This morning I received a surprise invitation for lady_curmudgeon and myself to join datahawk and ottr for brunch-type foods at a restaurant in the area. I'd never been there and Curmudgeon wanted to get out of the house, so we readily accepted. We made good time to Wheaton, where the restaurant was... and then I had an attack of the Self Doubts, which lead us to leave the ( Read more... )

My route up to lady-curmudgeon's place involves a good portion of I-294. For those who don't live in the Chicago area and thus have no reason to know about this road, I-294 is a major loop for I-94. It is also currently undergoing major reconstruction in a number of places.

( This is gonna hurt the Expy more than it hurts me. )

I got the Expedition running again yesterday, not long after lady_curmudgeon arrived at the house. Although I got only 7/8ths of the work done, replaced a serpentine belt that didn't need replacing and broke a plastic housing on a 175A fuse bus I'm still citing it as a moral victory. The day was full of amusing little things, so I'll share an ( abbreviated time line for everyone here. )

Dear Expedition,

I would be thrilled if you trusted me when I tell you that yes, you do in fact have a 5.4L V8 engine. Despite evidence to the contrary, there is no such thing as a 4.725L V7 engine. Even if there were, nobody would want to buy it.

With rapidly dwindling patience,
Your devoted owner

These stupid coil packs can blow me. With a ( Read more... )

My summons for today's court appearance over the little matter of a missing piece of fascia was very clear in its instructions: it specified that my appearance was scheduled for 1330 hours today and that I should appear no less than 15 minutes early for check-in and documentation. Never one to risk infuriating the people who can leverage vast ( Read more... )

Last night the alternator on the Expedition took a dirt nap -- no more voltage for me! Lack of a constant feed of 13+ volts makes the Triton engine sad after about twenty minutes of driving... which leads to the engine stalling out once it has drained the battery to exhaustion. This lead to a series of costs:

• For last night's tow, after the Expy ( Read more... )

I'm home ( Read more... )