It never rains but it pours, my luck

OK I was going to get the extension hose today so I removed the gauge from the pump to take the fitting to the parts shop to get the right sizes on the hose. After I got it off I thought just for due diligence I should leak test the unit to make sure of where the leak was. So guess where the leak was? The end of the hose where it joins the gauge. Now if the leak had been on the other end of the hose or the other side of the gauge I could fix it, but where the hose connects to the gauge is a crimped connection and not something I can fix at home. So now I have to do a warrantee replacement of the pump so I can ride my bike. Fortunately Amazon is sending a replacement pump assembly.

Getting back to the design of the pump, this pump was designed to be non-repairable. What I thought was a male pipe-thread fitting on the gauge turned out to be a self-threading fitting with a sealing ring at the top, sorta like the legendary self-sealing stem bolts of ST:DS9 . This means they didn’t need to worry about clocking the installation of the gauge because it would clock itself without leaking. That also means I can’t just stick another original gauge and hose in there because the threads are already cut and probably wouldn’t match up to the new unit. And to make matters worse the hose connection to the gauge is not one that can be done or undone in your average home shop. So I’m screwed, and not in the fun way. The only thing I can do is see if I can screw a hose into the pump and run the pump without a gauge. But I’m still going to see if I can fix this one because that’s what I do, play with busted stuff and see if I can make it work. I have a brand-new pump that just needs a hose and chuck to work. I WILL make it work.

On the hot rod front, I have sustained a setback but I’m only out about $90 including taxes because everything I bought since the design change to a mid-engine will work with the more traditional design except for the car cover for a 1990-2005 Chrysler Town and Country mini-van. The books on reprogramming the Chrysler PCM are generic enough that unless I end up with a carb instead of fuel injection I’m still good on that, so that brings it down to $45 for the car cover and tax. The steering arms will work because the front suspension and steering are the same for the front and mid-engine versions except for springs and shocks, which I haven’t bought yet.

Something all the design work for the mid-bucket has made me want to do is to use something like the engine and transmission to make a SCCA Solo racing A/Mod car. There are very few rules in A/Mod: 72″ minimum wheelbase, 42″ minimum track, 900 pound minimum weight with driver, roll bar minimums and maximums, and all 4 wheels have to be sprung. There are maximum wing rules, driver coverage body rules, but nothing that would keep me from doing my thing. I really wished over and over I had the budget to do both the hot rod and the A/Mod car. Towing the A/Mod car behind the hot rod would be doubleplus rad.

And I think I have gotten everything out of my system for today.

PSA, Opus the Unkillable

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Getting my feet back under me after getting the rug pulled

I don’t know if any of you caught it Saturday, but Mrs. the Poet pulled the rug out from underneath me on the hot rod. Basically she just took my part of the family budget and said “we need to spend this otherwise”. This strands a ton of money in non-returnable parts because I bought a lot of my parts on close-out and returned to save money. I had a very tight budget before and was pinching every penny until Ol’ Abe screamed for mercy, but now I don’t even have that.

And yes, that penny is the same diameter as a nickel now.

I’m still processing this on an emotional level. On my intellectual level, yeah, we could use the money for other things but all the things she mentioned I have pulled money out of my trust to pay for several times now and she still hasn’t done them, so why should my budget get wiped for things I want when she gets unlimited raids on my trust fund for the same thing? I mean I have taken money out of my trust on several occasions to pay for things she mentioned in the justification for wiping my budget, so why wipe out my budget now? Especially when I was on the cusp of making as much money on my own as Mrs. the Poet’s retirement brings in.

I don’t mean for this to sound like I’m dumping on Mrs. the Poet, this is my way of processing this. In fact this blog was started as a way of processing my getting hit and the guy apparently not getting punished for trying to kill me. This blog had been running for years before I found out what really happened. And then I had to process why they would withhold the information from me and why I still don’t know the name of the guy who tried to kill me after more than 15 years. I’m mainly just kvetching now.

In summation, I ain’t got no money, Mrs. the Poet is being mean to me (not really), and I write to work things through I can’t process any other way. Oh! and I can’t get money until I replace my ID card.

Opus the Unkillable