PDX to SD shuffle

Wow it's already been 2+ weeks 

since the boys came up.

Boo!!

Like any prepared father,

I was tracking them off the plane,

as they took the long way around on the Max/trolley.

Our day and a half was filled with sightseeing,

if that means mainly hanging out at the track.

Here's a big ole coyote we spooked.

They also got to chase around thousands of geese

that flock around here.

They took some funny videos I need.

City kids...

The kids also got to watch police driver training.

These guys are taught how to spin cars around.

We wanted to do that!

Yeah that's the fun side of being a cop!

After awhile it's like yea another skid...

Woo hoo...

They experienced a rainy first day,

and a pleasantly sunny second day.

Perfect for changing oil...

Cleaning van...

and getting the trailer ready for the southbound adventure.

These guys kick a$$ - no complaints!

The day was full,

and we didn't get much rest before taking off.

There's always something on the std list.

Waking up at 5am for work,

and then leaving for a road trip at 10pm,

doesn't get ya very far,

however it gets ya out of the house.

We only made it 3-4 hours before calling it nap time,

which ended up as the perfect morning drive

through fog rain and snow covered mountains and forest,

where water and fresh air are made!

I think Jake was awake for about 10 minutes of it,

but ya seen one tree ya seen 'em all right?

After Oregon's and Shasta's ups and downs,

Jaxon took over driving duty.

He totaled at least 250 of the 1080 miles!

Not too bad with a trailer.

1080 from Portland to San Diego?

That seems excessive right?

Well 150 miles north of Sacramento,

we got stuck in a huge traffic jam,

caused by the flooding from the 100 year storm.

Great.

It took us 2 hours go 2 miles,

into a string of cars and trucks that was 17-20 miles long!

Supposedly the jam was 6-8 hours.

We ended up taking a detour,

and measured 4 miles packed behind us!

There were half a dozen cars stuck in the muddy median,

and I had been tempted to do the same until coming to the asphalted part.

Whew...

On our okey doke we found this forlorn big rig,

45 degrees tilted into the farm muck.

I thought it was a boat from the distance.

We had to remove our trailer,

turn it around,

and reattach to not get stuck.

Holey Chit!

We also saw a u-haul over half submerged.

Bummed we didn't stop to get that pic.

We ended up detouring 30 miles north,

then 30 miles east to Chico,

then south on the 99.

A good excuse to check out the area!

The river was so huge,

we'd never have made it across further south.

We got home way before the dawn light,

just in time for some family rest,

and a huge Sunday shop thrash. 

These kids are awesome.

How many times have we moved this same old chit.

Ya know once the speakers are moved,

it's the end of an era...

Why do I like the dirtiest heaviest crap.

Jeez...

The idea was to sort the keepers and the flippers,

as the Big 3 swap meet was the next weekend.

Hey Greg!

Your roadster parts are finally at the sandblasters!!

We'll see how nice or rough it'll be...

This stalled project was due for a good rust cleaning,

followed by an epoxy primer.

Our load left some goodies,

we'll have to retrieve at another time.

Thanks Jason!!

The 40 was given the boot,

we needed to stash all these goodies!

In its own bratty way,

it decided to run out of gas down the street.

Guess the ole hussie wanted some attention!

Man these pups got big!!

I had to fly back to Portland on the red eye,

as the vacation pay requires a sandwiched work week.

Since when has I become a stickler for rules and schedules!

It was surreal being back for the couple days,

and just like that I was on my way back.

More later!!

TP

Snow Days - vannin'

To some of ya,

snow days are like...

"Great...another day of cold..."

"Chippin ice off the windshield..."

Well from a 100% southern Californian,

snow is like woo hoo!!

And working for the city,

extreme snow and ice days 

can mean an unexpected paid vacation!

At the least it's a 10am late start,

which gives the perfect excuse to get out and cruise around.

There is a learning curve,

throwing tire chains on is the first step.

These were like putting on tight shoes,

the right size but man what a pita.

This wasn't the drive to work,

this was at work.

Fresh powder!

I've got to admit it was pretty cool,

the crunching sound,

the feeling like driving on the moon...

With tire chains the van was a tank.

Yea it was only about a foot,

but that was a foot more 

than nothin!

The track has hundreds of acres of open space,

I figured it was my duty to check the perimeter.

Ok a couple times.

Chief wasn't too thrilled.

I felt a little under the weather that week,

otherwise we woulda tackled the powder together.

Big baby.

The snow is a rare event up in Pirtland,

so tons of track pictures of untouched snow were taken,

then the boss tore it up in his BMW X5.

I missed pics but it looked like an advertisement.

As you can tell 

I had as much fun as I could at work.

But it was still cold 

and I had to get chit done...

More later!

TP

Pioneer SX-800 - round 3

The stereo again?

So soon you're wondering!

Well that's how to get a project done.

Don't stagnate too long,

it'll start turning into a shelf.

Plus what else am I to do 

with the family 1000 miles away!!

A quick recap...

the problem was a scratchy electrical noise out of one side.

Switching tubes, cleaning pots and recapping didn't fix anything,

it actually made the scratching more clear.

I found a copy of the original sx-800 manual,

with the master list of resistors and capacitors.

Wow.

About 111 resistors in this thing!!

The list made it much easier to order,

otherwise most resistors use a colored band/stripe code.

That would have taken forever.

The downside was I bought all the resistors and a few ceramic caps.

Fortunately only $45 or so shipped.

I over-researched the replacement variations.

There are wire wound, carbon and metal film,

with multiple versions of each type.

Online companies like Digikey and Mouser 

stock basically all the variations for $$,

however a site called justradios.com

specializes in tube restoration,

and they carry what works in most instances.

Their ordering menu is quick and easy.

The down side is there selection is more limited.

Instead of a large pipe style wire-wound,

they had the newer ceramic style,

which needed some hot rodding,

more like rat rodding.

JB weld rated their epoxy at 500 continuous degrees.

This was the perfect test piece.

Good thing these have a shield,

what an ugly mess!

It took two short evenings to replace this pile.

By rough calculations this would take 20 evenings to finish!!

Looks like a big blur to most of ya I'm sure.

Underneath I concentrated on the tone control portion front center,

bass and treble,

as there was a weird thump when the low filter switch was switched.

Out of curiousity the old Heathkit multimeter was brought out.

Let's check out the ohms! 

This carbon dogbone style is known to degrade with time, moisture and heat.

Nothin was way out of spec,

as these all have a 20% tolerance!

Interestingly enough,

the resistors in the pics above

don't match their #'s on the sheet.

An 8 degree colder change in temperature changed them by .02...

Guess what?

This thing sounded perfect!

No more annoying scratching noise.

Bummer was not knowing exactly which ones were the culprit.

Those brown circles - ceramic capacitors,

looked questionable but I can't test them.

Great...

Now what to do with the rest of the pile!

I'm figuring that the resistance changed with the tube heat,

well beyond their 50 year old specs.

I'll probably swap at least 20-30 more out.

After about 4 hours burn time,

no big pops of smoke so far!!

Just in time too,

the boys flew up here to visit,

and snagged my PDX listening station!

Good times...

TP