Weekends were made for catching up on projects, right?

Jarhead John mentioned in a comment that he hadn’t heard from me for a while. Thanks for your concern, John. I hope to be able to get my head above water soon, so I can show the same level of care to my online friends that I do my face to face friends/family, and that you have shown for me.

All’s well that ends well, right? Friday afternoon, on the way home from running errands (I get out of work kind of early on Fridays, after working four nines Monday through Thursday) I had finally had enough of the grinding and binding going on in the front end of my ’98 QX4. It’s paid for, so the maintenance is the only cost. Well, that, and it’s addiction to refined petroleum products, but that’s another post. ANYway, I called the neighborhood Midas shop, and took the beast in for a front axle lifetime brake job. I had a coupon, so it was only $110 for the brakes. While the brakes were off, it came to light that the reason the brakes were binding and jumping was that the last brake job (at a shop I will not name, for some soon-to-be obvious reasons), when they resurfaced the rotors, went just a hair past specification for thickness. Actually, thinness. Three thousand pounds of vehicle, brakes every mile and a half or so, Phoenix summer temps, ergo, warpage and binding and nasty things. New rotors and Labor: $460. While the wheels were off, I looked at the front end. I shouldn’t have. Well, maybe it’s a good thing I did. The dust boots on the front drive axles (both sides, thanks for asking) were shot, no grease in the joints, and when I grabbed and shook, it was very loose and nasty in there. Front axles R&R: $325.

Well, since my afternoon was finished, and TMBWitW (who, by the way, is enjoying the pregnancy except for the discomfort and the sinus headache she just picked up – and is now sharing with me) was hungry, we drove over to our second dining room, JB’s. We each had our own vehicle, since she had picked me up and dropped me back off at Midas. After dinner, she waved, hopped into her Camry, and zipped off. I waved back, hopped in my QX4, hit the starter, and called a tow truck.

Saturday was spent cursing the engineers who design vehicles and never work on them; followed by the realization that if mechanics designed vehicles they would be too wide for today’s roads. Or too long to drive safely. But much easier to get at each component. Seems it is required to run the tranny cooler lines right over the top of the starter bolts. Once I managed to R&R the starter, I discovered that the battery, at halfway through it’s three year life, had given up the ghost. Wal-Mart, in it’s infinite wisdom, will be supplying me with free replacement batteries for the rest of my life. Checker/Schucks/Kragen will be warrantying my starter for the rest of my life. Battery: $0 (warranty replacement). Starter: $164.99 and my own labor to install.

This all means that my weekend projects (trim out the new door, paint the hall bath, try to get more baseboard down) didn’t get done. Well, there’s always next weekend.

It also means my savings account didn’t grow very much this week.

How was your weekend?

God bless you all, every one!