Richard Handlen (an old friend who lives in the Bay Area) shares my love for old pickup trucks and shared a couple of photos.
He spotted this beauty (above) at the Green River Brewing & Taproom Car Show in Winters, CA.
And he found this monster at the Napa Porchfest (blocks and blocks of singers and bands, performing from yards and porches.
Spotted a new leak on the truck and reached out to my friend (and Land Rover expert) John Middleton:
Common place for them to leak. Rear transfer case output shaft seal. May need a speedy sleeve on the the output flange. The flange nut also might be loose. Eventually you will get oil on the parking brake shoes. All of mine have leaked or still leak there. If it stops leaking it means the transfer case has run out of oil!
Very hard to find a Land Rover that does not drip some oil. As the tappet brothers proclaimed: “The British were not successful in the computer industry because they could not figure out how to make one that leaked oil.”
Burger King started serving the Impossible Whopper nationwide yesterday so my friend George and I drove to a nearby town to try one (our Burger King was destroyed by a tornado earlier this year but will re-open next month). I haven’t had a beef hamburger in six years so can’t say I remember what one tastes like but the sandwich BK served up was mighty close. I’ll be eating these a couple of times a week.
My Apple AirPods continue to open up new worlds of sound. I watched (and liked) the first season of the HBO series True Detective (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) on a TV. Last night I started watching the series again but this time on my iPhone with AirPods. As with Deadwood, it was a completely different experience. The music was far more powerful and evocative. The texture of the actors voices was richer. (You could almost hear the smoke when McConaughey exhaled) Not sure I can go back to listening to sound coming from across the room.
The three foxes that guard our road seem to have gotten comfortable around humans. When we do get too close they dash into one of several culverts.
Recommended reading: Frat House for Jesus. The Entity Behind C Street.
Took the Land Rover to Poettgen Automotive for oil change and service. Owner Dan Poettgen has experience with foreign vehicles and seemed the obvious choice to work on the Land Rover (since my buddy George’s shop got wiped out by a tornado). During his inspection he noticed a leak from the “oil pressure sending unit” and removed it to look for the cause.
Following some phone calls and online research, Dan determined the unit wasn’t installed properly. While waiting for the replacement part, Dan has me running with a unit from a 1977 Chevy Caprice! It works and has stopped the leak.
This little gizmo monitors oil pressure and sends info to a gauge and a tiny green light in the instrument panel. No idea why the Santana Land Rover folks use a green light to indicate low oil pressure. (I have to get in the habit of watching oil pressure more closely.)
In just over two weeks I will have been driving the truck for a full year. Next project: a little body work on the hard-top to repair tornado damage. Hoping to keep the soft top on through September.
We live at the end of a gravel road so the Land Rover gets dusty fast, especially with the soft top. I hosed it out today and tightened up some screws and nuts. The truck is held together with hundreds of the things and the bumpy road shakes them loose. I try to find them before they fall out. I do love this truck.
Spotted this little critter coming home tonight. He/she and two of his/her pals were eyeing the cat you can see in the background. We’ve seen a single fox a few times but this was our first sighting of three. Update: A neighbor took the photo below.
“All I know is that there is existence and there is awareness of existence. That’s all I know for sure. And I feel that life isn’t quite right. Instinctively I know that it should easier than it is. Why isn’t life quite right? Well, because there is an underlying fear of life – an underlying, constant unrightness. I don’t know this the way I know that there is existence and awareness of existence. But it makes sense to me. There is an underlying fear, a lie, a lens through which we live life.
— Beyond Kama (Kaushik)