Captian's Log: 3

This weekend was a little laid back, not too much to report. Spent some time with family on Friday, and worked on the car a little as well.

This Saturday's project was the beginning of the conversion of MK6 Golf parts onto my MK5 Rabbit. Long story short, my Rabbit came with 150hp/170lbft and a 5500 RPM redline. The late MK5s and MK6 Golfs came with 170hp/177lbft and a 6300 Redline. I will be getting the Rabbit tuned for a 6500 Redline, and in prep for that, I am switching over to all the MK6 parts I can.

First step was the exhaust manifold. The MK5 is an open chamber type manifold. There are hardly any runners at all, and its mostly just an empty chamber full of turbulence. The MK6 manifold is slightly less open, with actual runners. It does open up at the end, but is more "header-like" and almost a true 5-1 manifold. I could have bought an actual header, but they stopped making the good ones years ago, and if you find them online, they are usually $1000 dollars. I would never dream of spending that on a full cat back, much less a header. You can get ebay knock offs, but they are prone to cracking, and I would have to cut up my stock exhaust to make it fit.

MK5 on the left, MK6 on the right. Port holes are the same diameter, MK5 is just dirty.

Swap was pretty straight forward. After removing a few pieces and sensors, everything came up and over the engine with no fuss. About half the studs came out with the manifold nuts, but after a trip to the touch, and using jam nuts, they came right off. The studs were then cleaned and soaked in PBlaster, and all new brass nuts, as well as new OE MLS gaskets were used.

Do not pass go, go directly to torch.



Everything was buttoned up, and then the Rabbit was fired up.

 

Word for the wise, PBlaster smokes like a son of a gun.

 

ProTip: Unbolt the exhaust hanger and the down pipe slides right on.

 I don't have a heat shield yet (one is on the way), so I made do with some reflective heat material, and overlapped it on my fire wall. I'll leave it for added protection once the heat shield gets here.

REVIEW

 

Over all impressions are good! Sound has noticeably changed. Idle sounds more "uneven" (like how I think a 5 cylinder should sound), and under wide open throttle, it is louder. There is almost a trumpet-like blast. Seriously, I picture a chunky kid blasting the hardest note through a trumpet or trombone when I hear it.

 

Power is obviously unchanged for now, but again, this is just a supporting mod for the tune.

 

 

So if you hear something on the Westside that sounds like hells angels blasting trumpets, it's probably me in my pokey VW Rabbit.

 

 

 

More later!



More Mud Holes?

Couple more leaks passed by our way this week. Let me show you their features.

This first one was relatively small. A backflow company was attempting to change out a backflow, and in the process split a piece of galvanized pipe.  We had to cut back on it with a hacksaw, and install a new compression fitting with curbstop. We always try to fix our leaks under pressure, especially the small ones. Fixing the leaks under pressure prevents disruption of service to the customer, as well as prevents us from putting customers under a "Boil Water" notice.

Split right behind the curbstop in the galvanized pipe.

 

Next one was a doozy

 

 

 This leak came in at 4:30pm. Sometimes we let them ride till the next day, but in the case of leaks like this one, we decided to fix it immediately. The water main runs directly underneath the driveway, about where the split is between the dry and wet pavement. Trucks were loaded with dirt and limestone, trackhoe was loaded up, and off we went.

 

 

 

Driveway was cut to gain access to the ground and water main underneath. Once we got down to the main, the leak indeed up being a 5 inch split running inline with the pipe. Looked like the pipe had suffered a hit when it was originally installed, and just wore out over time. 

Strike first, strike hard. No mercy.







Ended up staying till 12am

 

 

The split section was cut out and replaced. Sometimes we can install a repair band around the main, but the position of the crack made prepping the pipe too difficult. Before wrapping a pipe, the ideal way to handle a split is to drill a hole at the edge of the split line, to prevent the crack from spreading. The split on this pipe was on the bottom, so we would have to submerge our drill in the water and mud to drill the pipe.

 

After the main was repaired, the hole was backfilled, and water service restored. Didn't get to keep the water on this time. Total repair took around 6-7 hours. Not that bad, but we could have shaved an hour off if we went straight to the clamps and replacing the piece of affected pipe.

 

A repair band was attempted first

Two hymax couplings were used, as well as a new piece of pipe.

Driveway secured.

Bye Felicia.



Captains Log: 2

What I had planned on doing this weekend involved working on my car. I am working my way up to a tune for the Rabbit, so I was wanting to get in some supporting mods, mainly a revised intake and exhaust manifold, as well as fuel injectors.

 

However,

I went to Ikea instead.

 

The Land of Swedish (USA, Chinese, French, Italian) made wonder

 

Now I'm not a super Ikea fanatic, but I am an Ikea family member, and I do enjoy the establishment. The wife and I wanted to tackle the toy issue in our house as well as clean up our media area. While there might be more "quality" furniture else where, I have yet to see someone tackle storage like Ikea does. Ikea quality is fine as well. I've found it to be very solid furniture.


So I switched the Rabbit into truck/station wagon mode and we headed out. The Rabbit can handle pretty much whatever I throw at it. I usually carry my BDM tools with me wherever I go, and that includes a ladder. It can hold all of it with the seats up. That's for another post though.

 

7'x2' is the max safe load I can fit. More could fit with some tetris skills.

The purchase.
Wife trying to price it out before we check out.



Plenty of room left. The Rabbit didn't even squat. I even folded the front seat back up.

 

 

Everything was loaded up, and after we got our snacks we headed out. This is the part of the story where I discuss the "bomb" scare at Ikea, and us having to evacuate. I'll save all the typing, and just link you to the news article. Watch the video! I was interviewed! IM FAMOUS!

 

BOMB AT IKEA! (IT WAS A BAG OF POTS)

 

While I enjoy shopping at Ikea, I less than enjoy assembling Ikea furniture. However one comes with the other, so after a slight delay I started building. This time around I thought I'd be "professional" so I got out my levels. Wrong move. This probably doubled the build time. I made it my mission to not have a single crooked door, and between the bubble and laser level I think I succeeded.

 

Well, that's about it for this weekend. Hope to get into some shenanigans at work and share them here. I'll leave you with some pics, see you then!

 

People leaving Ikea during evacuation

Hanging out, waiting for the all clear (it never came)



Being pushed back even further

Where I stood for a few hours, waiting for my car. We were eventually moved even further back.





One more Mud hole

Here's another leak for you. This time I had the pleasure of operating one of our Vaccon trucks. A subcontractor for ATT hit one of our services line while running fiber optic lines. That leak plus the rain from the day before made quite a mud hole.

Heading out in the chariot of the fleet.

First step when using the Vaccon is to fill it up with water. We not only use the water to help hydro-excavate, but also to help clean out the tank when dumping.


 

It's not supposed to do that. Joys of others improperly using the Vaccon

 

Leak turned out to be a single service broken down low. Since we were already at the main, we decided to rebuild both the broken and neighboring service. We replaced the PVC with poly, as that is our new standard.

Poly Tee coming right off the main. With Poly, there are less fittings to use.

 

Got everything buttoned up. I left before we back filled so that I could go dump the Vaccon.

Poly lines running to service meters

A clean truck is a happy truck.

Mud Hole

Share a little action we had yesterday.

Single service broke going into a 12 inch main. Nothing too big or bad, just a chance to get a little dirty and harass my guys. The day was going slow, and this helped knock a few hours out of the day.

The particular crew I help run can get pretty monotonous, so these leaks are generally welcomed. These guys bust out so much work during the week, that its good to get a change of pace so they don't run themselves ragged.

Things went smooth, and we were in and out with the hole back filled in around 4 hours.
I'll try to get more in depth shots on the next one!



Rebuilt the broken PVC with new poly line (The blue thing)



Backfilling with dirt. The Shadow watches



N.K., the hardest worker out there.

Captains Log: 1

To mix in the personal with the work, I'm going to start these "Captain's Log" posts. So we will start off with a little review of what's been going on these past few weeks.

Brethren Disaster Ministries (BDM)

A few weeks ago I drove down to Lorida, a small town south east of Sebring. I joined a group of people other from various places (Virginia, Delaware, Michigan) who are part of a group called Brethren Disaster Ministries. This group is part of the Church of the Brethren, but that is a story for another day. You can read more about them here: http://www.brethren.org/bdm/

We did roof repair and replacement on around 17k square feet of buildings. Patched holes and vents, and then installed metal roofing. I was the youngest one there, and I really enjoyed my time there. I hope to join up with a group again, as I really felt like I did something.



The Rabbit

My latest car is a 2007 Volkswagen Rabbit. 2.5 Inline 5 cylinder, Manual Transmission. Mundane by automotive standards, but a fun car none the less. I'm currently in the process of "sprucing it up", to either sell it or keep it as a run around. 125k miles and as of this typing, seems to be running like a top. I have a couple of things lined up for it to better improve it drivability and "fun-ability". All on the cheap.

 

 

 

That should catch you up to date in the personal life area for now, I'd like to go more into detail later on a few of the car stuff, but that can wait for later. Will update with a work related post here in the next couple of days.

 

Thanks for reading!



Uh. What?

Holy Moly. It's been over a year since my last post. I mainly make these posts for myself, and it shows. If for some reason you read these, thanks!


It's been awhile, and a lot has changed. A lot.

Let's get up to speed.

• I am no longer the AMI Supervisor. I am the Field Service Supervisor
• I finally have dual monitors.
• Same crew (albeit new employees), same company
• I exclusively wear collard shirts and Bill Cosby hats now.

Now that all that is out of the way, I hope to get a few more posts out with a few more details. I think I'm going to start including more personal/not work related things as it will give me more content to post, and more things for you to read.

I've always wanted to have a blog/vlog/whatever with no real theme. No point. I find everyday life fascinating, and like to appreciate the ordinary. So here's to the future!