Little Hand

D.I.Y., or, F You, Chrysler.

Sunday afternoon I finally got around to tearing our broken Jeep Cherokee window regulator down and attempting to repair it using the kit I bought online. Before destroying the parts I had, I checked last week with a friend in the car biz who got me the wholesale price on an OEM replacement from Chrysler: $250, give or take. Trying to fix what I had for 1/5 that cost still seemed very reasonable to me, so under the knife my parts went.

The instructions provided were very clear and detailed, and I had little trouble adapting them from a 4-door model to our 2-door. After first trying to drill out rivets, I busted out the angle grinder and ground the tops off—and I have to wonder: WHERE HAS THIS MAGICAL TOOL BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE? That was the best $30 I’ve spent at Harbor Freight.

Once I had all the parts back together (and got the worm screw back on track after the guy at Mr. Tire ran the window down all the way) I went outside and tore the door down for hopefully the last time. After fooling around with the internal arrangement for a few minutes (and with the help of my lovely bride, who held the window up), I had the window bolted to the regulator, the regulator bolted to the door, and the switch attached to the motor. With fingers crossed, we put the key in the ignition and LO, THERE WAS POWER.

And just in the nick of time. We did some minor errands on Saturday—if you call hauling and tilling 10.5 cubic yards of manure minor—and the Jeep got very hot in the sunlight. Having one working window in a black greenhouse is a recipe for heatstroke; I’d hate to have Finn back there for any length of time without airflow.

I’d like to thank Stieger Performance, the folks who put the kit together and made it available, for their excellent service and a top-notch product. I’d like to thank my wife for waiting over a year for me to give up on finding a junkyard replacement, and dealing with limited airflow during her entire pregnancy. Finally, I’d like to extend a tall middle finger to the Chrysler Corporation, for their cheaply engineered plastic componentry, and for a confounding and inexplicable mixture of metric and standard hardware in the same vehicle.

Build-As-You-Grow Potato Bin

Build-As-You-Grow Potato Bins. Ooooh, I sense a very simple and inexpensive project coming on…

New Music

I’m currently listening to the new Silversun Pickups album, which has been (rightly) compared to Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins. The lead singer’s voice is almost as annoying, and the hooks aren’t quite as powerful, but overall it’s nice to have some new guitar rock with melodic bass. Also, the latest Coldplay album isn’t bad, and the last Bad Brains album is pretty good, too.

Rock and a Hard Place.

One of the drawbacks to having multiple projects going at any one time is trying to remember where certain tools got left. Is it in the basement by the toolbench? Or is it out on the side porch with the insulation? Did I leave it out in the garage with the Scout? My screwgun is still AWOL and presumed dead, and I have an entire toolcaddy that disappeared sometime last month with my 1/2 metric sockets.

Monday night, after bathing the wee one and tucking her into bed with Ox and Teddy, I spent a half hour gathering tools from four different locations around the grounds of the Lockardugan estate and prepared to do battle with the kitchen sink. Our kitchen is fabulous, and it’s been five years of bliss since the renovation, but there’s one thing that didn’t get done right which is beginning to pose a problem: Our sink. We bought an undermount double sink to go with our granite countertops, and at first blush we loved everything about it. But after a month or two, we noticed it was beginning to sag downwards from the stone, to the point where the silicone seal was peeling apart. I looked underneath and found that the installer had used two pieces of scrapwood on either side of the lip to tack it in place, a decidedly unprofessional solution to a potentially disastrous problem. (Both sinks full of water, plus the weight of the disposal, equals 100 lbs. or more).

I started propping the metal lip from underneath with lengths of wood cut to fit, but I soon got nervous about putting pressure on the weakest point of the granite slab (the sink cutout), so I took all of that stuff out. Instead, I carved all of the old silicone out—the stuff that’s separating and turning funky colors—and replaced it with new mold-resistant silicone. After five years, it’s doubtful I’ll get any love from the company who installed the counter, but I’m going to call and pitch a fit anyway just to see what happens.

(FYI, the proper method of undermount sink installation involves epoxy-bonding metal clips to the underside of the granite which hold the sink in place).

Smoooooch.

Finn had a great Easter with the family this weekend, and even got to meet Grandpa! More details to follow.

Beer and Light Wines.

We have a new dryer cooling its heels (or, warming our socks) in the basement as of 8:45 this morning, courtesy of Sears. The old Kenmore unit got hauled away, which means the last of our legacy appliances is now gone, and hopefully this one will last longer than the GE washer we bought at Sam’s Club when we first moved in.

Dragging.

Armed with my third cup of coffee, I attempt to stave off apathy, myopia, and a lack of inspiration.

Pretty Girl

The Year of Dying Appliances.

There are a few things to look out for when trying to identify the approximate age of an appliance. Unfortunate color palettes, faux woodgrain, ancient, outdated couplings, ungrounded, fabric-wrapped wiring, and cast iron are all usually pretty good indicators of impending failure and borrowed time. I’ve got another one to add to the list: anything that proudly trumpets “Solid State” across the front faceplate. Like our dryer, for example. “Solid state” usually means transistors; the new big thing back in, oh, 1970 or so. It makes me wonder if they actually used vacuum tubes in all the models previous to that era? We knew the dryer had one foot in the grave the minute we looked at the house; we knew that every day it continued to dry our socks and not explode into a lint-fueled inferno was another gift from the heavens. I guess it kind of makes sense, then, that only a month or so after our hot water heater blew up, the heating element in the dryer would finally give out. So I’ve got to do some quick research and score us a dryer in the next three days so we can get our clothes washed before hitting the road for Easter.

I hit some consignment stores a week ago or so and scored a bouncy seat for Finn, who should probably be practicing her balance a bit more.