Mint Condition

So after using premium fuel at ARCO, I saw my mileage bump up to 12mpg. I should also note that I’ve been trying to drive more conservatively the past few weeks, which also plays into the mileage. This week I’m trying regular gas at Shell to see if it’s any better than ARCO regular (with which I was getting about 11.6mpg earlier). I’ll continue to update with my findings.

As a side note, I’m looking to buy a car in the next few months that will get me much better mileage (I’m hoping around 35mpg), such as a Honda Civic or some such. That way I’ll have a commuter car that will cost me less in the long run and allow me to spend more time working on the Mustang.

Musician,
restless soul,
you, musician, magician,
restless and bleary-eyed,
not slept in days,
wide awake but bleary-eyed,
making your tracks with magic,
your hocus pocus and your fantasies
and your theories,
musician magician,
pressure to perform,
under no pressure,
restless, walking, bleary-eyed,
walking on tracks, tracks with rocks,
rock tracks and hocus pocus,
you magician, you,
musician,
restless soul.

From the second experiment.

Right now, the two ARCO gas stations in Woodinville have such low prices that premium fuel is less than regular fuel at most other stations—only $2.79 per gallon. So I decided yesterday to try premium fuel (albeit ARCO fuel) and see if it helps improve my mileage any. I’ve been consistently getting around 11.7 mpg lately, so an improvement would be nice. When I fill up again next week, I’ll be sure to post my results. It might just be worth the extra money if it improves my mileage significantly enough.

This quarter at school I am taking a poetry class. Subsequently, I’ll be writing some poems, and I’ve decided to share some of them throughout the quarter. This poem is for our first poetry assignment. For lack of better title, it shall be called Experiment One: A Man.

A man protects his family from bears.
A man sits on his porch and smokes cigars.
A man walks up steep mountains, but
A man comes home in time for supper.
A man shares memories with his children.
A man shares ice cream with his dog.
A man is very emotional, but
A man sometimes forgets how to show it.
A man sits on his porch and smokes cigars.
A man protects his family from bears.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any work on my car, mostly due to school and the poor weather. I was in the mood yesterday, though, and I managed to finally get my headlamps aligned. The driver’s headlamp was way off, making it hard to drive at night. It turns out that headlamp bucket is actually missing a few pieces, so I jury-rigged it using a zip tie, some scrap metal, a couple screws, and a plastic sheet metal nut (or whatever those things are called). It’s still a little loose, but cooperative enough to align correctly and stay in place. At some point I’m going to replace the whole headlamp bucket, since it’s cracked, and apparently missing some parts, but until then, it’s in working order.

The other big news: today my dad got his 1970 Camaro running again! It’s been sitting in a tent for the past few years, and sitting around undriven for years before that, simply because my dad hasn’t had the time to work on it. Today, after replacing the fuel pump and jump starting it three times, my dad was able to pull it up to the driveway and give it a wash. Then we took it for a drive, and he let me drive it back home. It’s lower than the Mustang, and it has power steering, which is nice. It handles pretty well too. It needs a new battery, though, which was evident since it died right before he could pull it into the garage, even after letting it run for a while and taking it for a drive. But it lives! So now there are two forty-year-old cars sitting in our garage.

Well gosh darn it, finally an update to my epic under-400-lines-of-code wiki script! (It’s actually 388 lines of code). This is basically a reorganization of all the code. Not quite an overhaul, but close.

For those unfamiliar with the project, tiws is a bare-bones wiki that currently allows anyone to create and edit pages (the next version will have a security check to keep out spam). All versions of a page are saved, and a page can be reverted back to any previous version if desired.

Anyway, if you want tiws, you can find it here. Also, there’s a live demo up for you to mess around with. Enjoy!

Yesterday I replaced all eight spark plugs on my engine. I don’t know how old they were, but I bought some brand new good quality ones, gapped them, and installed them. Removal and installation went pretty smoothly, though it was a bit more difficult on the passenger side for lack of room. The old ones weren’t in terrible condition, but were definitely worn. And after replacing them, she seemed to drive a bit smoother, too!

I also picked up a vacuum gauge and ran a test with that. The reading held pretty steady at about 18″, so I’m good for now, though I may tweak the timing a bit in the future. No major problems, so that’s good!

Today, I got a new grommet for my PCV valve, since the old one was hardened and did not hold the valve as tight as it should have. I also replaced the PCV valve and hose. Now it not only looks nicer, but should function better as well! I ran the car for a little while, and it seemed to run a bit smoother, but the real test will be on the freeway. I also replaced the vacuum hose from the carburetor to the distributer vacuum advance, since it was getting old and hard, and I put new caps on the plugged vacuum ports.

Well unfortunately, due to the wear on the front wheels from misalignment, I had to buy new front tires. At least now I won’t die! I’ll be keeping an eye on the tires to make sure they don’t wear like they did before, but after getting the wheels aligned, I shouldn’t have any problems.

I had noticed some very bad wear on my front tires. It turns out the camber alignment was way off, and the outsides of the tires were wearing much faster than the rest. At this point, the cords are becoming visible. So I’ll be replacing the tires soon. I’m hoping the warranty I got on the tires will cover this, but I’ll have to examine the fine print. Fingers crossed!

I went and got my wheels aligned today, so this kind of wear won’t happen again. However, I found out during the alignment that the right tie rods are bent, suggesting the car ran into a ditch or something in the past. It’s not a huge deal, but I’ll have to get that fixed at some point.

Quite update on the oil plug problem: the plug is holding so far, with maybe 5 or 6 drips over a 24 hour period. Next oil change, though, I’m thinking I might just replace the pan. It has a dent in it anyway.

Another problem I noticed last week is that the seal around my windshield is leaking in the top left corner and right above the rearview mirror. I’ll have to put some kind of temporary sealant in there for now, but eventually replace the whole seal.