Well, that's one I've never heard of.

From my friend Stan, this tidbit from Carpundit about auto parts theft. More specifically, headlights. Yet more specifically, from parked cars.

Boy, I lead a sheltered life.

I do like one commentor's suggestion to tack up a sign on the front of your car that says "Not Xenon," akin to the signs people used to put on their windows saying "No Radio."

Thankfully, I think the Volvo is probably safe from such things--I think I'm much more likely to have the 200,000 mile badge boosted than anything else.

Järn Says...

"KRIG ÖRN!!"



I know there's not a lot of you around the country (and world) who can quite understand the depth of this rivalry here in Alabama, but it sure makes it easier to go to work come Monday when it's your team that came out on top.

Also makes it ALMOST worthwhile not to have gotten anything done on the car this weekend. I did tighten up one of the dashboard screws that I had missed, but there is still the issue of the mysterious dashboard light-tachometer short circuit I still have to figure out. Silly old car.

Anyway, there's time for all that stuff to get fixed eventually.

Christmas Shopping?

Well, look at what all the cool kids will be getting from Santa!

The Assimilation Nears Completion

I was obviously very late today, but due to no fault by anyone in our family. Reba and I have had to take separate cars this past two weeks because she's been tied up with billing at work, so I am unfettered by the potential for errors in judging preparation time.

HOWEVER, I can't control everyone else, and so this morning someone got the bright idea of recreating the recent Parisian carflagration on the side of I-59 inbound to Birmingham. Right there around Roebuck Parkway, meaning the usual delays and backups were exacerbated by flames and emergency vehicles and rubberneckers. I had originally planned to go on and go that way, but it was all at a dead stop, so at the last moment I decided to hop on I-459 and link up with I-20 down the road a ways. Just like everyone else.

Yep, it was jammed, too. But at least it WAS moving.

Now, unbeknownst to me, Miss Reba, who left the house before the kids and I, decided to go straight through. And, obviously, became mired down. In one of those odd coincidences, it seems that even though I had taken the kids to school, and gone a completely different route, when I-20 and I-59 finally merged into one at the airport exit, I had managed to arrive at the on ramp at just the same time as Miss Reba.

Again, I did not realize this until she called a few minutes ago and said I had an AWFULLY intense look on my face when I merged in front of her. I hadn't even realized she was there!

BUT, the most important part of the conversation, and the topic of this post--"Yeah, I was just toodling along, and I saw this old silver Volvo come by, and I thought, 'Hey, that's a pretty good-looking Volvo,' and it was all shiny, and had nice shiny taillights, and then I realized, 'HEY! That's TERRY!"

Surely you see the signs that my "I Am A Moron" Project has finally reached a fatal level on those around me!

Evidence?

A) She sees a car, and can correctly identify it as a Volvo.

B) Despite the poor condition of the paint on top of the car, she still seems to think it looks pretty good for its age.

C) She notices inconsequential items such as the taillights.

and D) She notices all of this without being prompted AND without at first realizing it was her moronic husband's car!

MwuhahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!! SHE'S MINE!!

I won't even go into when we went out to eat this past Sunday, and she noticed a late model C70 parked next to us that had headlight wipers, and she asked me if mine had those, and I told her no, but that it had space for them and they could be installed, and she didn't say, "Well, don't get any bright ideas," but rather, "Those look so CUTE!"

From the Volvo PR Department...

CALLING ALL HEROES: VOLVO SEARCHES FOR TOP COMMUNITY HEROES

NEW YORK) Nov. 8, 2005 –– Do you know a local hero –– a person who is seeking to improve the quality of life, safety or environment in your community? If so, Volvo is calling on people in the next two months to nominate a community hero they know in the nation’s largest annual search for and celebration of everyday heroes. The grand winner, “America’s Greatest Hometown Hero,” will receive a Volvo car for life.

The fourth annual Volvo for life Awards is a national public service program that honors hometown heroes with $1 million in financial contributions. Volvo calls on people to nominate a hero that they know doing the extraordinary in the areas of safety, quality of life or environment. Through Jan. 15, 2006, visit www.volvoforlifeawards.com to nominate a hero. The initiative has recognized nearly 10,000 individuals from all 50 states for their extraordinary service since its inception in 2001. [...]

Read the rest of the article, and if you have someone in mind you'd like to nominate, go to www.volvoforlifeawards.com

Finally, finally, finally!

My dashboard, that is! Finally got time--sorta--to get it installed this past weekend. This was crossposted over on Possumblog this morning, so there's more idle chit-chat than substantive car jockeying, so bear with me. And it's a long one because I ran into some unforeseen trouble with Murphy's Law.

Did one more read-through of my instruction sheet that I wish to thank Dave Shannon for providing, got my tools, and set to work.

One thing I want to say for sure--although Reba thinks it's weird for me to take pictures of what I'm doing, it turned out to be a lifesaver. So always have a digital camera handy, and take pictures as you go along.

I won't go into all the details here--that Dave guy's site pretty well covers it all. Except for the part about just exactly how hard it is to get the fool thing out of the car. Obviously, it was constructed without the steering wheel in place, and to try to maneuver the thing out with the tiller in the way creates many problems. But not insurmountable. And unlike some things, this would not have been any easier with two people. Basically, it's just not meant to be done. As if that could stop me.

And there is one thing unclear as well--there is a small, flat bit of sheetmetal shaped into a hook that clips onto the lower rail of the dash, and the screw for it is hidden deep in the well of one of the trim holes. I wasn't quite sure which one it was, but turns out (after much grunting and cussing) that it's the leftward-most hole in the center portion, right under the lower gauge hole--



Anyway, I did get it all torn up and after I got down to the guts inside the dash, I tried to figure out what went wrong with my defroster. It puts out about as much warm breath as a corpse. Before I tore into everything, I figured out I wasn't getting any vacuum to the damper controls--I could push the buttons all I wanted to and nothing different would happen.

SO, I played with the vacuum servos for a bit and could tell they had enough seal to work--one would move when I squished the other. Hmm. I wonder if there's a vacuum line loose outside in the engine?

Popped the hood, and started looking for rubber lines coming out of the dashboard. Found a couple of electrical connectors that I have no clue what they do, and then finally, the open end of an old greasy rubber tube with tape on the end. BINGO! I pulled it up from behind the cylinder head and traced it back around to the firewall. Well, that's where it goes TO, I wonder where it hooks into the engine?!

I looked around the intake manifold, and right there in plain view, a nice little copper elbow, begging for a rubber tube to violate. I cut the brittle end of the rubber tube off, stretched it as far as I could and pulled a bit out of the firewall, snugged it onto the the elbow, cranked up the car, and HOORAY! The little vacuum servos went back and forth just like they should, delivering air to the defroster ducts, and the floor vents, and a blast of air out the center when called upon! Yippee! (Yes, I was happy to figure that out.) Shut it off and heard the satisfying ::sighhhhh:: of the vacuum reservoir leaking down. Apparently, I've been driving around without any sort of damper control since I bought it, being that this is the first time I've heard that whoosh when I shut down. Very nice. Sometime after I got things back together, I decided I would get some more tubing to make the engine line a bit longer--it was stretched further than it should, and it needs to have some slack for when the engine rocks back and forth.

OF COURSE, after my successful tracking down of this item, this morning I just found out that the guy whose website has the dashboard replacement ALSO has a tip on fixing the vacuum line. Almost the same thing as what I did. I sure wish I had read that beforehand.

Anywho, while the dash was out, I looked at everything and marvelled at the junk crammed in there, and watched the very entertaining windshield wiper arms and cables and pulleys operate. OH, and I had to work on my odometer, too!

See, it kinda makes a bit of a herky-jerky motion as the numbers on the trip odometer go around, and as you recall, I replaced the tiny white gear inside the guts of the thing when I first started driving the car. Well, I thought that it was possible I had put the tiny gear in upside down on its tiny little spindle, and maybe it was causing things to drag. So, I took the instrument panel inside, pulled the speedometer head, opened up the odometer motor, looked at the gear, and satisfied myself that I had indeed put it in the right way. I buttoned everything back up and went back to work.

Now then, getting the new dash into place.

As hard as the old dash was to get in, the replacement was even harder to get in.

I didn't care too much if I broke something on the old one, but the new one I had to be extra super special careful. Which was impossible. After much grunting and pushing and pulling and aligning pegs with holes and shoving and grabbing, I finally had it more or less in position. Started screwing in the many screws, found that I had one of the light switches caught between the framework and the dash. Undo, move, rescrew. Then, the cable.

Great huge thing running under the ignition switch. Little did I remember that the cable had originally run OUTSIDE the dash, and I was doing ALL I COULD to ram it back up under the pad. No luck, obviously. GRR! What was I doing wrong!?

"Terry, it's..."

"I KNOW, I KNOW, I'M COMING!"

It had gotten to be 4:00, and Reba had come out--fully dressed and ready to go--to remind me. We were supposed to leave at 4:00. And I was still covered in sweat and smears of sticky soundproofing mastic. And my dashboard was still not in right. And I had to get a shower and put on nice clothes, because I thought it was a nice clothes event.

I locked up my stuff and took off upstairs, rather in a put-out mood, I must say.

Showered, washed my hair, shaved, brushed my teeth, deodorized, put on my shirt, pants, socks, shoes, belt, tie, loaded my pockets, grabbed my suit coat--4:15. Quite possible the fasted pit stop I've ever accomplished.

So, anyway, down to Tuscaloosa and back, then on to bed Saturday night, where I had a long fitful night wondering how to fix that dumb ol' dashboard, and trying to remind myself NOT to forget to reattach the two tiny rubber teats on each of the defroster vents that hold the vents in place on the metal hangy-downy brace.

Up early Sunday, blech. Found out that Good Morning, America is now broadcasting in high definition. Blah. But I also came to the conclusion that Marysol Castro is very attractive. And to think up until now I'd been watching the early morning huntin' and feeshin' show. No more.

Finally got out of bed and started getting dressed when I had an entire thought cross my mind. After making sure that I had not been harmed by it, I analyzed what I'd just thought--you know when I said it always helps to have a digital camera standing by when you do any sort of destruction? Well, as I was putting on my socks, it occurred to me that I might just have taken a snapshot of the exact thing I was having trouble with. I hurriedly finished dressing then went through and rousted the kids and told them to start getting ready. I went downstairs to "go put the Bibles in the van for church" and after doing that unlocked the car, grabbed the camera and went back through my pictures, and BINGO! Sure enough, big as day, this--



That cable DID run outside and underneath! I loosened the screws again and pulled the cable back out and through to its intended place, shoved the dash back into place, screwed it in, and PRESTO! PERFECT! I also remembered the four rubber nibs and pulled them back into place and then--

Whoa. Wait just a minute. Glovebox light wire. Hanging down. Between the dashboard support and the dashboard. In my haste, I hadn't quite moved it out of the way, and now it was wedged in there without a way out. The wire had a big connector on one end, and the light on the other.

::sigh::

::vows to self to hunt down this Murphy fellow and beat him with a brick::

I looked it over, and loosened the screws again to see if I could get enough space. Nope.

Reached over, got the wire cutters, and snipped it into. I'd splice it later.

Having successfully avoided getting my church clothes dirty, I thought it best to quit while I was ahead and finish getting everyone ready for church.

Off to church, which was very nice, then on to lunch at the Chinese place. "We've really got to hurry, because I want to finish getting the car fixed."

"Is it still not finished?"

::ghost of Ralph Kramden enters my body, is quickly escorted out lest my body become dead as well due to ill-thought-out rash comment::

"Um, no--I still have to get the instrument panel back in and everything fixed back."

Luckily, Reba and Ashley and Rebecca had a trip to the library planned, so as soon as we got home, I jumped out and ran and put on my work clothes as they went and did something else. I had about three hours to work.

Reinstalled the vents, hooked the gauges back up (another tip--always mark the bundle of wires with the appropriate gauge using a piece of tape and a marker)


Put in the instrument panel, carefully hooking everything up again, and got it just about ready to go. Figured I'd drive down to the foot of the hill to pick up a wire nut and some vacuum tubing and check and make sure the odometer was still working correctly.

Backed up, out into the street.

GRR!

::shakes fist at Murphy AGAIN!::

The speedometer was working, but not the odometer. Meaning, after I got back from the foot of the hill, I was going to have to take the instrument cluster BACK out, and take it apart AGAIN, and see what I messed up the FIRST time, when I really didn't have to take it apart AT ALL!

Got back, pulled the cluster (and believe me, this thing is becoming a great big cluster-) went to the kitchen table, carefully pulled the speedometer out, carefully pulled the odometer motor, carefully pulled the bigger gear out, looked, looked, hmm, WHA! WHOA! @$$#!&^%!*#@$!%!!

I had just dropped the odometer drive gear, which included the tiny white gear I had spoken of earlier. Into the kitchen floor. Full of crumbs and toy beads and hair and other unspeakable things.

ARGGHHHHHHHHH!

It is at this point where I reenact the scene from Wrath of Khan where Mr. Rourke is screaming, except this time I'm screaming "MURPHYYYYYYY!" Yes, I realize it doesn't have the same effect without costuming and special effects.

I carefully began looking--AHA! Here it is!

But, but...

NOOOOOOOO!

The tinier part of the gear had come loose and was nowhere to be found.

Start sweeping. Sweep, sweep. Under the table. Under the stove. Into the utility closet. Move table and sweep. Establish a pile of sweepings large enough for its own area code. No tiny gear.

I sat down to plot my next move and to figure if it would be appropriate to cry a lot. Figured I was going to have to just order ANOTHER gear, at 20 bucks a pop.

In desperation, I got down onto my stomach and pressed the side of my throbbing head to the cold vinyl floor. I looked and looked and...

Say--

Is it?

It IS! I think!

I got up and walked over to the foot of the stairs. ::sigh:: Nope. Sure did look like it, though. WAIT! THERE IT IS!

Like finding a solid gold gold-making machine!

I pounced on it and rubbed it and made sure its little teeth were clean and then went to put it back into its place and...and--hmm. I wonder which side goes up?

Yes, I had forgotten again. Figured it out, though, I did! Buttoned it back up, ran outside, plugged it back in again, screwed everything down, did a test run--PERFECTION! IT WORKS! IT WORKS!

Back to the driveway, fixed the vacuum hose with my new tubing and connector, fixed the glovebox light's severed wire, stuck the box back in, and now--TAA-DAAAA!

This is from my side--



and this is from your side--



So nice and shiny and uncracked. For now.

Only bad thing? My main instrument panel lights don't work--I swapped in a couple of what I thought were new bulbs, and they apparently are burned out.

Meaning? I have to take that instrument panel out again.

::sigh::

Now then, one of my regular commentors over on Possumblog by the name of Skinnydan, bless his heart, wanted to see what the OLD dashboard looked like. I have some photos on the camera that are better, but this is the one I brought with me today of the thing sitting in the garage.

Remember, crack is whack.

This is a big ol' picture, so don't be alarmed when you click on it to read my stellar prose and scientific explanations.



AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT--here's the topmost wheel in the stack. If you look at the dashboard picture, you'll see a wooden creeper standing behind it. Behind the creeper is my stacked stash of wheels.

When Brick Meets Brick...

An interesting story this morning out of Little Rock, AR--Truck Overturns, Lands On Top Of Volvo

By KTHV-TV

LITTLE ROCK, AR -- A Little Rock couple is lucky to be alive, following an accident on Interstate 430 Friday morning. Photojournalist Oran Hardcastle captured these dramatic photos.

Traffic was backed up for miles northbound on the interstate after an 18-wheeler carrying a load of bricks lost control and toppled on top of a small Volvo.

Police say the tractor-trailer smashed the car while trying to negotiate a turn near the Cantrell exit.

"I was coming down the hill and was switching lanes from the left lane to the right lane, trying to be careful and everything and the load shifted, the load of bricks shifted," commercial driver Colin Gilbert says.

Gilbert is a driver for a Kansas City trucking company. He says the additional weight of the bricks caused the truck to roll right on top of the couple's car, throwing bricks across the highway.

The concrete median stopped the vehicles from moving into oncoming traffic.

Remarkably, the couple in the Volvo walked away with hardly a scratch.

"They were moving about on their own. They were transported as a precautionary and a little clean up that's about it," State Trooper First Class Michael Felcher says. [...]

The automotive industry touts the Volvo as being one of the safest vehicles on the market. Emergency crews on the scene say they believe the safety features on the car are what saved the couple's life. [...]

The website didn't have any photos, so I was curious as to what year and model Volvo that was. I've sent a quick e-mail to the producer just to satisfy my own curiosity. That's probably one of those stories that'll make it's way onto the Volvo Saved My Life Club website.

UPDATE 11/8/05--Well, I never got a response back from the station who originally broadcast the story, but by way of WXIA in Atlanta, a recitation of the events, except THIS time they have a photo of the wreck--that would be an S40 or S60 S80 model underneath there.

WOO-HOO!

My wheels are here! My wheels are here!

The UPS guy just dropped off a big box full of four dirty, scuffed, Draco alloy wheels!

Hmm.

Now, how to get these into the garage without any uncomfortable questions?

They might just have to hang around here in the office as paperweights for a while..

And now for something compleatly different...

...via my buddy Nate McCord, quite a different sort of Volvo. Less like a brick, more like an atomic doorstop.

I'm still waiting for a retro 122--I think it should be an AWD model, based on the corporate Mazda 3/5 architecture, with the sort of throwback styling Ford has done with the GT and the Mustang.

Then again, I am a moron.