PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Jungle Book definitely had my favorite song; I had the soundtrack on cassette, and "Bare Necessities" was probably the most-played song in my parents' cars until about 1998. The 1996 Pathfinder had a CD player and no cassette player, but the 1990 Toyota Camry, the 1993 Chevy Blazer, and the 1990 Mazda B2600i all had tape decks. In 1998-1999, I came across my dad's Roy Orbison tape and that became my favorite. My dad swore that he would not put any unnecessary money into the 1990 Mazda because that was just his budget commuter, but he finally caved to the wishes or yours truly in January 2000 and had a cheap CD player installed, which took away the ability to play cassettes. We traded the Mazda for a new GMC conversion van, which had both a cassette and a CD player, in May 2000.

 

An accurate description of four people to one bathroom...



When my dad was growing up, it was six people to one bathroom!

I have every PlayStation console ever made (though I haven't seen the original in 20+ years or the PS2 since about 2010); I've also got a Nintendo Wii and an xBox 360. The Wii was a gif reform my parents in about 2007 and I haven't seen it since we moved, and the xBox was given to me by a wealthy friend in exchange for a lava lamp because he had too many game consoles.

 

Thank you for letting me borrow your baby lol

 

I have PS 1-3 (my 1 is broken, need to get it fixed or something). Still have Super Nintendo, Panasonic 3DO, Sega Saturn as well. I have the mini NES, SNES, Genesis, PS1. Oh, Atari 2600 too

 

Cheaper than Uber, and you're a better driver than me...

 

Lol

 

Well just fired up the new toy. My Atari 2600 Plus arrived. Need to get a better surge strip for all the systems but I temp rigged it and played some tonight.

 

My dad is now experiencing symptoms, but is currently testing negative. If he ends up getting it, this will be the second time in just over a year.

My mom has no symptoms, and my girlfriend surprisingly has no symptoms either, even though we were intimidate the day I started experiencing symptoms (which was the day before I tested positive); I am about fed up with this shit, because I more or less feel fine. I do not have a fever, just some chest congestion, a runny nose, and the occasional headache; I still have a voracious appetite as well...

I have not slept well the last two nights, and I end up taking long naps throughout the day...

 

@Stitchgirl90 is coming to the house today so she can get my credit card and use it to put gas in the truck. She will pay me back for this later. I will also give her the oil and oil filter, so she can take the truck for an oil change tomorrow. She will also be paying me back for the oil change because I've already about 8,000 more miles on the truck this year because of her.

The truck had 157K and change on the clock at the time the head gasket was replaced in October 2022; I started seeing Amanda in late January 2023, when I believe the truck had somewhere in the range of 161-162K miles on it. In March 2023, I got the oil changed at 165K, and I got it changed again in May 2023 at 170K; I got it changed yet again in July 2023 at 175K. 180K came in October 2023 and I got it changed yet again. Most of the mileage came from visiting Amanda in Jersey and transitioning her out of Jersey; I hope that I never have to go back to Jersey again for a very long time. Now that I'm between jobs and driving for DoorDash and Uber Eats to avoid touching my savings, that is where most of this mileage is coming from; I really don't care because the entire underside of the truck was replaced by Toyota at no cost to me, and my dad paid for the head gasket job as an early Christmas present. I paid over $550 to put a radiator in it last March, the sway bar thinks had to be replaced in August, and I ended up paying a total of $774 on HVAC repairs when the wiring shorted out.

I have no idea what else could possibly go wrong with my truck, but my mechanic tells me that the tranny is probably good until 300K. It's definitely gonna need new front brakes at some point in the next 5,000 miles and new rear brakes before 200K; I plan on having the spark plugs replaced at 200K, and I am going to have them cast in resin because my friend Jim helped me replace them less than a year before he died. I will give one to my friend (and Jim's widow) Helen as something to remember him by, since she has given me a metric shit-ton of Jim's belongings.

 

Just have it all done at once.
Don't be like me. I make plans to do it all at once, then got tired of working on the truck after the first small job and "quit".
I planned to do front and rear brakes the same day. Started with the rear brakes....Bad decision.
I hate drum brakes. So after fighting with the rears, I threw in the towel for the day and quit.
Still haven't gotten around to doing the fronts. Now my brakes are squeaking in reverse.
Guess who's going to be doing brakes in the freezing ass cold weather? - This guy

 

You mean do all the brakes at once?

 

I forgot just how much I loved this movie, and even at almost 35 years old, I still love it! And by the way, Dick Van Dyke is almost 98 years old!

 

If you are at 180 now, and need fronts in 5k.
That puts you at 190k miles when you replace the fronts.
You also said you will need rears before 200k.

So why schedule 2 appointments. Just do them all at once.
Might as well do the plugs too.

Or maybe ask your mechanic if your fronts will make it to 200k and do it all then?

 

I've never seen that movie.

 

Some people may remember that about ten years ago, Dick Van Dyke's late model Jaguar XJ suffered some sort of mechanical failure on the 101 Freeway in LA, and caught fire. He apparently bought, or maybe leased, a brand new one within a day (he stated at the time that he would be keeping a fire extinguisher in the vehicle). It's nice to be filthy stinkin' rich! However, I don't think he drives anymore. As if there weren't enough reasons to hate California, senior drivers I believe 75 and older have to take a road test every time they renew their license; Illinois is probably the strictest state, as it not only makes elderly drivers take a road test every time they renew their license, but makes them renew years after the age of 87.

I've had my license for almost 13 years; I've been pulled over eight times since 2017, plus that one time in 2006 when I was still on my learner's permit...

 

***STORY TIME***

Long story short, my dad was giving me driving lessons in the parking lot of Doylestown Hospital in his 1996 Nissan Pathfinder. My dad was in the Navy still, and while he had a Pennsylvania driver's license by then, two of our three cars were still registered in Virginia (the Pathfinder and my mom's minivan; I believe my dad's Harley was registered in Virginia, but I don't remember). My dad was well within his rights to have his vehicles registered outside the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as he was an active serviceman. So, in the still-fresh post-9/11 era of 2006, hospital security didn't like two guys in an an SUV with Virginia plates circling their parking lot for an hour. Instead of approaching the SUV like I would have done, they called the cops. A marked Crown Victoria intercepted us as I made a left turn out of the hospital parking lot onto what is still called Hospital Road, a backroad that allows easy access between Doylestown Hospital and Lenape Valley Foundation. I was freaking out, because I'd never been pulled over before, and I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. My dad was dumbfounded as well, as he didn't believe I'd done anything wrong either.

Security guards were big enough pain in the ass before 9/11, but after 9/11 it was a recipe for disaster. The cop immediately asked for my license, which I did not have; I told him I had a learner's permit, but that my dad had a license and was teaching me to drive. I forget which one of asked what I'd done wrong, but we were both a bit miffed when the cop said "hospital security called about a couple of suspicious guys in a green SUV with Virginia plates circling the parking lot for more than hour". The cop made it clear that were was nothing to ticket us for, but he still had to run everything through the paperwork. It was warm that day, and I can remember that I started to get very testy because I wanted to put the A/C on but my dad wouldn't let me restart the engine...

**I have been pulled over numerous times on both extremely hot days and extremely cold days between 2017 and 2023; I just shut off the engine on mild days, but on days where it is really hot or really cold, I keep the engine running so I can have the A/C or the heat on. No cop has ever said a word about me leaving the engine running, so I guess I don't come across as posing a flight risk...? Word to the wise; DO NOT come between me and an air-conditioner on a hot day!**

Anyway, my dad's old Pathfinder was so obviously the vehicle of an active duty Naval officer that you would have to be either blind or stupid to not realize it. It had a sticker from one of the P-3 squadrons my dad was in on the back window, a license plate frame that "FLY NAVY NAVAL AVIATION" on the back, and a DoD sticker on the windshield. Since the early 1980s, my dad had declared residency at his dad's house in New Jersey to avoid paying state income taxes, a perfectly legal loophole put in place for veterans by the government. He had a New Jersey driver's license from approximately 1982 to 2005 and was registered to vote in Jersey until probably 2005 or 2006, even though he hadn't actually lived there since the late 1970s or early 1980s; I believe his NJ license was about to expire in 2005, and he knew he was going to retire soon (he did in 2007), so he transferred it to PA along with my mom when we moved back here in 2005.

So, ignoring all the obvious clues that my dad was in the Navy, the cop proceeded to lecture my dad about Pennsylvania law stating that all new residents must title and register their vehicles in PA within 30 days or whatever. The veins in my dad's neck literally started to show; I remember this vividly. He kept his cool, but he made it obvious that he was not happy...

He said something like "Oh really?" and took out his military ID, telling the cop that as active-duty military, he was well within his legal right to have his vehicles registered out-of-state. The cop apologized and we went on our way, but with my dad behind the wheel; what should have been a fun day of father/son bonding was totally ruined by overzealous security guards who thought we were terrorists, and a bored suburban cop who knew less about PennDOT motor vehicle code than my dad!

Needless to say, my dad registered the Pathfinder, the Harley, and my mom's Honda Odyssey in Pennsylvania within weeks of that traffic stop because he didn't want to be a target for police while teaching me how to drive.

That also was not the first incident; in December 2005, my dad was teaching me how to drive on the campus of what was then Delaware Valley College (now Delaware Valley University). A security guard drove up to us and told us that we could not be there because it was a private campus; I worked at Del-Val as part of a high school special ed program in 2009-2010, and I talked to the head of security about this incident. He was very nice and said he didn't know why we were hassled, because it was a public campus, and people were free to come and go as they pleased as long as they didn't break the law...

Ironically, NAS Willow Grove proved to be the best place for uninterrupted harassment-free driving lessons, even post-9/11. We had a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder, a 2002 BMW 325i convertible, and a 2004 Honda Odyssey which all had DoD stickers. As my dad's wife, my mom was allowed to drive any one of those vehicles onto the base by herself, and I can remember her giving me driving lessons in the BMW when my dad wasn't around. Being a military brat really has its perks!

 

Almost 185K, and my mechanic said the brakes had more than 5,000 miles left at 180K when I last had the oil changed; I'll probably have all the brakes done at 190K...

 

Dude, it's awesome!

 

What I was originally trying to say was that retesting elderly drivers should be done on a case-by-case basis. Like California, there are plenty of reasons not to live in Illinois, but if I lived there I would flee when I legally became a senior citizen just to avoid having to take a damned road test at every renewal. Also, who wants to go to the DMV every year?!?!

It's bad enough that most states' driver's licenses are good for five or more years, while Pennsylvania makes you renew every four years. I've got family in Myrtle Beach and their licenses are all valid for a decade; I've also got family in Florida and their license are all good for eight years! Same with my family in Virginia; 8 years!

I've got family in California, and I believe their licenses are valid for five years.

My girlfriend kinda got lucky; her PA license did not expire until 2025, but she wanted a license with her new address on it and I convinced her to get the real ID. Amanda hated her old picture, largely because she's lost a lot of weight since it was issued. The DMV said she could get a new picture, so she did. Because her old license still had a year and a half left, and the renewal period is four years, Amanda's license is valid for almost six years rather than the usual four (expires June 2029)! My latest license was issued in January of this year, and it expires the day after my 38th birthday in March 2027; I more than likely will still be in PA by then, but who knows what the future holds?