Swapping Stories, Swapping Brakes

I've been working hard lately, but not on the blog, as you can tell. Comes down to it, there's really nothing tangible on the blog that gives me any sense of satisfaction other than reader comments, and those are few and far between.  And that's kind of the way it should be; after all, the only time you should be reading this blog, is when you have some spare time from doing all the things you're supposed to be doing to live your life, take care of your family, work your job, fix that leaky sink, keep the house relatively clean, have some people over for some down-home, face-to-face fellowship, and get enough rest.  And don't waste any of it in front of the computer, searching through the Internet for cute kitty pictures.

I've been suffering from a general malaise lately, mainly due to a feeling that my brain is rotting every time I to go work and that perhaps all those years of studying to be a computer engineer were completely wasted, since the most interesting thing I've had to do lately is with a spreadsheet; and the only thing that seems to make me feel any better about myself is getting off the computer and heading out to the garage and doing something useful with my hands. Thank the Lord he gave us cars (and houses) that are constantly falling apart, because there's more than enough work to do just to keep them in one piece.

The old green Subaru, as you probably know, has come down sick with head gasket-itis; it's a well-documented illness which strikes most Subaru EJ25 engines around the 130k-mile mark due to inferior gasket construction materials.  And, wouldn't you know it, mine just passed 131k-miles and started to overheating.

Took it to the Subaru shop to get an 'expert opinion', and they opined about $3,000 worth of repairs.  That was too rich for my blood (which contributes somewhat to that 'malaise' I was talking about earlier), so I decided it would be more fun and therapeutic to take on the job myself.  Looked up the cost of the parts and found it was less than $500.  Net result was that I parked the car in the garage and am currently waiting to get some time to build a frame and pull the engine so's I can fix her up.

Naturally, I'm grateful as all get-out that this incident occurred at a time when there's good weather outdoors and a working bicycle to get me down the road to work.  But it does have some negative side-effects in regards to getting everyone in the family to all the places they need to be at the time they need to be there.  I sure don't like to be in a position where there's too many places to be at and not enough vehicles to get us there.

So I was looking around at craigslist and want ads and other places for another car, hopefully a cheap wreck of a car that could be put in relatively working order with just a bit of elbow grease.  Wasn't really finding anything that jumped out at me.  Then one day, I happened to be over at the other work building (we have two) and noticed an advertisement on the bulletin board for a cheap affordable '98 Subaru Outback.  Took a look at the picture.  It was similar to this:

Bingo!  That was the one I wanted.  The exact same year as my green one. Except this one is an automatic.  Which means it would be perfect for the boys to drive because they still haven't had a chance to get used to the stick shift.

Of course, there were a few "issues" with the car.  Are you surprised?

- high mileage (like 345k-miles, but mostly highway)
- bad brakes
- transmission slip
- rust spots

But the fact that it had mostly the same parts as my other one convinced me that this was the car for me.  Us.  Reminded me of all those Volkswagens we had when I was a kid growing up in Virginia. Except instead of Volkswagens, I've got Subarus!

Cheryl and I picked up the car on Wednesday after work, taking the opportunity to go out on a date.  Then I got to drive it to work on Thursday and Friday.  Because it was hot, and the car has air-conditioning.  And I had to show it off.  And I needed to help take food and stuff to our department picnic.  And I had to show it off.  And I needed to drive up to the Allergy clinic to get my shots.  And I had to show it off.

Then, on Saturday, James and I checked out the brakes.  Turns out the right rear rotors were bad, so we swapped 'em with the ones from the green car.  James seemed to have a good time learning all about disk brakes (and the emergency drum brakes).  And when we were all done, he took the car out for a spin, declaring the brakes to be "good enough".  And then he washed the car to make it nice and sparkly clean.

So now we have a second second car (that is, a backup for our second car) which gives me the breathing room to take my time on the other Subaru.  Which is a good thing.  Because as we were pulling the pads and rotors off the green car, we noticed a lot of rust. And if I'm going to go to all the trouble of pulling the motor to fix the head gaskets - which I'm hoping to do later this week as part of my July 4th vacation time - I'm going to be doing some de-rusting as well. And buying new pads and rotors.

By the time the end of August rolls around, I'm hoping to have the green Subaru running with new long-life gaskets (built of serious metal gasket material, not that cheap garbage they put in originally) and the red Subaru running with a new/used transmission, just in time for Adam to start college.  Because he'll need to be driving something.  Unless somehow we figure out how to afford him living in the dorms, in which case he won't be needing wheels.

But I'm hoping at least one of them - Adam or James - will be needing a car to get to work.  Because work means money, and money means paying for college and gas and insurance and all those other things that go along with growing up and getting educated and starting Life.