{"id":30,"date":"2007-05-30T16:51:28","date_gmt":"2007-05-30T21:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zingman.com\/blog\/?p=30"},"modified":"2007-05-30T16:51:28","modified_gmt":"2007-05-30T21:51:28","slug":"auto-didact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/30\/auto-didact\/","title":{"rendered":"Auto Didact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well I have no new creative output this week, but I do have some updates on this and that. <\/span>After the last 3 weeks being so busy entertaining and all, we decided to take it easy of the Memorial Day holiday. <\/span>At one point we were considering going for a day hike somewhere, but the weather got really hot (in the 90’s), so that was not in the cards. <\/span>Ah well, the summer is just beginning, there’ll be another opportunity. <\/span>Instead, we mostly hung around the house, made some barbeque, played outside, played videogames, went out to dinner, ran some errands, and did a bunch of shopping. <\/span>We got Lizzy a new, larger bicycle and gave her old one to Michelle.<\/p>\n

I did manage to get my ’67 Mustang fixed. <\/span>After my regular mechanic was reluctant to look at it, and told me I’d need find parts on my own, I looked around for another garage and found a place in Bronxville, Ultimate Auto Center, that specializes in servicing, maintaining and restoring classic cars. <\/span>After the carburetor blew out and started leaking fuel I was a bit hesitant to start it up, so I asked Jeannie to stand by with a fire extinguisher. <\/span>Well the engine turned and nothing burned, so off I went to the garage, hoping I’d make it as the car sputtered up the big hill. <\/span>When I got there, the guy who greeted me was smoking a cigarette (dude, indoors in an auto garage, not too smart!), so I asked him to step back a bit and then explained my problem.<\/p>\n

The guys at Ultimate took good care, I’m happy to say. <\/span>First they gave the car a complete looking-over for mechanical and other problems, and made recommendations (my car is solid, as it turns out). <\/span>Then they took apart and rebuilt the carb, replacing the worn out accelerator pump and all the gaskets. <\/span>They even steam-cleaned my engine and it looks like detailed the car too! <\/span>And it wasn’t even too expensive, at least compared to what the mechanic at my regular garage said it’d be to acquire a rebuilt carb. <\/span>Now it runs great, with more power and a smooth, satisfying rumble when it idles. <\/span>Jeannie says it “purrs”. <\/span>Ah.<\/p>\n

While I was there, I asked them to give me an estimate on repainting the car. <\/span>His figure was almost twice what I paid for the car in the first place! Yikes. <\/span>It also was more than triple the estimate I got in 1999 in Palo Alto (I was all set to get it done then, but then Lizzy came along and we move back East and I ran out of time) and a good deal more than I really want to spend. <\/span>So while I think I’ll shop around for a better deal on that, I’ll at least ask him to break it down so I know what that cost would include. I think he wants to take the whole car down to the metal, and I don’t think that’s necessary. <\/span>In any event I’ll keep you up to date on how this project unfolds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well I have no new creative output this week, but I do have some updates on this and that. After the last 3 weeks being so busy entertaining and all, we decided to take it easy of the Memorial Day holiday. At one point we were considering going for a day hike somewhere, but the … Continue reading “Auto Didact”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automotive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}