We're In

We are now sleeping at NewOldHouse, so this post will effectively serve as a mile-marker, if you will. From the pictures, you can see boxes in the backgrounds and the walls do not have decorations yet. That will come.

Push Becomes Pull

living/den

In my last post, I described our effort to move as working from the edges in towards the center. For us, life in our home has 2 centers: the main living space (kitchen / eating nook / den) and the master bedroom suite (bed and bath). So, we were focused on solving for all the other spaces: the ShedRoom, my work-from-home office, the extra bedroom, the garage, etc. That was working, but we didn't feel like we were making sufficient progress towards actually living at NewOldHouse. We are paying to heat and illuminate 2 houses on top of 2 mortgages. In the Pacific NorthWest, there is a great deal of dark to offset and this winter has been relatively typical but with more cold stretches mixed with wet ones than usual. We felt that if we could significantly reduce the more expensive (read: larger) house quickly, we could save some pennies while we get moved faster. We decided that continuing to push things from our existing home to NewOldHouse had reached its useful end and we needed to change it up.

We started by relocating my daily work-from-home into the NewOldHouse. Most of my things were already there, I just had been working with a laptop on my lap at the existing house, but that had been contributing to the inertia problem. So, I started a morning walking-commute to NewOldHouse to work.

office evolving

Rather than continue with the edges, we encircled our second center (master bedroom), moved it and all of our clothes over to NewOldHouse. Just like that, we are sleeping there... or here. This shift now allows us to spend those small hours before bedtime doing tweaks around NewOldHouse rather than at the existing house, and the shift is showing dividends. After work, we can collect a bunch of things and haul them to NewOldHouse to be distributed before we turn in or the following morning while shuffling around with coffee. While the overall acts really are not that different, changing from pushing things out of existing house to pulling things into NewOldHouse has kick-started our efforts. There is just something about doing the push in the cold, wet and dark that made it much more difficult than the pull. I just can't explain it, but I am seeing the difference play out.

Bathroom Improves

Yeay bathroom!

The bathroom had taken major steps forward (toilet and sink functional) only to sit in a partially completed state (shower not functional) for a couple of weeks. That time wasn't wasted, of course. It was just spent on boxing things or sorting belongings (both ours and my folks) at the existing house. With the push-pull shift, the bathroom game is back on. Boo deep-cleaned that old tub and the walls, as well as fixed a bunch of the plaster. Once the plaster was set, I caulked everything (tub to surround, tub to floor, fixtures, etc). To get us operational, Boo installed one of those spring-loaded shower curtain-rods that hold to the walls by outward force rather than with screws. We know we have more plaster finishing, painting and maybe some tile-work before the bathroom is complete, but in our Agile way, this gets us to a minimum viable space. So, until we temporarily suspend bathing for tile or paint, we moved bathing to NewOldHouse. My current thinking is to wait until it's warm out before we restart. When I consider how far this bathroom has already evolved, this image is a major milestone.

Camp Kitchen

To support daily living at NewOldHouse, or anyplace for that matter, you need a way to store and prepare food. Even the smallest economy apartments have something. NewOldHouse has nothing. When we bought this place the kitchen was in mid-demo, and it was so horrible there was no way anyone could reuse any of it without jeopardizing their health. So, we continued the demo and cleaned as much as we could of what remained. Once the upper cabinets were down, the remaining appliances removed and the surfaces cleaned, we stopped the demo. Other priorities had arisen, so the "kitchen" was left in a semi-demolished state. Fast forward a few months, and we want to shift our daily lives into NewOldHouse... so we need a temporary kitchen.

temporary kitchen

We started with the most basic of the basic: a means to make hot water, a pour-over coffee contraption and instant oatmeal. With this, we had morning meal addressed. To this, we added granola bars and other individually wrapped foods to bridge the middle of the day. For dinners, we got go-food for the first couple of days, but that is expensive when done regularly. So, we quickly added more storage capacity by reusing one bookcase for dry-goods and another for dishes. Within a kitchen cart, we are storing a variety of pans, a hot plate, a slow cooker, a rice cooker and an electric skillet. A slow cooker and a rice cooker can support many meals for super cheap.

TheWell

With food storage and preparation mostly solved, we are left with one last challenge: a sink. The old kitchen sink was disconnected during the demo. It had a rather unpleasant garbage disposal so it had to go with the rest of the unusables. The sink itself is fine and we may find a purpose for it in the future, but for today, there is no sink. Our solution for sourcing water is to fill and store pitchers of water from the sink in the connected garage. We call it "TheWell". The other need for a sink is to clean dishes. We could wash them in TheWell, but the garage is unheated, and this winter has been particularly cold and unpleasant. So, leaning over a concrete sink in a 35*F garage doing dishes sounded a bit to much. So, until the weather warms up into the 40's (mid single -digit *C), we will be doing the dishes in the tub with plastic washtubs.

Schmidty and Tuukka

Tuukka watches the new street

At some point in your move, you have to consider the timing of moving your pets. In our case it's our cat, Schmidty, named after a Vet who we love dearly and our dog, Tuukka, named after the Boston Bruins goalie. Like all animals, they did not understand what was going on, and they grew nervous as they watched belongings moving around, and disappearing from home. We brought Tuukka with us over to NewOldHouse starting very early in the process, like, once it was clean enough that we would not be concerned about him stepping on something that he would then lick off his paws. He did not like it for the first few weeks, and it wasn't until we started bringing soft things for him to sit on that we realized it was sitting/lying on the hard floors that bothered him. He adjusted fairly quickly once some of the softer chairs and a couch we added.

Schmidty hides

Schmidty was a completely different matter. He would follow us as we walked to NewOldHouse, and would walk the perimeter, but would absolutely NOT accept being brought inside. This persisted for months. Finally, after we had moved pretty much all of the furniture that was going to NewOldHouse, we put him into a carrier, collected his belongings and hauled him (howling) to NewOldHouse. He hid under our bed and then under my nightstand (picture on the right) for a couple of days. Boo and I had both read that it is best to keep your indoor/outdoor cats inside for at least a few days for them to acclimate to the new space. They need to have their home/center redefined before they go back outside or they will become disoriented and could get lost. After a couple of weeks, Schmidty still had not gone outside. I think part of that is the cold wet weather, which he doesn't like. This past weekend he finally explored outside for the first time. After a couple of short trips out and back in, he is settling into a pattern of going outside. Of course, yesterday, we found him howling to get let in... at "existing house". So, some learning remains. Once inside, it seems both of the animals like NewOldHouse at least as much as the old one, based on their behaviors.

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The funny thing about living Agile is that you do not often get the satisfaction of a big bang or finish line. Things evolve and evolve and eventually you are in a better space, closer to your goal. Every once in a while, there are moments when a significant threshold is crossed. The first night we slept at NewOldHouse with our pets was one of them. I clearly remember the feeling of turning the thermostat at existing house down to 60*F (to protect your house, don't let the temperature fall below the dewpoint) as we exited to live at NewOldHouse. We have passed an important line, but there remains significant work to do.

As I said at the top, this post serves as a milepost of sorts for us. Of course, the kitchen is still in mid-demo. We still have many belongings at the other house, including Hapy, Oliver and a garage full of stuff. There are lots of things which still need to be done on both ends, but we will be doing those things from NewOldHouse from here-on, and that is a significant difference.

That's it for now. Thanks, as always, for following along- 

Nemo Time

Remember Nemo? He's the 1997 Audi A4 (B5 body style) that T bought and wrestled with for a few years, replacing the clutch and brake master cylinders as well as the clutch slave cylinder and repairing so many other things. I also did a TON on this car (just what I posted on), so the fact that he needed more was a little, well... frustrating. When T moved to LA, he signed Nemo over to me, and then we thought we had sold it within the family, after replacing the driver-side rear axle and wheel bearing. Only to have the power steering fail... ending that transfer. So, Nemo has sat in my driveway. He has many little issues: a water leak into the driver's footwell, a broken front passenger window regulator, a big hole in the exhaust, a sunroof that won't open, some other little missing bits, and, of course, the failed power steering. Today's post covers my efforts to resolve enough of these items so he can be registered and driven again.

Before I begin, the sanding on Zed continues. I will post an update next week, hopefully, with some meaningful progress. In the meantime, I have slowly crawled along with Nemo over the last few weeks, so I thought an update was in order.

Water Leak

Schmidty sniffing the ECU box

I believe I solved the water leak when I discovered that the plastic box that holds the ECU was not entirely attached. There is an obvious nut on the outside, near the driver fender. There is a second nut inside the box closer to the engine, back near the fire wall. Underneath the ECU, is a large (like 1 inch by 3 inch) rectangle opening into the footwell. This hole has a gasket, but if the box is not held down firmly enough to engage the gasket, water which finds its way under the box (which is a for-sure here in rainy PacNW) will run straight into the driver footwell. In Nemo's case, the inner nut was simply not there. I found one, and snugged it down. Problem solved. I hope.

Accessing the Exhaust

big old rusty dirty cat

The big hole in the exhaust has been a major pain to solve. The aftermarket cat-back exhaust installed by a prior owner did not have any support between the end of the header and the rear axle. It did, however, have a section of flex-pipe immediately after the header, creating the car's lowest point. So, when the car drove over speed bumps or dramatic driveway transitions, it was the flex-pipe which hit the ground. Eventually, that flex-pipe failed. With the failure came a Check-Engine-Light (CEL) preventing a DEQ pass. To resolve, I removed the catalytic converter, downpipe and mid-pipe so I could replace the failed flex-pipe. This removal is challenged by the usual issues with exhaust hardware, but the Audi has additional things, like heat shields, in the way. So, the air box needs to come out, and the passenger front wheel comes off so you can access everything. Even then, Audi engineers seem to like to use different fastener types and sizes pretty much everywhere. Of course, the owner plays a role here too.

Cat Away

cat out

After trying a wide array of tools, I ultimately needed a hacksaw blade to cut through the rusted bolts between the catalytic converter and the down pipe. The PO had used regular steel fasteners to attach them, and even after multiple days of spraying Kroil on them, they were rusted tight. I cut the bolts, sending the hacksaw blade between the opposing flanges, at least far enough for the bolts to snap in half when I applied torque to one end with a socket-wrench. This took some time and patience, and because of how the bolts are oriented in the engine compartment, I was only able to sever 2 of them. This loosened the connection enough for the downpipe to rotate on that last bolt, allowing me to pull the 2 out the top of the engine as a unit. I cut the other bolt off, separating the 2 pieces, on the driveway. Holding the downpipe still with my boot, I cut the lip of the flex-pipe from it using my angle grinder.

Before I started, I ordered a brand-new catalytic converter, thinking that the one that was on there was 10+ years old, and of unknown working condition. After spending many hours cutting through rusty bolts with a hand-held hacksaw blade, I do NOT want to do this R&R again even if the fasteners are new. So, I'm grateful I made that purchase decision. After I got the cat on the ground I could see the Audi symbol on it, so either it was replaced at a dealer a long time ago or it was the original. Either way, at almost 300k miles, it is unlikely that catalytic converter was still doing its job well. Well enough to pass Oregon DEQ? We'll never know. Besides, the old bolts are rust-attached to that old thing, so re-install would have been considerably challenged.

new cheap hanger

On the other end of the hole in the exhaust, I removed the mid-pipe (2 bolts), cut off the remains of the flex-pipe with the death wheel and re-installed the mid-pipe. I added a support immediately behind where the flex-pipe-to-mid-pipe joint will appear so it is held up and away from the ground better. For the support, I got one of those cheap bolt-on hangers, attaching to the rear of the transmission through an unused bolt hole in the rear of the case.

Cat In

Moving back up front, I installed the new cat first, re-introducing the original O2 sensors as I went. To the cat, I added the down pipe and then finally connected the down pipe and mid-pipe with the flex pipe, fitting things together with clamps and exhaust dope. 

I got Nemo back on the ground to take him for a test spin around the usual neighborhood track. Before backing him off the ramps, I checked the exhaust for leaks, and it looked good, with a little puff of smoke coming out the tailpipe. The exhaust sounded much better, and it doesn't leak. So, around the block we went. It still hangs low, but it is fairly well tucked up under the body compared to before. The rear end ride height is so low, there is a near-constant threat of bottoming out. I will need to resolve that soon. He drove great; plenty of pull from the turbo, and the exhaust was much quieter than he had been on the last test drive. Clearly, the noise and smoke is going out the tail now. I thought I might have heard the rear passenger wheel bearing, though, so there may still be more adventure coming. And, yes, you can drive a car with failed power steering; you just need forearms like Popeye if you need to turn the wheels when the car is not in motion.... like to maneuver it out of a shop bay into the driveway through a 9 point turn. 

Oh Two

Oh Nemo.... O2

Unfortunately, the CEL is still on, with a code (P0134) indicating that the upstream (before cat) O2 sensor is bad. When I considered the smoke puff out the tailpipe when it was sitting on ramps, this makes sense: if the computer doesn't know the air-fuel mixture sent from the O2 sensor, it sends a richer fuel mixture to protect the engine from being too lean, which is why a failing O2 sensor is a DEQ auto-fail. So, I ordered a replacement upstream O2 sensor and now I'm waiting on shipping before I take another test. Since the error code did not include a code for the downstream O2 sensor, one might think that the old catalytic converter was still working. As I pondered this, I picked it up from one end, and I could hear dust settling through it. So, even if it wasn't toast, it was soon to be. When the new O2 sensor arrives, I'll slap it in, clear the code and go for a spin. If the CEL doesn't return, we may take him through DEQ before the next update. 

That's it for today. Like I mentioned at the top, the sanding on Zed continues. After sanding him smooth with the 320-grit, I did not like some of the orange-peel effect I found underneath, so I sanded the primer end-to-end with 320-grit again. Thanks, as always, for following along-