Gas, tires, oil.

The brake master cylinder on my wife’s ‘82 4x4 diesel suburban was starting to go bad. The brake pedal would sometimes slowly sink down when you were stopped at a light. I like to stopper the lines when I disconnect them (to keep out dirt and air), in the pic below I have used some plugs that are actually made for transmission cooler lines, but work well here.

Here’s the new one (not rebuilt, new was only $10 more) bolted on.

The instructions always say to “bench bleed” the master cylinder in vise, using a screwdriver for a plunger. I say, the hell with that, just bolt it up and run the hoses back into the resevoir. Then you can work the air out by pumping the pedal (slowly). By the way, the plastic adaptors and hoses didn’t come with the new master cylinder, I had saved them from a previous one (in fact, the last one I bought didn’t have them either, a disapointing trend).

So my landlord decided to redo the roof last week, he tore off the shingles Thursday and Friday. Saturday morning, 4:30 am, we wake up to find water dripping out of the light fixture onto our bed. Of course, it was raining. One of the things this prompted me to do was clear off a shelf in a closet (to get to the attic). I found a box of Matchbox, Husky, Corgi and Tootsie toy die cast cars that I had bought at a yard sale a couple years ago. The guy wanted a dollar a piece, I paid $20 for all (48 pieces). I’ll post pic of some of the nice/rare ones soon. Here’s poorly lit shot of a few.

In the foreground is a studebaker film car, behind you can see 2 Monkees GTO wagons from the tv show as well as a “Man from U.N.C.L.E” and James Bond car (they have a missile launcher and ejection seat, respectively, with several missiles and ejectees).