User Blogs

On my way up Cobb Mountain I started hearing and feeling click/thump noises from somewhere in the middle of the truck. It turned out that the carrier shaft bearing's rubber isolator had failed, probably because of added vibration because a bolt was falling out. I was lucky enough to have an appropriate wrench handy, and made it home; as long as you are very gentle on the accelerator you can even go up hills with the isolator broken, but jam that pedal and THUMP THUMP THUMP as the bearing bounces around in the bracket.

Filled with dissatisfaction with windows, I set off on a quest to find a suitable Linux distribution for the Acer Aspire D250-1165. It came with Windows XP, but the performance was always less than impressive and Windows is a magnet for spyware and botnet clients. The machine is theoretically highly compatible and thus support should be simple, right?

My 1992 F250's radiator failed and (as per the link) I replaced the radiator and installed a custom coolant filter at the same time. I used parts ordered from International, and plumbing parts from a local agricultural pump and plumbing supply. All connections were sealed with blue RTV silicone sealant for its ideal compatibility with coolant and its high grip strength.

While I was gone, Rob was trying to use my truck to haul other trucks, with my permission of course. Unfortunately, every time he tried to take it out, it had some kind of problem. Notably, a bad ground produced smoke during an attempt to start, and the radiator failed around the cap neck. Luckily, at this time he had a parts truck, and so he replaced the ground and also set aside a radiator for me (as well as a winch mount bumper and a new tow hitch which isn't unusually long.) Yesterday I did this radiator swap.

Once upon a time it was fashionable to use windmills for pumping water. On flat ground, an elevated water storage tank was constructed; on terrain which included hills, houses could be situated below tanks, and tanks on high ground. When the wind blew too hard, the tail cocked sideways and caused wind to blow past the blades rather than through them as a governor.