The Garage (What did you work on today?)

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Haven't done a brake job in ages. Every few months I find a safe place, get up to speed and then brake hard so the friction brakes engage. That cleans off the fine layer of dust the brakes get from disuse. I don't expect to ever need to do a brake job again.
Must be nice!

Until I can buy all my friends and family EVs I will probably be stuck doing brakes for the foreseeable future. I have been the “Family Mechanic” and “IT Support Guy” for the past 20 years and it’s my way of thanking them for putting up with me.

That’s pretty awesome though. Im a believer in regen brakes. There are so many upsides to EVs. Can’t wait.
 
Epoxy garage floor
Good part of a week

Powerwalls and solar inverter under wraps in the corner.
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Did you need to grind that floor as a first step, or did you have a good base to work with? Our garage floor was done by our original builder and after a year it was pretty obvious it was a bad job. Now I am told it needs to be ground before I can start over. A real PITA.
 
Did you need to grind that floor as a first step, or did you have a good base to work with? Our garage floor was done by our original builder and after a year it was pretty obvious it was a bad job. Now I am told it needs to be ground before I can start over. A real PITA.
Light grind and acid bath is the best way to prep. Many people and installers skip the acid portion
 
Must be nice!

Until I can buy all my friends and family EVs I will probably be stuck doing brakes for the foreseeable future. I have been the “Family Mechanic” and “IT Support Guy” for the past 20 years and it’s my way of thanking them for putting up with me.

That’s pretty awesome though. Im a believer in regen brakes. There are so many upsides to EVs. Can’t wait.
I have been the auto mechanic (and IT support and carpenter and electrician and…) for my friends and family for so very long. But these days we’re far more dispersed so they call me for advice instead of direct work.

Of all the automotive work I don’t have to do anymore, brakes, oil changes, and transmissions are my biggest sighs of relief. I’ll still help a friend or family member in need, but I had even started bringing my vehicles to a shop because I was so tired of doing my own…
 
I have been the auto mechanic (and IT support and carpenter and electrician and…) for my friends and family for so very long. But these days we’re far more dispersed so they call me for advice instead of direct work.

Of all the automotive work I don’t have to do anymore, brakes, oil changes, and transmissions are my biggest sighs of relief. I’ll still help a friend or family member in need, but I had even started bringing my vehicles to a shop because I was so tired of doing my own…
I get that. Being retired I let the professionals take on those tasks, unless it is a modification. They come pick up our vehicles and drop them back off when completed. More time to enjoy the beach. 🏖️
 
I get that. Being retired I let the professionals take on those tasks, unless it is a modification. They come pick up our vehicles and drop them back off when completed. More time to enjoy the beach. 🏖️
Yeah. I do my own mods, including suspension. And I now am back to doing my own maintenance because there’s so little to bother with.
 
Grind grind grind. 2 days worth.

Also grined and filled seams, cracks, salt damage, epoxied the edges. No more gaps for pesky spiders to live in (black widows loved it).

Prime coat, epoxy coat with full spread flakes then 2 top coats. Top coat really stinks. I’m letting it cure for a couple of weeks before putting the cars back in.

I used Spartan Epoxy

No acid etch since this puts water in the cement and I would need to wait a week or so to let it get out. After researching this, it seems this is a good way to cause failures. Moisture gets trapped under the epoxy and wants to come out.
 
Grind grind grind. 2 days worth.

Also grined and filled seams, cracks, salt damage, epoxied the edges. No more gaps for pesky spiders to live in (black widows loved it).

Prime coat, epoxy coat with full spread flakes then 2 top coats. Top coat really stinks. I’m letting it cure for a couple of weeks before putting the cars back in.

I used Spartan Epoxy

No acid etch since this puts water in the cement and I would need to wait a week or so to let it get out. After researching this, it seems this is a good way to cause failures. Moisture gets trapped under the epoxy and wants to come out.
Great work! I look forward to seeing how this turns out for you.
 
View attachment 8346

We still have several 10:1 scales in storage, but I got out the 24 scale crawlers recently and started working on them so the kids could play with them. Got myself a silicone magnetic repair mat and an electric screwdriver which has really taken the stress out of working on them. Still waiting on some new part to replace axles, transmissions, shims, etc.

While I was in the midst of the repairs I “accidentally ordered” a TRX4M Bronco 18:1 scale crawler. It’s been a blast and got me fired up about the remote control stuff again.

I am looking forward to getting them outside again with the kids.
Bronco? Ordinarily I would say ‘blasphemy’, but since it’s “for the kids” I say—You go Dad! :D
 
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We needed to make sure all of the Arecibo data were properly archived. That took more time than could be spent on site. While bringing the data racks back, it made sense to also bring other hardware back for proper NSF disposal procedures. NSF had no interest in most of the hardware because it was so old and had a value of $0.00. In fact, it would cost them money to take possession and then do anything with it. Some of it was sent to the Smithsonian for museum consideration. The rest was just not worth keeping in any sense and the team were allowed to dispose of as they saw fit (other than sell for personal gain). Most of NASA/NSF ground hardware is very, very old. When it works you don’t mess with it; you don’t upgrade it; you don’t even sneeze at it. Its only value is to the mission it is currently accomplishing.
I ran SETI@Home for years with the SETIUSA Group... Fun GUI
 
I don't know what any of that means, but it made me think of mushrooms 🍄
The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has run a citizen/community science program where you download a pile of data and your computer runs analyses on those data in the background while you're doing other things. This distributes the work across many thousands of computers and enables more data to be analyzed than if just the SETI computers were being used.
 
Done
Great work! I look forward to seeing how this turns out for you.
done!

A lot more work than expected. Did final clean up today, power washed ceiling walls, touch up paint.
Effort worth about $1.5k/day labor based off $16k quote. Also nice to accomplish this which has been on my todo list for 5 years.

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