We're preparing for winter. I needed to obtain a storage container for a few things which have been gathering dust in my garage. A large container. Which will be placed under the deck outside where it will neither get in my way whilst working in my shop, nor offend the neighborhood aesthetic (provided I complete the lattice-work screen around the base of the deck).
One of the local hardware stores had a reasonably-sized product available, so thither to the store I went. I found, I bought, I conquered -- and then proceeded to ferry my precious cargo home in the back of my little green Subaru to begin the construction process.
I was particularly pleased that my car, my sweet little green Subaru, was running like a peach -- and it should, after all the time I'd been putting into it over the past few months, fixing brakes, replacing struts, repairing vacuum lines. The engine was purring, the suspension was responsive, the brakes felt great.
And then this happened.
About a half-mile from the house, just past the last light at the beginning of a little hill, suddenly there was a loud BANG! and the front view disappeared behind some kind of huge mass and there was only a little bit of light showing just above the dash --
-- and I suddenly realized that the hood of the car had flown up and struck the windshield.
Without thinking, in a reflex action, I tilted my head so that I could see through the little space between the curve of the blocking hood and the top of the dash, pulled over into the turn lane (ever thankful that there was one!) and brought the car to a stop. It was late in the evening and there was no traffic. A car or two whizzed past me, and then the road was empty.
I got out of the car and surveyed the damage. Two sets of cracks in the windshield, one for the driver and one for the passenger. Dents in the hood. Remarkably, no damage to the frame of the car above the windshield. I tried to shut the hood. It resisted. I pushed harder. It still wouldn't click.
So I drove home. Slowly. Down the street to the neighborhood entrance. Around the curve. With pesky cars on my tail. Where did they come from?? Naturally, they show up in a hurry when I have to drive slowly.
And then they disappeared right before I turned onto our street.
After parking the car, I had one more take at the hood and finally got it to click in place. Not too bad. Other than the windshield, it's still driveable.
But definitely not with that windshield.
Oh, well. Been there, done that. Time to call the auto glass place, have 'em come out and replace it. While waiting, I'll fix up the hood as best I can.
And figure out why that hood latch suddenly and catastrophically failed.
---
But I'm running out of time to get all these things ready for winter. We have two Subarus that don't even run, with serious rust issues, along with the two that are running with serious rust issues. And all the house maintenance work to finish before winter. We're getting a bit frustrated here. To the point that we had a discussion tonight about getting rid of all the not-working cars and just starting over with something else. Craigslist always has deals going.
And I admit I'm really not sure what to do. I do love working on cars, and generally manage to get things fixed up in a reasonable amount of time to keep them running (except for the one that's been my hanger queen for five years now!).
But with my recent research into the rust issues, it's getting very difficult to see how to keep up with the rate of decay on these things. Summer was supposed to be my time to take care of all those things so the cars would be ready for another harsh winter. But winter is almost here, and the cars have generally gotten worse than they were at the start of summer.
Two steps forward, ten steps back.
---
These plastic storage bins are nice, in the sense that they are affordable, easy to put together, and relatively light so they can be carried around and set up just about anywhere. But they have a recurring flaw: they don't tolerate rough handling while in the store. And since they are packaged in relatively thin cardboard, it is generally accepted that at least one part of the package will need to be replaced.
This isn't our first storage unit from this particular vendor. We bought a deck storage unit a year or two ago which we've been very happy with, even though we found damage when we unpacked it; but all it took was a visit to their website and we were able to order a replacement part which arrived within a couple days. So we did the same thing again. Unfortunately, this particular part is back-ordered (probably because everybody else had the same issue), so we'll have to wait a bit longer. But that'll give me the time necessary to clear out the space under the deck and put together some kind of platform to set it on.
The plan is to take all the spare car parts which are just taking up space in the garage (and unlikely to be used since they came off the old engine we got rid of last year) and wrap 'em up in some grease-paper or something and plunk 'em into the new storage shed where they'll be out of the way. Last year, we did something similar to all the scrap wood that had been taking up room in the loft and piled it under the deck (on a raised platform) and covered it with a tarp, and it survived the winter very well.
Now that we're thinking of getting all those old car parts out-of-sight, out-of-mind, it does bring to mind the joy that comes from getting rid of stuff. There are places around here that'll come right to your house and take all your junk cars off your hands and give you cash for your trouble.
Mighty tempting.
One of the local hardware stores had a reasonably-sized product available, so thither to the store I went. I found, I bought, I conquered -- and then proceeded to ferry my precious cargo home in the back of my little green Subaru to begin the construction process.
I was particularly pleased that my car, my sweet little green Subaru, was running like a peach -- and it should, after all the time I'd been putting into it over the past few months, fixing brakes, replacing struts, repairing vacuum lines. The engine was purring, the suspension was responsive, the brakes felt great.
And then this happened.
|
|
About a half-mile from the house, just past the last light at the beginning of a little hill, suddenly there was a loud BANG! and the front view disappeared behind some kind of huge mass and there was only a little bit of light showing just above the dash --
-- and I suddenly realized that the hood of the car had flown up and struck the windshield.
Without thinking, in a reflex action, I tilted my head so that I could see through the little space between the curve of the blocking hood and the top of the dash, pulled over into the turn lane (ever thankful that there was one!) and brought the car to a stop. It was late in the evening and there was no traffic. A car or two whizzed past me, and then the road was empty.
I got out of the car and surveyed the damage. Two sets of cracks in the windshield, one for the driver and one for the passenger. Dents in the hood. Remarkably, no damage to the frame of the car above the windshield. I tried to shut the hood. It resisted. I pushed harder. It still wouldn't click.
So I drove home. Slowly. Down the street to the neighborhood entrance. Around the curve. With pesky cars on my tail. Where did they come from?? Naturally, they show up in a hurry when I have to drive slowly.
And then they disappeared right before I turned onto our street.
After parking the car, I had one more take at the hood and finally got it to click in place. Not too bad. Other than the windshield, it's still driveable.
But definitely not with that windshield.
Oh, well. Been there, done that. Time to call the auto glass place, have 'em come out and replace it. While waiting, I'll fix up the hood as best I can.
And figure out why that hood latch suddenly and catastrophically failed.
---
But I'm running out of time to get all these things ready for winter. We have two Subarus that don't even run, with serious rust issues, along with the two that are running with serious rust issues. And all the house maintenance work to finish before winter. We're getting a bit frustrated here. To the point that we had a discussion tonight about getting rid of all the not-working cars and just starting over with something else. Craigslist always has deals going.
And I admit I'm really not sure what to do. I do love working on cars, and generally manage to get things fixed up in a reasonable amount of time to keep them running (except for the one that's been my hanger queen for five years now!).
But with my recent research into the rust issues, it's getting very difficult to see how to keep up with the rate of decay on these things. Summer was supposed to be my time to take care of all those things so the cars would be ready for another harsh winter. But winter is almost here, and the cars have generally gotten worse than they were at the start of summer.
Two steps forward, ten steps back.
---
These plastic storage bins are nice, in the sense that they are affordable, easy to put together, and relatively light so they can be carried around and set up just about anywhere. But they have a recurring flaw: they don't tolerate rough handling while in the store. And since they are packaged in relatively thin cardboard, it is generally accepted that at least one part of the package will need to be replaced.
This isn't our first storage unit from this particular vendor. We bought a deck storage unit a year or two ago which we've been very happy with, even though we found damage when we unpacked it; but all it took was a visit to their website and we were able to order a replacement part which arrived within a couple days. So we did the same thing again. Unfortunately, this particular part is back-ordered (probably because everybody else had the same issue), so we'll have to wait a bit longer. But that'll give me the time necessary to clear out the space under the deck and put together some kind of platform to set it on.
The plan is to take all the spare car parts which are just taking up space in the garage (and unlikely to be used since they came off the old engine we got rid of last year) and wrap 'em up in some grease-paper or something and plunk 'em into the new storage shed where they'll be out of the way. Last year, we did something similar to all the scrap wood that had been taking up room in the loft and piled it under the deck (on a raised platform) and covered it with a tarp, and it survived the winter very well.
Now that we're thinking of getting all those old car parts out-of-sight, out-of-mind, it does bring to mind the joy that comes from getting rid of stuff. There are places around here that'll come right to your house and take all your junk cars off your hands and give you cash for your trouble.
Mighty tempting.
3 comments:
Tempting indeed!
Your adventure reminds me of the one, and only one, episode of driving simulation in my driver's ed class that I recall. We were sitting in our simulated vehicles, watching the movie screen ahead of us, when all of a sudden the car hood flies up and blocks our view!
We learned to look down through the opening under the hood, and as you did, pull the car safely to the side of the road.
So it's good to know that we were being prepared for an actual Possible Event. Sorry for your car woes, though. We don't have any experience with car rust out here, due to the dry climate and the lack of snow+salt on the roads. Which is why there are so many happy little vintage VW bugs driving around town, and why the Air Force stores unused planes out here.
The broken parts would be an annoyance for sure. I used to get my canned dog food at the local Walmart, til I noticed a pattern of every case having at least three (usually more) severely dented cans. They were either buying dented cases cheap, or being very careless in unloading and stocking the merchandise. And I'm not going to feed my dogs food that might be bad from unseen breaks in the can, so those cans were wasted. No net savings, no matter how much more I paid at other stores.
Anyway, I feel your pain. Except for the rust thing. But there's a rose on that thorn bush, because your wet weather and hard winters mean beautiful green summers and dramatic spring rebirth. Our winters are so subtle that we don't notice it's here until we're out in our shorts and flipflops in December and thinking maybe we should have put on a jacket and pants. And while we get a few trees budding and blooming in spring, it's never as breathtaking as that first daffodil peaking through the snow.
And my kids have never raked leaves (!) nor even woken up to the sound of a lawn mower, let alone used one (except at "Grandma's farm", where I think Brason got to use the riding lawn mower once).
But they can probably identify at least seven different varieties of cactus! :-P
There's this show I regularly watch on YouTube featuring this guy, Subaru Master Mechanic, Mike Bauer, who works almost exclusively on Subarus. He's got some great How To videos on practically everything about the car -- but since he's in Phoenix, he doesn't have anything related to dealing with rust. In fact, in one of his shows he commented, "If you live up North, this [removal of bolt] might be a bit more difficult." Understatement of the century. I snapped two bolts off last weekend just trying to remove the headlights. And they looked absolutely clean! But all it took was a little layer of rust between the bolt thread and the tap to lock it so tight that the metal just couldn't hold it together. Which left me sitting there trying to drill out the bolt scraps. Not fun.
Maintaining cars out here can be a real hassle. But it's still a pretty nice place to be.
My kids love the change of seasons here, and even enjoy (sometimes) shoveling or blowing the snow off the driveway. A lot of farms out here have transformed into miniature Disneylands in the Fall, with pumpkin patches and hayrides and corn mazes and carnival rides and hot cider and lots and lots of donuts for dunking. The deep winter is a great time for cozy reading by the fire with cups of hot tea or cider, staring out the window at the white blankets covering the ground. Spring turns everything into lush green, and in the summer, people out here are all about camping in the woods, swimming in the lakes, hiking on the dunes, and covering themselves with generous quantities of DEET.
Perhaps that's why, of all the places I've lived, this state has the most people whose entire families still live here. Even if the kids go away for college or career or whatever, they always seem to come back home, to live near their family and enjoy getting together throughout the year. It's very odd. I can't be in one place for more than five or six years before I start to feel like I'm missing something by not going out to see another part of the country - or the world. These people seem to have a much deeper sense of belonging to one another. Even when they can't stand each other.
Sounds wonderful. <3
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