The Computer/Floorjack Rebuild Thread

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Amskeptic
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The Computer/Floorjack Rebuild Thread

Post by Amskeptic » Mon Dec 13, 2010 7:26 pm

I think I have arrived at the point where I have to explain myself, otherwise it is utterly incomprehensible to those who possess common sense.

Why I Am The Way I Am

I had escaped the world of people, particularly big capricious adult ones, by the age of four and a half. I retreated to my own world of beloved objects and visited imaginary friends splattered across the 14 acre homestead. I even had a 1/24 scale plastic VW split-window (1962)ambulance that I turned "deluxe" by sawing in some corner windows with a grapefruit knife. I was intensely loyal towards the mechanical universe, and used to apologize to the family car when I would piss off my mother and she would drive . . . harshly on the way back from teacher conferences.

I have not changed.

I am loyal to the "life" of things. So when my jack failed during the engine installation, it was not the moment to just toss it. That jack has been with me every day since 1995, it has lifted my pig Lincoln, the BMW in the snow, the Road Warrior, my old Lexus, the new Lexus, it did the Squareback engine twice, and it has been a loyal workmate at every Itinerant Air-Cooled call since 2003. I will use something until it is dead, then bring it back to life until it dies again, and only if it does not then rescuscitate after extraordinary measures, will I declare it "done".

I bought a new floorjack at WalMart, a whoopdi-do low-profile "racing jack" painted black with a decal of checkered flags (puke) and the damn thing would not fit in my plastic floorjack case. So I took apart my brand-new "racing jack" and modified it's hydraulic ram to fit in my old jack.

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A screwier jackass jackoff jack on sort of day, I have never had. I had to dremel 9/16" pins down to 1/2", had to ream out my old jack frame members to take the new pivot axle, it was insane. And because the new jack was wider, it's hydraulic ram pivot was wider, and I was not going to dremel that sucker down, so I had to stomp on the old jack's frame members to get the lift shaft nuts started, and I had to dremel the plastic case! to get the wider Old Jack With New Hydraulic Ram to fit.

But, it lifts with authority (2 extra inches of lift!) now, and it has no checkered flag decals either. My modest compatriot out in the Itinerary lives!

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So why would I *not* try to rescusitate my battle-axe laptop, the one I am using right here?

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I am using my old 80gig Toshiba hard drive, temporarily, but I need to figure out a way to access and utilize the newer, recently killed 140g Seagate where all of you Itinerant Graduates reside. If this power supply connector-to-motherboard solder job holds (if it doesn't, new laptop time), I would like to invest only in a USB-to-hard drive cable and see if I can find and install a good replacement hal.dll file in the Windows system32 folder on the Seagate. Otherwise, it will have to be slaved and harvested onto this little Toshiba.

So this is who I am . . . autistically loyal to us old junk, and very much up to the challenge of not keeping up with the Jones's. I like that anything I own is going to have a full service life. Even my luggage bags, the most over-used luggage ever, have been with me since 1976, they were recently refreshed with over 200 safety pins.
:flower:
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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Hippie
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Post by Hippie » Tue Dec 14, 2010 5:56 am

If the balloon ever goes up, and the world turns into a post nuclear Mad Max smattering of fenced-off field expedient junkyard survival camps, I want you in mine.

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airkooledchris
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Post by airkooledchris » Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:54 am

a heart transplant for the floor jack, I love it.
1979 California Transporter

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glasseye
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Post by glasseye » Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:00 am

I actually hit my head on my desktop when I got to the third picture, the one of the disassembled laptop.

Know you not fear? :flower:
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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hambone
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Post by hambone » Tue Dec 14, 2010 12:29 pm

You go girl.
I too have a fondness for turning crap into still useful things. Heck everything I own is basically junk. But somehow makes it thru another day. Sometimes we do lose a loyal soldier however. And then a Viking funeral and onward.
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

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RSorak 71Westy
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Post by RSorak 71Westy » Fri Dec 31, 2010 2:53 pm

Colin we were both born from the same mother....I too have had my laptop in many parts all over the desk, but it was brand new and I was adding wireless to it and upgrading the hard drive....Time for me to do it again and clean the fan and upgrade the CPU too.
Take care,
Rick
Stock 1600 w/dual Solex 34's and header. mildly ported heads and EMPI elephant's feet. SVDA W/pertronix. 73 Thing has been sold. BTW I am a pro wrench have been fixing cars for living for over 30 yrs.

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Oregon72
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Post by Oregon72 » Fri Dec 31, 2010 10:08 pm

About three months ago, the spider arm broke on the spin basket of our Kenmore front load washer and the repair man said it would be way too much trouble to fix it and it was a total loss. After I paid the $55 evaluation service call fee and he left, I said "Hell no" and ordered the parts myself, disassembled the whole damn washer and fixed it myself over the next 3 days. I now know how it feels to fix something you still believe has life left in it. Fixing our washer instead of buying a new one saved me about $700. I never would have done this prior to getting involved with VWs - so for that I say thanks to ya'll for the inspiration.
-'72 Westy-

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Amskeptic
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Post by Amskeptic » Sat Jan 01, 2011 6:20 pm

Oregon72 wrote: Fixing our washer instead of buying a new one saved me about $700.

I never would have done this prior to getting involved with VWs - so for that I say thanks to ya'll for the inspiration.
Prior to driving around the country helping people get involved with VWs, I fixed furnaces and Kenmore washers, rusty old Kenmore washers full of biologically active dirty laundry water in cold upstate New York dank basements with crooked dirt floors under spiderwebbed floor beams where I had to pull off slippery hoses at frozen water pumps with great gushes of cold soapy grey water landing in my armpits . . . and that was my inspiration to get out and get more involved with VWs. . . in the sunlight. I say "thanks y'all" too.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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