Random thoughts thread

[S2kphile]

So I was late for a dinner last night with some friends. The restaurant was packed last night so the waitress had to escort me to the table.

Then one of my friends said to me "You're LATE!" to which I responded with "a man is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to." My friends had a 'lolwut' expression and the waitress snickered.

Now here's the kicker at the end of the dinner when I was given the check cause for whatever reason I seem to always get the check. The waitress drew a winking wizard on the receipt. To my jubilation she got the reference and then when she asked if there is anything else we needed and I said "There may come a day when I stop asking attractive girls for their numbers but it is not THIS day!" I then proceeded to ask for her number and my friends rolled their eyes and told the waitress that is a bad idea, don't do it, etc. Cockblocking me to put it simply.

But I got myself a date this weekend. Thank you LORD OF THE RINGS you got me a date NERDOM FTW

[wrxgoose]

pics of said waitress?

[Calum]

Mr. Investment gets the check... I wonder why.

Nice pick up!

[Calum]

Originally Posted by Guff

So over this weekend ....

I hate jobs like that. That's why I NEVER work on a car on Sunday. Guaranteed you wont be driving the car to work on Monday, you'll be waiting for the parts to open.

[wrxgoose]

that's what i'm worried about. my friend john and i will be doing all the work on my (soon to own) car. he works at lexus, and we both graduated from the auto-tech class at college

it's the Hendrick program at CPCC. they have toyota, bmw, and gm. damned impressive shop there too

[serialk11r]

Just gave thumbs up to a silver FRS at In N Out in Mountain View. The front of that car looks rather awesome.

[RedLeader]

Originally Posted by Guff

Pulling the Trans became impossible because the bolts for the half shafts were some stupid 12 point driver bit thing that kept getting rounded out.

Those 12-pointed things are called triple-squares..they are the most aggravating, irritating, worthless bolts in the entire automotive industry. I think VW only uses them because no one else does. I changed the steering wheel in my GTI last year and it was held in place with a 12mm triple-square bolt..I spent 3 days driving all over town trying to find one before I got lucky and nabbed one at an O'Reilly auto parts.

[gmookher]

Originally Posted by Guff

So over this weekend I came down to Chicago and decided to help my cousin replace his transmission in his 98 Jetta TDi...

It took TWO FULL DAYS. TWO DAYS! It should have been 3-5 hours tops.

Pulling the Trans became impossible because the bolts for the half shafts were some stupid 12 point driver bit thing that kept getting rounded out. So we removed the trans with the axles on. Yes, WE REMOVED A TRANS IN A FWD CAR WITH THE DRIVE AXLES ON. It wasn't easy, not at all. It took an entire day. Then, we couldn't get the drive axle bolts off even after removal so we bought two new drive axles and real bolts that wouldn't strip and decided to use those with the new Trans.

Then reinstalling the Trans took up the majority of the second day. We put in a VR6 clutch for added beefiness and set about mating it back up and mounting it. The design of the mounts were dumb, the random bolt types were dumb, FWD is dumb. And I hate VWs now. The cuts and metal shavings in my skin are reason enough.


I took pics to document it, but it really turned into a "How NOT to replace a transmission". So yeah....




It was damn good fun though.

Wouldn't it have been easier to get the right tools? I'm familiar with those bolts, you need to meet my buddy pb blaster...

[S2kphile]

Originally Posted by wrxgoose

pics of said waitress?

Taking my phone out in a public restaurant and taking pictures of waitresses is creeper status bro. Secondly, I still respect the ladies don't want to put any pictures up of them for the internet to see unless she becomes a ex-gf that turns out to be a total bitch then different story.

Originally Posted by Calum

Mr. Investment gets the check... I wonder why.

Nice pick up!

Funny thing is I had 2-3 days facial growth and I was dressed down compared to my other friends. That was one of the reasons I was late. Ran out of shaving gel and said f*** it trying to find some.

EDIT: BBQ with the family is awesome; although, I find the females in my family quite annoying. Asking me if I have a GF, bring her to the house, when are you gonna get married? etc etc.

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by ichitaka05

Nice!

I, myself want all new EL header & whole custom exhaust for my Impreza... but sadly don't know anyone locally that can make one.

So I envy you

Meh, don't. I'm continuously having issues lining up equipment/space/time. New position at work is eating all my time, but now I have money. Before I had time but no money. Heh. Also my welder buddy only cares about bikes, so he's not going to go out of his way (ie; work for beer) on a complex, twisty header. Might try to get just an exhaust out of him to start...

[Guff]

Originally Posted by gmookher

Wouldn't it have been easier to get the right tools? I'm familiar with those bolts, you need to meet my buddy pb blaster...

We did get the right 12-point driver and PB Blasted the shit out of it. But the bolts were hardened and the Driver would just keep rounding out. We went through a few of them...

Originally Posted by Kestrel

Those 12-pointed things are called triple-squares..they are the most aggravating, irritating, worthless bolts in the entire automotive industry. I think VW only uses them because no one else does. I changed the steering wheel in my GTI last year and it was held in place with a 12mm triple-square bolt..I spent 3 days driving all over town trying to find one before I got lucky and nabbed one at an O'Reilly auto parts.

Yeah, they are terrible... Whatever engineer thought of using them has hopefully already been brutally murdered...

[ichitaka05]

Originally Posted by Dimman

Meh, don't. I'm continuously having issues lining up equipment/space/time. New position at work is eating all my time, but now I have money. Before I had time but no money. Heh. Also my welder buddy only cares about bikes, so he's not going to go out of his way (ie; work for beer) on a complex, twisty header. Might try to get just an exhaust out of him to start...

Ah~ I know what you mean. Good pay don't usually give you time to do other stuff you want to do. It's one of hard choice of life...

[Want.FR-S]

Originally Posted by Guff

...Yeah, they are terrible... Whatever engineer thought of using them has hopefully already been brutally murdered...

I think I heard this from my mechanical engineer friend saying: if you want no one to open this case, just custom-made the drill bit and pattern so that no one else can open it but you, and charge a premium to open the case for them.

Case in point: Apple iPhone 4S.



And I am not even sure if one should use power tool with that triple-square bit. It seems so fragile to grind out of its teeth.

[Calum]

Originally Posted by ichitaka05

Ah~ I know what you mean. Good pay don't usually give you time to do other stuff you want to do. It's one of hard choice of life...

Family ALWAYS comes first for me. If I didn't have my family, I would not be doing this job. That said, there's plenty of opportunity for me to spend way more time at work if I was willing. That's why I've already turned down three promotions and eight civilian job offers to maintain my present responsibility to pay ratio. Money's not flowing now that we're paying ~1600 a month for day care, but my oldest will be going to school in two years and I'm still due another pay raise just before Christmas. It's all about planning and living by the saying "happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have."

Originally Posted by S2kphile

Funny thing is I had 2-3 days facial growth and I was dressed down compared to my other friends. That was one of the reasons I was late. Ran out of shaving gel and said f*** it trying to find some.

I have no idea what you look like, but I've always been told I look better that way. YMMV