Volunteering

Okay, so to start with on the volunteer front I worked at Easter Seals helping paint their doors at one of their schools for kids with lots of problems. Pictures are posted here. I also helped pack gift bags for Moore Mart and we packed our 20,000th box! How awesome is that?! Pictures are posted here.

Traveling

We've been all over the place. June 12-14th we were in Seneca Falls, NY for a National Tour auto-cross. We were a bit too busy and didn't get any pictures except videos of Penny in the car. :-) June 19-21 we were in DC for a ProSolo auto cross. I also visited with tons of friends, including a nice dinner with Quang & HV and seeing Yvonne, Kari and Liberty and Liberty's horse, Livita. Kari, Liberty & I went to the barn and brunch in the city.

Fun Stuff

Faith works at BAE! Woohoo! Check out our matching badges. We also went Strawberry Picking at Parlee Farms recently with a number of our friends. Pictures are posted here. I also got a great silouette of Faith's cats Pirate and Marble and a new photo of Ariya.

I got the SoloRu engine completely torn down and found the bad bearing. I added the pictures to the engine rebuild (take 2) album. It wasn't a spun bearing after all. In fact, all the bearings looked fine, except for the rod bearing for cylinder #1. The bearing was still in the right place and didn't spin within it's journal in ways it's not intended. It appears instead to have disintegrated, or at least it was trying to. The bearing surface was flaking off and it's those flakes that I found in the oil pan.

I've got the initial pictures of the damage and the engine looks like it's going to need a rebuild before it runs again. Hopefully, I can do this without spending too much money since I can remember all the pitfalls I made the first that made it so much more expensive than it had to be.

Anyway, here's the carnage. Not much to see except a bunch of glittery metal pieces in the oil pan.

-N

I spun a rod bearing, which means my 9,000 mile old engine will need another rebuild. Hopefully, this won't hurt _too_ much. But it's gonna hurt a lot, I know.
-N