Saving money is good… everyone has some things they can do themselves and save a bit of money. When it comes to cars… the best way to save money is buy one you can work on yourself…. also having a model that does not have a ‘cachet-name’ with it helps…. one of the brands that is a good vehicle… but seems to have higher associated repair costs is Lexus…. We have one… which sounds really cool and affluent until we mention that it is 20 years old, and has about 235,000 miles on it …. and some 40,000 of those miles are on our dirt road. A dirt road is not a place to take a ‘luxury car’…. and while I used to be a half-way capable ‘wrench’, these new cars with their computers, smog-control equipment, front-wheel-drive, and other exotic components mystify me. On the other hand, these cars don’t need all the maintenance that the older cars need. ‘Back-in-the-day’, I used to change my oil every three thousand miles…. I would pull my plugs out every-other oil change… and clean and regap the points…. and then I would have to reset the timing….. once you’ve done this a number of times on your vehicle… it’s not such a big deal. But with these newer cars the computer takes care of the ignition process…. and the new breeds of spark plugs with their exotic alloys typically last for years. But gone are the days of me packing my own bearings….. or changing shocks…. I don’t really understand how all drive-train/suspension components operate… and the parts are VERY pricey. We bought the Lexus because I ran our truck into a deer and totalled our truck out. The neighbors were selling their Lexus, and Vickie had driven it several times and liked it a lot. They gave us a good price since cars are hard to sell here due to our remote location. Oh yes, it’s a nice car… once you get onto the highway…. it cruises down the road very comfortably… luxuriantly even. But a rutted dirt road is not a good environment for a luxury car… which our mechanic tells us often when we go in for routine suspension-component replacements.
A few weeks ago we noticed the car had a tiny bit of a miss…. and the idle speed was ranging up and down. So I decided to take off a big hose that leads from the air-filter to the injection manifold. There is a little flap in there that controls the amount of airflow…. this little flap can gather bits of material on it which will impede the airflow, and cause problems with idle speed. As I took the hose off I noticed the hose itself, surely twenty years old, and being in a hot engine compartment for nearly a quarter million miles was hard and had cracked. This was allowing some air into the system after some of the smog-control equipment measures the airflow… this gives erroneous readings to the computer which fouls everything up. So it should be a simple task to replace an air-hose.
This is the old torn hose. The right end is where it hooks to the engine…. the little connection-point in the middle is where air-flow/vacuum measurements are taken by the computer…. since the break was after that point it messed with the computer’s data… causing uneven idling.
Here is the replacement hose… and this is where the story really starts….
This is not one of those common hoses you can pick up at a discount Auto-Parts store…. no, this is specially molded for Lexus…. I told Vickie that a hose like this should be maybe $30 to $40…. but I was worried since it is a Lexus it would probably be $70… LOL.
It was $135 after I paid the California State extortion-tax of over 7%. Yeah, $135 for a molded hose…. and that’s just the hose…. Installation would probably be another hundred or more dollars.
This is the hose installed onto the engine…. it took maybe 15 minutes for us to replace the hose and clean the valve in the intake.
While we had the hose off, it was easy to access the air filter. Air filters should be cleaned regularly, especially if you are on dirt roads….
You can take a dirty air filter and bang it on a hard surface to knock off most of the dust…. make sure you knock the correct side off (the side where the air flows through)… and don’t allow dust onto the clean (engine) side. Usually after a couple of cleanings, I replace the filter. This one is not too bad off, we knocked it off to show the dust that can accumulate, but I replaced it with an extra I had bought on sale last year… two-for-one.
The old data about a dirty air filter using more gas is not quite so accurate anymore… the computer systems on newer cars will detect a clogged filter and adjust the air/fuel mix accordingly… so you won’t be running rich like in the old days. But since you have less air/fuel mix going in, you’ll lose power, acceleration and response. So it’s still worthwhile to keep your filters open and passing plenty of clean air for the engine.
While we had the filter out we vacuumed the filter housing… there will be big things that dropped off the filter in there… might as well get rid of them. You can see how dusty the engine compartment is… dirt roads are not the place to drive luxury cars… trucks and Subaru’s are the best bet for our roads.
At any rate… the hose replacement worked… after firing it up, the engine roamed up and down for a few moments… then the idle settled down to a stable speed and the miss is gone…. it really is a nice (if dusty) car out on the highway.
I was chasin sun on 101
Somewhere around Ventura
I lost a universal joint and I had to use my finger
This tall lady stopped and asked
If I had plans for dinner
I said “no thanks Ma’am, back home
We like the girls that sing soprano”Cause where I come from
Its cornbread and chicken
Where I come from a lotta front porch sittin’
Where I come from tryin’ to make a livin’
And workin’ hard to get to heaven, Where I come from
pre-runner in Ventura
I was heading through Ventura when I passed this Pre-Runner
rolling on its modified chassis.
It was so impressive a vehicle in terms of engineering
that I had to take a photo of it as I passed.
Our blog posting from April 12, 2007
California Spring
torn fence
The spring is on us in it’s full glory.
In this small pasture, the California Poppies, the California state flower are blooming, lending a bright sunny spot to the soft green of the hillsides.
This particular fence seems to get run into every few years, you can see the repairs done to it. I’ll go by it and see a ten foot section torn out by a car or truck driven by people who find it too hard to keep to a reasonable speed on this dirt road. Every year we see or hear of someone who does even worse, and drives into the creek, in some spots it is a twenty foot drop into the rocky creekbed.
One time I saw a vehicle in the creek with a man crawling out of his crumpled van, he had a headache from hitting his head on the steering wheel. He also had an anvil that was in the back of the van (he is a farrier) that had gone through the windshield. Luckily it flew between the two seats and missed hitting the back of his head. If it had, it’s a fair bet he would not have crawled out.
We’ve also seen vehicles that landed upside down in the creek.
My thinking is that way too many people watched the way the ‘Duke Boys’ drove on ‘Dukes of Hazzard’, and think that sliding around dirt roadways is fun….well yes, it is, but it is also dangerous for you and other users of the roadway. I must admit, I get a little mad when I see the marks on the road showing that someone was fishtailing all over having fun on the dirt, blast it! I’m acting like an old curmudgeon here now, but running into trees, fences, creeks and other vehicles is what happens when a person races along a bit too hard. Know your limitations, and remember, your right to fishtail and drive reckless ends where my fenders begin.
Lao Tzu
Chapter 24
`Tao tehChing’
He who stands on his tiptoes does not stand firm
he who travels at a speed beyond his means,
cannot maintain his pace.
He who tries to shine dims his own light.
If you boast, you will have no merit.
Pride yourself and you will not endure.
These behaviors are wasteful and indulgent,
so they attract disfavor;
therefore those who pursue
the Tao do not accept and allow them.
Harris Grade is a pretty wild road for a car or motorcycle. People die on that road every year. There is also a ghost reputed to be looking for her lost child… so be careful!
I found a pretty good video of a motorcycle going ‘just a bit fast’ on that road. Now for sure, Harris Grade would be a great road for a televised road race…. in fact, I think from there to the 101 South to Drum canyon, up and over that potholed narrow winding road, and down to 246 and back to Lompoc would make for an exciting race! I say let’s shut the freeway down for an hour to do that! Wow, that’d be huge…
But anyway, I digress….
Here’s the motorcycle video….
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I took photos of a beautiful sunset in Lompoc Rivenrock Gardens Screensaver of the beautiful sunset in Lompoc on Dec 21, 2006, the shortest day of the year.
This series of shots were taken from Harris Grade, above Lompoc/Mission Hills/Vandenberg Village and looking West to the Ocean. 1.2 MG
This screensaver has seven photographs of a most beautiful sunset. All of them are from the photographs below and others in the series, but sized to cover the screen.
A roadside memorial to a highway death on Lompoc’s Harris Grade, the pass through the hills to get to the Santa Maria Valley from the Lompoc Valley.
Every death is tragic, but ones who are cut down before expected, seems even worse.
Here’s an article I wrote a few years ago… it pertains to a degree to Harris Grade
Sep 21, 2004
Driving down the road today I got fleeting images of Spain in my mind. It’s funny how the olfactory senses will prompt recollections from decades before. The sun hot in the interior of the truck, the warm sage scent from the hills. The brown and tan colors on the hillsides as I drove, all these conspired to bring into my mind the flotsam of thoughts and images from trips to Spain.
I spent several years in Spain as a child, and I traveled through there on leave while in the military. It is a beautiful land, rich with a multi-cultural history. The Galicians, the Romans, the Goths and the Moors. In that land of hot desert heat in summer, richly arabesque fountains, and the graceful Moorish architecture I whiled away my summer youth. We would hike through the swampy areas near our home in search of large lizards, and we would prowl behind the henhouse for the cast-off chicken legs with which to tease the girls.
The workmen would make little hats from newspapers and cover their heads from the scorching summer sun. They would sometimes make those little hats for their mules and donkeys that pulled their work carts. When lunchtime came the workmen would slip a feedbag over the donkey’s head before they opened their tins of sardines, and cut into their large rolls and cut off chunks of their aromatic cheeses. A good stockman will always make sure his animals are fed before he himself sits down to eat.
Now I am reminded of those carefree days in Spain as I travel this California highway near the coast. The hills ahead of me loom like the undulations of a trampled bed cover. The verdant green of winter has given way to the tans of summer, the grasses shorn short by cattle. In the folds of the hills are green patches with oaks and chaparral, clinging with the tenacity of life that is our lot.
I climb the hills with my truck, stuck behind a small car, its driver is having a hard time keeping on the road. Several times the car starts to leave the pavement, and then the driver corrects quickly, heading back onto the road leaving just a puff of dust from the shoulder to mark where he miscalculated his track. Together, we travelers pass the site of a small monument, a white cross. Erected last year by the grieving family of a young woman who’s vehicle plunged over the side of the hill, leaving behind sorrowful members of her relatives. The cross is stark white against the colors of the bright and beautiful flowers placed there daily by her loving kin. The sadness is in us all when one of our own perishes, especially when that one is in the full bloom of youth and holds still the promise of regeneration and renewal of the family lineage.
We rise over the crest, and the hilltop is resplendent in the Bishop Fir. This green mantle on the hilltop cloaks the otherwise tan hill like a purple robe on a King. The hilltop experienced a fire several years ago, all the old firs burned to ash leaving behind black spires reaching their charcoal branches to a gloomy sky thick with greasy smoke. But as is their way, the seeds of the previous generation were stimulated by the fire to grow with the coming of the winter rains. The fertilizer of the old trees coaxed the renewal of the years onto this hill and now it is greener and more luxuriant than I ever recall seeing it. From the ashes of ruin can come the fertility of the ages, and the regeneration of the land.
We continue down the trek, and then see another cross. This one is simple, just a white cross with an American flag planted at it’s base. Is this a monument to the Americans who have given all in defense of our land? Or is this a tribute to a single person who also perished on this most dangerous of roads?
This is near the spot where a local woman was said to have died in the 1920’s. Her name was Agnes, and the old legend goes that she had a fight with her husband in Santa Maria, and left her home in the middle of a gully-washing rainstorm. Driving, crying, with her infant child screaming in her Model T, she missed the turn near the top of the hill, and her car went over the abyss, into the gloom of the night. Her vehicle was found the next morning, hundreds of feet below the road, her body was said to have been taken out by the emergency crews, but they never found her baby. It was presumed to have been dragged off by coyotes. The local teenagers whisper of this spot, and it is a natural place for the more adventuresome of them to come for a little late-night romance. The heartbeat races when one hears of the ghost that is rumored to haunt this spot, it is the hysterical women looking for her lost baby. Many are the tales of people who have seen the woman wandering in the dark, asking anyone she sees if they have seen her baby. Many are the tales of her savagery in ripping the tops of cars open with a hatchet in her attempts to get to anyone who might be taking her child. These are tales that are meant to keep the young lovers from staying out too late at night. Although everyone here has heard the stories, I’ve not yet met anyone who has seen Agnes. But it is a good ghost story, and like most tales like this, it has a symbolism meant to make one aware of the dangers one can face when making unwise choices in life. I have been to the bottom of this ravine once, when I was a brash and adventuresome teenager myself. There was indeed an old car at the bottom, rusted with age. So old it had a flathead engine in it, and the gas cap was below the windshield.
As I near the bottom of the hill we pass the bloating corpse of a deer, just another sad and forlorn example of the death that stalks this road. I don’t think there has ever been a year when someone did not die on this short stretch of highway leading up this twisting road over the hill. Just another bit of America. God Bless us all.
We had winter last month. For a few nights it got below freezing every night which caused me to take some extreme protective tactics with the nopal cactus.
But now, for the last week we’ve had temperatures approaching into the seventies in the mid day. And it’s only gotten into the mid forties the last few nights. This is perfect conditions for the cactus, and it also seems perfect conditions for all plants and creatures in this area.
This morning, with a warm breeze blowing, the sky still just turning gray, a large owl sat in the tree across from us… hooting away.
The song by ‘Lil Rob’ called ‘Summer Nights’ perfectly encapsulates what a warm evening can do.
~Lil Rob~
‘Summer Nights’
Them summer nights can keep a smile on your face
Gotta try to have a good time with your life otherwise it’s just a waste
Either way I’m gonna party just in case
Like Prince partied like it was ‘99, in ‘87, ‘88
I couldn’t ask for no better weather,
I’m right next to the Pacific to be specific
The candy paint job glows under the moon light
As I close out my summer night and say good night
It’s time to put the top up and park it, drop it
Unplug the ground, roll up the windows and lock it
Walk into the pad and fall into bed
As she lays on my chest to rest her sleepy head
And we do this all night long
From dusk ’til dawn
But it’s not the quite the same when summer nights are gone
But even when they’re gone, it wont be long
Eight more months and once again it’s on
Summer days just sitting around,
but when the sun goes down I’ll be ready to party
Ain’t nothing like them summer nights
Keep the top on drop while the girls looking hot,
hit the volo and we just don’t stop
Party until the morning light
Ain’t nothing like them summer nights
But summer doesn’t last forever, and this brief respite in the winter, which we usually get every year, will be replaced by frost, and fierce northern winds.
So, I’m enjoying this warm nice weather, and the cactus are too.
Keeping a car or truck for a lot of years is a financially smart thing to do. After a couple of decades you can learn a lot about your vehicle, and keeping it going becomes a simpler task merely because you’ve been doing the maintenance on the same vehicle for so long, you kind of know the drill. Another benefit with older vehicles is the relative simplicity of the wiring and smog control equipment.
I swung by a neighbor’s house recently, another neighbor was over there also. They said I could post photos of their vehicles. Note that these vehicles are driven often.
The fellow with the truck said that he’s got the truck for sale… if anyone is interested, send me an e-mail, I can send a message to him.
One photo is of artwork on the barn. We have a long drive to town for art supplies, so we in the canyon are obliged to make use of local materials for our art projects. Stones, bones, wood and feathers are commonly used for crafts here.
