WHEW, weekend recap

[volksdragon]

Yeah, it rained a lot Friday and Saturday morning.  Enough so, that when I ventured to check on the basement at 11am Saturday, it was filling with water.  The ground had saturated so that it had nowhere to go but into the stairway behind our basement door, and then under the door.  I wet-vac'd it up, which was fine... except it was still raining, exceedingly hard, and it all started coming in again.  *sigh*  I basically would wet-vac up ~10gal of free water, and then with a bucket, chuck it as far away from the house as I could, and then go do that all over again.  At one point, I got enough of a break to rig up a huge 25gal rubbermaid container up on some used tires I had (for altitude, and then used a garden hose (two, actually) as siphons, so I only had to pour the water into the rubbermaid, and it would drain out down the driveway from there.  I even got to drink some nasty dirty water as my prize for getting the siphon working. :)  Somewhere in there was me fighting with hydraulic cement, trying to patch a hole underwater in the stairway.  Yeah, that was fun too.

So, yeah.  I basically cleaned up water from 11am to 6:30pm, when it was no longer coming in, and most everything in the basement was as dry as it was going to get.  The utility carpets were soaked (again) and will most likely need to be thrown out, but Meh, I have extra. :)



SUNDAY, after church, and some playground time for the stir-crazy Widget, I came home and immediately began disassembling my car.  It needed new rear struts, y'see, and today was the only day for possibly weeks I'll have to do it, and most likely the last NICE weekend.  Dragged all my tools out about 1:20, and just got the jack under the car when Josh showed up, as I told him we'd fix his car too, it had a bent body panel that needed straightening.  15 minutes, 1 2x4 piece, and a sledgehammer later, that body panel was pretty darn straight. :)  Now, back to suspension!

So, jack car up.  I had to take the entire rear strut assembly out from each side of the car, remove the spring from the strut, pull the spring perch off the old strut, put it on the NEW strut, replace spring assembly, and re-assemble.  It's not technically hard, but as always on old cars, RUST makes it a pain.  It took probably 45 minutes to get one rusted piece off, along with a lot of WD-40 and hammering. :)  Reassembly was probably all of 10 minutes, and when I let the car down off the jack, nothing collapsed or made any horrible noises, so that was that side.  The next side, however.....

On the Volkswagen Golfs and Jettas, there's one big bolt, 10mm diameter, that holds the bottom of the suspension to the frame.  It was pretty tough to get off the other side, but with a cheater bar, I managed.  On this side, however, after four or five good twists with the cheater bar, both wrenches went *SPANG* and flew off the bolts.  My worst fear was confirmed, when I discovered I'd broken the head cleanly off this bolt.  Understand, the car can't go ANYWHERE without this bolt in place. :)  I managed to not panic, and instead we hopped in the car for a trip to Lappens auto where.... they had nothing.  OK, Lowes it is.  I went to Lowes BOLT section, and lo and behold, found the exact size, diameter and length, that I needed.  Hurray, back to the car.  This time, the strut assembly comes apart with no fuss at all, and I get it all apart and back together in 15 minutes flat.  I mount everything back in the car, go to put the new bolt in, and.... the nut won't go on.  Hmm.  I tried another nut, but no, it's no good.  THE THREADING IS WRONG in the nut.  1.50 thread on the nuts, 1.25 for the bolt.  BACK TO LOWES.  It's now 5:30pm, and light is fading.  I look and look through Lowes bombsite of a bolt department, and FINALLY locate a 1.50 thread BOLT to go with the nuts I got, and rush home.  I got everything bolted back together, and the NUT FITS the bolt perfectly, which fits the strut perfectly, and it all goes together, with my only injury being an AMAZINGLY PAINFUL bloodblister/bruise on my pinky finger.  Ow, it still hurts.  I got everything back on, and an estimated time of 4.5 hours, which is high for this job, but given the rust, broken bolt, and driving around, I'm pleased with it.  I also saved myself $200-$300 by doing this myself.  Go Me!