pboehmer.com

2010.07.26

I think I have my wheel shake figured out. I ended up replacing the front half-shaft, intermediate shaft, and left wheel bearing last weekend and had the wheels balanced again, this time from Bob Sumerel Tire in Lawrenceburg, IN. They found that two of the new Continental tires I had were out of round by quite a bit. I fired off a quick email to Tire Rack support last Monday and they had two new tires to me on Wednesday. I had the wheels mounted this past weekend and had another alignment done (needed because of the camber bushings I put in weeks ago). I am still experiencing a little shake, but it is night and day difference from what it was. I still have a couple of things to try to iron it out, like slightly bigger hub centric rings. I apologize that I did not take any pictures of the half-shaft install, it was brutal hot and honestly, I just wanted to get it done.

Ken Smith has announced the release of FreeBSD 8.1. This release adds boot loading support for ZFS pools, ACL support for NFSv4 and ZFS, and updated versions of Bind, OpenSSH, and sendmail. For a complete list of changes/updates, click here.

2010.07.09

I took my wife and daughter out shopping earlier this week and had some time to shoot some pictures while I was waiting for them. I am really happy with the new rims and the Continental DWS Extreme tires wrapping them. I still need to put in the rear camber bushings and contemplating lowering the front another half inch or so.

2010.07.02

I ended up getting my wheels the other day and mounted them during my lunch break. Its killing me not posting pictures, but I haven't had time to take some good pictures. Downside to having the new wheels is that the wheel shake I had prior to getting the new wheels (was hoping new wheels would fix the problem) is a little worse due to the bigger rims and smaller sidewall of the new tires. I ended up taking my car to Tire Discounters (my usual tire people) last night and had them balance out the tires. Good news is at least the ride is a little smoother. Bad news is that the shake is still pretty bad at 60mph, and to add insult to injury, the tech broke one of the plastic center caps putting it back on. TD ended up giving me the balance for free for the trouble and the fact that I am a repeat customer. Its a good thing I purchased extra caps, though at this rate, I may need to order more.

Hope everyone has a good 4th, try not to loose any fingers, and stay safe!

2010.06.30

The office remodeling is wrapping up and its time for me to start wiring the offices up for phone and data. In every career there is always one job that completely stinks and in my line of work (information technology) it usually comes down to end-user support and cable termination. Having done both jobs over the years and not being a "people person", I will take cable termination any day of the week. So, basically I spent the past week wiring and testing patch panels and cable jacks. Fun stuff...

Monday, I pulled the trigger and ordered new wheels and rims for the 300. I spent the better part of the year looking at the hundred (if not thousands) of rims on the market and shopped a number of different vendors. As far as I could find, only Tire Rack had ready to roll packages that included and mounted TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) sensors. Granted, the selection of rims is rather limited, but I did find a style that I really liked. If I didn't have the sensors, I would have to listen to the car chime every 10 minutes with no way to disable it. Also, after seeing the multiple message board threads about having to drill rims to fit some sensors, I opted to go the easy way out and go with the ready to roll option. If I ever purchase custom rims again, I may try getting the separate parts to see how difficult the process is. If everything goes as planned, I should be driving home tonight on the new wheels, fingers crossed!

2010.06.12

Just got back from a week in the Caribbean on vacation with the family. We stayed on the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands. Even though the weather was a little warmer (hot and humid) than expected, everyone had an excellent time. We did a lot of exploring, a lot of shopping, some snorkeling, a little drinking (a little rum and a lot of water), and had some excellent food. My wife scored an awesome deal on accommodations at the Westin St. John Resort which I highly recommend. Here is just a taste of what we saw:

2010.05.24

I have successfully changed out the steering rack and shocks, springs, and struts this past weekend. The full change out took around 11 hours, about 3 hours for the rack, 3 hours for the front coil-overs and about 5 hours for the rear shocks/springs. Most of the time was spent trying to get the rear lower control arms back into place (what a PITA). Not bad for my first time and I am completely happy with the new parts. Suspension is noticeably tighter and there is very little body roll. There is some tweaking to do on the damper settings and it will probably take a week or so for things to settle. I did end up having to order a rear camber adjustment kit, since the stock rear camber is fixed and with the car lowered, the rear camber is off almost 2 degrees. I documented the install here. Here are some pictures of the install: