Mobile In Maine

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Well that's the last of the photos on the upload server although I have these miscellaneous and a few repeats that were re-uploaded for some reason or another.

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A few repeats of the orb phenomenon.

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Sleeping Venus

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Kitty

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The upgraded Charger also displaying some sort of anomaly at the rear right tire.

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The Mega Therion

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Isis

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The new mode of transport - 325 HP 354 lbs of torque Volvo S60 T6 Turbo.
Same ballpark as the V8 Charger; just newer and more up to date:

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I didn't realize that picture was scaled down so much. Must of did it for one of the other forums.

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What does a road scribe do? They write, and drive - a lot.

They also perform the maintenance on their vehicles whenever possible because they don't trust anyone else to do it. Today it's SE with a south deviation. Iterations around the compass are done in alternating fashion of CW or CCW. Trips usually average sixty miles or so, but it can be a lot farther, depending.

It's best to have a high-performance vehicle with manual mode for maximum enjoyment(among other things), but those are just a couple of my preferences.

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Just heard it's supposed to hit 90F today, and also today it's going to be south with a SW deviation and a return of north and NE. The thing that I don't like about this route is that if I go SW far enough it takes me right through a congested major city, and we usually make adjustments on the fly to avoid that sort of thing.

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So I was driving on some isolated country road the other night(no markings or yellow center lines) in the middle of fucking nowhere going around 60MPH or so when I nailed some piece of junk in the road - tire went instantly flat. I even got it on video. No flat tires for over two decades and now two in two months.

With some tire and rim combos you can drive pretty far on a flat if you take it easy(maybe 10MPH give or take), so I said fuck it and drove in lieu of calling AAA; got home about four hours later. I'll still replace with a cheap tire, and hopefully won't have to buy two.

I suppose the more you drive, and especially in remote and precarious areas, the more you increase the odds of shit like this happening.

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The Flat Tire Paradox and Circular Reasoning


I need a new tire; can't drive because I have a flat. I need a new tire...the worst part about this is jacking the car; removing the wheel and setting something up with the only person I know really that can take me to the tire place and wait around with me for a half hour or so. There are other options, but they're more of a pain in the ass and more costly - maybe tomorrow will be the day.

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I can get a used tire at Town Fair for 53 bucks, but I'm having doubts about whether it's a good idea to mix tire brands on the same axle of an AWD. I could get two for a buck and a quarter if I balance them myself; that's fun and I've gotten really good at doing it.

Bad timing though. A hurricane is pending and it looks like I won't be doing any storm chasing. My friend thinks I'm crazy, but to me, flying, skydiving, or bungee jumping seems a lot crazier.

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Tomorrow is new tire day. I've decided to try just one new(used) tire on the FR and see how that goes, since I'm not really sensing the urgency of(or too keen on) discarding a perfectly good brand-new tire on the FL, plus I was just finishing fine-tuning the balancing of that FL tire.

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So it rained relentlessly on the day that I had set up for a new tire. I had to get all my tools and trolley jack out in the rain and get the job done anyway. I told the tire place not to balance it and that I would do it myself; since it was raining I opted to do it in the kitchen - big mistake. Not sure if it was because of the floor being at a slight tilt and/or a combination of other factors, but I was getting some bogus readings for whatever reason. I did feel like I had to start over but it was getting late and I was getting tired so I decided to leave the car jacked overnight and resume later at some point.

I woke up at around 2:00 AM and figured I would get back to it. I peeled a section of carpet back in the basement revealing the solid concrete foundation; cleaned and greased the balancer and recalibrated. Cleaned the tire where it mounts the balancer and then remounted the tire. It didn't take long to notice that the improvement was paramount, and I got zero bogus readings. Every single reading indicated that the weights needed placement at the SW position relative to the valve stem being at the north. I did dynamic balancing this time meaning that most of the weights go on the outside of the rim with some on the inside. It took 1 3/4 oz on the former and 1/2 oz on the latter.

I took it for a test drive yesterday and it was fucking perfect.

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I think I'm going to do an oil change on the car today while we still have some warmer days left. I'll probably take a couple periodic breaks once I get going on that and come in here for the usual and maybe add something to some of the newer stuff.