Jim's first car

I have been thinking about my first car. Grandpa's 1941 Cadillac with 62,000 miles on the odometer. Following are some pictures I found on the web that totally remind me of the car. The car is definitely a good memory. I took possession of this car in about 1963 the year I graduated from high school.

This is a flathead V8. I remember the car was easy to brake and steer even though it was very heavy and neither brakes or steering were power assisted. It did have a nice clock, vacuum powered antennae and phenomenal hood latch.

Jim's Metro Car Story

Old news I suppose - Sep 2009
(There is more, newer, info but the below reports some of the cars history while in my care.)

I was looking for an older fuel efficient car that I could use to run around. I noticed Metro’s were cheap with very good fuel economy. On Craig’s List I found one South of Olympia for $500. Maybe a little more primitive than what I was really looking for but then I read it was a 1998 with only 93,000 miles. Now on www.fueleconomy.gov this metro was reported to get 33 to 39 mpg.

So off Linda and I went. We found the car at a very nice gated RV trailer park just south of Miller Sylvania State Park. A couple our age had pulled it behind their motor home for 30,000 of its 93,000 miles. They sold their motor home and purchased a 5th wheel trailer and pickup combo and were ready to head south. The Metro was now extra.

The car has it’s exceptional qualities but comes with some distracters also. One distracter is it has baked some while in Texas and Arizona. The roof looks like it has been real hot as the paint is thin on top and even the headliner is overheated and falling down. Then the Constant Velocity joints are failing on the front drive axles as I could easily feel and hear on any turn. Then there was another problem of needing a quart of oil on each gasoline fill up! Then there was the damaged plastic in front of the headlights that were so cloudy it must have cut 30% of the light output.

Well it still seemed like a good fixer upper so I willingly gave them the $500. We were having such and enjoyable time visiting I only got his signature in the one blank line of the title. The car was however in both their names. When I tried to register the title they needed her signature also even though there was no place on the title for a second signature. I gave the sellers a call and said I could send them a Release of Interest form and if they would have that notarized all would be well. They volunteered to come up so we met at JRO (our title company) and within 5 minutes all was well and they headed to Downtown Poulsbo for a beach walk.

Then cleaning began. I washed and scrubbed inside and out! (The car was smoked in until 3 months prior to my purchasing.) I tried gluing up the headliner cloth but only partly successful. The headliner needs more work although now it does not hang down enough to bother me. I ran Napa Fast Motor Flush through engine then changed oil and oil filter. I could tell the filter had not been changed in a while!

Then for the interruption, the weather was so warm I felt the need to get to the alpine mountain country. With the Metro I headed across the ferry where I noticed huge amounts of smoke from the exhaust each time I started the car. Rather embarrassing really! The car drove well other than that and of course the clicking around each turn which does not help ones confidence of reliable ride. Never had to stop for gas though. The car did start up just fine after sitting at the trail head for 5 days which was another point in its favor.

While hiking I received the three volume large used Chevrolet Metro 1998 Service Manuals I ordered on EBay. They are in great shape and very useful. While looking on EBay I also found and ordered a Service Manuals for our 2000 Caravan. It was also used but is very clean and nice. I purchased it for about $30 maybe a little less. Then they had a four volume set of Chevrolet 2000 Caravan Diagnostic Manuals I purchased for $20. They all are so much better than the aftermarket manuals. Last year I looked for Caravan manuals but none were available.

Next came the repairs. New windshield wipers, whew were the originals shot! New air cleaner, whew was the original dirty but still working. Nice design. Power cleaned the engine with Super Clean which works so well! Then I purchased a plastic cleaner from Napa called Megular’s Mirror Glaze. Wow did it do a nice quick job of clearing up the plastic in front of the headlights. Just a couple minutes for each one. It even meets a military spec! They said it would clean up scratches on plastic glasses which I tried and it did a good job there also. Not back to 100% but sure a lot better!

Next I raised the front of the car and inspected the underneath. I noticed a rapid oil leak at the bottom of the timing belt case. I pulled off the front drivers side axles with the Constant Velocity (CV) joint and installed a rebuilt one for $46. Pulled off the passenger side axle but before installing the rebuilt one I removed the timing case and replaced the $36 water pump and the $16 timing belt. The original belt looked in rather good shape. I replaced the $8 camshaft oil seal which I suspect was the source of the oil leak and also replaced the $8 crankshaft oil seal which may have been leaking. Replaced the alternator belt and air conditioning belt while reassembling everything.

While the car was up in the air I removed the front bumper assembly which is easy once it is all figured out. Just 4 easily accessible bolts and maybe 5 Phillips screws. That makes the radiator and air-conditioning all easily accessible. It also made the tow bar assemble accessible. So I removed the 25 pound tow bar and reinstalled the bumper. Then I installed the $46 rebuilt Constant Velocity axle assembly on the passenger side. This task seemed easy compared to the timing belt replacement. I added a little power steering fluid and filled the radiator with water which I will run with for a week to ensure no leaks prior to installing fresh antifreeze.

The original sticker for the car was in the glove box and indicates this car gets 39 mpg in the city and 43 mpg in the country. On my first tank I got 42 mpg! My motorcycle gets 46 mpg! This is the third generation Metro Lsi model with a 4 cylinder 1.3 liter, 79 horsepower engine, with two front airbags. It has a 5 speed manual transmission and drives easily like my second car (back in 1966) the Volkswagen Beetle. The Metro has more power which is nice. The Napa auto parts salesmen when asking for the engine size usually comment oh you have the big block engine. I am still not sure if they are joking? (Most Metro’s come with a 3 cylinder 1.0 liter engine.) The engine is less than half the size of our 3.3 liter Caravan mini-van and gets double the gas mileage. (The generation 1st car weighs only 1367 pounds! I suspect this 3rd generation car weighs a little more.)

Barn Progress

The barn is coming along. Ron Besel gave me enough siding to complete the large section of the south side and I was able to get it all in place today. The south side is where we receive most of our wind so siding the south side makes the building almost water tight. I still need to trim the one edge and will eventually create a door or window to get to pens that will be on this side of the building.



The rest of the siding will be Hardie Plank which is 7 inch horizontal lap siding. Hardie Plank is a fiber cement board. James Lumber would sell a 12 foot Plank for $7.48 delivered or $7.29 if I pick it up (Special deal). Home Depot has it for $6.67 and then they give me a 10% discount for having been in the military so it came to $6.01 a plank. Still seems expensive, oh well.

George Washington’s humor in a letter

I found the below letter quite interesting. It was written by our first president to his brother-in-law Burwell Gassett celebrating the birth of their new child. It looks to me to be quite humorous throughout and also demonstrates some of his connection to the Christian life. I suspect he must have enjoyed Burwell as a brother-in-law.

I used an on-line Optical Character Recognition site to duplicate the letter and left the spelling as is which was likely correct for the late 18th century. Oh by the way, “animadvert” which is used in the letter means “to comment unfavorably”.

From page 319 of the book titled “George Washington’s Sacred” Fire by Peter A. Lillback. This book is a proof that George Washington was a Christian and not simply a Deist as some seem to claim.

Dear Sir: I was favoured with your Epistle wrote on a certain 25th of July when you ought to have been at Church, praying as becomes every good Christian Man who has as much to answer for as you have; strange it is that you will be so blind to truth that the enlightning sounds of the Gospel cannot reach your Ear, nor no Examples awaken you to a sense of Goodness; could you but behold with what religious zeal I hye me to Church on every Lords day, it would do your heart good, and fill it I hope with equal fervency; but Heark’ee; I am told you have lately introduced into your Family a certain production which you are lost in admiration of, and spend so much time in contemplating the just proportion of its parts, the ease, and conveniences with which it abounds, that it is thought you will have little time to animadvert upon the prospect of your crops &c; pray how will this be reconciled to that anxious care and vigilance, which is so escencially necessary at a time when our growing Property, meaning the Tobacco, is assailed by every villainous worm that has had an existence since the days of Noah (how unkind it was of Noah now l have mentioned his name to suffer such a brood of vermin to get a birth in the Ark) but perhaps you may be as well of as we are; that is, have no Tobacco for them to eat and there I think we nicked the Dogs, as I think to do you if you expect any more; but not without a full assurance of being with a very sincere regard etc.

Microwave Oven Tale -

We purchased our GE Microwave Spacemaker XL Oven in May of 2002. The microwave oven is color coordinated with our stove and includes a vent for the stove which is then vented to the outside. It has been a good microwave with only the stepper motor to the rotating plate failing once in the past and a few light bulb replacements over the years.

Well the other day I tried to heat something and the microwave died as soon as I hit the start button. Even the lights on the stove went out. Then 3 minutes later the power magically returned. Yet the same sequence occurred after touching the start button the next time.

So I ended up calling GE support at 1-888-239-6832 and spoke with Ronny who concurred with my suspicion; the magnetron failed. I had read on the web this magnetron was having some failures. So even on this 8.5 year old microwave GE said they will ship me a new magnetron free! The magnetron arrived 3 days later. Part number OM75P (10) or WB27X10370. I read the magnetron outputs a frequency of 2450 Mhz. Amazing huh.



It took about an hour to get the oven off the wall and on to the workbench and another hour to replace the magnetron and one additional hour to remount on the wall.

Thanks GE for your great, no hassle, support!

The only issue was there was absolutely no paper work on how to install the new magnetron. I suspect that is because of lawyers and courts holding companies unreasonably liable for everything. Hurts us all in the long run. Big help.

The other issue was the magnetron needed 1/8th inch more clearance and it would have slid in easy. As it was, I bent the frame momentarily, enabling installation clearance. Why pack things in so tight. They had extra room.

All looks good now and all is normal once again.

Bathroom Fan Repair

Out upstairs bathroom Broan Model 164A light/heater/fan was making too much noise when the fan was on. We purchased this unit in Jan 1978 for $35.

I ordered another motor #99080160 for $45 however it was identical except for the shaft diameter which was 0.249 inches instead of 0.222 inches of the original shaft. The motor did not come with the replacement fan.

Since there were so few options on purchasing this motor I modified the plastic wheel fan to accommodate this larger shaft size. This shaft has a flat edge to lock the fan onto the shaft in a securely. Don said to end up with a balanced wheel I would need to file out the notch on the fan and then drill it to a larger size. By doing it this way the new drilled hole would remain centered in the fan. I found my Dremmel tool easily ground this flat portion of the hole away. Then a larger hole was easy to drill into the plastic fan wheel and then the hole ended up measuring 0.235 inches.

I then pressed and glued this modified fan wheel onto the new motor shaft using JB-Weld. Now the noise is back to normal which was originally rated at 3.5 sones. Maybe this will be good for another 32 years?

Netflix Question

So here is the cost breakdown of our dsl.

Presently we have Century Link at I think 526 kbs for $25/month.
Century Link advertises - (Dec 2010)
$29.95 for 768 kbps
$39.95 for 1.5 mbps
$49.95 for up to 10 mbps

$84.95 for 768 kbps plus tv plus phone with unlimited long distance.

Further Netflix requires -
3.0 mbps for max quality for SD content.
5.0 mbps for max quality for HD content.

So it seems to get Netflix to work right we would need a faster DSL for $25 a month additional along with the additional $10 Netflix cost. Or $425 per year.