Kaimusailing

OK, I have to admit poor planning and poor performance. The right front strut on the CRV was broken. I needed to replace it right away. I was advised to order from Rock Auto. No way. I ended up ordering from a semi local distributor on eBay who would have it here in 3 days. Free shipping.
.
It arrived and it did not have the front coil spring on it, it was the strut without the spring. Well, we'll just move the old spring and associated parts, probably work out better, both front springs would be more alike.
.
Geoff has a spring compressor, which I have worked with before long ago. It's like two hooks on a threaded rod. You have one on one side of the spring and the other on the other. The hooks grab the coils of the spring, the threaded rod lets you tighten them up and voila, the spring is compressed. Then you can take the strut apart and relocate those parts to the new strut.
.
Geoff said come on over, he had air tools, I wanted to pop off the wheel and see what we got, we could do it there more easily. It was very easy for me, Geoff got in there with a breaker bar and broke free the lug nuts, then air wrenched them off, zip, zip, and off came the wheel.
.
The strut failure was due to the spring breaking, so we had a replacement strut but no replacement spring. We went inside and cleaned up, looked at auto parts on line.
.
I felt very grubby, unwashed, dirty from car work. We ended up ordering a replacement, with spring attached, from Rock Auto. I did not order from them just a couple days ago, because of very high shipping cost. Geoff searched now and his shipping cost was a lot less. I ended up letting him use my credit card to purchase the replacement.
.
The car was exhibiting some other strange problems. When you parked, sometimes, it would not let you shift from Drive up through Neutral to Reverse or Park. Then I had engine light come on, speedometer go to zero, cruise control stopped working, and it seemed like the transmission is stuck in 3rd gear. Also the car would surge and slow, very strange.
.
I cleaned up and went to join them down at the Southern River Walk restaurant. I had some bean soup there. Geoff said come on over for dinner. OK. It will be wine for me, but he made something called Crawdad Etufee, or something like that, Creole dish. I liked it and helped him and Karen drink wine.
.
Lawyer John Morgan is forming a new political party in Florida. He is very successful. It sounds like he wants to create a centrist party. Dumb idea. That's like stepping into No Man's Land and and saying, "Here I am, who wants to hit me?". The political machine will go at him from both sides. But I like the idea of not having the Ship of State going off to a right handed helmsman for a while, then going to a left handed one. I don't drive like that, and I hope you don't either.
.
Finding that middle course is difficult, because the rabblerousers try to paint extreme on everyone. You"re a Commie or a Nazi, come on, almost none of us are any of that. Political rhetoric.
.
We have to face up to our deficit, that's the big problem, not government waste or inefficiency. You want to fire all the government workers and reduce aid to those that really need it. It's our congress that disperses money. There are plenty of safeguards and oversight to keep things in check. We need to pay down the debt at a sustainable rate, not give tax breaks to the rich.
.
I don't want a surf-less society, I want a serf-less society.
.
But I am not a Florida or Georgia voter.
.
A front came through in the morning with gale force winds and a ton of rain. It was very abrupt and quick. Power was out. Geoff texted me that the new strut had come in. We started all over again. Remove the wheel, remove the castellated nut on the tie rod end knuckle, remove the two large pinch bolts, the two small retaining bolts for the wheel sensor and brake line, and remove the 3 nuts at the top of the strut to release it from the car. Out it came, rusty with a broken spring.
.
The new strut was somewhat difficult to line up, first the three top studs have to be inserted through the inner fender and nuts loosely tightened, then the wheel and lower arm have to be lined up with the bottom of the strut and the pinch bolts replaced and tightened to 33 ft lbs. The tie rod end is refastened to the steering arm on the strut and the retaining bolts for the brakes and wheel sensor are refastened.
.
A quick roll down the driveway revealed the alignment was way off, way toed out. How could it be so far out? We put it back up on the jack and removed the wheel. Geoff needed to put a torch on the tie rod end to loosen it and adjust it. He aligned by eye and I took it for a test ride. Did not pull to either side, seemed to be driveable.
.
Geoff had done almost all the work on this and it came to about an hour and a half. I bought them drinks at the corner restaurant, but only later did he explain to me that the restaurant was comping him for work he had done there refinishing tables and lighting their outdoor sign. There was no charge for their drinks.
.
I had had a molar crown come off and I saved it in a zip lok bag after cleaning with denatured alcohol. A local dentist took me in and quickly recemented the crown. I then drove up to Tires Plus to have the Honda properly aligned. After about an hour they were done and didn't charge me for the alignment. The front end could not be properly aligned and rear couldn't be aligned at all due to rust. I was only interested in the front end alignment. The detailed print out of the results showed the left front being out of alignment by .03 degrees. 3 hundredths of a degree. I was happy, no charge and the car was good to go.
.
The other weird problems did not return. I called an automatic transmission expert friend in Hawaii about what symptoms I was seeing and he said it's probably the output shaft speed sensor. It could be the sensor or associated wiring.
.
The crazy misalignment when we replaced the strut seemed to be related to the broken spring. When the car was inspected in Crisfield, MD, they replaced the left tie rod end and I assume they did a front end alignment. Neither of us caught the broken spring at that time, that's when I had replaced the front brakes. Geoff said the right end of the tie rod was bent, probably due to hitting a pothole or curb and that was probably when the spring was broken. So when the shop in Crisfield aligned the left tie rod end, that alignment was no good, now, when the new strut went in.
.
Spring Break is upon us and my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson are arriving in Orlando and we will be meeting up at Ormond Beach for the week. Hopefully the Honda will make the 2 hour trip without breaking down. The image is of Ormond Beach.