This is a reminder that not all car repairs will go well. After replacing all the vacuum tubing and rebuilding the throttle body a month ago, last weekend I replaced all the spark plugs and distributor cables. That last job made a world of difference - the engine now revs silky smooth. That last 'repair' was relatively simple (yes, even though I made not one but THREE trips to the hardware store for appropriate tools) and I managed to do it all on my own. It left me feeling doubly confident.
This weekend's task was also fairly simple: replace the ignition coil, distributor cap, and rotor. I started with the coil, which came out just fine. Upon opening the new one, though, I discovered that it requires a ballast resistor that I don't have. Ok, fine, I'll put the old coil back in while I order in the new part... Alas, I can't get the clamp/harness to close for some reason. It's truly boggling - there's a quarter inch gap between the clamp and the tab it's supposed to be bolted to. So the plan is to go and get a slightly longer bolt to make up the distance. Hopefully it should be pretty simple to find one.
Ok, fine, if I can't take care of that right now, I may as well do the distributor, right? It was a breeze to remove the old one, but lo and behold, the single allen bolt holding on the rotor required a metric wrench (ah, the glories of working on a German vehicle). Once I got the right tool and despite being slightly stripped to begin with, the bolt came off without any drama. I don't want to use the same bolt, though, so I'll add that to the list of parts to get.
So in a nutshell, I'm waiting on a ballast resistor to arrive and I need to find two new bolts. Not the end of the world, not complex, but it's still being more difficult than I had anticipated. At least I haven't really broken anything. Yet.
And on the plus side, I'm slowly building up my collection of tools (over the last two weeks, I've acquired a torque wrench, spark plug socket, socket extension, a mini-ratchet with additional screw bits, and a metric allen key set. I'm gettin' there.
It's worth noting that I'm enjoying myself, even if I can't quite get some of the grease and gunk out from under my nails.
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Following two recommendations within a short time span from people that don't know each other, I decided to give Bojack Horseman another shot after being unimpressed with the first episode. I skipped to episode 5 or so, and the show slowly transformed into something more interesting. It turns into a cartoon about, yes, celebrity and such, but also depression and self-esteem. While the human/animal mix is interesting, overall the humour is... passable. But the darker themes are what kept me coming back to binge-watch the two seasons over the course of a week and a half.
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I took my first mandolin lesson on Friday. My teacher, as he put it, can play the mandolin but doesn't call himself a mandolin player. Despite that and seeming a little scatter-brained, he's a nice dude that seems to know his stuff. Even if the quality of instruction doesn't turn out to be that great, the main thing is that the weekly lessons will force to me to practice and try new material. I've become pretty aware that without some external pressure, some things tend to fall by the wayside. If I'm paying $25 a week, I'll make sure to be playing more often (or dare I say, regularly). Hopefully it works. We shall see.
-Cril
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