A surprisingly big step...

Things have been humming along quite rapidly of late. The LA's work schedule has been interesting, and for one reason and another she's currently not driving much if at all. Since my car is currently on limited service pending the replacement of the tailpipe (which, having been bent by backing into a kerb by the previous owner, was always going to fail first) which began shedding chunks the other day, her lack of driving isn't a major imposition; it merely means I'm driving her car, a Prius v. The Prius is a perfectly sensible car, and frankly rather boring; it never does anything hoon-worthy, and being front-wheel-drive, is less than wonderful in twisty bits. My favourite freeway exit is less amusing in the Prius than the Volvo, since the Volvo allows me to steer using my right foot; the Prius is boringly stuck to the road.

Anyway, things have been going along at such a clip that merely ferrying the LA back and forth to work has been accounting for many spoons (essentially, two commutes daily; another reason to drive the Prius, especially since I've developed the ability to exceed the EPA-listed fuel economy in just about any car I drive) and such things as washing the cars have been pushed to the back burner. Yesterday, though, it rained, for the morning, and that resulted in two things; first, I cleaned out the problem gutter, it having been left uncleaned since last year. It turns out that I can confidently state there were about 5 years' worth of autumns in there before; it was MUCH less clogged this year, and I left it as sparkling as was possible given its internal rust. We shall have to replace it at some point, and make sure the replacement is properly painted internally. The second result of the rain was to wash off the dust and pollen from our cars, and while they're not squeaky clean, they ARE now mostly clean.

And that led to the LA deciding to put the Baby On Board magnet into the Prius. She also had me fit the base into which the car seat clips; this was very simple, since I'd actually read the instructions. Set the correct angle, clip the LATCH connectors onto the hardpoints (for those of you in Europe, that corresponds mostly to ISOFIX; they're not exactly identical, but they are largely compatible) and then set a knee on it, force it into the seat, and haul on the tightening strap as though you're hoisting the mainsail. It's solidly connected, which means our impending daughter does have at least one safe transport option once she arrives. She's still due on the LA's birthday (one day before my mother's birthday; what is it with me and women with late-November births?) but if she shows up a little early, we can at least bring her home in safety.

We've also begun packing our hospital bag. The usual toiletries, changes of clothes, device chargers, and so on. We've figured out how best to drive to the hospital, which routes to take and how hard I can get away with hammering the loud pedal at each stage; for that journey, fuel economy will be a non-issue. I've decided to make sure both cars have plenty of fuel at all times, so there's one less thing to worry about.

Going back to the status of my car, the replacement tailpipe is on its way from a warehouse on the other side of the country, since Volvo USA have decided that exhaust parts for cars old enough to vote aren't worth selling. Given my prejudices' incompatibility with the range of Volvos available in the US currently (I dislike turbochargers, front-wheel-drive, and the practice of lifting the suspension of a car six inches and covering half of the bodywork with plastic in order to pretend it's an SUV; Volvo don't sell a damned thing without a turbo, they're effectively all front-wheel-drive, and the only estate they sell now has been lifted and clad) I suspect they're trying to lose me as a customer. Such is life; I shall look for a well-paying job, as the vehicle which most closely matches my preferences on the US market right now is a BMW.

Success!

At the third try, with me actually putting in an order, I finally got the correct wiring harness. To give the vendor their due, they refunded the cost of that order; my final total paid was the same as if they'd sent me the right wires in the first place.

So yesterday afternoon, I sat in a lawn chair and exercised my crimping skills to make a wiring harness. It ended up a yard long, almost unbelievable to think that it would disappear into my dashboard. But, disappear it did, after I'd removed various pieces to expose the necessary connections. As a side note, if I ever find the chap who decided the connections to the rear speakers of my car should be made above the driver's left knee, I would advise him to call for an ambulance immediately; the sheer volume of shouting I intend to direct at him will likely burst his eardrums!

This oddly-located connection meant that I was upside down, laying across the door sill of my car (thankfully I'd found our one-step hop-up to support the parts of me outside the car) with my head in the footwell, one hand reaching deeply into the radio recess with the plug in hand, and the other hand attempting to sneak into the space just above the kick panel to get a hold of the plug to pull it through. Once I'd got it through, I decided to bite the bullet and commit; I lopped off the old plug to pull that harness out. Then it was simply a case of making sure all the remaining connections were solid, and reassembling the dash, and I could reconnect the battery and try it out.

My car now speaks iPod. As a bonus, the new stereo sticks out less than the old one.

I shan't be installing a new stereo any time soon, though. If it becomes necessary, I'll have a professional do it; I found the experience rather painful in multiple ways, not unlike being a combination contortionist and OB/GYN to a box of dull knives.

Things never go smooth. Why can't things ever go smooth?

I've been becoming more and more frustrated with the distinctly low-end aftermarket stereo in my car, and decided finally to replace it. Picked out a nice Kenwood, ordered it and what they were certain was the right harness adaptor from Crutchfield. It took a week to get the package, and when I had it I went out, looked, and from the view I had through the slot in the dashboard, it all looked good to go. So I pulled out the wire strippers, and the crimper, and with a merry chorus of clicking noises I connected up the wiring harness adaptor. That done, I decided to just install the new stereo and be done with it.

So I pulled out the old one, pulled on the wires, and... wait a moment. That's the wrong plug. There's no second plug. This is the wrong harness adaptor. So, now I'm out $15 because their website was wrong. There'd been a review mentioning that this might not be the right adaptor for a 1994, but I'd trusted them.

Turns out, the reviewer was right. I needed the other adaptor, which the website didn't even show me until I searched by the part number he'd given, and which the website insists won't fit my car. Sorry, website, but I'm rather more inclined to trust the actual wires and plugs under my dashboard.

So now, I have two options. I can either whomp up another set of splices in the wiring I have, or I can telephone the people who sold me the stereo, and explain to them that their website steered me wrong, and I need the other harness adaptor. It turns out, you see, that which harness adaptor is needed depends on which of the two options for a factory stereo Volvo installed, and I didn't know which stereo my car had had since it was long gone when I bought it. I'm definitely inclined to telephone them and say that they really ought to have both options shown, since their unwarranted certainty caused me issues.

In the meantime, I shall continue with the declining stereo that's fitted. It mostly works.

Not the finest of vehicles...

As previously noted, the LA and I are expecting a child. One of the many consequences thereof is that the hitherto merely undersized bed we'd been sharing rapidly became far too small, and so we wanted a larger one. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately with respect to the forthcoming sprog and its inevitable deleterious effect on finances, we were both raised with deeply ingrained habits of frugality, and effectively throwing away a nearly-new bed sat ill with those habits.

Enter the LA's parents, who had a somewhat larger bed which they were not using. One size up, from a "Full" to a "Queen", would be a significant improvement, and would also result in a better-sized guest bed for the inlaws. And so it came to pass that I arranged with a couple of friends that I'd rent a U-haul van, they'd help me hump the heavy stuff, and we'd swap them.

I hadn't known when I arranged this that one of said friends is currently sans driver's license, for petty reasons, and so I had to detour to collect him as the first step in this. Once he was in the van with me, we repaired to my home, and got the mattress, box spring, and headboard into the van. Once we were done with that, the second assistant arrived, and we convoyed to the inlaws', since the van only had two seats. Whatever happened to bench seats? It's not as though there wasn't ample space, with the column shifter and foot parking brake; but no, silly captain's chairs it was. Once at the inlaws', we found our first real snag: the frame we'd all blithely assumed could be adjusted for a full... couldn't. Into the van it went, then, and with bed F at the inlaws, disassembled, and bed Q in the van, it was back home.

Reassembling the bed was easy enough, and with that I bid farewell to my assistants and returned the van to whence it came, with great relief. I'd appreciated the very high seating position (with my long torso, I was able to look straight over full-sized SUVs; quite the change from my usual position in a car!) and I'd enjoyed the oomph provided by the big, lazy V8 I was sat over, but everything else had been rather terrible. Once I had my car again, I took myself home and knocked down our adjustable frame; it came apart into three long pieces, two of which required the ski hole in my car's backseat, and then it was time to reassemble bed F. That done, having found out that my MIL had not been using a waterproof mattress cover, I took a trip to Target for a waterproof one (with a baby on the way, it's mildly to moderately essential) and finally came home, to finish dressing the bed and then take a shower.

After all those shenanigans, I was in no fit state to cook, and we headed off to one of our regular Italian eateries; having managed to miss lunch entirely, I was running on fumes and needed good solid peasant cooking. Plenty of pasta. Shortly after we were served, who should sit in the next booth but one of my erstwhile assistants and his wife! So there was an amusing end to a very strenuous and remarkably satisfying day.

Of course, I'll be unable to sensibly comment on the comfort of the "new" bed tonight. After a day like that, I could sleep on a freshly felled oak.

Your car is probably lying to you.

Most cars have an array of gauges in front of the driver. There's always a means of indicating road speed, and usually a gauge for fuel level. What else there is varies depending on the target market, but nowadays a tachometer to show engine speed and a temperature gauge to show if the engine's overheating are normal.

Most of these gauges are fully functional, but one, the temperature gauge, tends nowadays to be a skeuomorph. It's not technically a temperature gauge (which in automotive terms is actually a suitably calibrated ohmmeter, reporting the varying resistance of a bit of wire that is the temperature sensor), but a multi-state indicator. This is called compensation, and it's annoying to me.

The major reason for compensation is to avoid worrying inexperienced drivers. When first sitting at the controls of a car, one sees this apparently huge panel of dials, very few of which are all that obvious in function. To avoid overwhelming the novice, much of what used to be handled by dials (oil pressure, electrical system health, and so on) has been relegated to a row of go/nogo "idiot lights". The temperature gauge was a candidate for this, but it turned out not to be a good idea; there is still a need for more granularity than a simple light can provide. However, by filtering the signal fed to the gauge itself, the needle can be held rock-steady.

Why is the filtering needed for a steady needle? Because engine temperature is affected by multiple factors working to both increase and decrease it. Demand more power, and the extra fuel will result in more heat energy going into the engine; it heats up. The thermostat opens, and it cools down; the electrically driven fan comes on, and it cools down further, closing the thermostat. Heat begins to build again. And so it goes, with the temperature confined to a surprisingly narrow range so long as everything's working as it should. If the filtering weren't there, the needle would move around, and an experienced driver would be able to see when the thermostat's opened, and so on. This would be useful should something in the complex chain of equipment stop working, since it would be reflected in the gauge's reading, making figuring out what's broken easier.

However, a nervous driver will be distracted by this wavering needle, wondering, not unnaturally, what they're doing wrong; and making the needle stay still is easier than explaining that "it's meant to do that". So in goes the filtering circuit, and the needle now has five positions. When the engine's cold, it's just off the stop, since it has to indicate that the engine is running (despite the tachometer; it's expected that a gauge will be "live" when the engine is running, so even if a cold engine should have the needle sitting on the stop, it's moved up); when the engine's warm, but not to full operating temperature, it'll be between there and the middle. When the engine's in normal operating range, the temperature needle will be rock-steady at the middle of its travel, since there's a strong mental association between "the middle" and "where it should be". Then there are "moderate overheat" and "severe overheat" positions, although the severe overheat will usually be heralded by a cloud of evaporating coolant and a cessation of drive.

But you're not seeing what the engine temperature actually is. Instead, you're seeing that it's within what the designers of the circuit deemed acceptable. This doesn't just make troubleshooting harder; it introduces another thing which can fail. The small circuit board that handles this for Volvo 240s is notorious for failing, and it's normal for enthusiastic owners to simply remove the board and substitute a short wire which restores the temperature gauge to being an actual gauge, rather than an indicator. Most vehicles built after the later 1980s will tend to have some degree of compensation in their temperature gauge; so unless you're driving a classic, it's probably lying to you about the engine temperature.

I'm not a fan of skeuomorphs in general. I much prefer that an interface be designed from the ground up for the device it's to be used on; skeuomorphs hinder accessibility and force compromises which lead to less powerful interfaces. It could be argued that skeumorphic design leads to less usable interfaces as clutter and non-functional elements accumulate.

Reflections on unfamiliarity

So, on Halloween, many things happened. Some of them happened to me; for instance, I went into the City and attended an interview with US Customs and Immigration, and (assuming the cross-checking officer approves) I'm in the run-up to becoming a US citizen. Unfortunately, when I got back to my car afterwards, in the time it had been parked, the speedometer had given up the ghost. There was no obvious smell of magic smoke, but it must have leaked out somehow; the needle sat stubbornly on the pin, the odometer tumblers rolled not at all, and I was forced to use guesswork and the tachometer to judge my speed. I didn't get pulled over, so it was OK, but that was mildly harrowing. I'd forgotten that my smartphone has GPS and the ability to install useful applications, so it wasn't until the next day that I had a GPS-based substitute running. However, that was only going to be a temporary fix, since I'd been using the trip odometer as a proxy for the broken fuel gauge (which I really will pull and fix one of these days) and so I now had an indeterminate amount of fuel. So, into the repair shop my car went, and they had to send the parts out to be fixed. For over a week, I didn't have my car; but I did have the ability to borrow the LA's car.

Now, the LA's car is quite nice, and most definitely more modern than mine (roughly 50% more power from a very similar engine capacity, thanks to more efficient burning and better breathing from 4 valves per cylinder to my two; various fancy aids for monitoring things like tyre pressure; everything run by computers) but I was finding it tricky. For a start, I've got a couple of orders of magnitude more time and distance at the wheel of my car than I have at the wheel of anything else, and it shows. Among the things I was finding tricky on the LA's car were achieving a comfortable seating position (I've been spoiled by Volvo), knowing where the ends of the car were (the bonnet line is quite high and drops sharply; I don't have visual reference, and while the back of my car is invisible from the driver's seat I can still tell where it is from familiarity; the LA's car is a couple of feet shorter, so I don't have that dialled in), getting it in gear (going from a straight track and a button to a zigzag track), speed control (her car is equipped with an electronic throttle module; there's a Hall sensor which determines pedal position, and sends appropriate signals to a stepper motor controlling the throttle plate; meanwhile, my car has a Bowden cable, which makes for FAR more feedback through the pedal), gentle starts (between the extra power, the electronic throttle, and the front-wheel-drive, I was repeatedly spinning wheels or getting torque steer), interior control placement (just about everything is slightly different, which puts me on edge; having to remember that the two most-used wiper settings are reversed, for example, that the headlamps are turned on by twisting the stalk rather than a dash switch I've not touched in months, that the doors are locked by something akin to a window switch, and so on for approximately everything on the car) and the big one: visibility. Her car is a sporty, low-slung little number, which means a low H-point, a heavily raked windscreen, and a high beltline. Add in the enormously thick pillars to accommodate rollover protection and side curtain airbags, and I was struggling to see anything. The A-pillars gave me blind spots which could hide a bus, the doors came up to shoulder height, the C-pillars were horrific, and I felt as though I was trying to drive a postbox.

Fortunately for my nerves, yesterday I was able to collect my car and return to driving comfortably. It may be the last iteration of a design which began in the early 1980s, with engine technology which was conservative in the 1970s when it was new, but it's my car, and I know how large it is in much the same way as I know how broad my shoulders are.

Miscellany

I had a thought over the weekend. Even though I'm tattooed myself, and ought to know that it didn't change me at all beyond making my arm slightly more interesting to look at, I still find myself pre-judging people with facial tattoos. Not that I ever really meet anyone with them, but it's something I should do less of. For those of you following me on Twitter, that was my thought that was too big for a tweet.


It was driven from my head over the weekend by an annoyance: one of my tyres picked up a screw. This was distinctly unhappy-making, since it could have proven expensive. Those tyres only have about 6500 miles on them. Fortunately, I'd sprung for the road hazard coverage, but that would merely have reduced the cost. I got lucky, though; it was a short screw, and didn't penetrate the tyre. However, having noticed it yesterday, my reaction was to give the LA a chance to observe as I swapped the wheel for the spare. Fortunately, I use a full-sized spare, rather than a donut spare, so I had no qualms about doing the swap. I was reminded while doing so that my car's passenger-side jacking points are what's technically known as "bollocksed", insofar as the provided jack can't latch onto them as it should. The LA noted my frustration, and when I explained that I could procure a 4000lb-capacity floor jack for the price of the big fuck-off set of mole grips and the unmolested jack that the alternative plan of un-bending the bent parts required, and for significantly less hassle than going to a pick-and-pull and finding the replacement jack, she approved the purchase. So, now I have a floor jack and a couple of chocks (since they're nicer to the garage floor than the bricks I had been using to chock the wheels) and, since I'd already had to perform step 1 of a tyre rotation (swap a random wheel with the spare), I decided to continue with the rest of the steps once I'd had the tyre repaired. As previously noted, that turned out unnecessary, but I pressed on with the rotation anyway. The right rear tyre I'd removed went over to the right front, the right front it replaced went to the left rear, which moved to left front, and so on until all four tyres were in their new spots, my torque wrench had been given its longest workout yet of torquing 20 nuts to 65 foot pounds each, and I was positively yearning for an impact wrench to break the blasted nuts and spin them off. As it was, I was using a spider-type wheelbrace, which had just enough leverage to take the nuts off. An impact wrench would have been quicker, but there's no doubt whatsoever that the greatest contribution to the ease of doing the job (and it was MUCH easier this time than it had been swapping to the alloy wheels in the first place) was the ability to use a good jack. Yes, I technically did have all the tools I needed last time around, but having the tools you WANT makes a heck of a difference.

I should start maintaining a "tools wishlist". Right now, an impact wrench of some description is at the top of the list, along with suitable sockets and a set of torque sticks. I made this job easier by getting a set of 1/2" drive extensions, which are impact-rated since that's what Harbor Fright had on special. Moving the torque wrench outboard by roughly 3 inches meant it was no longer fouling the bodywork, so I could get a clean reading on it. I got the beam type since that's a low-maintenance tool; so long as I store it correctly, in the original packaging, it's not got anything to go out of adjustment. The click-type torque wrenches are a lot more finicky, and I just don't want the hassle.


Of course, this does mean that I'm now feeling the hurt, since I spent the morning doing physical labour, but it's still an honest job that I can be proud of.

You don't need it.

One thing I'm constantly astonished by in the US is the prevalence of what I can only call monster trucks. Pickup trucks in general are far more commonly seen over here than in the UK, no doubt because over here they're available with far more plush interiors and lower registration fees than cars, not to mention laxer controls on emissions and consequently less strangled engines, but a truly amazing number of owners seem to have decided that now they have their pickup truck, they must of course modify it; which they achieve by altering the suspension and wheel sizing such that the truck now rides with the floorpan at roughly shoulder height to an average person. This lifting is generally described as being a benefit to off-road performance, which makes it all the more remarkable in its popularity; the vast majority of the moster trucks I see on a day-to-day basis are in near mint condition, with perfect, undented sheet metal, suspension components blazingly orange, and paintwork so carefully shined one could use it as a shaving mirror, although the acres of chrome brightwork would be somewhat preferable. I will admit to having seen a few trucks which had been lifted and had been offroad. I could identify them by the fact that they appeared to be held together by dried mud, rust, and maybe the odd wodge of chewing gum, and if they'd ever been painted, the ripples in what sheet metal remained were ample evidence that it had all flaked off long, long ago. There's no real middle ground when it cones to lifted trucks.

I suppose that this fad, much like the fad for putting two foot diameter mirror-finish wheels with tyres of approximately the aspect ratio of a rubber band (a cost of roughly a grand per corner) onto clapped-out rustbuckets worth maybe $200 on a good day, and whose handling may once have enabled them to negotiate the corners needed to parallel park, or the fad for replacing reasonably functional suspension with hydraulics with all the compliance of a housebrick (but which can cause the car to jump in place), will forever remain a mystery to me.

It would seem that I've become one of those people who doesn't understand the youth of today. I like my car because its seats don't hurt my back. I drive at reasonable speeds. I park carefully, unlike the inspirer of this post, who this morning parked their monster truck in four spaces at once. There were multiple cars circling the parking area looking for spots...

Troubleshooting

As you probably know, I drive an older car. Old enough, in fact, that it has a few mildly intractable problems, such as the fuel gauge, which only works intermittently. It's seemingly random, but today I finally figured out the pattern. It had seemed to correlate with cabin temperature, but not during summer; when it was warm in spring, the gauge would work, but for summer it wouldn't. This puzzled me until I finally figured out the human factor.

You see, my car has working air conditioning. This pushes cold air through the ventilation ducts. The fuel gauge is on the extreme left of the instrument cluster, right next to the vent duct leading to the outermost vent on that side.

So, I have a dodgy connection somewhere in there, which sometimes expands enough from heat to make a good connection, and can be cooled to the point of not making the connection by the air conditioning cooling the ventilation ductwork. I'm inordinately satisfied with myself for figuring that one out.

Thoughts.

Note: the following post contains thoughts regarding the series finale of Lost. You may not want to read it, whether because you didn't watch Lost, haven't seen the finale yet, or whatever. I'll try to avoid spoiling.

I didn't get into Lost immediately. It was just finishing up its first season when I first visited the LA (in fact, I distinctly remember predicting one notable event based on information given onscreen), and I never really had the opportunity to catch up until I moved here. By then, season 4 was on, and I had to scramble to catch up, which I did not long before the start of season 5. By then, the huge plot had grabbed me, and I was looking forward eagerly to see how they finished up season 6, the final season.

As it turns out, neither the LA nor I were impressed. Season 6 had some very good points, but the last "half-hour" of the final episode... pretty much killed it. Frankly... it was glurge. They could, and should, have cut it, run two hours, and left the question that it answered open.

In other news, Kublacon is this weekend, and I was going to be there. As it turned out... not so much. My crash space fell through, and after driving home last night, I was scared to find that I had no memory of the drive. I didn't crash, so clearly I was doing OK, and I've checked my car for tickets and found none, but I do NOT want that to happen again - so it's off for this year. For next year, I'll find a cheap place to stay, rather than counting on a friend's couch.

Decluttering

Lately, I've been reorganising bookshelves. The game room looks rather better than it did before. Today, the decluttering spread to the garage; I'd made arrangements to sell one of the old steel wheels my Volvo was no longer using to a chap on the mailing list. He came by this afternoon, picked up his wheel (for use as a full-size spare; I've actually put one of them into the back of my car for that use, not without a little extra fun getting the floor of the boot to lay flat on the distinctly wider wheel) and decided, since he's using the car to teach his daughter to drive, having some extra hubcaps might not be a bad idea either.

That's saved me some craigslist advertising and the associated annoyance, and netted me some useful cash.

Reading the instructions

I'm rather atypical for a male. Reading the instructions is something I do as a first resort, not the last resort. I'll cheerfully leap into a job and work out how to do it as I go, but if there are instructions, I'll read them, and despite my ancestry, I'll generally make the effort to use the correct tools.

In the case of Silas vs. the Alloy Wheels, that meant a torque wrench for setting the wheel nuts correctly. The spider I keep with the spare is excellent for taking off the nuts, since it's got rather more leverage than the included two-part wrench, but since today I was performing a long-term swap from the steel wheels the previous owners had on the car to alloys, I wanted a better metric for how to set the torque than simply noting how much I had to grunt to break the nuts free.

This is rendered important by the spec for this car. Most cars specify wheel nut torque in the region of 85-100 foot pounds, while applying that much torque to the nuts on this car would be Bad. It's specced at 85Nm, which translates to roughly 65 foot pounds. This little detail is stamped into the front hubs, visible while torquing the nuts, and so one would hope that even places which don't know this already would notice. Sadly, when I removed the front wheels, I found that they'd been set to typical torque specs - the 85-100 foot pounds that flirts with stripping the studs on this car.

Still, I now have Volvo alloy wheels fitted, and they do look nice. Quite an improvement in looks over the steel wheels it did have, especially considering it was using the original, much-abused hubcaps. The alloys are also lighter, which will translate to improved ride and handling due to the lower unsprung weight. This may also improve fuel economy, although this will probably not be significant. And finally, I'm feeling a nice sense of satisfaction in having achieved the swap without help (and, usefully, without a peanut gallery) and not broken a single thing, or found anything bojangled. The latter part is somewhat rare; it can be unwelcome to begin a repair, as one will almost always uncover another problem in the course of reaching the first...

An update on the car...

I've been doing quite a lot of work on my car of late. Just last week, things came to a point where the LA authorised the purchase of new parts, and so I ordered (from a well-recommended parts supplier in Connecticut) a pair of struts for the boot lid, a door switch, and several bulbs. The bulbs are a special type, used only by Volvo, and cost $9 apiece from the dealership... from this place, $7, which (with the failure rate) was about what I'd been paying from the junkyard.

And now, my car is in better shape than when I bought it. The messed-up starboard bow is no longer so; I've replaced pretty much everything that was on that corner now, and I know my work is good. The tired trunk lid is no more; it positively leaps open now. All the switches light up (the gear shift quadrant still doesn't, but I've come to the conclusion that they built the entire car around that bulb, much like 240s were infamously built around the blower motor) and all the interior trim is solidly attached. All the doors now trigger the interior lights and their marker lights correctly.

I'm proud of just how much of the improvement is stuff I have done myself. There's a little of my soul in that car now. I'm also amused by the fact that my car now has a front that is roughly 50% from the previous model - and yet it looks as it should!

I would like there to be a new car available.

It would look something like a Volvo 240 - utilitarian, maybe even boxy. It would have a basic, powerful-enough 4-cylinder engine, installed longitudinally, mated to either a five-ratio manual gearbox or a mechanically-controlled automatic gearbox with a locking torque converter, driving the rear wheels (with all-wheel-drive as an option). It would have a slew of airbags, crumple zones, and all the necessary safety features. Four-wheel disc brakes, ABS, all that good stuff that helps you avoid crashing in the first place. It would have all the usual OBD-II diagnostics, as necessary these days for legal reasons. The throttle would be controlled by a cable pulling on a spring-loaded butterfly valve.

It would not be the average car, though. It would, as standard, not have power accessories. No power windows, no power locks, no power seats... optionally, yes, but not on the base model. Power steering and power brakes, yes. It would also have a feature not commonly found on OBD-II cars: no reader would be required to get codes. There would be a readout under the bonnet to get the codes, and an explanation of the codes in the owner's manual. This would be a utilitarian car, designed to get the user from one place to another with a reasonable amount of stuff, and to be easy to fix. Tool-less replacement of bulbs, a basic toolkit included, and the aforementioned code readout would make it more appealing to the hobbyist.

Of course, it would never sell. People, in general, don't want a car that assumes they're competent at wrench-turning. Those who do are an exception, and not a unified market; while there are plenty of Volvo-enthusiast hobbyists, there are just as many people who tune hot rods, classic American iron, and so on, and there's less crossover than I would like. Just try to sell a reborn Volvo 240 to a Corvette fanatic!

But if I ever win the lottery, inherit Bill Gates's millions, or somehow come into possession of that sort of money, I'm definitely going to attempt to license the designs for the Volvo 240 and its red block engine, and bankroll this.

I am a chauffeur.

The LA prefers to sit in the front seat. She gets a better view, she avoids motion sickness, and in my car, that seat has a heating grid under the seat squab and in the lower backrest, which she makes use of. Unfortunately, the front passenger seat of my car is currently out of commission. The seatbelt latch has given up the ghost.

Yes, you read that correctly. A part related to safety has worn out, on a Volvo!

Some people have been urging me to replace it myself. I'm not wanting to do that because a) it's a safety part, and I don't have that much confidence in my wrench-turning skills, and b) replacing it would require removing the seat, which thanks to the aforementioned heating grids is a task and a half. For the moment, she's riding in the back if she rides at all, but as soon as the shop opens on Monday, I shall be calling for an estimate on bilateral replacement of front seatbelt latches. After all, the passenger belt has had less use than the driver's belt, and the wear shown is very similar.

Thanksgiving

It's been a good year, and for Thanksgiving, the LA and I were invited to a friend's house. We decided to accept; the serving of goose was not a small factor in that decision. We spent the day playing games, and had a great deal of fun.

Then, on Friday (traditionally the day on which you Don't Go Shopping if you have any sense; America starts its January sales the day after Thanksgiving, for the British folks, and the Americans need no explanation of Black Friday), I spent the morning removing the centre console from my car, dismounting the switch for the driver's side seat heater, which was sticking because of a soda incident some years earlier, and cleaning it so as to make it switchable again. Astoundingly, I succeeded despite having to service a non-user-serviceable part.

A PSA to my Bay Area friends

Now would be a very good time to check and correct your tyre pressures. Rainy weather and bad inflation pressures are a nasty combo. If you're under, I have a nifty little electric pump that runs off the lighter socket, and anyone within a reasonable distance is welcome to borrow it!

It's happened.

Yes, I did have my camera with me, and I'd pulled in to the side of the road for this, on a residential street. Nobody passed me while I was taking photos of my odometer.

Really, that reading is no more significant than any other, but on the other hand, it's aesthetically pleasing to see a row of twos.

In the dark

In the dark, you can't see. This is a problem when driving, which is why we have headlights, illuminated instrument panels, and illuminated shift gates.

Except that the shift gate light in my Volvo has burned itself out.

Now, I'm rather a fan of the Swedish Bricks mailing list's 700/900 maintenance FAQ, and it does cover this situation. The procedure listed is quite simple:

Shift Indicator Bulb Replacement. Shift Indicator Lamp. [Query:] How does one replace the bulb that illuminates the gear selector letters? [Response:] Here’s how it can be replaced:
1. remove ashtray
2. remove plastic cover under hand brake
3. remove two screws that 2. revealed
4. remove plastic cover that covers shift gate
5. Look under shift gate on left side for two wires connected to light
6. pull down gently on wires and the light appears
7. replace bulb and reinstall in reverse order

Now, after one trip to the parts store (and a certain amount of swearing) I have managed to ascertain that I can reach step 2 of this process. Now, step 1 is deceptive; it should read "remove ashtray assembly", as the ashtray itself is in a plastic box which covers the main fusebox. The fusebox needs to be exposed. Step 2 is a doozy; I have to disconnect the switches for the heated seats in the process of doing it, along with undoing a rather tricky spring clip. #3 looks OK (although I think they mean bolts), and the actual electricals should be OK.

Now I just have to hope that I really do need a 2721 bulb for this, not some obscure Swedish thing that Jan only blows once a year and only ships by trans-Polar reindeer, and that no more surprises spring up.

I can't click on my own Google ads.

I can't promote them either. However, I CAN note URLs and use them, and I recently did for one that appeared in response to my posting about my Volvo's busted turn signal. Their local BBB gave them a good rating, and so I invested $30 in a new turn signal (as opposed to $75 plus shipping for a junkyard part) and was expecting it to receive it by about Thursday next week. It arrived in the mail today, and ten minutes later, I'd gone out, popped the hood, pulled the bulb, released the old housing, slid the new one in and replaced the bulb. Then dropped the hood again, disposed of the packaging, and cleaned the road crud off my hands. My old brick is very easy to work on, lighting-wise, and now I can take it through an automatic carwash, since it no longer has an indicator bulb hanging out in the breeze.