What Manly Things Did You Do Today?

I'm doing my part to help you and others like yourself get back to a normal life ..... I'm staying home and out of trouble.

God bless!

 

Hmmm... survived a tropical storm. (didn't amount to anything here in the city). Made $460 trading stocks this morning. On the face it it that might not seem manly but it is a very traditionally male dominated activity. Pretty much a "no girls allowed" club until recently.

 

Cleaned the gun. Seemed like a good idea. No idea why.

 

Very good idea.

Thanks, but, the best thing you can do, is live a normal life, just a little more aware of your surroundings. You know why.

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Situational Awareness at all times in public.

 

Your post is confusing, considering you are a 60 yr old male.

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What part is confusing? That I think trading is manly? Or why I think it is manly? Or the tropical storm which turned out to be almost a non-event in New Orleans? I would be happy to clarify but I am not sure what part needs clarification.

 

Wife was out garage selling on Friday and the timing belt on the Sequoia broke. Got it towed home and finished up the repair today. My mechanic friend told me that there was a good chance that the engine was toast. After about 10 hours of work (I had no idea what I was doing and was working from Youtube vids), it fired up and after a few moments ran like nothing ever happened. My first timing belt job and hopefully my last.

 

Oh, you got lucky. Ive known several friends who had timing belts break, and the engines were totaled.

 

I know. I prayed hard and held my breath the entire time hoping she would start. The hard part was that all of the vids talk about replacing the belt (meaning the timing hasn't bee disturbed). I had to search hard for an article that explained how to set both cams and the crank to the correct timing position before the belt can be installed. Having to buy another vehicle (and we need a big one with a third row) would have put a strain on us.

 

Luckily most engines these days are what's known as non-interference engines, meaning that if the timing belt, chain, or gears break the pistons wont hit (and bend) the valves.

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The 4.7l Toyota engine is an interference engine. That is why I held my breath the whole time. I knew that there was a chance that after all that work the motor would be ruined.

 

Toyota and Nissan have always been famous for the interference engines. I have seen more than a few of those with valves embedded into the pistons....being the reason they stress replacing the timing belt at certain intervals.

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I really dodged a bullet. I was about 8k miles past replacement time and she was driving at about 45mph when it happened. The truck has 308k miles on it and now I'm hoping it will continue to run well. A lot of the stress and time came from the fact that this was my first time putting a time belt on and I had to learn to time the engine correctly (not something you wanna mess up with).

 

Well it's a great learning experience and in the future knowing what you have learned you will have the confidence and capability to do the same with any other vehicles you own.

I grew up in the used car sales/ auto body/ auto repair business. Started working for my father at 10 years old kept at it until graduating College.

To this day I still won't pay anyone to repair any of my vehicles.

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I grew up poor. My first car was a gift from a great uncle that had been sitting in disrepair. I got it and kept learning (old 4 bangers were pretty simple engines). I have been learning and wrenching every since. I have a pretty good set of tools, so I figure there isn't much that I can't tackle. I agree with not shelling out the money to have someone else do it. I saved about $1000 by doing it at home.

 

I can't say that I grew up poor, but I had to work my a## of for everything that I have ever had. I was definitely taught the value of a dollar and it's served me well because I was able to retire at 33 years old. Been retired for about 15 years now and I absolutely love it.

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Not sure how manly, but thrifty.

Made another batch of homemade laundry soap. Cost less than $18 and last a family of three well over a year.

 

Put down milky spore on the lawn and have the tractor sprinkler watering it in. Used my lawn tractor lift to get under the deck for an overdue cleaning and blade sharpening. Cooled off in the pool afterwards.

 

An old pastor I know uses an obscure study Bible that I hear elsewhere spoken of pretty highly. They're not in print anymore so they're not cheap. But I found one on the bay from 1931...$20 shipped because the leather cover, while in very good shape, was almost completely loose, so there was a lot of badly crumpled, wrinkled, and dog-eared pages.

Went through it today and ironed everything flat. Got the cover back on as best I could with a combo of flexible glue, thin paper tape, and white cloth (athletic) tape. Turned out pretty well. From the outside you'd never know it was almost a total loss.