Items I Bought – blog.AjCrAzYo.com http://blog.ajcrazyo.com/ Wed, 04 Nov 2020 19:20:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.4 Car bearing https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/123 Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:04:26 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=123 The front right axle bearing in my car has been getting louder and louder over the past few weeks so I figured I’d better replace it before my wheel falls off or something. I called Goodyear to see how much it would cost to have the whole thing done for me, they said it would be about $500. I figured I could beat that. I started by pulling off the wheel, then the caliper, then the rotor, I unbolted the steering knuckle and pressed the axle out of the knuckle. I don’t have the tools to press out a bearing so I took the steering knuckle to Goodyear and they did it for $50. Here it is just before I started to reassemble everything.

It took 6 hours to get everything apart and about an hour to get it back together. I’m sure the auto shop could have done it faster, but I did it cheaper.

]]> Clicky TV https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/122 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:51:45 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=122 My cheap-o plasma TV started to make clicking sounds the other day. I took the back off the TV in hopes of finding the bad component.

I couldn’t pinpoint the bad component but I was able to determine which board it is on. I looked up the part number of the board and found that it is the power supply. The cheapest I could find a replacement for was $200 and I think it’s a little much for a TV that only cost $900.

]]> New Camera https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/120 Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:25:12 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=120 Up until this point, most the pictures on this site were taken with cell phones or stolen from somewhere else on the internet. Now we have a real camera that can take real pictures. here it is taking a picture of itself now.

]]> Tire Blowout https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/118 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:06:39 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=118 I was driving home on the interstate tonight and my damn tire blew up. I almost veered into the side of a semi truck before getting to the the side of the road to put on the spare.

I didn’t think to take a picture while it was on the car but here it is laying on my patio

]]> New(ish) Computer https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/114 Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:42:51 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=114 My old server, and I use the word server loosely here, was a 2.8Ghz P4, 2GB RAM with a 1.5TB RAID5 array. The last time it saw an upgrade was about two years ago and it’s work load has tripled since then so I finally broke down and rebuilt it.

These are the parts, I bought and sold them all on eBay.

Parts bought for new machine Qty Price Total
Biostar I945G-M7 MoBo 1 $47 $47
2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo CPU 1 $148 $148
1GB Kingston DDR2 RAM 4 $10 $40
1TB Western Digital HDD 4 $149 $596
Dell (LSI) PERC5 RAID controller 1 $39 $39
Total $870

Parts sold from old machine Qty Price Total
Biostar P4M80-M4 MoBo 1 $20 $20
2.8Ghz Pentium 4 CPU 1 $26 $26
1GB Kingston DDR RAM 2 $8 $16
500GB Western Digital HDD 4 $80 $320
Pacific Digital ZL150 RAID controller 1 $15 $15
Total $397

In the end it only cost $473 and now I’ve got 3TB of space which should last a couple years.

The old machine was running Windows 2000 Server which as the name implies, is a little out of date. So I went ahead and put Windows Server 2008 (64bit) on the new one.

Pretty happy with it all so far.

]]> Sprint is Crap https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/113 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/113#comments Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:02:30 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=113 My 2 year contract is up and I’m jumping ship. Poor coverage, horrible customer service, confusing website, consistently incorrect billing and overpriced service; these are just a few of my gripes with Sprint.

Working for Honeywell, I get a massive employee discount with both at&t and Verizon. I have five lines with Sprint but Verizon can’t port any of them, they say they don’t have a license to do business in northern Minnesota or some such thing. at&t has better coverage up north than Verizon and Sprint combined plus they can port all my lines, so I’m going with them.

I can safely say that I’ll miss Sprint like I miss a bad case of cancer (not very much at all)

]]> https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/113/feed 1 Fun With My Car https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/111 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/111#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:52:22 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=111 I’ve had a good deal of success working on my own vehicles in the past and this last weekend was my biggest undertaking yet. My car had a leaky heater core so the first half of Saturday was spend disassembling the dashboard. Once I found the heater core, I drained the coolant and replaced the heater. Next I went after the timing belt. To get access to the timing belt I had to un-mount one side of the engine and jack it about 5 inches out of the car. Once the belt was off I took out the water pump. It was getting dark out so quit for the day and went back at it Sunday morning. Reassembly went a lot faster than disassembly. I put the new water pump in, aligned the engine and installed the new timing belt.

After that I remounted the engine, rebuilt the dashboard and refilled the coolant. I started the car and everything worked, which is always good. All that would have cost just under $2,000 at a shop. All it cost me was my weekend and $300 for parts and tools.

]]> https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/111/feed 1 S10 Starter https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/110 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/110#comments Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:22:36 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=110 Back in November, the starter died in my truck but I wasn’t willing to dish out $400 to have it replaced. I bought a starter on eBay for $30 and waited for a weekend warm enough to install it and yesterday was it. It took me 4 hours, most of which was spent trying to loosen a single bolt, but I finally got it. Now that it’s running, I’m going to sell it before it breaks down again.

]]> https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/110/feed 1 Cookies https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/109 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/109#comments Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:47:33 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=109 So I’ve only lived in central Minnesota for about a year and a half now and I just recently discovered the biggest reasons I hate it down here (there’s no lack of things I dislike about this part of the state)

The Girl Scout Cookies

Girl Scout cookies are expensive, but they are also delicious so when I get the opportunity to buy them, I do. I bought a few boxes last week but was disappointed to find that every time I ate one I would throw up all over the place. After some research I found out that they don’t sell the same cookies here that they sell up north. The boxes look the same but the products are very different. There are two companies that make Girl Scout cookies and they both have their own recipe for each cookie. Once I realized what was going on I got a hold of some of the good cookies from up north and did a little comparison.

If your Girl Scout troop sells cookies made by “Little Brownie Bakers” you’re better of just going outside and eating a handful of mud. They’re seriously nasty.

]]> https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/109/feed 1 New Alternator https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/108 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/posts/108#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:19:28 +0000 https://blog.ajcrazyo.com/?p=108 I took Jenn and her sister to the airport Wednesday Last week so they could meet up with their cousin and go to New York City for spring break. It was business as usual while Jenn was gone except I had to work all weekend. I left work Sunday around 4pm and picked up Jenn and her sister at the airport then headed home. Once we got home we unloaded the car, had dinner and went to sleep. The next day, I went out and got in my car to go to work and it was completely dead. It turns out the dome light was on all night because the trunk didn’t get shut all the way. I waited patiently for someone else to come out and start their car so I could get a jump. I was already late, so as soon as the car was running I took off. This proved to be a mistake.

Since I didn’t let the battery charge I ended up burning out my alternator and getting stranded on an off ramp just a few blocks from work. I could have fixed it myself had I made it to a parking lot, but being on an off ramp I had to call for a tow. It ended up costing just under $500

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