house addition is for the most part done. Its really down to some minor (but not needed) drywall work on the basement stairwell and changing out the basement and garage stairwell insulation. I'm hoping to have the garage floor done sometime in April or May. Still researching on what kind of finish I going to do as options are numerous (as are the opinions of each of them). Whether its epoxy, polymer, acid stain, or tile, I think I'll be letting the pros handle this one.

2015.01.23

Upgraded the server from FreeBSD 9.3-STABLE to 10.1-STABLE. You probably won't notice any difference, but it makes my life easier. And really, that's all that matters.

Finished up my garage painting last night. I had a little problem with the coolant hose mesh. Originally, I had attempted to do it by hand, but it looked like dog poo and I ended up painting over it, cutting painter's tape down, and making a mesh template to paint over. Turned out way better than I ever expected. One more item off the to-do list.