Steve Collison

I recently bought a 1995 Geo Metro, with a 1.0 litre 3 cylinder engine (the fire breathing G10!)

Sadly, its frame broke today. Well, yesterday actually, it’s 1.25AM now. I have a lot of work to do. I need to remove the engine and gear box, so I can get into the engine bay to weld the frame. Supposedly, the engine and gear box together weigh less than 200 pounds – I’m sure with a couple friends to assist me that I’ll be able to get those suckers out without a hoist!

I’m going to use starscream5000’s G10 engine removal guide at GeoMetroForum.com to do this.

At least I have some projects to keep me busy.

I’ve started renovations on our downstairs room that will be our bedroom when I’m finished.

Stripping wallpaper is a horrible job, but someone has to do it! I’ve realised the following:

• Running around and stripping as much wallpaper off as possible quickly is a good idea. Don’t worry about pieces of wallpaper that appear stubborn. Making progress is important, and makes you feel better about yourself.
• Use a wallpaper scraper while peeling paper off. Peel with one hand and ’stab’ the underneath with your other hand.
• For stubborn paper, use a wallpaper steamer or get a bucket of boiling hot water and a sponge, and wipe down the walls. The paper scrapes off easy afterwards.
• Keep a sack beside you for the wallpaper you remove. Don’t leave it on the floor, the big bits are easy to clean up but the small bits are a nightmare!

What I’ve peeled off so far has revealed wall damage – take a look at the pictures. At the worst, I’m going to have to remove some of the dry wall and relay it. This’ll be an experience.

[View with PicLens]

OK – I feel some guilt about my KZ550 restoration project. That post was written in March of 2009 – oh boy! I had every intention of working on that bike, except that I didn’t have a place to work on it. The fact that it’d leak fuel intermittently didn’t help me when pleading my case to friends and family – they really didn’t want their garages burned to the ground.

Since then, the plethora of problems with the bike have remained intact, and I’m sure more rust has begun to eat at its heart. Luckily though, we now rent a large house with a basement – where the bike now resides! Except I’ve removed the fuel tank.

An advantage to this is that the basement is always relatively warm, a garage wouldn’t be this time of year. I’m hoping to get down there in the next couple weeks and actually start working on the bike. I’ll be tearing it apart and cleaning it up. I can already see where the wiring has been eaten by mice – it’s going to need a lot of work.

Wish me luck guys.

Big sad face – I lost my phone the other day. A brand new HTC Eris on the Google Android network. Losing my phone has been a nuisance, but more importantly it has compromised my privacy. My phone was configured to link into my email accounts – way too much information for someone I don’t know to be looking at.

I decided to search for some software to install on my Android phone, and came across WaveSecure.com. The software is also compatible with many other phones.

The most important feature for me is GPS tracking. If I lose my phone, I can log on to the website and track its location. Having a vague idea of where it is really helps!

But the software also offers some other features:

• You can lock your phone either by the website OR via text message.
• You can back up your data even while your phone is locked.

If the phone was stolen, being able to lock the phone, back up your data and then give the GPS location of the phone to the police gives you much better odds of finding your phone or at least avoiding some of the problems it could have caused.

It is incredibly cheap to use the GPS tracking, locking and back up services provided by Wave Secure, I think it equated to less than a dollar a month.

Worth it in my book.