Monday, March 09, 2009

I Don’t Like the Cold

But then who does? The other day, my speedometer cable had had enough and busted. Fortunately Ariel had me home on her spring break, so her dad, Tom, was able to raid his stash of used parts and refit me. Before installing the replacement, he lubricated the entire length to prevent any sticking. Should be good for another forty years, right?

Some other little items needed attention during the last week. Tom repaired the radio and re-mounted it in the housing. One of the screws holding my sideview mirror’s mounting plate came out, so it got replaced. The wire powering my lighter had come off, so it was tightened and reinserted. The heater cable got too hard to pull, so Tom used a pliers to turn it all the way. Ariel will be stuck with full heat until she drives me home again.

One thing that didn’t get fixed was my turn signal switch. On the drive back to school, she discovered that it wouldn’t blink any more. Tom will fix it when he sees me next.

Violated

One night, while parked in the college parking lot, some sub-human decided he wanted my cheap radio. He ripped on it until he broke off the faceplate, and then changed his mind. Tom was pretty angry at Ariel, since I had been left unlocked. Ariel reported the incident to school police. Surprisingly, the radio would still play through the stereo jack.

New Tunes


For Christmas Ariel received a new radio/MP3 player. In addition to the AM/FM radio, it has a 1/8 inch stereo jack to plug in an MP3 player plus slots for both a USB thumb-drive, and a SD memory card. I think she’ll only use the radio and stereo jack. Her dad installed it in a used radio housing since he had to make some cuts. Thus he left my original one uncut.