September 7th - Marge Wheel Cleaning and Homer Repairs

Next Sunday Marge will get her first "professional" bath.  I noticed all the wheels looked pretty bad when I rotated the tires yesterday.  I know they will not polish the wheels as part of the wash next week so I decided to do it this morning. Here is a before picture of one wheel.

Here is an after picture.  

I am happy with the results. I used a wipe-on aluminum cleaner I had purchased when we had the pontoon boat to take care of. This stuff cleaned the wheels up nicely with little effort and no buffing.

The truck goes into the shop on Monday for an oil change and fuel filter change then it will be ready to go to Albuquerque as well.

Homer is still in the shop.  On our trip to Alaska and on a trip a year later to California I smoked the front brakes a couple of times on steep grades. This caused the rotors to warp a little which causes a vibration when I push on the brake hard. I lived with it for a couple of years because it wasn't dangerous. I decided to get them fixed after a recent trip. I always tell my mechanic to treat my vehicles like his own. Because of this he decided to check the rear brakes as well. When he did he found two broken brake springs and both brake wheel cylinders leaking. This is being fixed as well. I attribute the rear brake issue strictly to Homer's "old age".  At twenty-six years old things like this happen with vehicles.

  

Homer is also in for an oil change and an inspection so I can renew his license next month. Upon changing the oil they noticed that the water pump is leaking. This is good news and bad news. The bad news is it will cost about $400.00 to replace it. The good news is that they caught it while in the shop and the pump didn't go out on the road and possibly require a tow and us being stranded for a while somewhere.

The joy of owning vehicles. This is my month for spending money on them.