pboehmer.com

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:

2010.05.18

I am gearing up for an extended weekend starting Thursday for my birthday. To celebrate, I normally head up to the Dayton Hamfest which oddly enough, was this past weekend as opposed to the weekend of the 20th. This year, I will be spending the weekend putting in my new shocks and steering rack. To some, this sounds like a crappy way to spend a birthday, but I actually enjoy busting knuckles with my new hobby. Last Sunday, I put in the Pedders Suspension bump steer bushings into the new steering rack. I documented the whole bushing removal and install here.

Linux kernel version 2.6.34 has been released. Included in this release are a couple of new filesystems and a slew of security enhancements. Full changelog can be found here. Also, the newest issue of BSD Magazine has been released. Its a free download and good reading for BSD administrators.

2010.05.11

I had my second climb on the 340ft tower yesterday and discovered two bad cables going from the transceivers to the antennas resulting in the unusually low signals we saw during the install. The two LMR400 patch cables usually hold up pretty good, but I guess they were damaged sometime during the install. The cool thing is that I was able to replicate the problem in our new screen room/ test lab at work so I ended up spending less time on the tower.

Rain, rain, and more rain. I am tired of looking at my new coil-overs sitting in the box. I was able to replace the outer tie rods two weeks ago, but unfortunately the inner tie rods I purchased were about 2.5in too short. I contacted Rock Auto (the place I purchased the parts from and highly recommend) and they ended up pulling the part from their catalog due to multiple complaints of fitment. As a bonus, they even refunded my return shipping cost. This is excellent customer service in my book. Anyways, since I can't get the inner tie rods, I ended up having to purchase a whole rack and pinion with the inner tie rods attached. Its a re manufactured part, but substantially cheaper than a brand new part. Stay tuned...

2010.04.29

I had my big tower climb yesterday and obviously survived without too many issues. I think most of the soreness is from my elbows to my fingers and surprisingly enough, legs and back are just fine. Not bad considering that I had spent almost 8 hours on the tower. Unfortunately, job is not done yet. We managed to get the gear mounted, but one of the radios is not working correctly, so I will have another climb next week. Fun, Fun.

This weekend looks to be another washout. The week after is mother's day, so it may be another couple of weeks before I can put the new coil-overs and other parts in.

2010.04.23

Finally received my coil overs from Circuit Motor Sports for my car today. They are fully height and damper adjustable, so that big AWD gap will hopefully be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, the weather is not going to cooperate this weekend, so I am planning on putting them in next week. I also have inner and outer tie-rods ordered, so next weekend the 300 will be getting a suspension makeover. This kinda of work is just a tad out of my league, so asked my neighbor Tim, who used to be a Ford dealer mechanic, to give me a hand with the install (thanks Tim!).

Today, I also received antennas that were on back order for my next tower job. If the weather clears up, the tower job will take place middle of next week. This tower is a little different than my past ones, as this one stands at 340ft. We will be mounting our equipment between 325ft and 335ft, which is more than 100ft higher than I have ever been. Too make things more interesting, the tower ladder rungs are 20in apart, so I expect to be more than a little sore for a couple of days after the climb. I will be taking some pictures on this one, stay tuned.