November 10th

I went to the airport and cooked lunch for the EAA crew, then went and got the oil filter off the plane.  I still couldn't get the oil tank together, so I left it for the day and went home.

November 9th

I went to the airport and started the plane to get the oil warm then drained the oil out.  I took the tank apart (per the maintenance schedule) to find that there was nothing collected in the bottom, but I couldn't get it back together properly (it's a lot of parts that need to be held together at once).  I also couldn't get the oil filter off with Ken's wrench, so I'll wait until I have my strap wrench.  I also changed the coolant. 

It's getting closer to having everything all done, and hopefully Randy can get it inspected next week when he gets back from Mexico.

In the evening, I changed the oil in the Jeep.

November 8th

I struggled and struggled and got the carb off the DRZ.  I was then too pissed off with it to work on it, so I went and cut the grass and threw out a load of the hay for the guinea pigs that they don't like.

When Vic got home, she said the "check engine" light was on.  Great.  I plugged in the ODBII reader, and found it was a problem with the evaporation system.  The gas cap wasn't on tight.

November 7th

I decided to look at the DRZ - it didn't look like the carb was leaking, so I put more gas in the tank, and then it was leaking.  The engine's back to being hydrolocked with gas again.  I think the float in the carb doesn't necessarily float any more.

November 6th

I went to the airport and started working on the plane.  I got the pre-rotator flex cable and the bendix all apart and cleaned, then back together.

November 5th

I've taken the week off to get stuff done, so obviously I had a teleconference at work I needed to join at around 11:30 - I didn't want to get into anything before this, so I just played Warcraft and caught up on Last Week Tonight.

I changed the spark plugs on the van.  I was thinking I'd do the brake pads, too, but I think I really need a hand with that to stop me going insane trying to hold the calipers and get the pads out.  I then started in on the DRZ - it took me a while, but I replaced the float needle stuff, to hopefully stop the engine filling up with gas (again).  I've left it with a little gas in the tank and the petcock on "Prime", so if it's going to fill up with gas yet again, it'll do it quickly and I hopefully won't have too much to do to get in there again.  Yay.

November 4th

I went over to the airport to meet Chris, and we flew to Half Moon Bay via the Marin headlands, just North of the Golden Gate bridge.  I took a bunch of pictures - basically just pointing the camera in the right direction and pushing the button as I sure couldn't see the screen.  It was fairly pleasant until we got over the ocean, when it got really cold, really fast.  We had hoped to fly back up the bay, but air traffic didn't get back to us to say we could, so we flew back the way we came.  Well, I say that, we went straight over Sacramento International at ~3000' (per Norcal approach), which was nice :o)