Mr Tech

Oscarsear, I have been an ASE certified technician for 35 years and have owned my own repair facility for 31 years. First of all what they are telling you is possibly totally true and legitimate. I've seen it happen many times before. It is never the technicians fault for a bolt breaking (no technician would turn a bolt the wrong direction, it just doesn't happen). I am not familiar with Range Rovers, we don't work on those, but I might be able to better explain how and why this bolt broke. It would not have been affected by the leaking water pump because there is a "spit hole" in the water pump where the coolant leaks out when the pump fails. Any coolant leaking on the external head of a bolt would not affect it anyway. A lot of water pump bolts are relatively long and not only go thru the water pump, but also thru the timing case cover and then into the block. The corrosion probably came from where the bolt passes thru a water (coolant) jacket in the timing case cover. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. The corrosion could have been accelerated if the cooling system was neglected in any way. Anyway, when the tech attempts to remove the corroded bolt in the normal manner, it just breaks. Removing a corroded broken bolt can be extremly difficult. Accessability is the first problem. The bolt is probably broken off in the block and most likely will require removing the timing case cover in order access it. This is a huge job. You also have to have at least 14-16 inches of clearance to access the broken bolt with a drill & drill bit. This also could be a problem. I would suggest that you visit the dealer and have their tech show you exactly where the broken bolt is and explain exactly what he will have to do to access it. This is not something that can be explained over the phone, you need to see it for yourself. I would refrain from pointing fingers of blame until you have seen the situation & received an explanation in person. The price they qouted you to repair this may or may not be too high. There's no way to know that. I would never qoute a customer a price for a broken bolt extraction, because no two of them are the same. I would charge our hourly labor rate for however long the job took. Usually I would give the customer a "high-low range" of what the repair will cost. I doubt very much that the extended warranty would cover this, although it would'nt hurt to ask. Most extended warranties suck and are not worth what they cost. Good luck

I am an auto tech by trade. Mr Tech, as in my avatar, was a fictional character used in training videos & booklets by Chrysler Corp. for training their techs.

Now that's funny ! [Y]

I don't know about how to keep them out from under the house other than blocking their entry way, but I do know that they can be lured out with dog food. We have about a 1 acre woods behind our house which is loaded with racoons. When we first moved in there and spotted a racoon we thought it was cute to put a bowl of dog food on the back porch and watch him come and eat it. Before long 2 & 3 racoons were coming and then 4,5,6 of them at a time. Once, two of them got into a fight over the food and one of them "puncned" the other one and knocked him into the pool. I don't know if he was dazed or not, but it was apparent that he couldn't get out of the pool on his own, so I went out there and helped him out with the pool pole. After that we didn't put the dog food out anymore. Almost never see one now.

I just didn't know when.

After suffering for years with neck pain I started to have problems (pain, numbness & tingling) in my right arm & hand also. The surgeon told that a nerve was being pinched in my neck and I had degenerative disk desease in C5,C6 & C7. He also said that if it didn't get fixed I could probably end up with my right arm & hand being paralized. That was enough to convince me to go for the surgery. In my case the surgeon removed the 3 disks and also cut away the vertebra around the disks as it was also pinching on the nerve root. Then he inserted a single bone graft (fusion) in the place of the removed disks. He then installed a titanium plate & screws to hold it all together. It was a pretty scary surgery, especially with the grinding of the vertebra around my spinal cord. But the surgeon was great and the results were fantastic. I was in the hospital for 2.5 days and recovery was very fast. A soft neck brace was optional and not required due to the plate holding everything together and promoting the fusion. I now have zero neck or arm pain and about 90% neck mobility. The surgeon wanted me to take 4-6 weeks off work, but my job is pretty sedetary so I only took 2 weeks off and felt fine. Picking the right surgeon can be tough. In my case my wife works for a prominent knee surgeon and he highly recommend a surgeon friend of his who he said was the best "neck guy" in the business. He did a great job on me. He even prayed for me before wheeling me into the OR. Let us know when you are going to have this done and we will surely keep you in our prayers. Good luck

No personal experience, but I recently heard about this CPAP mask alternative. http://nomask.com/ Good luck, Wade

I was wondering why Marshall has'nt been around here much the last couple of months or so too. Hope he's okay. Anyway the NHC has Fay coming straight up the state and making a bee-line for Jacksonville (that's me). At least it's expected to be only a tropical storm by that time. Jacksonville always seems to dodge these bullets, but our luck is bound to run out sooner or later. Time to get the generator out and filled with gas. Wade

Wow ! http://www.royaldevice.com/custom.htm

Christy, your mother in law, you, dtel & your family are in my prayers. Be blessed. As you are a blessing to so many others. Wade

No, Dee, no ducks yet. [] I'm hoping they show up here in sunny Florida pretty soon though, while it's still nice & sunny.[H] Well, that's most of the time anyway, so I guess I'm pretty safe there.

Okay, I admit it's a small one compared to many others here, but this is my 100th post! Yes, I am truly a man of few words. What can I say. This does "officially" make me "duck worthy", although Amy did, so graciously, deem me "duck worthy" with only 19 posts. Wade

I'm in for 3 XL, maybe more. Wade

Thanks for the explanation Bob on that confusing paragraph in the dbx manual. Yes, I have pretty much concluded the the dbx has a channel out. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't due to my hook-up or anything. I just got this off of ebay and the seller will refund on return of the dbx. Just wanted to make sure before I sent it back. Wade

Yes, this dead "hiss" channel is whichever one that is hooked up to the marked "2" channel output on the DBX. Wade

I have a NAD T753 Receiver which has no phono input so I use a NAD PP2 Phono Preamp and then that inputs into the tape or aux input on the receiver. I'm not sure what you mean by "flip on tape monitor". The DBX seems to work fine on one channel, just hiss noise on the other. The wires & connections are fine. I'm pretty sure the DBX unit has a problem. Wade

This is the DBX.

I recently acquired a DBX 118 to run my turntable through as Dave Mallette suggested sometime back in another thread. I have a NAD receiver with no phono input, so I am using a NAD Phono Preamp separately. I have it hooked it up as shown in the pics. The first pic is the NAD Phono Preamp & the second pic is the DBX 118. Simple setup, should work I thought. What I get is one channel operation only. The other channel is dead. Everything works fine when not going throught the DBX unit. I checked cables, connections & all is fine. Is there something wrong with the DBX unit or am I doing something wrong? There is a paragraph in the DBX's manual that is confusing. It says: "The 118 may be used to process a monaural program. Because the RMS detectors for the two channels are not independent, attempts to process two simultaneous, but different, mono programs through the 118's two channels will cause the channel with the stronger signal to dominate the compression or expansion in both channels. This will result in unwanted variations in program level in the channel carrying the quieter signal at any given time." I am attempting to run stereo, not mono, through the DBX. Any help or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Wade

This is the DBX

I recently acquired a DBX 118 to run my turntable through as Dave Mallette suggested sometime back in another thread. I have a NAD receiver with no phono input, so I am using a NAD Phono Preamp separately. I have it hooked it up as shown in the pics. The first pic is the NAD Phono Preamp & the second pic is the DBX 118. Simple setup, should work I thought. What I get is one channel operation only. The other channel is dead. Everything works fine when not going throught the DBX unit. I checked cables, connections & all is fine. Is there something wrong with the DBX unit or am I doing something wrong? There is a paragraph in the DBX's manual that is confusing. It says: "The 118 may be used to process a monaural program. Because the RMS detectors for the two channels are not independent, attempts to process two simultaneous, but different, mono programs through the 118's two channels will cause the channel with the stronger signal to dominate the compression or expansion in both channels. This will result in unwanted variations in program level in the channel carrying the quieter signal at any given time." I am attempting to run stereo, not mono, through the DBX. Any help or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Wade

Great job Marshall !!! [Y] Is the entire "book" going to be made available? Possibly as a .pdf file? Thanks, Wade

I just got done listening to all of the Jazz albums I purchased from Gary. Wow!!! They all sound great! I love all of them. I don't think I could even pick a favorite. These will be favorites in my collection forever. If anyone gets the opportunity to buy any of Gary'sLP's you better jump on it. Excellent to perfect condition, profesionally cleaned and packaged, what more could anyone ask for? Not to mention the couple of "freebies" that Gary so generously threw in. Gary is truly a gentleman, a scholar and one awesome audiophile! I kinda feel like I won the Klipsch forum LP lottery. Just happened to be in the right place at the right time I guess. Thanks again,Gary, I truly appreciate it. Wade

That report was written by my good friend Mitja Borko who lives in Slovenia. The report can still be found on his website as a .pdf file It is here: http://mitjaborko.googlepages.com/audiopage3

I pondered over both of these same cameras last year. I utimately went with the Nikon D80. I definitely do not regret it. I love this camera. Check these professional reviews of both cameras. That's what I did. Also, note that the Nikon D80 also comes with an 18-55mm lens for a lesser price. I think at the time I bought mine the D80 was about $200 more than the Rebel with both having the same lenses. http://www.dpreview.com/news/0609/06092301nikond80review.asp http://www.dpreview.com/news/0608/06082416canoneos400drebelxti.asp http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/nikon/d80-review/ http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/digital_rebel_xti-review/

Gary, I'll take the jazz albums. Thanks, Wade Anderson wadeanderson@bellsouth.net