finally, this rv is out of a neighbors backyard! its been there, unmoving, since i moved into the neighborhood over a year ago. always wanted to see it out, since it looked like it was in decent shape.
another missing pup, with odd key adornment.
after our walk i made a batch of cookies, steamed some kale for a cold kale salad, and finished prepping and making the veggie burgers.
they were a mash of roasted sweet potato and cannelini beans...def gonna add some quinoa and garlic for flavor and texture next time.
even though they were panko-breaded and lightly "fried", they were a little mushy and kind of weird, but still good.
stayed up til the wee hours of the morn by the firepit, the birds were singing at one am! why so early???
finally went to bed. woke up the next day, easter!, and threw some wood on the embers that were still hot from the night before. fire cranked right up.
got to working on the 'bago while the dogs played out back, last monday it failed the state safety inspection for a leaky exhaust manifold gasket on the drivers side and a pinhole manifold leak on the passenger side. our plan was to find new manifolds and replace em, seal up with new gaskets.
first things first, we needed to get the old manifolds off to make sure we were replacing them with the right things.
man, things sure were rusty down there.
ye ol' pipe-on-the-end-of-a-wrench for leverage was key...we ended up shearing off a couple bolts (not ones we cared about, thankfully) because the nuts/bolts had rusted together so terribly.
attacked the passenger side first, since it was the easier to access of the two sides.
found the hole in the manifold, you can even see a little crack forming around the outer edge of it.
after exerting much energy to get nowhere, we decided it was time to bust out the air compressor and impact driver. serious business. welllll...we needed 1/2" and 9/16" sockets that fit the impact wrenches 3/4" drive...and i only had 1/4" and 1/2" drive bits. bummer.
you can see the level of bummedness on Andrews face, thinking about how many stores would be open on Easter for tool sales...
a hat and some liquid courage later, he was stoked again and ready to brave the non-open stores. finally, after many stores, found the right drivers and knocked things right out. zip zip zip, dun son.
the outer bolts for the manifold fasten into an area full of antifreeze, so when andrew pulled an outer bolt he started a stream of coolant...had to drain the radiator at that point. ha.
but finally, it was off.
then came the task of locating a new one. um, that has turned out to be way easier said than done. i called the three major auto part chains, looking for parts, gaskets and asking other questions, to be told by the napa rep that she "doesn't work on cars so she doesn't know." that was pretty funny...called summit racing and dorman (who makes the headers that everyone sells) and couldn't find an exact fit anywhere. i guess the motorhome application parts are very few and far between. that said, i think we'll just get ours welded/fixed and clean it up. ceramic coat or hi temp paint, work with what we have and keep looking. we could do headers, but then that means adding dual exhaust and new mounts, which is just another project. something to think about, but not now.
monday i knocked out so many chores before noon that it was crazy!
i shampooed the rugs on the stairs, started a bunch of laundry, installed a new faucet in the kitchen, and kept plugging away at organizing my craft room.
i also FINALLY introduced myself to my three-ferrari neighbor. asked for permission to go into his yard to look at his cars, something i've been dying to do FOREVER. it was super intimidating because he has an eighties conversion van in front of his house covered in war conspiracy/pow/mia/anti government stickers and i've never seen any of his SEVEN cars or one motorcycle move...seemed like a scary conspiracy theory shut in, and thats just a smalltalk headlock i don't want to get into.
turned out to be a super friendly dude, and i'm really glad i got over my percieved fear.
he was on his way out the door to run errands when i caught him, but he was very obliging. the yellow ferrari is usually covered, but it was really windy monday and the cover was mostly off.
i really wanted to believe that they were all real, but srsly who has three ferraris and a falling down house?
i could tell by looking at the fiberglass work and the paint that they were definitely all kits. then later comparing them to realdeals on the internet, there were definitely small differences between the models. its funny to me that building three kit ferraris is still cheaper than owning one real one. haha.
either way, they are still cool looking and i'd drive the shit out of one.
and it would be tight. no matter what. probably less to insure, and cheaper to maintain.
i took a ton of photos of them, you can really see the "kit" of the testarossa in this pic...
it almost looks like a block of wood painted red as a portion of trim. haha. oh well. theyre awesome and i'm so glad i got to see them.
the 328 gts is my favorite, but the f355 was the best looking "kit" of them all. i bet its honestly just because its usually covered. uv rays are a bitch!
after i got to tour his backyard unattended, i finished up my own errands. took dot with me to a fast ace hardware run.
she loves to surf the car when i drive. sketchy.
hung in the yard with the dogs later in the afternoon, the weather was just so glorious. even though the pollen was killing me, i just wanted to sit in the sun.
dogs even got a chance to take a dip in the kiddie pool yesterday, the morning was very warm.
and here we are, back to work.
if i'm not totally bushed, i'm gonna try to make a hat a day this week. usually at night i'm just beat after work, so we'll see about that.
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