The Protege needed tires, so I did some online shopping & comparing and decided on the Yokohama S-Drive. Do read this post with a grain of salt – I only have 20 curvy country miles on the new tires, and I’m used to BFGoodrich G-Force Sports of unknown age & mileage. They were on the Protege when I bought it three years ago, and I put 27k miles on them.

The S-Drives are noticeably quieter. My biggest (only, really) gripe about the BFGs has been that they’re pretty loud.  I suspected by looking at the tread design that the Yokos would be quieter, and they are.

The ride isn’t quite as harsh.  The sidewall seems to be a bit less stiff than the BFGs. This is a welcome improvement, especially given the next point.

Turn-in is significantly better, and less steering angle is required for a given course change. The latter was very noticeable while taking a curve.  I wasn’t pushing the tires, only doing about five over, but I definitely needed less input on the steering wheel than before. This surprised me more than once on the way home.

I’m going to put about 100 miles on the tires before I push them very hard. So far though, I’m pleased.

The battery in one of my cars had gotten deeply discharged and wouldn’t hold a charge to save its life.  I’d charge it up, put the battery back in the car, and the starter would only make a little snick as I turned the key. Holy worn out battery, Batman.

I picked up a battery desulfator from Northern Tool.  A great idea, I thought.  However, this “smart” charger did a little too much thinking of its own.  When I hooked it up it registered less than three volts in the battery and thus would not begin charging.  What to do?

An experiment, that’s what.  I hooked up my old-school “dumb” charger, set to the low 2 amp setting, and let it feed the battery for a couple of days.  Then I switched to the desulfator.  Every other day for ten days I switched between the two.  Today the “desulfated” indicator light on the smart charger was no longer lit up.  Progress.  I popped the battery back in the car and it started on the first try.  The crank was nice and strong, too, not weak at all.

I’m pleased.  Now I have three other batteries to attempt to recover.

No, not in the “it was filled with junk and I cleaned it out” kinda way – I found the one I want to build!  I’ve put hours and hours of thought into what I want in a garage, going through revision after revision.  Each time I’d try to find something online that’s close to what I wanted.  I’ve finally found something that’s almost perfect:

24x30ft, large enough for room at the back for a vehicle turned sideways, gambrel roof, and a shed dormer on one side.  The only modifications I’d want to make are:

• Fill the dormer wall with windows
• Move the man door to the left corner, which will place it in front of the stairs to the loft
• Remove the upper floor cargo door
• Remove the right hand garage door
• Move the left garage door to the right about two feet
• Add short windows high up on the long wall that the man door is on
• Dump the cupola. Not a fan of those.

Put a 2-car parking pad in front with a one-car carport on the right side and it’d be perfect. The long side with the dormer will be the south facing wall.  The lower wall will have solar air heaters similar to this one: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/solar_barn_project.htm

The bay in front of the lone car door will have a flush-mounted BendPak P-6F lift.  I was thinking I’d get a two-post lift, but after thinking it through decided that the lower lift height of the P-6F would suit my needs just fine.  It also doesn’t require a huge ceiling height, which will make the garage less expensive to build.

The lower floor will obviously be shop space for my wood, metal, and automotive work.  There will be no normal windows on the bottom floor, just some short windows high up on the south wall for good natural light.  Having uninterrupted wall space will maximize bench & tool layout possibilities, and be more secure as well.  The upper floor will serve multiple purposes – extra storage, a home gym, relaxing space, and one end of the dormer will be partitioned off for an office.

Here’s the website where I found this plan: http://www.coolhouseplans.com/details.html?pid=chp-43119&FoundID=2&sid=chp1

I’m thinking barn red with a white standing seam metal roof and matching white trim.

I bought my 2000 Protégé ES used in June 2007. It had the factory 15" alloys and BFGoodrich g-Force Sport in the stock 195/55-15 size. I’ve been really impressed with the tires. Two of them are nearing the wear bars, so I’ve been thinking about new wheels and tires. I’ve decided to stay with 15-inchers instead of going with a plus-1 or -2 upgrade. I want to keep things pretty light and reduce unsprung weight if possible. I don’t push the car hard enough on public roads to need/justify the increased grip a wider tire would get me. I have plenty of fun with the 195s.

I’ve been looking at wheels on the Tire Rack’s website. One great thing Tire Rack does is show you the weights of most of their wheels and tires. It occurred to me that I didn’t know how much my factory wheels weighed, though I assumed they were on the heavy side. I was thinking 17-18lbs apiece. I have snows on the car currently, so I took the bathroom scale outside to weigh one of the wheels and tires.

According to the Tire Rack’s website, my tires weigh 20lbs each. Weigh the combo, subtract the tire weight, and you have the weight of the wheel, right?

I’m a bit blown away – my wheels only weigh 14lbs. Nearly all the wheels I like and would consider buying are 2-4lbs heavier than my factory wheels. Forget that. (I weighed it three times, once with me holding it, to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.)

So, guess who doesn’t have to spend $400-ish on new wheels? (Leaves more money to build a shop later this year…)

As I posted before, we just bought a house.  We’re in love with the place, which sits on a full acre, but it does need a few things.  Such as a workshop/garage.

We’re hoping to break ground on a shop sometime around April.  I’ve done my share of working on houses, but one thing I’ve never tackled is foundation work.  Specifically, slab foundations.  So, to get some experience with them I’m going to pour a small slab, large enough to park a car on.  It’ll serve as a place to put a car to do suspension alignments.  It’ll need to be perfectly level, but I figure that’ll be part of the learning process.

Over time I want to experiment with several suspension setups on my Protégé.  I can do the suspension work myself, but one thing I can’t do yet is my own alignments.  The level slab will enable me to do those, too.  Once I have the shop built and I can do alignments indoors, we could turn the first slab into the foundation of a good-sized storage shed.

I want to pour the small slab for the experience and to see if we could do a larger foundation ourselves, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s one thing we have to have done professionally.

1 – Replace exhaust system on the Sentra.
2 – Replace all four struts on the Sentra, and possibly the front control arm bushings.
3 – Put new wheels and tires on the Sentra.
4 – Replace heater core in the Ranger.
5 – Finish installing electric radiator fan in the Ranger.
6 – Finish installing under-hood battery charger in the Ranger.
7 – Recycle cardboard boxes currently taking up space in the back yard and driveway.
8 – Stack lumber more neatly in the back yard.
9 – Install under-hood battery charger in the Metro.
10 – Change the oil and filter in the Protege.
11 – Unpack new shop vac.
12 – Assemble Adirondack chair kit.
13 – Assemble freestanding hammock.
14 – Put 10-gallon aquarium on Freecycle.

1-8 have to be done by the end of next week.

BTW, I’m doing all the automotive work myself, not having a shop do it.