I know, the weather is changing and it is getting dark earlier each day. But where is everyone? I'm still here, planning on taking more parts off the LS this weekend. I did notice that this car has traction control but no ABS. It has speed sensors and tone rings on the front so I have a spare set of axles!

 

My 90 yr mom fractured her patella sometime in the past month.
Doctor finally sent her for Bone Scan of knee, which prompted x rays before we even left. Orthopaedist saw those results and ordered a CT scan,

Broken is broken. As in broke the end off. And it's an artificial knee, so the rest of the patella is already drilled and slotted etc. If you try to fix this on a 90 yr old set of bones, everything just splinters and you have to clean up the mess.

The surgical fix is to remove the entire patella and sew the two ends of the tendons that were attached to either end to each other. 1 month of non weight bearing bed boredom. She's done hallucinating from a mix of opioid painkillers, a UTI, and the amoxicillin used to treat it. What a mess.
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Haven't gotten the satty up on stands to check wheels and tires.

I can't stop thinking about the fact that I did a full rotation and it changed nothing, along with a balancing where I HOPE the balancing dude would say something if he saw unevenness in the rotation. Hell, it was actually at a tire and alignment shop!
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Another explanation if it ends up being one tire being out of round is that ALL FOUR are likely out of round. I have ABS and rarely do they come close enough to locking to flat spot all four tires.

When I had the 95 SC2, I would alternate between the two on a max 2 wk interval so as to avoid issues with seals and potential flatspotting of tires (which I thought took a lot longer than that anyway)

 

Sorry to hear about your mom. The tire shop told me that three of the wheels that were on my wagon were bent. Never felt it and I kept that set of wheel when I sold the wagon. I remember back in the day when the 240z came out they were extremely sensitive on tire balance. What would work on other cars would shake the wheel on a z car. We really had to sharpen our skills at tire balancing. We even bought a balancer that spun the wheels on the car to fine tune them. There is a road force machine at "Les Schwab" tire stores out west that will find and if possible smooth out tires. Sometimes they even have to dismount and turn the tires on the rims to smooth them out.

 

Yeah, I've just been busy working two jobs and eco-modding my Malibu in what little spare time I've got... I know it sounds bad, but without being able to fix my Saturn, my drive to log on has diminished somewhat...

 

Man, that sucks about your Mom, derf. We'll say prayers for her. Everything's pretty quiet around here. I put a "new" used rack and pinion in my PT GT a couple of weeks ago. Took me 4 and 1/2 hours. I'd have to charge someone $500 just to replace one for them. Real pain in the neck! Other than that, just doing some yard work and cleaning up around the house. Waiting for Re to find out when they will do her ankle replacement surgery. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, as the recovery is quite lengthy.

 

Ankle replacement surgery? I didn't know that existed as a procedure.....how much more torture must that woman endure?

 

It's kind of a misleading term, derf. They've done a CT scan of it and now the doctor will look it over and decide what's good and what's bad in her ankle. From there, he'll send the scan and his notes to a 3D imaging company with the specifications. They'll actually make a template and then using a 3D printer, manufacture the new pieces he wants to replace. They, he'll remove what's bad and put in brand new pieces! High tech ankle. Recovery time will be somewhat lengthy, with her not able to bear any weight at all on it for the first 3 weeks. She'll have a "knee scooter" to get around with. I've seen a few since finding out about the procedure. We go for the final CT scan tomorrow! She wants to put streamers, a horn and a bell on the scooter once she gets it. Gonna "BLING" it out! LOL

 

As not only are cars getting older but so are things like moms and us to. Derf it's tuff. Things don't heal as they should or maybe they do, technology is catching up with us and definitions are overtaking basic rules of thumb. When was the last time you knew some one who died of old age?
There is a long winded title with three or four definitions of what it means just to get to the point where the eyes closed.
My Dad died at 61 or 2 years old. I don't think I knew or remembered what the exact reason for his death was, but what I knew, he had a heart attack and during recovery he took a chain saw to a tree in the back yard and dropped dead before the tree came down. My mom died in her 90's peacefully and vaguely unaware that she was slipping away or maybe a bit confused at the end as she had Alzheimer's and it had gotten to the point where her body had forgotten how to live so she passed on. The last 15 years of her life she lived in a world slightly out of phase with the rest of us. I think she probably saw her dad before she went on down the road.
Me? I'll be 75 in a month or so and I think I will be glad of it, So damned many things are wrong at the present that I think just being 75 means I will outlive the symptoms.
Anyway I had to go to S. Phoenix this afternoon to see a couple we will visit tomorrow nigh. So I took the Saturn out. It is passable now but really has not been driven much in the last year or so. I had changed the oil to synthetic 20W50 last week after running dinosaur oil for the last 100,000 miles. I don't think there will be a sludge problem but I'll watch it. Went down the road to the expressway and pulled out into the fast lane and set the cruise control for 80. State speed limit here is 75 so 5 over you are blocking traffic.
I'm glad we never abused the thing, it just settled down and ran down the road. Valerie is talking like there are places she wants to go and she is not comfortable in the Van. If that be the case? It has A/C, it runs good and I can install Satellite radio in it.
We have got it we might as well use it. The only problem is every time I go to the dealer you have to fight your way through the salesmen wanting to give you rides in golf carts to go look at "new" cars so you can pick one and buy it. I must want to trade it, they don't make them any more.
It's 11pm, I'm off to bed

 

Thanks for the well wishes and prayers, folks.
They seem to be quite effective as my mom is now weight bearing on her bad leg with a seriously intimidating yet sleekly designed "dial an angle" knee brace that is locked straight for the next 4 weeks.
Oh they switched her meds and she immediately stopped hallucinating.

 

Good news!