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Sledgstone

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  1. Sledgstone

    BBQ Beef

    By Sledgstone,

    Instructions to make:
    BBQ Beef sandwiches out of leftover beef roast.
    Serving size: About 5-6 sandwiches per 1-1/2 pounds of beef.
    Ingredients:
    - Leftover beef roast. (1-1/2 pounds)
    - 1 bottle of BBQ Sauce
    Instructions:
    This recipe is for how to make your leftover beef roast into bbq beef. If you do not have leftover beef roast or do not know how to cook it. You can still do this recipe, just upscale it. To make a beef roast, buy a beef top round roast, rinse it off and put it in a crock pot. Put water in the crock pot so the roast is about half covered in water and put a couple beef bouillon cubes in it. Sprinkle pepper and garlic salt on the roast, cover and set the crock pot on low and let it cook for about 8 hours.
    After 8 hours, follow this recipe at step 3.
    1) Take your leftover beef roast and put it in a mini crock pot, or full size crock pot. (If you are using a full size crock pot, cut your leftover roast into smaller pieces to fill the bottom of the pot more so you'll use less water.


    2) Fill your crock pot so its about halfway covering the beef. Then cover the pot, turn on your crock pot to low. Or if it doesn't have a low setting like my mini crock pot, just plug it in for its regular cooking temperature. Let it cook for about 4 hours. Obviously, since I'm cooking a leftover roast that has already been cooked for 8 hours previously, this is going to be extremely tender meat.


    3) Take your beef out and place it on a plate. It should be cooked enough that its practically falling apart.

    4) Use two forks and break apart all the meat. You can also take out any large pieces of fat at this point too.


    5) Place the shredded beef back into the pot and completely cover the beef in water. Cover it back up and let it cook another 2-4 hours. I did 4 more hours. The longer it cooks in the water, the more tender it will be.

    6) Strain all the water out, but leave the beef in the pot. And pick out a bottle or two of bbq sauce (I recommend KC Masterpiece Original for this). If you are cooking an entire roast for this, you'll probably need 3-4 bottles depending on how big your roast is.

    7) Gradually mix in about half a bottle of bbq sauce for each pound of beef you are cooking in the crock pot. Now cover the crock pot again and let it keep cooking for another 20 minutes to an hour. If longer than 20 minutes, stir about every 20 minutes. I let it cook for almost another 1. It will need 20 minutes of cooking at this point so the bbq flavor really permeates into the beef. Cooking longer than an hour at this point might just start burning your beef. So keep an eye on the clock at this point.

    8) Scoop up some BBQ Beef and put it on a bun. Enjoy! And make sure you have a paper towel or napkin, because it has a similar consistansy as a sloppy joe.

    9) Eat! Its so good.


  3. Sledgstone
    Heres a couple pics of me fixing my blazer's emergency brake yesterday. A stupid little clasp at the top of the ebrake held in with a phillips head screw (just underneath the top of the brake shoe) was bent back and the brake shoe was not flush against the back plate. It caused all kinds of popping, clicking sounds and vibration while I was driving. So to fix it I pushed the e-brake shoe flush against the back plate and pushed the metal piece back into place and tightened it up. While I was at it, I used a small wire brush and srubbed of a bunch rust build up to make sure the ebrake would work smoother. I then followed it up with a quick clean up job with some brakekleen and an easy reassembly. Simple easy fix that just saved me $80 in labor from a mechanic.
    These pics show the brakes and rotor off revealing the ebrake shoe:


  4. Sledgstone
    This is a brief walk through of how to do a front brake job on a 2001 Blazer. If you are using this as a reference to do your own brake job, please keep in mind that all cars are different and not everything will look the same or be the same socket or wrench sizes. Also, if you have never done a brake job before, I highly recommend you have someone help you who has done them before so you don't mess something up. If you mess up your brakes, your brakes could fail and you could die or kill others accidentally.
    Anyway, with that little disclaimer out the way, get everything you'll need together.
    Unlike some of my other blog entries, the following pictures precede the instructions that go with that picture. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

    Everything from left to right:
    1) Impact driver that plugs into cigarette lighter.
    2) Wheel chocks
    3) Tools on the bottom include and pry bar, 1/2 socket wrench, brake caliper clamp (I can't remember the actual name of it), rubber mallet.
    4) A can of Brakleen and a bottle of brake/caliper greese.
    5) Mechanics tool set.
    6) Paper towels.
    7) 2-1/2 ton Jack stand
    8) 2 new rotors and ceramic brake pads. Ceramics are better and don't have nearly as much brake dust, which means they keep your tires looking much cleaner and free of alot of grime.
    Tools and items not shown include my 3-ton floor jack, a bottle of "freeze off" for rusted bolts and an inside shot of my tool set.

    1) Look in your car manual and locate the correct points underneath your car where you can safely jack your car up. You do not want to jack your car on a part of the frame that you think will be ok, only to have your jack put all the weight of the front end of the car on a part of metal that can't take it and thus it'll fuck up your car. BTW, this is my 3-ton floor jack. Before you start jacking up your car, place your wheel chocks around your rear tires so your car does not move on you while jacking. (I forgot to take that pic.)

    2) If you are using the jack that came with your car, jack up your car high enough to place a jack stand underneath it and lower it down onto it for safety. The jacks that come with cars are pieces of shit and you should not trust them with your head or limb under a vehicle. Only jack your car up high enough for the tire to freely rotate, about a half inch off the ground. I have faith in my jack, so I generally keep it up constantly, but I'll place a jackstand underneath in case some emergency happens and my jack brakes.

    3) BTW, you should probably check your new rotors and brake pads at the store to make sure they are free of nicks or brakes.

    4) Using an impact driver, most are powered by air compressors and are very expensive but this little one was really cheap and only costed me $30. I bought a better impact driver for it tho ($10ish), because the ones it comes with looked like shit to me.


    5) If your tire has plastic covers covering the lug nuts, take them off by using a socket on them and taking them off easily by hand. No wrench needed for that. Then use your impact driver to take the lug nuts off. Always loosen the lug nuts first before removing them. Loosen them one after another by loosing the next lug nut opposite the one you just loosened. Never loosen them clockwise or counterclock wise. The lug nuts are on extremely tight, if you take them off one by one or loosen them incorrectly you run a big chance of fucking up your lug nuts and breaking some bolts.

    6) Now that the tire is off, you can place it on the ground and use it as a seat to take care of the rest of the job.

    7) Your caliper is the outer part of the brake system. It is connected to the car with a brake line. The caliper is only held on two bolt pins. I call them bolt pins because they are connected like bolts, but once you remove them, the length of the bolt is actually a greesed long metal pin. Its made like that so the bolt pin holds the caliper to the brake pad holder but also gives it the slight movement it needs for brake operation. I forgot to take a picture of the bolt pins. Also, if the bolts do not want to come off, you may have to spray them with some freeze off. If you use freeze off, try not to spray the rotor or brake pads with it. It acts like a lubricant and will cause your brakes to fail. Because I'm replacing the rotors, its not as big an issue. Also, remember which direction actually loosens and tightens the bolts. Because the bolts are facing you, you have to figure out which direction to turn them. If you over tighten them, you will probably shread the bolt head off and that will lead to a costly repair job. Once those pins are off, the caliper may not want to come off because of the brake pressure in the caliper. You will most like have to use a small pry bar to slowly work it off.

    8) Once you have taken the caliper off, place it on something so it does not hang from the brake line. A brake line job is extremely expensive and you do not want to damage that brake line by having something that weighs about 5-10 pounds dropping and damaging it. Next, you have to take off the brake pad holder. It has an actual name, but I can't remember it. Its only two bolts like the caliper, but these are actual bolts. And the top one of mine is in a tight spot. I had to carefully turn my steering wheel to rotate it into a position where I could get it all the way out. And even then my socket wouldn't fit on it. I had to go to the hardware store and pick up a 18mm wrench just for this job. These bolts haven't been off in a long time either, so I had to use some freeze off on them and even wack it a couple times with the rubber mallet to loosen it up.


    9) Now that that is off, heres what everything looks like separated. You can take off the old brake pads at this point. You may have to use a rubber mallet to wack them off the brake pad holder if they are stubborn.


    10) Here are some pics of the old rotor compared to the new one. The thickness isn't bad on the old one, but it has some bad groves in it. Rotors are supposed to be smooth. Also, if you wanted to, you could take your old rotors to a mechanic and have them machined. As long as they still have a good thickness to them, having them machined back to smoothness will make them re-useable. It generally costs about half as much as buying new rotors. It depends tho.

    11) Before you put your new rotor on, heavily spray that bastard down with brakleen to clean it. It may look clean, but you must make sure it is free from all oils usually leftover from manufacturing. Brakleen dissolves oil and greese away and drys very quickly.

    12) If your brake pads came with clips, follow the directions that came with them and apply the clips. Also, spray the side of the brake pads that will come in contact with the rotor with brakleen.

    13) Now prepare your caliper for the new hardware. Your caliper pistons are probably still out a bit. I like to put some caliper/brake greese on them at this point. Next put one of your old brake pads on the caliper and use the brake caliper clamp to push the caliper flush. If your car has two pistons like this one, alternate back and forth between the two until they are both flush around the same time. A C-Clamp can also be used for this if you have one. Once thats done, wipe off some of the excess greese with paper towels.

    14) Now reassemble the entire thing. The rotor goes right on. I recommend reattaching the brake pad holder first before putting the new brake pads on. Also, if you accidentally get any greese or grime from your hands on the rotor or the part of the brake pads that touch the rotor, respray them with brakleen. You do not want greese or oil on those parts. Also, make sure you do not get any greese or oil on the lug nut bolts. If you do, spray those with brakleen too.

    15) Heres a side view shot. You'll notice I put some brake greese on the two metal nubs where the brake pads are connected to the brake pad holder. The brake pads should have a little movement to them when sitting on there and the greese helps with that small amount of movement.

    16) Now put the caliper back on. It should fit on pretty easy now that the caliper pistons are pushed back. When putting the bolt pins back in, I would rub some brake/caliper greese on them first and slide them back into place and then tighten them on. Also, becareful not to over tighten any of the bolts. Tighten them to the point where you can't move them anymore, then give them one last strong tug to make sure they are tight. Other than that, don't over do it. Once the caliper is back on, test your brakes by having someone turn the car on and press on the brakes slowly all the way down. Then release slowly. Do that a couple times and try moving the rotor while the brake is down. If it doesn't move then you did good. Once the brakes are released, make sure the rotor moves again freely. It may be a little harder to move it now, but as long as it moves, then good. Doing this a couple times gets the calipers back into position for correct braking on the road.

    17) Now put your tire back on and, by hand, thread your lug nuts on and tighten them. Once they are on, bust out your impact driver and tighten them up in an opposite motion. Once they are all tight, tighten them even more. At least 5-10 clicks on your driver. Then remove your jack stand and slowly lower your jack down. Do not do it too fast. Let the weight distribute itself. Once the tire is down, remove your jack and then tighten your lug nuts again with a socket wrench to make sure they are on really friggin tight.
    18) Now repeat all this on the other front wheel, because you must always do a brake and/or rotor job in pairs. Also, whenever you replace your rotors, you must replace your brake pads. Never put old brake pads on new rotors. New brake pads on old rotors are ok as long as the old rotors are smooth on both sides.
  5. Sledgstone
    So I finished up the front brake job with no real problem. The only thing I forgot to do was spray on some anti-squeal on the backs of the brake pads, but thats only because I didn't have any at the time. Anyway, the front brakes are good, but we've been getting some vibrations in the steering wheel and the ABS is randomly kicking on. So I decide to check out the back brakes again. Seeing as I paid Midas to do my back brakes about 6 months ago, I never really looked at the job all too carefully aside from messing with the back left e-brake as I mentioned in another blog post.
    So, I start on the back right, I start taking it all apart and checking the work they did and thats when I realize one of the caliper pins is completely seized in place and the other one has limited movement. It took me about an hour to work that fucking pin out with my socket wrench while constantly spraying it with freeze off. wtf. I get that out, cleaned it, greased it. Ok. I go to take the rotor off and its locked in place on the e-brake. I had to whack that sunofabitch off with a rubber mallet. The rotor comes off, and so does the e-brake. After looking it over, the emergency brake was such a tight fit in the rotor, once its in place, it was causing a constant rubbing on the inside of the rotor. So I filed and sanded the damn e-brake down so it'll have a cm of breathing room. I cleaned everything up, re-assembled, tested thoroughly and its now in good shape.
    Roughly 5 hours on Saturday. It took me about 5 hours to get that pin out, clean everything and sand down that e-brake. So I figured the back left couldn't be as bad... Yeah. So yesterday (Sunday), I took the back left off and even tho the rotor came off easily, the brake dust on the inside of the rotor showed the e-brake was rubbing too. And of course, another seized pin in the caliper. WTF did I pay those guys for? Another 5 hours later and this side is now done.
    I took it for a slight test drive yesterday and the braking felt better than ever. I didn't get a chance to drive that far to see if the vibration problem is fixed yet, but I would assume the stuck caliper pins and rubbing brakes was the cause behind all that.
    I will never go back to that Midas again. Fucking rip off bastards.
  7. Sledgstone
    I've been having some problems with vibration, noise and pulsating brakes with my blazer for a while. Since I replaced the front brakes, the problem hasn't improved much. Its mostly because the back e-brakes need to be grinded down more and the brake lines need to be bled. Hopefully once I finish those things, my brake problems will be over with. If not, it'll be time to take it into a shop. x_x
    Anyway, I did some more front brake work on the blazer last week. I cleaned off the rest of the leftover grease from the calipers, sprayed disc quiet on the brake pads to stop the annoying squeaking noise (which it did take care of) and I cleaned and liberally re-greased the caliper pins and rubber boots they fit into.
    Disc quiet works by acting as a sticky adhesive on the back plate of the brake pad. It causes the brake pads to stick to the caliper so that when the brake pressure is released, the caliper pulls the brake pads away from the rotor and holds them in place so they don't bang around or continue to slightly rub against the rotor while you are driving.
    Heres a pic of the sprayed on disc brake quiet on the brake pads. Always remember to spray brakleen on the sides of the pads or the metal nub ends if you spray them by accident.

    The brake pads put back on, with grease applied to the connecting points.

    This is the caliper bolt pin I mentioned in my other blog post for the front brake job. I wiped it down and mostly cleaned it up.

    Here it is greased up and ready to go back into the caliper/brake pad mounting piece.

    And if anyone is interested, here is a pic of the hand goop that I use to clean the grease, dirt, oil and grime off my hands. This crap works amazingly well.

  8. Sledgstone
    I used to like McDonald's food. It was cheap, fast and filling. But as I've gotten older and tried more food I've realized how horrible McDonald's food actually is. I was one of the people that would eat their premium angus burgers. Ever since they stopped serving those and the Chicken Selects, McDonald's menu has not been appealing to me in the slightest. One of the few things I would still eat there are the crispy chicken McWraps. Even now I would still eat those. When I saw McDonalds had Premium versions I assumed it would be a better quality McWrap. In a sense it is, but at the same time it isn't.
    The basic McWrap and the Premium McWrap are very different products. The largest difference is the size. These things are pretty big. However, like most new fast food items, they start large and then shrink in size over a couple years once people get hooked on them. These pictures were taken when they first came out which is why it looks as good as it does. These McWraps come in three flavors. I ordered the Sweet Chili. The package I received indicates that it is the Chicken Bacon flavor.. And once I started eating it, I realized I was eating the Ranch. So I suppose this can be a review for all three flavors because the incompetent employees had no idea what they were giving me or how to take an order correctly.

    The package has a rip away tab that works nicely. I was quite surprised to see that the McWrap looked exactly like the picture on the drive through menu. I'm sure they won't look like that in the future considering I've never purchased a Big Mac that actually looks like the picture.


    This McWrap has all the premium ingredients you would expect to see in a good salad and that is where the problem lies. This tastes like a salad. With ranch dressing, plentiful leafs, tomato and cucumber this is a full blown premium salad in a wrap. If anything, the chicken is the odd ingredient in it. Because my wrap was so fresh, the chicken was freshly fried and the wrap was assembled. However, they should let that chicken cool down a bit because a warm salad does not taste appealing to me. Hot cucumbers and tomatoes against a slightly greasy piece of chicken threw the experience off for me. While most of the ingredients are cool, the hot chicken causes temperature differences throughout the entire wrap. After eating one of these, I won't eat another. For the same price I'd rather buy 3 of the regular McWraps which are smaller and focus more on the chicken with no large salad ingredients.

    Should you eat these?
    Maybe. It depends on if you like salad because this is definitely a leafy green filled item. If you do try one, I recommend ordering it with no cucumber as those hot cucumber slices did not taste appealing in texture.
  9. Sledgstone
    With the highly successful Doritos Locos Tacos giving Taco Bell a huge boost in sales, Doritos decided to try and cash in on more of that revenue and hype with Locos Tacos flavored chips. I say "try" because thats exactly what these chips are good for. Trying once and never buying again. They come in two flavors, Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch just like the Locos Tacos. In each bag there are two flavors. The flavored chip and the crunchy taco chip. Doritos has made other products two flavors in a bag on numerous other occasions and they never seem to work right at all.

    You might wonder what flavor of chips are in this next picture, but it doesn't really matter because both bags when poured into bowls look and taste exactly the same. The Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese bags basically contain the exact same product as I tasted no difference between them. If I had known they would be identical in flavor I would have only bought one bag.
    These chips taste interesting at first but like all snack foods with multiple flavor coated items in them, there was no distinguishing if you were eating a nacho cheese, cool ranch or taco chip. All the flavoring basically mixes together in the bag and the result is a taco flavored chip that noticeably tastes more like broken taco shell pieces with Dorito flavoring than a taco flavored chip. They're not that bad, but not amazing like the Doritos Locos Tacos they are named after.

    I had so many of these chips because I had two open bags that I lost interest in the flavor and decided to use them in soft tacos to try and get some Locos flavor in a home made meal. This is when I realized these chips tasted much better with actual tacos. If anything, these chips would be a good companion chip for a taco dip. But as a stand alone snack they don't seem to hold their own.

    Should you eat these?
    Sure. Try them once to see how they taste, but don't worry about which flavor you buy because they all taste the same. If anything, I recommend buying one bag of the original regular Taco flavored chips and one bag of Cool Ranch or Nacho Cheese. Then eat two chips at once, Taco and the flavored one. That would taste far superior than the flavor of these Locos Tacos chips.
    What Doritos and Taco Bell should do is sell the actual Doritos Locos Taco shells in the supermarkets. Forget these chips, instead sell those shells. Whenever I'm at the store, I always pass on buying Taco Bell shells in favor of the superior Old El Paso brand. But if Taco Bell wants to make more money, they should work with Doritos and bring these shells to the stores. I'd buy them in a heartbeat for my own home made tacos.
  10. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    Lasagna
    Serving size: 12+
    Ingredients:
    - 1 package of Lasagna noodles
    - 2 1/2 pounds of hamburger meat (browned)
    - 2 cans of pasta sauce
    - 1 can of diced tomatoes
    - 1 jar of parmesan cheese
    - 2 eggs
    - 1 1/2 - 2 pounds of mozzarella cheese
    Instructions:
    1) Gather your ingredients.

    2) Brown your hamburger meat and strain it. I like to break the meat up pretty fine while it is browning. I don't like meat chunks too big in a lasagna.

    3) Start boiling your lasanga noodles as per the instructions on the package.
    4) Use a mixing bowl and combine the browned meat, 2 eggs, 1/4 to 1/2 of your parmesan cheese, and diced tomatoes (strain the liquid from the tomatoes first).

    4) This sauce is thick and good for a single pan of lasagna, but I like it a but saucier so add another can of pasta sauce.

    5) Don't overcook your lasagna noodles! If they are still slightly firm, good. Strain them and then place the noodles in layers on a plate in a criss cross pattern so they can maintain their shape while you are making your lasagna.

    6) Lightly spray some pam or another non-stick spray on your bakeware so your lasagna does not stick to your pan. Also, start pre-heating your oven to 350 degrees.

    7) Start off your lasagna with a layer of meat sauce

    8) Then a layer of noodles. Then repeat with another layer of meat sauce and noodles.

    9) Usually around the first or second layer of noodles I add a layer of mozzarella cheese. You can use pre-shredded cheese, but like all pre-shredded cheeses, the little pieces of cheese are covered in a layer of wax, and that creates a greasy lasagna. So get a brick and shred it yourself or cut pieces that will melt in the oven. Also, layer some parmesan in there too if you want the extra cheese.

    10) Keep repeating your layers until you get close to the top of your pan. If you have extra ingredients, make a second lasagna in a smaller pan like in these pictures.

    11) When you get to your top layer, finish off your lasagna with a light layer of sauce, generous amounts of parmesan and a generous amount of mozzarella.

    12) Now cover your lasagna with aluminum foil (this prevents your top layer of cheese from burning during the cooking process), wait for your oven to finish pre-heating and put it in the oven on the center rack for about 35 minutes.

    13) Take your lasagna out, take off the aluminum foil and it'll look something like this. Now put the lasagna back into your oven for another 10-15 minutes with the foil off to melt down the top layer.

    14) And the lasagna is done! If you have a good brand of mozzarella, cutting pieces usually works fine, but the store brand that I was using didn't melt perfectly, but you get the idea... its still incredibly tasty.

    15) Let the lasagna sit for about 5-10 minutes to cool and solidify, then cut into pieces and eat!







    When I have leftovers, which I usually do because this is alot of lasanga... I put individual servings into ziplock sandwich bags and freeze them. To eat them from the freezer, put it on a plate, set it to auto-defrost for 1 pound, break it up with a fork and heat it again for another minute and it should be perfect.
  11. Sledgstone
    This past weekend screwed us. While driving down the road the Blazer died. It completely stalled out 5 minutes from the house. We had to get it towed. There was a fuel leak that had to be fixed and the spark plugs, wires, distributor cap all had to be replaced.
  12. Sledgstone
    Some answers to important licensing questions - vBulletin Community Forum
    With so many vbulletin customers bitching about the possibility of vBulletin charging for an upgrade to the vb 4 code, vbulletin has finally announced that they will not charge for the upgrade... but they will be implementing new license terms.. with their current terms they were obligated to not charge for a new major version upgrade. But my guess is that the new terms will allow them to make as much money as possible by screwing people over on future upgrades.
    The f*cking vbulletin suite upgrade better be reasonably priced. *shakes fist at vb*
  13. Sledgstone
    So I noticed my muffler was sounding louder than usual and I knew there was a small hole right on the end of it. So I bought a tube of muffler/exhaust patch goop and took pictures of my patch job. Make sure your car has been off for quite a while before doing this yourself. Your exhaust pipe and muffler should be cold when using this stuff because heat will only harden the goop too fast and you risk burning yourself. So yeah, to do this job yourself, all you need is the following:
    1 tube of Exhaust system joint & crack sealer
    (purchased at NAPA for $2.95 or so)
    1 throwaway latex glove
    (purchased at NAPA or walmart, an entire package for a few dollars, usually near the toilet scrubbers at walmart or auto chemical section)
    1 can of brakekleen or any brand of spray on brake parts cleaner (all you need is a couple sprays out of it for this). ($3)
    Here is the hole in my muffler.

    Here is a pic of the Exhaust system joint & crack sealer that I used. Autozone or Advance Auto Parts probably have the same brand or something similar.

    Here is the hole in my muffler after I sprayed it with some brakekleen to get the harmful chemicals off it. Then I let it air dry and then sandpapered it lightly to remove excessive rust or grime. Then I sprayed it again with more brakleen and let it dry once again so the goop will stick good.

    And just as I was about to put the goop on, I noticed this hole, and yes those are metal coat hangers holding up my muffler, the strap rusted away about six months ago.

    LMAO, holy shit! No wonder it got so loud! X'D

    So I put on the throwaway blue rubber glove and smeared some sealer onto the hole.

    I also cleaned, sanded (And wow, after rubbing it lightly with the sandpaper it became an even bigger hole) and then cleaned the huge hole and smeared almost the entire tube all over the hole. Since the sealer goop starts stiffening rather quickly, it was easy to just keep applying blobs to the edges of the hole, let it harden slightly and then just keep building on that edge until it covered the entire hole.

    Because it kept wanting to cling to my finger and reopen the hole when I touched it, I had to let it dry for an hour and apply another layer over top of it to finish the patch.

    I then let it sit over night and it was noticeably quieter the next day. Not normal of course. If all I had was just that little hole, once it was patched, you would think the muffler was new. But that huge gaping hole affects the noise the muffler makes now. I'll have to get a new muffler soon, but at least until I do it doesn't sound like I'm driving some old diesel truck down the road. X'D
    Btw, if you have a small hole like the one on the end of my muffler on any part of your exhaust pipe, do this quick easy fix yourself and it'll cut back on alot of noise.
  14. Sledgstone
    Last weekend I heard a noise and I knew the end was coming for the car. The timing chain is going. It started making a slight noise months ago which is why I stopped driving it on the freeway... but now its so loud just idling I was able to take a video of it.
    saturn_timing_chain
    I haven't gotten a quote to replace the $35 part, but I know it will be huge because to replace the timing chain, you have to remove the engine and take apart half the engine. That would cost more than what the car is worth. As it is, I'm pretty certain the chain will break the next time its driven somewhere. And when that thing breaks it'll seize up most of the engine. The car is in it's death throws now. But I can't complain too much, seeing as its been totaled previously, been resurrected, and driven for almost an additional 2 years.
  15. Sledgstone
    Today I put a small piece of cut fuel line over my existing fuel line with a hose clamp, I had it set just up from the leak so when I took off the old patch I would be able to quickly slide it down the fuel line and tighten it over the leak. Unlike when I first found the leak and quickly patched it up while sliding on top of snow and ice, I was able to put the truck up on my car ramps to get plenty of room to work with. Those ramps have paid for themselves already.
    So after I had the new patch ready to tighten up, I cut off the small zip ties and unwrapped the nitrile disposable glove finger that was keeping the fuel line from leaking initially. Once it was off, instead of a small leak, the gas started pouring out like a small piss stream. guh! But! I was able to get the new patch over it and tighten it down quick enough that I did not get a huge gas mess. I didn't even get any on my clothes. And since I had some disposable gloves on, everything worked out great. Before I finished up, I moved the gas line around a bit and secured it to other hoses with zip ties to make sure it was clear from hanging around the frame. Its no longer leaking and I'm quit certain this patch will be quit permanent.
    Now I just have to get a new long neck funnel so I can put some seafoam in the tank to finish my clean up job.
    The only other maintenance I have planned is to get the transmission fluid replaced at some point in the near future as it is seriously past due. The only fluid I actually forgot to change over the past couple years. Oh, and the fuel filter should be replaced soon too. Its recommended change is every 30,000 miles, the car is at 100,000 so I'd say its past due too.
  16. Sledgstone
    So after all the work I put into our blazer, and all the money we had to spend on it for random fixes left and right, enough is enough. The transmission starting going over the past couple weeks. From what I saw online, getting a flush would cause more harm than good, but just replacing the filter and a couple quarts of fluid shouldn't cause any problems. So I went to midas and paid them to replace the tranny filter and the fuel filter. They screwed up something by either hitting something too hard when they took the pan off, or they somehow dislodged something, or the transmission was just so bad, that even touching it caused it to screw up even more. After the tranny filter was replaced, it lost the first and second gears and the service engine soon light came on for 2 shift solenoids. Midas offered no help at all afterwords and only told me to take it to a transmission shop. The only way I could drive it was to physically shift it to first, then second, third and then drive... every single time the car came to a stop.
    So fuck it, we decided to trade it in. We were holding off for a while because we know we owed more than it was worth.. sure as hell the trade in value was pure shit. We did get a good deal at a toyota dealer with zero percent financing for 5 years tho. Yay. We got a new 2010 Toyota Corolla.
    Pics:
    http://forums.ancientclan.com/album.php?albumid=62
  17. Sledgstone
    This service was done on 07-17-2010
    The miles were at 4928 for it's first oil change and tire rotation! Because this is a new car I'm only going to use full synthetic oil for the life of the vehicle to make sure the engine lasts as long as possible.
    The dealership also finished one more pedal recall that I wasn't aware of. He told me to disregard the letter I'll get in the mail this week because I'll already have it done.
    On a side note, the discount card I bought at the dealership for $200 when I bought the car is going to pay for itself pretty quick. It already saved me $100 off the rust proofing job and all full synthetic oil changes get $25 off and tire rotations are $13 off. It was only $42 yesterday. For the price of the oil and the price of the oil filter, the oil job is pretty much done for the same price it would cost me to do it myself, but I don't have to! ahha. My tools will be sitting gathering dust for quite a while now.
  18. Sledgstone
    Instructions to make:
    A marinade that can tenderize beef chuck steaks and other cuts.
    Amount: Enough for 2+ steaks.
    Ingredients:
    - 1 cup corn oil (or vegetable oil)
    - 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
    - 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
    - 3 tablespoon worcester sauce
    - 1 teaspoon pepper
    - 1/4 videlia onion sliced
    - 1 tablespoon garlic powder
    - 2 teaspoon salt
    - 2 tablespoons brown sugar
    Instructions:
    1) Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
    2) Rinse off two beef chuck steaks (or other cuts) and pat lighty with paper towels to take off some of the excess water.
    3) Put your steaks in a bowl or in large ziplock bags and pour the marinade over the steaks. Flip the steaks a bit to make sure they are fully covered. Then either seal your ziplock bags or cover your bowl and refrigerate your steaks for at least 5 hours.


    4) Cook your steak. I cooked mine at a high temperature on the grill for about 8 minutes or so. If you grill yours, be careful if you pour the leftover marinade on them, the marinade has a tendency to flare up some strong flames.
    (The woman's plate, she likes hers well, well done.)


    The steaks turned out quite tender for a beef chuck. There was still a little bit of chew to it, but not nearly as tough without marinade. If anything, let those steaks marinade over night or for 12 hours.
  19. Sledgstone
    So lady's laptop has had a power jack issue for almost a year now, but almost a week ago it got even worse and would hardly stay plugged in or charge unless the plug at the back of the laptop was pushed and held into place just right. I've seen this issue before with a PS2 and I was able to fix that by re-soldering the DC power jack connection to the motherboard. Well, turns out that getting access to the DC power jack on a laptop is a hell of a lot more complicated than a slim PS2. I have to give credit were it is due, and this website had a complete walk through for her exact laptop with pictures:
    http://www.insidemylaptop.com/
    I was able to finally get to the motherboard and the DC power jack after 18 steps of disassembly. x_x I re-soldered the connection and her laptop powers up perfectly again. I also cleaned out a major blockage of dust and lint out of the cooling fan area. Its practically running like new again and doesn't kick on the fan after 20 minutes of use anymore. Yay.
    Here is a pic of the inside of her laptop with a circle around the DC power jack. A pain in the ass to get to, and the part I had to solder was only about 1-2 cm big, but we saved over $100 because thats the cheapest price I found to get it fixed at a shop.

    For my own records, I fixed this on 10/06/2010. Hopefully it will be a permanent fix, because if not I'll have to replace the power jack itself next time instead of just fixing one solder point.
    MAKES
  20. Sledgstone
    I didn't take pics of this fix.. but thanks to this website:
    http://anythingbutipod.com/2008/03/creative-zen-disassembly/
    I was able to figure out how to take it apart. Those are some really really small screws.. and thankfully her mp3 player only had a loose battery. Whenever the mp3 player was lightly shaken the power would cut off and only come back on after it was connected to a computer usb. After taking it apart, the solder connections were fine, but the battery wires seemed to be loose on the battery itself. Probably because the battery was floating around dis-lodged from its seat.
    After I fixed the connection on the battery and re-glued it into place (with double sided heavy duty glue foam), it works fine now. I wish I had an actual plastic tool for removing plastic shells because now the seem looks a little marred, but at least its working fine now.
  22. Sledgstone
    The improvements they are making to IPB look really great. Some of the highlights for me:
    http://community.invisionpower.com/blog/1174/entry-9537-ips-40-editor-part-1-content/
    Embeds will always work. Now that is a huge difference.
    http://community.invisionpower.com/blog/1174/entry-9538-ips-40-editor-part-2-uploads/
    Drag and drop images right into the editor. I've been waiting for this feature. No more having to click attach and then navigate to the right folder where your image is.. just drag it right into the editor.
    http://community.invisionpower.com/blog/1174/entry-9539-ips-40-editor-part-3-customisation-and-bbcode/
    This is a big change and I hope they pull it off correctly. All our custom bbcodes will be negated. But the only custom bbcode we actually use is the spoiler tag, which will now be a default feature. All other custom bbcodes will now have to be created as CKEditor plugins.. but there are already a lot of ckeditor plugins available. So I could technically add a variety of new editor features.
    http://community.invisionpower.com/topic/388306-ips-40-editor-part-4-special-features/
    Very very nice. I like this.
    Good! No more having to click the load saved content option. Simplifying this will make the auto save much better.
    Oh! and the editor will now be fully skin-able! The editor won't have to be glaring white on a dark theme anymore.
    Also, the current skins that we use are going to be upgraded for IPB 4.0. We won't have to change the entire look of the site.
  23. Sledgstone
    vBulletin has updated their vBulletin 5 Connect demo.. Heres a prime example of the horrible crap of vbulletin's sofware and one of the obvious reasons we stopped using their product.
    vBulletin custom page example:
    http://www.vbulletin.com/vb5demo/custom_page
    Yay, I could have put text on a page.
    Here is an example of a random test page that I made on ipb:
    http://www.ancientclan.com/test.html
    I have the ability to put anything from the database onto any page I want and in whatever format I want it to appear in. Huge difference. Sure vb allows custom blocks and html, but if it was anything as advanced as IPB, you would think they would have made a better example.
  24. Sledgstone
    Welcome to my new Recipe Blog. I will use this blog to post all my new recipes. All of my old recipes can be found in my original blog by following this link:
    http://www.ancientclan.com/search/?tags=Recipe
    Instead of posting any more recipes in my original blog, I have created this one so I can create more specific categories for the recipes themselves. Pork, Chicken, Beef, Italian, Mexican, BBQ, Grilled, etc. As well as using tags, I will have many specific categories just for my blog and some recipes will fall into multiple categories. Tags are useful as well, and will allow us to view everyone's recipes across all blogs on this site.
    I recommend that anyone that wishes to make their own recipe blog to please type the tag "Recipe" without the quotes, in the tag field of blog entries so they can show up in the combined blog Recipe tag link.
    (Edited to fix link to recipes)
  25. Sledgstone
    I've seen these "New York Style Pita Chips - Parmesan, Garlic & Herb" (huge name) in the store before but I never bought them because the price of the bag seemed a bit high for the amount of product. So when I came across this bag that was "50% more free" I jumped on these chips. I've never had Pita chips before so I had no idea what to expect. The packaging is nice, the chips look good but like I said, the size of the bag is what put me off.

    Here is a small bowl of the chips. The consistency is a bit odd. Because these are pita, some chips are folded closed while others are a bit more open with that regular 'pita pocket' look to them (not in the picture unfortunately). After eating a small bowl I realized why the bags are smaller. These chips are filling! A small bowl is actually quite dense. You don't need a large bowl of these for a good snack. A small serving is perfect. Also.. these chips taste amazing!

    I was astounded by the flavor these chips have. The package says "Parmesan, Garlic & Herb" and that is exactly what you get. These chips are full flavored from the moment you put them in your mouth all the way until you swallow. Amazing chips. The opened chips in the bag are perfect for dipping into sauce, but after trying them with a dip a couple times I felt like I was cheapening the flavor. These chips need no dip. They are perfect tasting. If anything, the flavor is so good, you shouldn't eat them multiple days in a row or you might get burned out on the taste. Eat these every other day, or get a couple flavors of them for a great snack.
    Should you eat these?
    Definitely. The only problem with these chips is the availability of them. Out of the 4 major stores in my area, only one sells them. If you can find these chips, I highly recommend trying them out.
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