You've got great veins!

It's an odd compliment, but I'll take it.

I get that every time I go to get stabbed. This one was for my yearly MRI that I get to keep my Pilot Medical current. I have a "stent" in my neck which is a little piece of tubing that keeps one of my arteries open. They like to keep an eye on it.

To see what they need to see, they inject me with some dye... so they can see the blood flowing (through the stent).

I like that I always get the "you've got great veins" bit cuz I carries the unspoken implication that it's not going to hurt :)

Which it doesn't

!

Nope, it wasn't the adjustment... the clutch is buggered.

Fortunately there was a mechanic shop on the way to my appointment this morning, so I just stopped in there. He gave it a quick fix adjustment (it's simple to do) but said it would need replacing.

Not to worry as Haagen had told me of a Subaru wrecker in town. For the unfamiliar, think of a wrecker as a dedicated junkyard with a mechanic. I'll try and remember to get pics when I pick the car up.

So when I got there, it was like driving into a Subaru graveyard... loads of every kind of Subaru in every kind of condition (except new!). Perfect. While the cars at the wreckers, I'll be hanging out in Dunedin (it's done on Monday... it's Friday now).

A mild panic

Holy crap do I love the internet.

I drove down to Dunedin today. Just as I got there, my clutch got all funny on me. *OH NOES!*

The way it was before, it would engage about half way through it's travel. This took me a bit to get used to, but I did. I'm used to clutches grabbing very quickly.

Everything was normal till I stopped a few K's out to check my map. After that there was a big change in where the clutch grabbed. Now it was nearly immediate. First gear got pretty hard to get to as well. Oh crap... did the clutch just die?

Off to the internet to see if I could find out some info.
Most of it didn't sound like a burnt clutch, although some stuff did say that having difficulty getting into gear was one sign.

A bit more digging and I found out that clutches have an auto-adjustment if you pull the clutch pedal towards the seat... which I've done. I may have done this as well when I stopped to check the map.

The guy that wrote it said that he didn't like the auto-adjusters cuz they set the clutch annoyingly close to the floor... sound familiar?

There's a way to check for sure (stall it in 2nd like you're learning to drive stick). That'll have to wait for tomorrow.

Jim