Spot Free Rinse

I have been researching different options for a spot free rinse when washing my car.  On a moderately warm day it is next to impossible to get it dried without some spotting. This is mostly due to the quality of the water in this area.

Water quality is generally based on Total Dissolved Solids or TDS which is generally measured in Parts Per Million or PPM.  The EPA advises against consuming water with more than 500ppm TDS, the national average is 350ppm The area of Brownsburg I live in is on Indianapolis water, I measured the TDS at 398ppm well above the national average.

Initially I plumbed a soft water spigot into the garage because it was cheap and easy, it helped some with making the car easier to dry without spotting, but didn't come close to fixing the problem.

After much research I decided I was going to go with a Reverse Osmosis or RO system. Initially the wasted water (best case 3:1) was a deal breaker for me, but I came up with a plan to use the excess to water the flower beds around the house. Two things happened that would change my mind, I broke my thumb preventing me from doing all but the most simple tasks and Costco had a sale on the only other real option, a water De-ionizer.

This was a proven simple to use system that is designed exactly for what I wanted to do. Its initial cost is less than the RO system but it has a higher long term cost, unless I decide to process the resin myself.

The system works great, I could not be happier with it and only wish I had gotten one sooner. I can wash the car in 20 minutes, let it air dry in the garage and have next to no spots. Both cars can be done in less than an hour on the hottest days. It can also be used to rinse the windows on the house or any other items that would be time consuming or difficult to dry.

Fall Like an Old Man

This February I was in Atlanta for work.  I normally don't like to travel much but when I can go to a much warmer location in winter its not so bad.  Unfortunately for me it never got above 20 degrees while I was there.

Leaving the hotel on the last day I was walking to my rental car and fell like an old man on some black ice.  My thumb hooked on the handle of my roller bag and promptly bent back to my wrist. I was quite sure it was broken, but had a flight in two hours back home.  Getting through security with two laptops, shoes and belt off was quite fun but I made it through eventually and had the pins put in three days later.

So now I get to wear a splint for six weeks before the pins can be removed.

Blast Cabinet

Now that the garage is useable again I was able to finish some projects on the vehicles. The truck got a new water pump, lower radiator hose and a good clean out of the overflow tank. I also replaced all of the parking brake cables along with the 130k mile shocks. Along with the clutch I put in it a few months ago it should be good for the winter.

This let me park the corvette for the winter and get it ready for some mods. When I did the headers last spring I noticed that the EGR connection at the intake had split, it was something I had put together after I got the car to fix the original owners glued together solution. I don't know what the rubber elbow was from but it wasn't going to last long and wasn't a good solution.

A better solution was the braided toilet tank fill line I replaced it with, I'm sure when found out I will be banned for life from any corvette forum, club etc.

 

Right now the most recent dyno was 415/414, my plans for the winter are a Spinmonster cam and possibly TFS heads I want a good solid 500 rwhp naturally aspirated.

In the garage this week I added a motor rated switch on the compressor, I wanted a light to indicate that it was on to basically tell me "hey dumbass turn me off" when I leave the garage. The switch works great the indicator light not so much it puts out all of .005 lumen. I need to figure out something brighter.

The big thing this weekend though was finding this on CL.

The cabinet has good glass and new gloves, the gun is in good condition and it came with three five gallon buckets of media and five new filters for the dust collector. The previous owner removed the motor from the dust collector, he said it had sucked up something that stopped the motor. While he had it off he rigged up the canister to work with a shop vac, but I got the original motor with the unit and it works fine so I will be putting it back.

Today I ran a new drop for the cabinet, physically it only sits 12 feet from the compressor but I tapped into a leg in the middle of the garage and added 16 feet to put it around 35 feet from the compressor.

Air Lines - Update

I decided to update my air line couplers, the ones I had were based on a eclectic mix of what came on the tool, where I have worked in the past and what I could find to make it work. Toss in some HF specials and I had couplers leaking everywhere.

Doing some research on Garage Journal, Milton was mentioned a lot but it really came down to you get what you pay for. Once I decided on Milton, I needed to decide on what type of coupler, choosing the "V Type" didn't take long. The couplers are capable of 74 SCFM air flow and in addition to the default "V Type" plugs they will also accept "M" and "A" at their own flow rates.

Its very obvious the "V Type" is quite a bit larger.

Removing the couplers as the weak link for flow in my system left one last item, the connection from the black lines to the work benches. I went with a 1/2" hyd line and a black pipe coupler. Much better than the 3/8" hose with couplers on both ends.

Now the limiting factor is the compressor itself.

Garage Floor Replacement Pt.5

Last weekend I worked on some cleanup in the garage and was able to get enough room to get the cherry picker and mower back in the garage mostly thanks to all the help Tania gave me.

This week I worked on re-organizing some of the items, I never had truly went through my cabinets and tool box and organized everything like I wanted it.

My first project was re-purposing some vinyl shelving by cutting off the lip and bending them in a brake. I was then able to just insert the ends of the shelf through the pegboard holes in the back of the cabinet. Some clamps using existing screws in the cabinet hold the main part of the shelf. I'm very happy with how they turned out with basically no cost, right away I found three cans of WD to put on them WTF?

Next project was a simple hangar for my angle grinders. It seemed like they were always in the way on my work bench, I don't really know why I had not done this sooner.

Lastly project wise I got rid of the carpet remnant entry mat and bought a real one along with some stair treads from Lowes last weekend. This week when Tractor Supply put their 4'x6' horse stall mats on sale for Black Friday, getting two was a no brainer, I was tempted to buy four and put them under the benches too.

I still have a good weekend of organizing left but it is nice to be able to use the garage again.

Garage Floor Replacement Pt.4

Now that we can park in the garage again, I get to move everything back where it goes. Before the Lista cabinets go back in place I need to do some wiring. The plug behind the cabinets was the first in the GFI circuit, where it is located there is no way to reset it if it should trip. Since I also needed to place a new outlet near the new sprinkler control we had installed this summer I decided to tie into this one and make the new one the first in the circuit.

Here is the outlet behind the cabinets, I was able to take the box out, pull the Romex loose from the wall, tie onto it and pull a new line up. I put a new box back in and reconnected the outlet to the new line.

Taking the line from the box behind the cabinets Matty drilled a drop and sent it down to the sprinkler control. There were already two holes cut in this wall for, phone and cable service, since we never had phones installed I used that spot for the outlet and installed the GFI here. While I had it all apart, I also took down all the wiring to the sprinkler valves that was on the outside of the wall and ran it internally.

Last weekend we finished up a project I have been wanting to do for quite a while. I purchased some FRP to put around the sink in the laundry room and when I started the project Tania decided to paint the laundry room. This then turned into installing a floating shelf and light above the sink. In the end it turned out good and should make keeping the walls around the sink much easier, plus I can see what I'm washing in the sink now.

Garage Floor Replacement Pt.3

My slabs were poured on Thursday and sealed today, now I am told I need to wait a month before I can park on them.

Garage Floor Replacement Pt.2

This morning they are digging out along the footers to put in ECP push piers. There was a small crack in the stem wall near the window. This crack propagated through the bricks on the outside of the house. Normally they would dig from the outside and put in the push piers, because they were replacing the slabs they did this from the inside.

 Here's a shot of where the stem wall was cracked. Right next to it where the concrete is freshly chipped away is where one of the ECP push piers went in. In total they installed three of them along the wall. They will re-pour the slabs in two days.

I could not stay for the installation, but the piers are installed like the diagram below.

Here is a shot of the outside wall just below the window. I am no expert on this but I have never heard of bricks cracking in half. Every time I have seen this it was just cracks in the grout.

Garage Floor Replacement Pt.1

This summer has gone by fast, I think it was because it started out so slow. The weather was cold until mid to late June and now that its time for me to get some things done before winter sets in....

After nearly two years, I finally won the battle with my builder over my garage floor. They are going to replace the slabs in the double car side and install "Push Piers".

This weekend I had to move everything over into the single stall side, including emptying the Lista cabinets and moving them over two feet from the staircase wall.

Today they came in and broke up the slabs.

Thankfully I got the clutch replaced in the truck a few weeks ago, I still need to winterize it and replace the shocks though.

Brickyard 400

I have been in the Indianapolis area for all but 3 of the 21 Brickyard 400's. The first in 1994 we did not live here yet and two others were missed when we were in Arizona.

I think of myself as a NASCAR fan. I have been to numerous races starting in 1989 at Sears Point, Phoenix, Dallas etc. and in 1995 when we did move to Indy I went to the IROC race and the Brickyard 400 practice. I was not terribly impressed with the visibility on the track or the racing action during either. Because the "Craftsman Super Truck" series was brand new and literally 3-4 miles from my house I chose to go see it instead of the Brickyard. IRP was/is a great place to see a race, there is not a bad seat in the house. It would take less than an hour to get in our out of the place and I think I ended up going 6 or 7 years as well as a couple of Nationwide races. All those years I never went to the Brickyard 400.

This year I was offered a couple of tickets, what looked like it might be good seats. As we sat down directly across from us at the exit of pit lane was a line of all of the previous 20 Brickyard 400 pace cars. This shot shows the most recent pace car corvettes and lone camaro.

Unfortunately the visibility of the track was as bad as I remembered from 20 years ago. The race itself was a snooze fest with virtually no passing, the only real drama coming from pit stops.

The tickets we had ($99.00 face value) were in turn one which made me think we would be able to see turn two and four as well. In reality we were at the beginning of turn one, the stands we were sitting in blocked visibility to turn four, the infield stands directly across from us blocked turn two. We could see the half of the front stretch, 75% of turn one and half of the short shoot to turn two.

This pick was literally the best view from where we were sitting, we had beams blocking three TV screens and the infield stands blocking pretty much anything else. I do plan to go to the Grand Prix race next year the visibility to the road course is much better and the racing is much better.