Back in Business!
On Monday I stopped by Europa, because as I was driving by I saw the 900 in the open work bay. The head was on, and Tien expected to have the car finished later in the day. I told him that I was leaving for LA and that I would pick the car up on Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday he phoned and said that the CHECK ENGINE light is on at idle, he diagnosed it as failed Oxygen sensor. Those usually get fouled by the coolant when a head gasket fails. Since I'm accustomed to the intermittent CE light (and since I've just passed emission test anyhow) I told him to leave it as is.
I walked over yesterday morning about 8:45 and picked up the car. Total including tax was $1329. Ouch. Time to start putting the miles on the car to earn some of that money back at 50.5 cents per mile. So I drive home, loaded up my test equipment, and headed down to Tumwater for a project... the second-farthest trip I've ever taken the 900 on.
It was great to be back in the 900. It sounded better than before (I'd had a lot of valve noise which was fixed when the head was machined and valve stem seals were replaced). The belts were properly tensioned so didn't make any noise. About halfway there I decided to try the cruise control which has always been inoperative, and IT WORKED. That will make it a bit nicer to use the 900 on longer freeway drives where I tend to creep up in speed.
After my project I got lunch in Olympia near the capital, where I stopped for this nice photo. While I was taking it, the Pontiac Vibe that is parked behind me pulled into that spot and went back-and-forth about 15 times to get crookedly parked in the spot. The heavy-set middle-aged female driver fit my imagined demographic perfectly.
I also put the car seat in the 900 when I got back, to go pick up Luisa. She told me repeatedly that my black car with orange stripe is "cool". She's quite an arbiter of good taste, so I take that as quite a compliment.
