The Dominator

The other morning I was driving the 25 miles to work, getting frustrated at all the other drivers and how absolutely busy that road seems to be getting lately. Also grumbling about the night before when I had to close the store that I work at and how I had difficult customers and nothing went easily for me. Key holder is an iffy position because I'm not management, but I'm in charge. Weird. All of that melted when I came across THE DOMINATOR (shown above, poorly). For those of you that don't know, The Dominator is a vehicle featured on the Discovery series Storm Chasers (and also on MythBusters) designed to sit in the path of, and withstand, a tornado. The guy behind the vehicle is originally from my area and his parents live nearby my work apparently. Also for those of you that don't know, which I'm assuming is all of you, I used to be in a life position where I could take off at a second's notice and drive across the country and chase storms. Which I did. I wasn't good at it, and I never saw a tornado, but it's the thought that counts. It made me remember why I want to hit the road.

As mentioned, I've been given a key to the store. I close regularly now. I feel good about this because let's face it all most of us want in life is to belong. And I start to feel like I belong here. It's why we stay in relationships we know are bad for us. That's pretty much how I feel about this job. I learn more, I feel more comfortable, I could endure if necessary. But I'm not happy, it's not what I want to do with my life, and I know there's something more meaningful, to me, out there. I'm just not sure how soon I'll be able to break it off and tell her we'd be better off just friends. Does this make it sound like I've had a lot of break ups? If so, I've only ever had one girlfriend and the break up was more or less mutual. If not drawn out and complicated.

Overall, things are still at a stand still. I'm gaining confidence in the abilities of the motorhome. I'm also realizing I'm becoming too cautious. Each time I've traveled with my travel trailer before I've had about as much money in the bank as I have right now, and I just trusted things would work out. I need to find my faith in the journey and adventure again. Just leap.

In the past, I had started to write about my previous 'adventures' on the road. I think I ended up scraping them. However, I'm thinking of seriously sitting down soon to write about them. I need to dig up pictures and whatnot to accompany them.

Stuff Makes a Heavy Heart

Yesterday's go-get-em attitude with cleaning out my storage unit was met with much resistance today. I had too much time to think about it all overnight I guess? It seemed like suddenly everything was worth keeping. Or even if it wasn't worth keeping for ME it was worth donating, or trying to sell, or something other than simply throwing it in the back of the van to take to the dump. This is when things get complicated for me because the longer I have to think about what to do with something the harder it becomes for me to get rid of, or the more frustrated I become with it.

I would love to come out of this little experiment with money in my pocket, but when it comes down to it I just want to not deal with it anymore. But I'm not quite yet to the point where I can just ignore the monetary value of things completely.

The internet has helped me out through this. Today when I came home frustrated after my first trip to the storage unit I started searching for articles about how to get rid of stuff, how to let go emotionally.

It gives me some extra motivation but it's still difficult.

On top of cleaning out my storage I'm trying to sell my old car this week. I have it listed for $500, and will take $400. It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to get rid of, but it is. Both in finding a buyer and in letting go without thinking I'm selling it too cheap. It has served its purpose for me over the years and now its purpose is over. It needs to go, no matter how cheap.


Something like that.

Absence Makes the Heart Go Wander

The title is from a song of the same name by a band called The New Trust. One of the bands I've enjoyed over the years. ANYWAY..


How long has it been since I've been here? Seems like forever. Probably is. I have this week off of work. Vacation time, oh yeah. It's wonderful so far. I slept in until 11am today just because I could, and because I wanted to. I know so many people in life that get bored or can't stand not going to work. I am not one of those people. I could do this every day.

I continue to not know what I want to do with life anymore. I'm right on the edge of being sucked back into a normal lifestyle and forgetting all about this traveling and living in a van or RV thing. Overall I've taken a bit of a step back from everything and I'm just seeing where things start to lean.

I cleaned out the van a few weeks ago. It was really messy. With it cleaned out and with taking the bed frame I built out of there also, I can start to see my old vision with it again. When I decided I wanted a twin size mattress in there it just took up too much space and snuffed out the entire vision. So I might go forward with more van work again. If nothing else it'd make a nice weekend getaway vehicle until something else happens and would possibly increase value or chances of selling it if I ever reach that point.

As for now, the van is about half full of JUNK. I magically, and suddenly, reached a decision to get at least one van full of stuff taken to the dump this week while I have the time off. Not only that, but I'm in an 'act now, think later' mindset about all of my STUFF. I've been paying for this huge storage unit for 2 and a half years now and I doubt any of what's in there is actually worth the money I've paid over that amount of time. Even with that knowledge, I don't expect to get rid of everything.

I don't like going through my stuff. Especially the stuff that is left over from when I had my own house. Memories. And to be honest if I had the money for another place of my own, I'd probably do it. I like having a home base, and it doesn't mean I can't still travel. Anyway, it just makes me sad and makes me deal with emotions I like to ignore.

Today I also gave away 8 chairs. 2 computer chairs, 2 beach chairs, and 4 rolling dining chairs. For free, on craigslist. There will probably be more of this to come, and I'm also making a pile to give to Goodwill. Kind of depends on what my thoughts are on the item about whether or not it goes to craigslist or goodwill. I might try to sell some stuff too, I don't know. My ultimate goal is fast and easy. The chairs took up a lot of space in storage and now I'll actually have room to move around and sort through all the other stuff.


I wanted to get something fun done this week during my time off from work, but it's looking like I'll just be hanging around home, trying to get things cleaned and organized. I'll probably feel a lot better about that in the long run than I will if I had gone somewhere fun.

Don't get me wrong, I already drove up north a ways and hiked a nice trail and had some close encounters with wildlife and whatnot.


I've also decided I have analysis paralysis with practically every aspect of my life. Really I just learned I could put a name to it. Haha. I think everything out and all of my choices until I overwhelm myself and in the end just don't do anything. I'm working on that.

Geocaching in the Dunes

Coming off of working for 7 days straight. So I haven't been able to do a whole lot of anything lately. I had today off, and I'm back to work tomorrow for a day before I get the weekend off. I'm getting burnt out on everything. At work, the motorhome, everything. I finally had to request some vacation time at work. I had a different plan but I just need some time off now.

More on all that later maybe. For now, today. I had the day off so I drove up to a beach I've never been to on Lake Michigan and did some geocaching. This particular beach had three multicaches (more than one stage) and the final one you could only do after you got the GPS coordinates from the first two. It was hot (92 or so?) and the dunes are steep. These caches had me going up and down steep ridges all day. My legs are jelly tonight.  The third one I had to give up on. I couldn't find the clue to get to the 4th stage. Overall it was a great time with some crazy hides.


I'm just burnt out on everything. I don't really know what my next move is. And that makes me even more burnt out.

Up, running, and out of gas

Well, the motorhome is back together and running. It's not the amazing success I had hoped for. It almost seems to run the same as it did before. Which I had decided would probably be 'good enough' before I decided to rip everything apart so I guess now I decide it's good enough again?

I actually started it up for the first time on Sunday night. Started on the first try. Today I gave it an oil change and took it for a drive to the gas station. It smoked a lot at the beginning but I'm hoping that's just left over from before all the big repairs.. As that is one of the reasons why I decided to replace the heads in the first place. Time will tell.

The motorhome actually died on me on the way to the gas station. It started stuttering and almost feeling like the transmission was slipping bad. Not long after that, the steering went hard and I realized the engine had shut off. This would have been a great photo opportunity but sadly when I'm sitting on the side of the road I'm not yet to the point where I think to take a picture (or make a YouTube video).

I called my mom to bring me some gas. I sure was hoping I was just out of gas. I knew I was getting close, that's why I was going to the gas station, after all. Luckily, a little bit of the good stuff in the tank and I was off the rest of the way to the gas station. Very happy about that, I was envisioning the worst and getting ready to call Progressive to cash in on a little towing benefit.

There's some doubt in my mind now about what to do next. I should probably just start driving it and see where it goes from there. I just wish it ran a smidge better than it does. In the spirit of honesty I do consider selling it and bagging this whole plan. While I KNOW that I would never regret actually getting out on the road and living life, a big part of me is getting tired of spending money and feeling like I'm getting no where. It sure would be nice to be putting more money in the bank. Just get a nice small car with decent MPG and go to work everyday, yeah?

Set back #37

Or something, I'm not actually counting the set backs. Thursday after work I was able to get (mostly) everything hooked back up and came to the point where I could fill the engine back up with coolant. Not long after I had most of the coolant in was when I noticed the 4 bolts on the ends of the exhaust manifolds were leaking coolant slowly. Crap. Also a slow line of coolant was forming around the thermostat housing gasket.

I went to a bad place that night. Feeling like a failure and like this whole project was turning into a giant, expensive mess.

I regrouped. Researched, talked to guys at work. Tonight after work I drained all the coolant again, took those four bolts out, and put some sealant on the threads. They have to sit for 24 hours to fully cure and then after that I can try adding coolant again to see what happens. I'm really hoping my leak is fixed after this. I'm feeling better about it all at this point, but there's still the potential for major failure.

Also checked out the thermostat gasket tonight. It's junk. I put the gasket on top of the thermostat instead of underneath, so when I tightened everything down the edge of the thermostat cut a line through the gasket. No big deal. A new gasket is less than $1.00 and I already have the coolant drained anyway.

The 24 hour mark on that thread sealant doesn't come until 8pm tomorrow so it's likely I won't be putting coolant in again until TUESDAY. No biggie. I've waited this long already on this project.

Right now I'm thinking I might possibly be able to get the Y Pipe hooked back up to the exhaust manifolds tomorrow, and also get that oil change out of the way. Then, all I'd be waiting for would be to add coolant before the big, scary moment. Trying to start it back up.

Progress Finally Continues!

Yesterday shortly after I arrived at work my new remanufactured heads showed up. About a week later than the company originally said, but oh well. I just happened to have today off of work so it worked out more or less.

 

 

One of my pretty new heads! Everything seems to be the same as the ones I took off of there, so that's a good thing. The day started off rainy and didn't clear up until around 1:30pm so I got a late start on the project. Like usual.

 

 

First up was to clean up any dirt that had fallen into the cylinders during all of this, so I got out the shop vac and got out everything that I could. Then at the last minute I decided to take the AC compressor off since it wasn't hooked up or working at all anyway. That opened up a good sized space on the front of the engine. I had been thinking about maybe fixing the AC eventually but only one vehicle I've owned has ever had working AC, so I'll just make do without.

 

 

I haven't run into any real problems yet. Of course everything takes longer than I think it will and the most simple tasks usually end up being incredibly tedious and time consuming. Case in point, replacing the radiator and bypass hose. The screws on the hose clamps were in impossible locations and I had to reach in while bending down underneath the steering wheel. 

 

Both heads have been installed

 

 

 

Exhaust manifolds are on and so is the intake manifold.

 

 

In the picture above the intake isn't bolted down all the way yet. It is now, as I type this. There were numerous brackets that went under some of those bolt heads and I had to take a look at all the pictures I took to remember exactly what went where. Thankfully, I took good pictures. 

 

I didn't manage to get it all back together today. I got close, but in the end I didn't make it. I think I have even less to do than I think I do, but I know it's still a couple of good hours work. Carb needs to go back on, brake booster vacuum line, need to reconnect the exhaust pipes to the exhaust manifolds. There's one bolt for the alternator that screws into the side of the head that I can't get to line up properly and thread in. Spark plugs need to go in, figure out which wire goes to which plug. I'm probably forgetting something but then just fill it up with coolant again and give it an oil change!  Then, finally, I will be able to have the old moment of truth when I try to start it back up.

 

Not sure when I'll work on it next. Back to work tomorrow until the weekend. Thursday I go in earlier than usual and get out early because of Independence Day so I might be able to get things wrapped up Thursday afternoon.