Wobble,wobble.

Today I finally decided to fix the wobble on the Monza's steering column. With a tilt steering the bolts that hold the mechanism can become loose over time and the whole assembly begins to wobble. To fix this you have to tighten those bolts. Easier said then done my good friend. Apparently it is quite common with this model car and there is an excellent description on the H-Body web site that shows you how to do it. But............what a pain in the ass. First I had to acquire the right tools. A steering wheel puller, a lock plate tool, and the special 1/4" shallow E8 torx sockets. That done I began. Now it's a small car to begin with and I'm 6' 4" and 285 lbs. Squeezing into and out of the car and removing all those under dash bolts to lower the steering shaft was a hoot. Then slowly took the shaft apart bit by bit and located the offending bolts. Unfortunately you can only easily access two of them but with a liberal dose of Loc-Tite and a good tightening the whole assembly is once again like new. And....I managed to get the whole assembly back together again and everything WORKS!....

Forgot to mention...the walk.

In my haste to complete the last entry to my blog I totally forgot to mention that the last piece of the puzzle was also done. The walkway to the gate from the deck. Under guidance from the site fore person I was able to assemble a walkway that blended into and enhanced the overall appearance of the yard. I'm also happy to say that due to the increase in local precipitation the over abundance of grass seed thrown down has begun to sprout. Soon hopefully I will be cutting this as the site fore person looks on with her approval.

Wednesday...stain day

So it turns out to be a nice day after we got back from the "Y" (just joined, nice place) and I decided to stain the Fort walls. The directions say don't use in direct sunlight but I don't know why they say that. It turned out alright. Now the outside walls now all have a nice coat of stain and we think it looks a hell of a lot better then just the plain old PT colour. Kind of goes with the house brick and brings out the stone wall. Opinions are welcome. We'll give it a few days to weather then look to see if a second light coat is required. Also we gave the front porch columns their second coat of paint and they look very nice.