13 November 2012

Is Your Squirrel Due for Maintenance?


Another week of mediocrity. Or was it? Ba ba baahhmm.
The biggest highlight, I guess you could call it, was trying to fix the clutch in my 2002 Ford Focus.  After doing three motor swaps with my Grand Prix, doing the clutch on a Focus should be easy, right? Wrong! Alright, normally, yes, it shouldn’t be too hard, but when you can’t get past step six out of forty, it’s frustrating. Note: my numbers are arbitrary. A key step in doing any transmission work on a front wheel drive car is removing the axles. If you’ve ever changed your own brakes, you know that at the center of your front wheels is a single, massive bolt. They’re 32mm specifically on the Fofo. When you undo this bolt, and one or two on the swing arm, you can swing the entire brake assembly to the side, and yank your axle out of the transmission.  We could not, despite our best efforts, break these bolts loose. Using a breaker bar, socket, a piece of pipe for leverage, and my dad’s entire body weight, they wouldn’t budge. Even with the brakes applied full force, the nut would just turn the wheel and not unscrew.

I’m sure we would’ve come up with something, but my grandpop offered to help pay the mechanic’s bill as a combo birthday/Christmas present for me.  So Mach is now at Rob’s Auto in Pottstown having its guts ripped out and replaced with some shiny new ones. Ooooh, aaaahh.

The other interesting thing happened yesterday on the way home from work. I had two squirrels run out in front of me, resulting in much wear on the brakes of my dad’s Sunfire. The second squirrel however, was white. I’m not sure if he was a true albino, didn’t see the eyes, and it had a splotch of gray in its tail, but it was undoubtedly white. Though maybe I just scared the color out of it, who knows?

I'm sure the squirrel wasn't laughing...but I bet his friends were. Dicks. 

Until next time =P