Good Start

There's nothing that quite comes close. Yeah, the Steelers playoff games are awesome, especially Super Bowl games, but there aren't quite enough of them. Playoff Hockey just started, and it reminds me every year how much I love it. The Penguins had their first game tonight, against the cross-state rivals and much-hated Philadelphia Flyers. It wasn't exactly a nail-biter, but it sure was pretty. The Pens prevailed 4-1 in dominant fashion. I just hope we can reel off three more just like it to take the series.

I have been meaning to post for about a week now, but have been pretty busy around here. I had all weekend to work on the Jeep since Karen was in Pittsburgh visiting her sister Marie. They're not twins, but they are, if that means anything. We'll see her again this summer when we go up for a week. I'm hoping to catch a Pirates game, too, in the new ball park. It's beautiful, and I can't wait to chill out and enjoy a Pirate game, a beer, and a hot dog there in the mother land.


The Jeep is coming along really well. I actually got everything but the dash and the headlights wired up while I was home by myself. I was able to get both batteries hooked up, everything else wired, and the steering shaft and column installed so that I could turn on the power. I'm really proud of myself that I managed to wire an entire vehicle by myself, especially marrying a modified harness for a fuel-injected Vortec engine from a Chevy Silverado to a chassis harness for a CJ7. It's perfect, really. One of the highlights is this dual battery setup. I have a main battery on the left there, then another battery as backup that powers a few small things and is controlled by a microprocessor solenoid mounted there behind it where the red power cables converge. If my main battery goes dead while I'm in the wilderness, far from anyone, all I do is flip a switch on the dashboard to activate the solenoid and switch over to my backup battery. I'm drooling. Finally powering up was a big moment, falling only short of actually firing up the engine. Nothing burned, melted, and there were no other catastrophic events. Just the whirring of the little electric motors cycling a few sensors. She's getting closer.

The radiator is mounted, and I even got the hoses cut and positioned. I had to cut and place both radiator hoses (they were modified original 5.3 Vortec hoses) and transmission hose for the built in cooler in the radiator. Heat kills an automatic tranny faster than anything, so I did my homework and bought the nice four core radiator with the built in trans cooler. It also has a sweet electric fan that I wrapped up mounting and wiring. I'm going to get busy with the headlights and dash this weekend.

I've also got to mount the shifter indicator down on the transmission so that I can wire that part of the dashboard. Those few things and putting the fuel tank in the rear is all that is missing. I'm hoping for an initial drive time near early summer. I think I can make it.

I've been watching closely the economic woes of our country, but it's too disheartening to constantly blog about it. If there was a good thing that came of it, it was the fact that we were able to do a streamline refinance on our mortgage. It isn't final yet, but there shouldn't be any hurdles to us closing at the end of the month. After all is said and done, we won't save any money on a monthly payment (well, $14, but who's counting), but our note was cut from the initial 30 year to 25, effectively saving us thousands. We were already on a plan to pay it off in 23 or 24 years, now that should be cut to just under 20 with diligence on our part. I'm looking forward to being house payment free in my early fifties.

CZ
CZ