wrenches and wenches wednesday

today was the first real road test for mr. grey…

…and all appears to be well. except for the coolant light (fixed) and the oil light. the latter doesn’t REALLY surprise me since while i did do the “main” oil leak with the valve cover gasket replacement:

there might be a smaller secondary – and even if there’s not, since he had such a leak for such a long time, and i changed said gasket without having to add any oil, it’s no big surprise that an oil change might be needed. shit, he hasn’t had any oil added since december and bmw’s are known for burning oil so much you can buy a travel case for road trips that has a quart of oil, a paper funnel, plastic gloves, and sani-wipes for cleaning your hands after, all in a nice little case:

so there’s that. but the hose that got the hot oil on it and developed some fuck-me-up bubbles on the bottom:

and while last wednesday i spend half an hour getting to the hose, and ninety-minutes trying to remove it (to no avail) all i had to do was bring the heat (in the form of the ufc’s hair dryer) for less than two minutes and it popped right off! new one was on in a jif, and the rest went back together quickly. the downside? nobody in town had the little o ring that goes on the coolant temp sensor so i almost GUARANTEE that is gonna leak a little (i swear i saw a couple drops just off running it a few minutes on jack stands) so that will have to be pulled and replaced. the upside is nothing should have to come out to make that happen. the downside is it DOES let air into the cooling system, so i’ll have to jack him up and burp the whole thing again…but then that should do it on coolant for the summer!

so, on to the wenches – when digging around to pull the sixteen year old bit for friday i randomly grabbed the one from the day i was looking (yesterday, may 1st) and because it was all about kimberly, i sent it to her…which prompted lunch plans at chuck’s soon-to-be-shut-down bbq restaurant:

which after a fourteen year absence, it was nice to see her twice in a month!