Was going to post over the weekend but just ended up busy at work (busier than most Mondays) and I was too burned out after I got off to really deal with much else. Actually, they changed my schedule around for the week so that makes things harder still to find time between everything to post. First off, the car show on Sunday was great, I was only able to attend for 2 hours since I had to be back to work for the afternoon but it was still enough time to see everything I wanted to. I was surprised at the turnout of the Vans and Transporters there was much to look at. I decided to add a gallery section and any car shows or meets I goto and have my camera handy I will post the pictures over in that section. Click on the van below to take you to the Volkswagens on the Green gallery:
I also had an issue with my Lenovo tablet. Actaully, this issue has existed in some form for quite sometime. It overheats after long periods of heavy use, and some other things that shouldn’t be so heavy like watching an HD movie for example. If I am taxing the CPU for an hour or more the system would get to hot and hard shut down (screen just goes blank and computer goes quiet.) After doing a search online some results turned up about other X61’s having overheating issues so I decided then I needed to do something about it or risk frying my hardware. As it turns out, there are two intake vents on the bottom of the laptop and one of them was covered with an adhesive backed plastic piece. This little piece doesn’t do anything else other than its specific purpose of blocking the airflow from that vent. Interestingly enough the part it was blocking has the bigger of the two fan intakes behind it, which would be the top right square in the picture below (piece already removed:)
Before removing the part, only the bottom left square was available as an air intake for the whole computer. It seems to me like the new guy on the assembly line has his uber plastic part placement paper upside down while he was working because after seeing the opening for the blower behind the other part it makes me really wonder what Lenovo was thinking when they decided to put that in. The feet also have recessed spaces within the dock so the computer sits flat on the base with no airgap between the two pieces. This would be great, if there was a vent on the docking station below the processor intake grates. It seems to be this ultrabase was an afterthought, I decided to drill a 1/2″ hole just in front of the foot for the bigger intake to pull some fresh air. So far the laptop has been noticeably cooler and the screen went from toasty to barely able being able to tell the computer was turned on. I am kind of surprised that a $3,000 computer when new from a company that is considered by many to be 2nd or 3rd best in the portable computer industry would skimp on the design like they did in this way. Lenovo its interesting that you cannot seem to build em’ as nice as IBM did in it’s day, since you are charging more than I would have to pay for a MacBook pro how about making the hardware have substance?
Seriously, my X31 I snagged for free is light-years ahead in the QC department when placed side by side with the X61, even the plastic feels much different / more sturdy on the x31.
I have been working different hours this week so my progress is more scattered than usual. I received the last of everything I need for the van, man these gaskets are just beautiful:
Since everything was here it was time to start disassembling the JDM Engine the rest of the way so the heads can get machined, 10 minutes later I had the first side off and my first look into what will become the new beast:
The Crosshatch pattern was very nice across the board, there was much carbon built up on the piston tops and will deal with removal tonight. The inside of the heads were clean and there was a bit of surface rust on the inside of the sleeve from sitting so long but no major surprises which is great news when you’re this late in the game:
Because of all the crud it was recommended to me that I should replace the valve stem steals so I will go ahead and order those up this weekend which makes it the true last piece needed to complete the engine.
Yummy gotta love crusty stuff:
I actually have more to share but I am simply out of time. I ended up picking up a new mouse which I haven’t had the pleasure of using much. More on that and a clean engine when I come back for next time 😀