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iv46vi posted:Thanks for the support everyone. My dear mom says "Getting laid off without warning and escorted out? Just a part of complete alberta experience. " To be recklessly optimistic, getting laid off (as opposed to fired) was one of the best things ever to happen to me. Half-a-dozen years previous to that, my father getting shown the door was one of the best things to happen to him. But you should also whistleblower that place into oblivion, of course.
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Mar 24, 2015 17:54
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A few years ago a 1979 RX-7 was in the TSD at Sports Car Olympics, the Thanksgiving Weekend O' Fun in Regina. Their TSDs are entirely dirt and gravel, and that RX-7 lost 2 tires. I believe the drivetrain was fine.
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Mar 24, 2015 23:52
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Slung Blade posted:It's some back road in k country I think. If it's K Country it's probably the Kananaskis Wildlife Drive. tourismcanmore posted:65 km towards Canmore through the Spray Lakes region along a high-grade gravel surface. That looks like an excellent drive, though the lack of complexity - it's pretty much the only road in the area for much of its length - means it might be a bit boring for a TSD. Getting completely loving lost is half the fun of a TSD (the other half is watching other cars get completely loving lost). You need lots of intersections for that. Assuming I'm right about which Loop we're talking about here. I love backcountry roads, if somebody knows of an interesting and under-appreciated route through the foothills / eastern Rockies, I'd love to hear about it!
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Mar 25, 2015 18:31
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McTinkerson posted:I plan on running this in my Wrangler this summer: http://graveltravel.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74:forestry-trunk-road&catid=1 Thank you for that link! Even though I don't have a motorcycle, I should be able to contribute to their database. Nothing in southwestern Ontario, yet, and I'm moving to Kitchener/Waterloo in 2 days - and there's a K/W Rally club. I'll miss the prairies and mountains, but TSD all year long sounds pretty good, too. Just after christmas 2013 my GF and I went winter camping in Waterton. We did a bit of off-the-beaten-path exploring on our way back to Calgary, and ended up on Township Road 110 near where it connects to the southern part of the FTR. We turned back when we found patches of deep, slippery snow on a road that was techically closed and had no cell service.  Oldman River 10 by Execudork, on FlickrWhen I don't listen to my GF or my instincts (whichever applies, she generally gets an override / veto) I end up stuck and calling for a tow. This happened in Saskatchewan, not on a mountain road. That's a field of stubble I'm stuck in.  SD 087 Snowy Roads and Not-Roads 15 by Execudork, on Flickrslidebite posted:Typically the Forestry Trunk road is closed north of Coleman until late May if not early June.
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Mar 26, 2015 20:05
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I had a silly idea today and I'd like a sanity check. I'm moving to the University of Waterloo to start a post-doc and I've been packing up around here. Long story short, not everything will fit in my car but my GF is keeping the apartment so I can store low-priority stuff for a while and get it later. My summer field work will be in Alberta, near the tiny town of Seba Beach, about 50 km west of Edmonton. I have commitments here in Saskatoon for the beginning of June and in Edmonton for the end of June / early July. And for a variety of reasons it might be useful to have a (spare) vehicle at the field site. My plans for the summer have no details except those blocked-off dates, yet, and presumably that kind of planning will happen on my first day on the new job, April 1. One possibility is that I will fly from Ontario to Edmonton along with the rest of the field crew and we'll drive a rental out to the field site. Getting into Edmonton for the conference at the end of June will be no problem in that situation - somebody else on the crew could just drop me off for the week - but my plans in Saskatoon for the beginning of June require a bit more resources: my GF and I are planning a 3-day canoe trip. Assuming I fly from Ontario rather than spend 4 days driving back (time is likely to be tight) and that I'll have boxes in Saskatoon I'll want in Ontario, I thought about buying a vehicle this summer. Suppose I buy a cheap pickup truck - let's toss a budget of $2000 out there - and register it in Alberta. I drive it around Alberta and Saskatchewan for the summer, then drive it to Ontario in September. Then I sell either the truck or my car, depending on which one I like better. The car is worth about $2500, maybe. A quick look at Kijiji tells me there are plenty of high-mileage, 20-year-old pickups around Saskatoon for less than $2K. Obviously buying a sub-$2K vehicle is always a gamble, but I'll survive a total right-off of that much money + whatever gets spent on minor repairs, gas, registration, and insurance. If this little adventure ends with a 2-tonne pile of scrap steel at the side of a highway in Northern Ontario or just outside Edmonton I'll be sad but certainly not ruined. I've never bought, registered, or insured a car in Alberta, and I would not have an Alberta driver's license - either Saskatchewan or Ontario, depending on how things go in April. My parents live in Calgary so I guess in a pinch I could use their address for the registration, if I needed to. tl/dr: I wanna buy a cheap pickup in Alberta in May, drive it around the prairies all summer, then drive it to Ontario and sell it in the fall. How much of a hassle would this plan be? Is it feasible to register and insure a car for less than a year and then drive it across the country? What steps would I need to take immediately after I hand the money to the seller?
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Mar 27, 2015 02:42
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Hmmm... I won't be a student. A post-doc is a weird thing, recently created in the Ivory Tower of Academia. I'll be an employee of the University of Waterloo, and no longer a resident of Saskatchewan. I'm 37 years old with a clean driving record. SK insurance doesn't care about anything except your record and I pay around $1000 / year for something fun (my bimmer was about that, the Prelude a bit less). Estimates for Ontario are all over the map, from a low end of about $750 for my current car (2002 Chrysler 300M) up to more than double that.  I suppose I could put my current (for the next 36 hours) address as my "residence" and register it in Sask. Gotta think about that. Character is a good thing. I will certainly be aiming for character. At a low budget, it's about the only thing you can seriously hold out for.
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Mar 27, 2015 05:50
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Age doesn't matter too much, it's not part of the formula they use to transfer "grid position" into AB. Years of driving do matter, so I think you're still OK unless you started at 32 or something. What's "grid position"? slidebite posted:Yeah insurance probably won't be that bad. You'll want a statement from your existing carrier stating you've been claim free for X years and it'll be worth your while to shop around. If you are associated with an Alberta U or professional assn, you may be able to take advantage of a group program so keep your eyes open for that. You'll probably have to do an insurance inspection if it's an older truck but it was mentioned earlier those can be shockingly easy to pass. I'll make sure I get some paperwork from whatever insurance I get on my car in Ontario - that's probably going to be CAA because I've been a member for decades and my parents do most of their insurance stuff through them when they can so the car is already somewhere in their database (presumably). I won't have any direct association with any university in Alberta as far as I'm aware, though I will be talking with lots of people at U of A in Edmonton. Maybe there's a professional association I can join that will check the appropriate box for Alberta. If I can sort something out for 90 days I'll be in good shape. My Saskatchewan car, my BMW, died more than a year ago so I haven't had SGI car insurance since last February. I suppose it wouldn't be completely unethical to buy a Saskatchewan vehicle and register it with / through my GF in Saskatoon, assuming she agrees to this plan. DrakeriderCa posted:Either way, you should be in good shape for reasonably priced insurance, ExecuDork. EDIT: When I was in Tasmania I was able to drive a ute for the 4 months I was there without horrible insurance problems. Getting an Aussie license was fun, they write the year you first got a license on the card and the woman at the Service Tasmania office did a double-take when she saw the ISSUED date on my Sask license. "You haven't really had a license for less than year, right?" In my experience, these things can be sorted out by standing in line for long enough. ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Mar 27, 2015 |
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Mar 27, 2015 19:25
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jonathan posted:I never did like futureshop due to their commission based sales. My FaceBook is covered with Alberta by-election stuff. Is that the Carrie Fisher who starred in Star Wars, or somebody else with the same name?
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Mar 30, 2015 02:42
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1500quidporsche posted:http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/calgary/1986-fiat-bertone-convertible/1060435918 I cannot, in good conscience, say a single bad word about a car that looks like THAT in THAT COLOUR  DrakeriderCa posted:DO IT
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Apr 1, 2015 01:23
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I was in the Target in 'Stoon about a week after the "Peace - we out!" announcement. The store hadn't been devastated, yet, there were some empty shelves but it was surprisingly non-depressing. Then I saw the big posters by the outside door (I came in from the mall) where they're selling the store infrastructure. You like those giant metal shelves? Give us a call! I imagine the mall has assigned some extra security to keep overzealous low-level managers from ripping out the copper wiring from the walls, or pulling up floor tiles. Getting back to my Summer Truck idea, I've determined that I'll be living in Alberta from early May until late August - I'm not going to move into an apartment here in Kitchener/Waterloo until September, and just leave my stuff (and my car) at my friends' place here. They're cool with this plan, and it'll save me rent money for 5 months, which is great. I'll have an Alberta address - the house our lab is renting all summer near our field site - but probably not an Alberta driver's license. I'll call CAA on Monday and try to figure this out. I know some of you guys have driven vehicles home from other provinces, are there special rules for registering a car for like a week that lets you, say, buy a car in B.C. and drive it home to AB? I was poking around Edmonton Kijiji yesterday, and it looks like I should be able to get something suitable for around $2500. I'm liking the Chevy/GMC C/K 1500 suggestion, but I don't think I'll need a full-size truck and the better fuel economy of a compact is pretty appealing. Something like a Ranger or S-10, or even the Mazda "We scraped the badges off the Ranger" B-series or a Nissan Hardbody. Toyota trucks in that budget range all seem to be heavily modified hunting / mudding trucks, with the more suitable (to me) "SR5" and Tacoma models keeping a higher value. On the other hand, the Edmonton area is overflowing with F-150 and C/K 1500 in every possible combination of options and brain-damage to the sellers (seriously, how loving hard is it to stab out "pickup" on your sweat-encrusted iPhone 4, jackass?). The other feature I'll want is a canopy. I'll be putting a canoe on it and a hard cover is much better for when I move the rest of my stuff from Saskatoon to Ontario at the end of the summer. Is it better to spend more for a truck that already has one, or shop around for a deal on a second-hand one that fits whatever truck I end up buying? Annoyingly, the main websites I can find for the manufacturers insist on never talking about actual cost, but poking around comes up with around $750 for second-hand canopies. Is this a thing you can get a good deal on at a wrecker?
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Apr 3, 2015 17:41
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Yeah, I'll be registering it in AB right away. Will I need an AB license to do that, or just an AB address?
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Apr 4, 2015 07:01
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Reward this kid for his trust and honesty - knock a hundred off the price and give him a warning about trusting strangers. He's naive, yes, but good intentions deserve some reinforcement. Getting some needed advice from a stranger who he was right to trust will be at least as memorable as finding it out the hard way. And he'll have a much better "I was a dumb kid" story in a decade's time, too. Thanks for the info, Slidebite, I"ll make some phone calls on Monday. Given I'll have the vehicle for less than 6 months in Alberta I suspect they've seen this kind of thing before. You can drive in a foreign country on an international driver's license for a year, an out-of-province Canadian license should be good for half a year.
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Apr 5, 2015 03:33
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DrakeriderCa posted:Honda RC51 powered Dirt bike quote:Approx 300lbs with 120hp I... uh... how...? How can you possibly ride that? Twist the throttle, bike does a backflip and lands on your face.
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Apr 8, 2015 14:28
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I just got off the phone with a very friendly person at Service Alberta - Motor Vehicles. My Summer Truck idea is taking shape! I won't need an Alberta license, I won't need to establish residency in Alberta, all I'll need is my out-of-province Canadian license (no problem) and an address in Alberta for the registration (we're renting a house for the summer). The only remaining question is insurance, which is a matter of "how much?" not "no can do".  Is there any form of the Ford Ranger - I'm looking at everything from the late 80's to the early 2000's - that I need to avoid? I have a vague memory of somebody here in AI talking about a Ford motor from that era that sucks balls. Is the Vulcan V6 a problem? \/\/\/ Thank you! And how did I not know about your tumblr before now? ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Apr 8, 2015 |
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Apr 8, 2015 22:00
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8ender posted:I took the survey and got about what I'd expect for a fence sitting Ontario elitist liberal Me too  I know nothing about the Alberta Party but apparently I agree with them about many things.
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Apr 10, 2015 17:50
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Goon meetings are always awkward (and goony) as gently caress. I've met SSS and a handful of non-AI goons, and it's always the same: real name or "Hi, I'm, uh... I'm "ExecuDork" on the... uh... the forums... ?" I'll be in AB from early May until late August with a few possible long-weekend type blocks of time off. A get-together in July or August - assuming everyone survives the 25th and no houses burn down - would be something I could do.
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Apr 13, 2015 15:11
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TireRack. They treated me very well. For local, I've also been impressed by the customer service at Kal Tire.
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Apr 21, 2015 04:28
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jamal posted:Think I'm headed to Lethbridge Friday, then will be there a week or two. Sister's bday is next weekend plus I'm going to race bikes, then finish up some things in my grandparents' basement. So if anyone wants to hang out I'll be doing that plus drinking a good amount of beer and whiskey. I think you should spend as much time as you can talking politics with Slidebite. I expect that will be lots of fun, and include episodes of gunplay as well as the beer and whiskey.
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Apr 27, 2015 12:18
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I'm in. With that many, we can finally answer the burning question: "How long can a golf cart run, flat-out, on a wide gravel road?" and have enough left over for jousting.
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Apr 28, 2015 04:04
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If there are no people that need to stay in the house, baking it is pretty straightforward. Without furniture etc. it'll be even easier. They just crank up the temperature for a day or two - bedbugs die at something like 40 C so you just need to heat everything up to that level for long enough for even the frame of the house to reach temperature. Still sucks to discover that, but finding it before moving in is pretty lucky. I'm curious if they can get something out of the previous owner, baking a house for bedbugs isn't free, plus the time and hassle.
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May 4, 2015 19:09
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1500quidporsche posted:gently caress after all that bedbug talk I just saw two cockroaches outside my building while walking my dog this morning.
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May 6, 2015 03:43
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slidebite posted:I know Provincial politics do not translate well to Federal, but Harper is probably guzzling gaviscon by the bottle tonight. I'm flying in to Edmonton with a layover in Calgary tonight, I'm looking forward to frowning oldies picking up their children at the airport and whining about them drat orange commies. I'll be visiting Ft. Mac for a week in mid-June and of course I'm expecting a howling, empty ghost-town because the oil majors will up stakes and abandon $1-trillion of infrastructure, investment, and development on account of a little orange paint. Friends of my parents are high-level executives with Shell - come christmas time I'm sure I'll get to hear some top-quality whinging from Alan in between more tales of how he swindled the salesman at the dealership when he bought his wife's new Mercedes (he paid for it in full after "negotiating" for 20 or 30 minutes, in his telling). (AI-relevant sidenote: I really want to autocross that loving car - I can't remember the details but it's red, it's got gobs of power and torqure, and AWD, plus stupid flappy-paddle fake-manual shifters and did I mention it's red?) 8ender posted:Watching from Ontario I have no reaction except *** If that really was a cockroach, it's still not a big concern - they can't establish a breeding population in a cold climate. Evidence: the millions of individual cockroaches, including certainly many, many already-fertilized females, that have entered the province with shipments of food and whatever else from warmer parts of the world, that have all failed to establish a viable population.
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May 6, 2015 18:14
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1500quidporsche posted:Any ideas where I can get around 40lbs of lead in calgary? Apparently my kart is super underweight. Dive shop. I wear 40lbs when I SCUBA dive, they'll sell it to you in 5- or 10-lb ingots.
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May 12, 2015 01:31
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I'm finally getting serious about my Alberta Summer Truck plan - I called a few ads on Kijiji tonight. In Alberta AI's opinion, given the choice should I take option A) 1998 Toyota Tacoma with 380 000 km for $4000 or B) 1993 Nissan Hardbody "Frankentruck" with a lie for KM (no way it's less than 200 000) and a mess of weirdness and "character" for $3000 As I was typing this, the seller of the Tacoma called me back and I'll be meeting him Friday morning, conveniently nearby. Any horrible warnings I should be aware of?
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May 14, 2015 03:32
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Seat Safety Switch posted:4x4 with a V6: http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/red-deer/2002-ford-ranger-4x4/1067249973
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May 14, 2015 03:50
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I filled the tank on the work truck yesterday - 2007 F150 4x4 - and I don't know how you guys can afford to run full-size V8 trucks out of your own pockets. Work will pay for the $120 it took to take that tank from just under 1/4 to full, and again and again all summer long so I don't have to worry about it, but there's no way I'm buying an F150 for myself. I want 4x4, extended cab, and manual transmission; a topper is a nice bonus but I know I can add one later if needed. I can afford to wait until late May to buy this truck, but I need to have it before May 30 so I can drive to Saskatoon that weekend. Getting to Ponoka - 170km away by Google Maps - is about at the limit of what I can rope my coworkers into tagging along with me so they can drive the work truck back after I buy something. Unless one of you wants to chauffer me around? (seriously - if a goon wants to help me buy a truck I will happily buy beer and pay gas and trouble and pay it forward upon request). Wasn't there just some discussion of how terrible auctions have gotten lately? or does that apply only to exotic Italian motorcycles? I'll meet the Tacoma seller on Friday morning, and now I know to look for horrible, horrible rust around the rear end and bed - thank you!
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May 14, 2015 04:01
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I sent the seller of that 1999 B4000 an email through Kijiji, basically saying I can get to Calgary next weekend (May 23-24) if it's still available. That is pretty much perfect, thanks! That other Mazda ad is a mess - "Wanted" instead of offering, two different years listed (1991 vs. 1994), and no mention of the drivetrain other than "manual". Is it 4WD? 4-cylinder? 6-cylinder? and what's up with under the front bumper - isn't there normally something there? Tomorrow I'll look at that Tacoma for fun if for no other reason, and I should be able to get to Ponoka for that purple Ranger as well. iv46vi posted:If you're in Edmonton, I got lots of spare time, bored out of my mind and don't mind car shopping, but know nothing about trucks. If you're ok with that I can drive anywhere(tm). Hit me up at gmail. My fieldwork can't be done in bad weather, so if a thunderstorm blows through or a day of rain I'll be running in to Edmonton or wherever to argue with sellers. Bonus Toyota-based fun http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/edmonton/1991-toyota-sr5-pickup-truck-220k/1063140727?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/edmonton/1989-toyota-pickup-truck/1061472654?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true Edit: I sent you an email, iv46vi and I fired off a message to this one, too: http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/red-deer/1997-ford-ranger-pickup-truck/1066373197?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true - I'll be in Ponoka, Red Deer isn't much further. ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 23:53 on May 14, 2015 |
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May 14, 2015 23:15
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Note that I buy cars for emotional reasons and have almost never been happy with a purchase that I didn't think through extensively.  That Eagle is loving awesome, I love the "I strongly recommend trailering due to the passenger rear drum is seized." I (very) briefly considered the $1200 he's asking as "spend the remainder of my $4000 budget after I buy a truck for $2500 and a trailer for $300" but there's no loving way I can do anything with a project. One of you other EDIT: Something for everyone! http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/edmonton/cars-trucks-suv-and-bikes-all-for-sale-must-go/1069583958?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true
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May 15, 2015 01:56
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I doubt he's one of the 4 arrested, the ad states he's in (amusingly) Legal, AB, which google puts a little north of Edmonton. But that ad smells like either crime or mental illness, regardless. Or like the most hardcore of AI'ers - he's got a salvage title BMW 530 AND a pair of Duramaxen. Not that "hardcore AI" and "criminal mental illness" don't go together, of course.
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May 15, 2015 02:24
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I'm planning on driving whatever I buy to Onterrible; a big part of the reason I'm looking at trucks instead of itty-bitty pseudo-sports-cars (aside: I miss my 3rd gen Prelude) is so I can haul my crap, currently at my GF's apartment in Saskatoon, across the Canadian Shield to Kitchener/Waterloo in early September. Then get some experience going off-road on purpose. Seat Safety Switch, I would be forever in your debt (read: random mailings of obscure Subaru parts from conference cities around the world - how's the Subbie scene in Vienna?) if you could check out that B4000 and its seller for me. My parents live in Calgary but I don't think I could convince them to buy a truck for me - they know less about trucks than I do (reminder: I know nothing) and care about such things not at all. They'd be happy to have me visit that weekend and would give me a ride out to meet that seller and take the test drive, but I don't think they'd buy it for me. They're wonderful people, but I've already taken a car from them this year. That offer of surprise car parts from parts unknown and unknowable applies to anyone who can check out that truck, confirm it is as good as it seems, and hold it for me. Seriously: I will mail you suspension components or aftermarket intakes or hard-to-find valves and sensors when I visit world cities for conferences. In the last five years I've been to Oslo, Amsterdam, Montreal, Hobart, Vienna, and Tampa. Sending weird gifts to my internetfriends would be fun! Alternatively, I could be convinced to donate my eventual purchase to a worthy person after I'm done with it. My position in Ontario is most likely to be for 2 years, and I could be moving anywhere after April, 2017. Driving to Alberta a week before I fly to somewhere would be a great road trip. All of this is conditional on what I find tomorrow - hopefully I can check out 3 vehicles and be in a much better position to determine what, exactly, I want to buy. EDIT: Holy crap the address for that B4000 is about a 10-minute drive from my parents' place. ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 04:01 on May 15, 2015 |
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May 15, 2015 03:54
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Every time I check potential vehicles at EPA.gov I trust the results less. I'll be looking at that 2002 Ranger 4.0 in Ponoka today, and EPA says 15MPG I'd like to look at the 1997 Ranger (unknown) in Red Deer, too, and assuming it's also a 4.0 V6, EPA says 16MPG. There were some updates between 1997 and 2002, surely, but does a 2002 weigh so much more than a 1997 that it knocks an entire mile-per-gallon off its average mileage? Or is the EPA's system just horribly unreliable for such fine-detailed examinations? Full-size trucks with engines from the smaller side of the range (big V6 / small V8) can have numbers as high as 15MPG but most are down around 12. Cars I've owned in the past, like my e36 BMW, hit the low-to-mid 20's easily. My GF used to have a 1997 Ranger 2WD, I don't know which V6 it had but it was certainly a V6 - if I assume the (hated) Vulcan, EPA says 17MPG. I don't know if 15MPG or whatever I achieve with my (half-incompetent) driving style counts as "criminal". Wikipedia's page for the Ford Ranger spends too much time talking about what was available in Brazil and not enough time talking about model progression in North America so I don't know if a 1997 is a full generation earlier than a 2002 or just separated by incremental face-lifts and minor revisions. Edmunds is similarly scattered and over-generalized, and refuses to tell me what Ford's "XL" and "XLT" designations mean - if they mean anything. I haven't spent enough time in Ranger forums to know if the enthusiasts there can tell me anything except which complete overhaul of the drivetrain and/or suspension is best for mud-bogging in Alabama.
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May 15, 2015 15:47
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Trip Report I drove just under 500km today and was able to see two trucks. 1. 1998 Toyota Tacoma The Good: It ran well, the 4x4 worked, both high and low, and the seller wasn't a lunatic. The Bad: The parking brake was disconnected by the 2-years-ago previous owner and, of course, RUST. There were rust holes THROUGH the bed near the passenger-side wheel-well, plus plenty of other panel rust all around the back half of the truck. Around the driver's side rear wheel arch, the tailgate, lots of places inside and outside the bed, the rear bumper, etc. I got underneath and while the frame rails were certainly dirty and had surface rust, they seemed solid. The rocker panels and all other sheet metal I saw was heavily corroded.The Ugly:  1998 Toyota Tacoma by Martin Brummell, on Flickr2. 1997 Ford Ranger The Good: Very clean all around, much less rust than I was expecting. Really amazingly low levels of rust, considering the age of this truck and the fact it has spent at least the last few years in central Alberta. There was a bit of surface rust on the frame rails and suspension components, but the rocker panels were completely rust-free and the other problem areas - back corners of the cab, bottoms of doors, wheel wells, bed - were without rust. There were a couple of little surface patches at the back end, and the bottom of the tailgate had a bit of paint flaking off with some rust underneath, that didn't go all the way through. Everything I'm calling "surface rust" was brown corrosion on top of otherwise solid metal. This truck also had new tires in great shape and amazingly low km - only about 181 000. And it has the 4.0L V6. New battery, alternator, clutch, and front-end parts (suspension & front drivetrain, at least in part) in the last few months. The Bad: The seller took off the insurance a little while ago because she has too many vehicles; she's a bit of a truck fanatic, she showed up in a Z71 and across the street was parked an older Chevy fullsize that she claimed had more than 400 000 km on it; she runs a courier company and prizes reliability over all other factors, so she apparently banks on having at least one fully-functional vehicle on hand at all times. So I couldn't take it for a test drive, but she started it up - it started fine - and we had a look under the hood wth the engine running for long enough to hear that it sounded fine, at least. Plus, the windshield is badly cracked and will need to be replaced soon. The Ugly:  1997 Ford Ranger by Martin Brummell, on FlickrThe owner of this 2002 Ranger wasn't paying any attention to his phone; I called and texted several times, as I said I would in a phone conversation we had Wednesday evening, but no reply or answer. Oh well. I really like the 1997 Ranger, I told the seller I'd call her and let her know by Tuesday at the latest. The only reason I didn't just buy it on the spot - besides the fact I was alone and I'd need to work out how to get it back here from Red Deer - was because I don't want to impulse-buy a vehicle I might drive for several years. I was able to get insurance set up at the AMA in Red Deer, and money is in my account ready for spending, so I feel like all I need to do is make a decision. EDIT: just to be clear, the decision I need to make is "1997 Ranger in Red Deer" vs. "Potential other truck, possibly that B4000, in Calgary or somewhere else". I'm not going to buy that Toyota; even if the seller cut his price in half I'd probably say no. ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 02:13 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 02:11
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I don't currenly own a car and I don't appear on any private individual's (e.g. my parents) insurance, either. I have been authorized to drive the work truck, a 2007 Ford F150, for the summer. It's owned by the University of Calgary and I am officially a volunteer there. It's been a little over a year since I got around to cancelling my Saskatchewan insurance on my BMW, after the necessary period of grieving to get from denial ("It can be repaired! An engine swap is no big deal!") to Acceptance ("Yes, hi, I have a partly-parted-out car-cass in my parking spot. Please take it to your junkyard"). I thought about renting a trailer and towing a purchase back here to Seba Beach with the work truck, but I remembered there was a section in the agreement I signed with UofC regarding trailering and I can't remember if I would be allowed to do that. Plus the fuel burn in the F150 is horrifying (to me) even unloaded. Setting up insurance at AMA today included a congratulations from the agent that I was smart enough to bring my Saskatchewan Driver's Abstract with me, and that while a 1-year gap is fine, 2 or more years without being an insured driver is a problem. While that Ranger was wearing plates (visible in photo) the seller told me about the insurance situation before I could ask about a test-drive and I didn't push it. And I'd be happy to take some pictures of your cars! Honestly it's the lowest bar I've seen to clear - SO. MANY. KIJIJI. ADS. have just absolutely terrible photographs. Is it really that hard to rotate a photo? Or to take more than zero photos of a vehicle you're trying to sell for thousands of dollars?
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May 16, 2015 02:29
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That's very generous of you, Slung. I'm near Edmonton at the moment but Calgary next weekend is a possibility - this could get convoluted but still doable, I think. That B4000 in Cowtown has disappeared from Kijiji, and I heard nothing back from my email - I think it sold.  There are still plenty of options all over the province right now, so I'm not especially worried, but it would be nice to get this done. The number of things I want to do without worrying about using the work truck for personal funstuff keeps growing.My boss is arriving this evening and tonight plus tomorrow are going to see a whole lot of planning and schedule-making, so I don't want to make any plans to go truck shopping right now. But, I'll be buying some liquids (gasoline, ethanol diluted with water) for iv46vi on Tuesday or Wednesday unless my boss' plans are crazy. Assuming he's still up for it.
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May 17, 2015 18:28
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iv46vi posted:Tuesday is wide open, but Wednesday first half of the day is Habitat gig so something after 4pm at the earliest. Cool. I need to call AMA insurance and figure out what happens if I buy a truck after business hours - can I still get it insured to the point I can drive it to my (temporary) home, then register it and complete the song-and-dance a day or two later? They told me I had 30 days to register a vehicle after I buy it, but I'm pretty sure I need insurance, doable by phone, immediately.
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May 18, 2015 02:59
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Big, BIG thanks to iv46vi today, because he was instrumental in my purchase of a truck. I'm pretty tired, so just a couple of pictures tonight. First impressions will wait until tomorrow - but zeroth impressions are "ALBERTA!" Truck:  Truck! 1 by Martin Brummell, on FlickrTruck doin' Truck Stuff:  Truck! 2 by Martin Brummell, on Flickr
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May 20, 2015 05:30
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Thanks! The dirt will be applied soon, I agree - my truck is too clean right now. I don't think those bars are stock, I haven't seen them on any other Rangers around here. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, yet - what I really want is a full-height canopy, but that's not an urgent priority right now. Priorities: - Windshield replacement. It's in very rough shape. - Diagnose and repair the shuddering/surging it does under even light throttle. - Diagnose and repair the clicking sound from the steering, and the intermittent vibration while driving. - Clear the check engine light that came up last night on my way up highway 2. - Trace the hoses for the windshield washer fluid, it's not spraying at all. - Thoroughly clean the interior of the cab, and sweep the debris out of the bed that was too heavy to blow out yesterday. I think the shuddering, which only goes away when coasting, is a fuel problem. It had plates that expired in February on it, and a nearly-empty fuel tank, so I think the fuel filter needs to be replaced. The shuddering is too random to be a solid mechanical component. The spark plug wires look new, and I don't hear anything that (to my inexperienced ear) sounds like a misfire. The clicking happens whenever I turn more sharply than typical highway lane-changes; in town (especially in parking lots) it's every turn I make. I think the CV joints need some attention. The vibration might be the rear bearings, or it might be associated with the clicking at the front, I'm not sure. I found the P.O.'s driver license when I flipped the sun visor down, and there's a small wrench in the driver-side door card pocket. She had seat covers on both front seats which I'm not sure I like, and given what else I've found accidentally I need to get in there and figure out what other debris to clear away. I need this truck fully operational by the end of next week. I have not enough free time, no tools, and a gravel patch to park on so anything more ambitious than cleaning and the windshield washer hoses I'm going to give to a professional. Google finds a number of local, presumably independent auto shops around - my choices are "Wally", "Jerry", or "Joe", plus an OK Tire. EDIT: I found the owner's manual on-line. The automatic locking hubs at the front don't disengage after driving in 4WD unless the truck reverses direction for 10 feet in a straight line. I don't think I backed up 10 feet straight at any point yesterday, and I was messing around with the 4WD settings - it makes the same soft "clunk" when I switch to 4-HI as the work truck, I think it's working but I haven't worked out how to test the function of the 4x4 system yet. Any suggestions? Just find a sloppy soft dirt road and have a friend watch the wheels as I move back and forth? EDIT2: Windshield hoses are fine, as far as I can tell. I think the pump is dead. ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 20:58 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 15:42
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I took it to an awesome local mechanic yesterday, KBH, which consists of a half-cylinder corrugated-steel shed the size of a small aircraft hanger, a dirt lot, and a collection of probably-projects including an e30 convertible and a fairly recent tastefully-lifted 4x4 full-size chevy pickup. I felt very good about leaving my new-to-me little truck in the grease-stained hands of the proprietor, a friendly and somewhat chatty bearded man wearing a bluetooth headset. I told him about my worries, and he agreed to have a look. I also asked him to check out the 4x4 system, basically make sure it's coming on and turning off when it's supposed to. He called me later that day and described "good news and bad news". The bad news is, I might not get it back before Monday, but it's a toy not a necessity so I'm not too concerned. The good news is he thinks he traced my troubles to some simple causes. The short version is: the seller wasn't lying to me about work done recently on this truck - new battery and alternator, new clutch, and "front end work". All of this except the clutch has been verified by my mechanic, and the clutch feels fine and far from what a worn-out clutch feels like, I've had a few of those. The problem is, whoever did the "front end work" was apparently an orangutang. They didn't put all the parts back in when they replaced major pieces like the front axles; things like retaining clips and O-rings are missing, which caused one side of the front half of the drivetrain to fall out of position. This locked the transfer case in 4Hi, which explains the clicking from the steering - I was always on dry pavement, which is exactly when you're not supposed to engage 4wd according to the owner's manual. He said this would also probably explain the intermittent vibration, and in any case this costs something like $40 in parts to fix, plus whatever his shop rate per hour is. Certainly cheaper than some of the scarier scenarios playing in my head during my drive home on Tuesday - the U-joint is fine, the rear bearings appear to be fine, etc. The surging was probably a misfire, cylinder 4. The spark plug wires are new, as are the spark plugs. He said the P.O. spared no expense, and filled that engine with Iridium spark plugs at about $17 a piece. One of them, cylinder 4, was cracked, so he replaced it with a basic not-made-of-unobtainium plug. Fine by me! He suggested I "go into the city" (i.e. Edmonton) when I asked about the windshield, and I didn't ask him about the windshield washer pump; I feel confident that I can tackle that one by myself, after a quick trip to a parts shop for a replacement. I did it on my bimmer, I doubt this Ford is going to be much harder. The parts for the front end - to in effect complete the job some half-wit started - won't get to him until Friday (tomorrow), if he can he'll have it ready for me Friday afternoon, otherwise I'll see it again on Monday. His hours are interesting - 11-7 Mon-Fri - I'm used to mechanics that answer their phones at morning times I'm not fully awake for. This schedule works well for me, though, I'd struggle to get to an 8:00am pickup or dropoff, but I usually get back to the house here by 5:30 or 6:00pm, and KBH is only about 15 minutes away. There's a vacuum diagram near the radiator - it's hilariously simple compared the horror shows I've seen in various threads. I think there are about half-a-dozen vacuum hoses in total. I'll keep that in mind, though, thanks Powershift - vacuum leaks seem like relatively simple things to deal with once the problem has been correctly identified. EDIT: I also found the P.O.'s driver license when I flipped down the sun visor. How do you manage to leave your license in a vehicle you haven't (legally) driven for months? Anyway, I mailed that to her. She hasn't asked me about it but it's on its way and no longer my concern.
ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 03:00 on May 22, 2015 |
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May 22, 2015 02:54
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I just picked up my truck from the mechanic. He explained what had happened with the front end. Basically, on each side there are three O-rings and a retaining clip. On one side, these were happily in place. On the other, they were missing. This led to both front hubs being locked on, and one shaft slipped back about 2 inches and rattling around. This caused the vibration, and the locked hubs caused the clicking from the steering. The surging was a badly cracked spark plug in cylinder 4, which he replaced with a rather expensive Iridium one to match the others. It won't need a tune-up for a long time, but when it does I think I'll go for something cheaper. And he changed the oil, because why not? Amusingly, on the invoice under "Part Number" he put his name, so under a list of alphanumeric soup I have two entries of "KEVIN". This is probably standard procedure, the column heading is actually "Part Number / Tech" but I'd never seen it before and I am easily amused. Anyway, it drives MUCH better now, so now I'm sitting with a truck that fits everything I was looking for and with a clean bill of health for better than $1000 under budget. This "crazy idea" of mine is getting less crazy by the hour, I need a new insane project to interfere with my life and generate alternating rounds of pity and anger from my family.
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May 23, 2015 01:32
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 00:56 |
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Auction sites are such fun. I really should buy a car at an auction sometime, just for the experience. That FIAT would be ideal. I have no idea how my parents would react to a request to park it in front of their house in Calgary while I intermittently do things to it to render it fully driveable. A little Italian convertible in winter (with big, square-edged winter tires carrying the upper legal limit of studs, both size and number) would be absolutely fantastic. Presumably I'd need to use the Ranger to start it every time at temperatures below freezing, but getting my scarf caught in those basket-weaves is a classy, classy way to die. EDIT: I can't stop browsing kijiji! Suzuki's Cutest Little Trucklet Some of the best pictures in a car ad on kijiji I've ever seen I am a man of simple, some would say stupid, tastes http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/calgary/1989-honda-prelude/1071964984?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/strathcona-county/1991-honda-prelude-se-4-wheel-steering-parts/1066806464?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true ExecuDork fucked around with this message at 03:50 on May 23, 2015 |
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May 23, 2015 03:32
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