This was my 3,000 mile oil change spot. Bored people had shot up all the trash in this abandoned semi-quarry many many times over. The child's bicycle with tassles on the handlebars was particularly fraught with an unsettling energy as I looked at the bullet holes in the chain guard and the seat. Old oil looked fine, exhaust studs were mostly OK, valves were a little tighter than I wanted:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2038.jpg)
This remarkable view caught me by surprise again. It just rushes up in the middle of Interstate 90's traverse of this expansive dry landscape:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2040.jpg)
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2041b.jpg)
Saw this through an unexpectedly moisture-laden atmosphere. That is Mount Ranier from the inland side. Seattle is yonder past the volcano:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2042b.jpg)
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2043.jpg)
I photographed these two big concrete barrels straddling the interstate a few years ago.
"What are they," I had asked at the time, "new friggen toll booths?"
"A wildlife crossing," I had been told, "see, moose and mountain lions and deer and field mice will all traipse over the bustling interstate."
It did not seem likely to me. Still doesn't:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2044.jpg)
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2045.jpg)
You know Seattle is coming up when you see these craggy-azz mountains pop up. Snowqualmie Pass. At least this year was tolerably warm:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2046.jpg)
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2047.jpg)
It is a more serious descent into the metro-Seattle area than you might expect, because you are also coming off the continental plateau at around 2,500 feet across the heart of Washington from the western Rockies to the Cascades ... (save me, Mitch, I think I'm slipping):
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2048.jpg)
Anyways, I found Ronin10 the next morning after camping next to a dead homeless man behind a Korean accounting firm next to the demolished apartment building on the hill (just before I placed a call to the coroner, the dead man roused unhappily to greet the overpowering sun).
We were to investigate an oil leak at the bell housing. The bell housing was definitely wet, but the flywheel and pressure plate looked pretty dry. Thus, Ronin10 and I made an executive decision to remove the threaded gallery plugs. Good thing:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2051.jpg)
We carefully cleaned the threads and JB Welded those suckers back in, then carefully reassembled the main seal (wood chips, Andrew, wood chips) and flywheel/clutch.
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2052.jpg)
I await a report with bated breath. Found a failed helicoil on the transaxle where the Bowden Tube bracket bolts up. This is a heavily worked bracket, lots of twisting force when you step on the clutch pedal. We made it a priority to do a good job taking out the helicoil strand, drilling the transaxle for a big bolt .. .. .. :
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2053.jpg)
.. .. .. drilling the Bowden Tube bracket for a new big 12mm short bolt (it was a pleasure to see Ronin10 approach this task with an engineer's sensitivity to the physics of torque and an artist's sensitivity to finishing the hole smooth):
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2054.jpg)
.. .. .. and trying to face the transaxle for a flat washer to shim between it and the bracket (which I did a damn fine terrible job of)(not to mention my mangled grammar), then foraging for a flat washer to shim between it and the bracket:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2055.jpg)
Somewhere around the end of the day, we had the engine and transaxle back in, and I uncharacteristically bailed out of there! before the engine start! leaving Ronin10 stranded! to complete the job! so he could go to work in the morning!
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2056.jpg)
What is up with that? Well, I am old now. I get exhausted more easily. The sun was unexpectedly strong. And my priority this year was to sit and have a beer with my customer while we looked at the uncompleted Volkswagen task in the evening light:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2057.jpg)
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2058.jpg)
Mount Ranier:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2060.jpg)
... a Mudflow Lava-Spewing Menace:
![Image](https://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/73VW1800/IAC%2019%2007/07%20West%2059.jpg)