On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 09:48:21 -0700, Winston
wrote:

Larry Jaques wrote:
On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:36:25 -0700,
wrote:

Larry Jaques wrote:

(...)

Then you asked the wrong question and didn't give us guessers enough
info to go on. That's shameful, sir.

Don't blame me, I forgot.

I'm wrapping up my tour of Alzeheimer's stage 7, remember?

I thought that was Stage 4? Man, you're FAST!

Nup. I was diagnosed at Stage 6 three years and four months ago.
Saturday February 2nd 2008.

Shazaam! So have you called the guys back and thumbed your nose at
them yet?


(Took *over an hour* to replace the valve cover gasket on my older
Camry this morning. Don't tell anyone.)

Is that the one with six wide-open screws holding it down, and nothing
is routed over the top of it?

No such luck. The good news is that the cover is fixed using
the four 30 mm spark plug tube nuts. The bad news is that the
breather tubes were oxidized, making extraction difficult, and
there are a couple brackets and Cali emissions cables that have
to be disassembled to allow clearance for the cover to be
lifted off. The procedure in my Haynes manual didn't mention
the interfering parts. I spent a *lot* of time disassembling
*this* so I could access the fasteners to disassemble *that*.

I loved having to remove the air conditioning pump and bracket,
separately, including losing the freon, to get at rocker gaskets.
Flat rate was SIX HOURS. Chebby or Cad, IIRC. Effin' GMs...

And don't forget the six hour engine R&R to change a set of spark
plugs in a 260/289cid V-8 Mustang. Guys were cutting 2" holes in the
unibody fender wells to get at them. R&R front wheels, cut holes
once, and do tune-ups in an hour from then on. Body shops loved it
because when you even -tapped- a Mustang after that, it ripped the
front end off.


Never happened to you, I assume?

Nah! Never once, with all that wonderful German, Austrian, Italian,
French, American, English, Japanese, and Yugoslavian engineering.


I tried downloading a video of the process three times but
YouTube choked. They were prolly demonstrating it on a car
without the interfering emissions parts anyway.

Condolences. What was I saying? Oh, "never underestimate..."


Don't get me wrong. The weather was very pleasant and it felt
good to be doing something useful, so it was hardly upsetting.

Au contrare.

Forgot the "i" in contraire, mon frere. I enjoyed today's 78F with a
mostly clear cloud-sprinkled sky.

--
The ultimate result of shielding men from the
effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
--Herbert Spencer