Ordered a nice hand made gift for my mom on line- some useful pottery.
Had no issue with the total price- unit plus shipping and all.
The artist noticed that the actual shipping cost was a lot less than what we paid- so she returned some of what we paid! That was super nice of her!
My new garage has passed zoning approval. My propane tank has been moved for the construction, and dig safe marked up the area, and all is ready for excavation next week. With any luck, I'll have the completed shell by the end of May.
Finally! A plan has come together.
What this is, is a Ford 9" pinion gear (5.43:1) in a Yukon aluminum pinion support, with a solid bearing spacer. Because the pinion support is Daytona style, the standard solid spacer kits don't come with enough shim and much finagling had to be done to get preload right.
The star of the show is the pinion flange. Yes, a flange on a 9". Its original application was for a Thunderbird/Mark IV. You can find them on eBay every now and then. The flange was modified severely by being first recentered, face machined flat, and an internal register bored to coincide with a Series 3 RX-7 driveshaft flange. And drilled to the Mazda bolt pattern. Then, because the Daytona pinion support is longer than normal, .375" of length was cut from the flange and a corresponding amount was cut from the seal area.
The third member is barely .5" longer than a stock Mazda 7". With certain geometry changes that will add grip and coincidentally reduce the amount of forward excursion at full suspension compression, I am going to be able to put a Ford 9" in my RX-7 without a special driveshaft.
I can't stress enough how good this makes me feel. I've been dreading this point in my car for, literally, years. The driveshaft problem has been the #1 reason why I have been putting off going with a better rearend than the flimsy, fragile RX-7 unit.
Commonly available consumables is awesome. Make the permanent parts work with off the shelf consumables, not the other way around!
I hope to return to this thread after weighing the completed 9" assembly and the 7" assembly. 9" has aluminum centersection, aluminum calipers, and lightweight solid rotors. The 7" with vented rotors and stock calipers is 160lb, I'm making 180lb my bogey.
After what feels like a whole year off, I think it's finally time to revive the 850 Coupe build thread.
My elderly Ranger just got new front hubs. For the first time in probably 20 years she can actually go into 4wd!
Just had an amazing dinner that has a great aftertaste.
1996 Dolcetto D'Alba + Pasta with black truffle sauce.
Oh so very subtle, but man, my mouth is in heaven.
What a beautiful weekend!!
Great weather all weekend, got some fun in with the kids, helped my kids coach with brakes and spent the evening hanging out with a few friends. Been a while since i had a smooth weekend!
My sprained ankle is now healed up enough that I can start getting back into really skating again! I got out to the skate park yesterday and ripped around for a couple hours. I'm not healed and strengthened enough yet to be doing big jumps, big spins, or serious grinds, and I'm rusty after over a month off... but I was able to do some small stuff and zip around a pool.
All in all, it was a good session yesterday. In addition to my usual quads, I played around on some inlines, and a board to mix up what I was doing.
The skateboard was the best part of the session. I suck at skateboarding, so I was able to actually do things that were a serious challenge to my skill and have a few falls without going so hard that I was going to really fall hard enough to aggravate my ankle.
It feels good to fall again.
We are having our second child, a baby girl, at the end of November!
My wife is onboard with my adventure for this Thursday.
Expect a thread in the Adventures section on Friday. Me and a friend are going to pick up a car I've wanted for a long time. It's 6 hours away from me and we're driving it back. It won't be as epic as Toyman's adventure, but I'm excited as berk anyway. 
In reply to RossD:
Congratulations! We're expecting our first in September. Terrifying.
cmcgregor wrote: In reply to RossD: Congratulations! We're expecting our first in September. Terrifying.
Congrats! It certainly terrifying. But it is awesome all at the same time. Our first child will only be 2 years old when the new baby arrives. Nothing like starting the 'Terrible Twos' with an infant in the house!
Well my little one has an ear infection and is rather angry today. But I have found to tool to make her quiet and happy. Rancid!!! Which is great, because I love Rancid, and compared to the garbage my friends kids make them to, I'm pretty sure I hit the lottery.
Seriously, the opening bass line to Journey to the End of the East Bay came on, she shut up, climbed up on her walker and started moshing. She'll be walking soon, first birthday is the end of the month. I'm not looking forward to it, hopefully this Rancid trick works into childhood
I might be trading the truck for something more sensible and better.
I decided to sell my KLR 250 so I went online to see what they were going for. I ended up finding a want ad looking for exactly what I had and it was local. I sent him a note about my bike and he came straight over with cash in hand. Easiest sale ever.
He turned out to be a retired Mechanical Engineer who likes to tinker with diesel engines. One thing lead to another and I ended up with a 6500w, electric start diesel generator for $200. It's an older model but it works great and was exactly what I was looking for. Sometimes stuff works out.
First time I've woken up and the room isn't spinning since Saturday. You don't realize how good it is to feel "normal" until you've been ill for a few days.
I've been waiting to post this to keep from jinxing myself. A few weeks back I noticed my AC wasn't cooling. Last year the AC wasn't cooling well so I scored some R12 and voila, it worked great. Until it didn't a couple of weeks back. I had to drive it a couple of weeks, but finally popped the hood last week to diagnose the problem. Took all of 5 seconds to diagnose there was no AC idler pully. Sweet. No problem...I thought. Went on line to order up a new one. Nope, only the accessory idler pully was available. The AC one is NLA. Finally found listed on a Nissan site for $65 +shipping. Until they cancelled the order several hours later because its NLA. I did find one on fleabay in Cali for $95. Nope not gunna do it. Spent this afternoon at one of the closest LKQ upullit lots and scored a pully off the wrong truck year that seems to fit just fine. I also scored some sweet sunvisors (also from the wrong year)and the roof rack strips that I forgot to re-attach to the 4runner roof after I cleaned under them. All for the handsome price of $38. Now maybe I can see driving into work into the sun and home from work into the sun, with my AC keeping me cool in the meantime.
BTW there were some STRANGE people at that lot. Most kept staring at me like they were stealing something.
Heard from my wife's mouth: "If we're getting a sports car it's going to be a Miata, or a Viper."
I am a lucky man.
Wrapping up some stuff at work, then checking out for the holiday. Nothing like a nice 5 day weekend, even if the weather is supposed to be crap.
My craftsman drill took a dump on me the other day. It was kind of a turd to begin with, unlike the one I had for eons before this one.
Anyhow, I upgraded to some 20v Dewalt goodness today. Picked up a drill and impact driver combo and these things kick ass. I think I'm going to permanently mount a 10mm socket to the impact driver.
On a much needed vacation in the outer banks this week. Enough said 
fOUND PENIS pUMP IN JUNK vAN , Going to put it on Craigslist . Can I get that guy who bought the Mercedez to screw his wife to give me her phone # for the ad . 
Beautiful day and I'm off with no plans. Sitting on the porch with coffee and a bagel.
Leaving tomorrow after work for the UP. Hoping to be up there by 8PM. Here's hoping the weather isn't too bad.
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