The plumbing is now complete!

The clean-water plumbing for my project is now complete. This including running the water lines downstairs for the someday-to-be basement bathroom and installing a garden faucet on the back of the house. Next I'll need to wrap up the drain line for the sink in the basement, as well and I'll be ready to hook up the sink down there. After a little concrete patch, I can install the toilet. The funny thing will be, it's just going to be a sink and a toilet sitting out in the open. But hey, if you gotta go bad enough...

Other tasks done this weekend include opening the back panel of my Mitsubishi 48" widescreen rear projection TV. I identified all of the surface mounted fuses on the panels (and I was amazed at the complexety of this device!) and tested them for resistance (none being good). All of the fuses were good. I did some more research and conculded that I was way over my head and now is not the time for me to learn the full scope of electronics. Mrs. Angry and I then researched and selected a TV repair shop to come visit us this week.

I completed the install of the combination switch on my 1993 Mazda Protege. I've never removed a steering wheel before and I had quite an ordeal figuring it out. But thanks to my boss, I finally got it together and installed the new switches. They worked great except for one oddity: any time I turned the wheel it would also turn the switch on! Finally I realized that the new switch box was not seating back quite as far as the old one and this was causing a plastic piece, which is responsible for turning off the signals after a turn has been completed, to grab the switch toggle inside the steering assembly and move the toggle. I took this part out and put it on the bench grinder to remove about 1/16th of an inch off the back of it and reinstalled. The whole assembly works like new, now!

I didn't have so much luck working on my weedeater. I replaced the very fouled spark plug, dumped the fuel and mixed a fresh batch of 40:1 (mmmm... home cookin'!), adjusted the carberateur and cleaned the air filter. No dice. It will start but then sputter out. Dare I make a visit to Raytown Feed and Seed? The Unstable Blogger recommends pulling the carb out completely and soaking it in fuel for a day. Might be worth the try, but I just don't have the time. Maybe he'd like to do it, for fun and personal satisfaction?!

Lastly, I got my old 97 Dodge Neon running again. I has sat idle for many months and I have intended to give it to a friend of mine as a work transport. After cleaning the positive terminal with a steel brush and jump starting, it fired right up. I then filled it with fuel and was quite excited to tell my friend it was ready to go. But that night, someone observed that it was leaking fuel on the ground. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to it until after church today and by then, the $40 in gas I put in it had coursed down the gutter and evaporated under the hot summer sky. After removing a guard over the sensors for the gas tank, I observed a vacuum cap on a nipple (plumbing term- not my mine!) which had a lateral crack halfway around it. This was the culprit! A trip to O'Reilly's and a $1.25 later, it was fixed.

My friend came by tonight to pick it up. We check the oil and the radiator fluid and it was waaay low on fluid. I filled up the radiator (with pure H20- the best thermal transfer agent available for cars) and removed the thermostat (cars don't need these in the summer anyhow) for optimal performance and... it still overheated. Grrrrrrr! Time to flush it again, but that will have to wait for the morrow.

I am so tired...