The Right Bolts For the Job and Fixing the Leaky Faucet

Monday January 22, 2018, Guerneville CA.

Good time to shop when it’s drizzling

It was drizzling again when I got it going today about noon, so kayaking was out.

Better to do some shopping and visiting instead.

Getting the right bolts

I needed some bolts that were the right length. I already bought five inch and six inch bolts, but I really needed five and a half inch bolts by a half inch diameter.

I knew the hardware store in Forestville specialized in bolts so I drove on over to see. Yes they had the right size so I bought five of them.

String for the leaky faucet

I also bought stuff to fix the leaky washing machine faucets in our rental property. The guy was real knowledgeable and said it’s hard to find the rubber stem washers and showed me some Teflon sealer string that was used for the purpose. So I was set.

Tie down straps

Next I needed some tie down straps for my carrier. I’d seen what might work at Wal-Mart the other day so off I went. They had quite an assortment so it took some time to go through them and find the best ones for my purpose. Of course, these were the most expensive ones, but heck, you don’t want them to break and your motorcycle falling off on the road some place. I’m not really sure exactly what I needed, but I figured to get something to try and go from there.

Self check outs

I noticed Wal-Mart has put a lot of new self check outs in the store. I wasn’t too impressed with ones I’ve used in the past so I wasn’t keen on using these. But the few non self check out lines that they had were real crowded and long so I thought I better give the self check outs a try as this seems to be the way things are going.

I only had one item so I thought it shouldn’t be too bad. It did take a bit of time to figure out what I was supposed to do. I was just about to call the lady over when I noticed the screen said what to do so I did it. I was looking for the pay slot and couldn’t find it. Oh, down there. I was impressed how fast it took my money in and made  change and that was that. I hear they are going to all self check outs, so good that I’m getting trained.

Stopped at Joes

I headed on towards home, but turned off at Joe’s to visit. Joe pulled into his driveway just after me so it was good timing. I shot the bull with Joe and his girl friend for a bit solving most of the world problems or at lease talking about them. We also talked about desert camping. Joe said he’d like to make it to the greatest flea market in the world, in Quartzite. I told him he better get on down there as it’s happening right now, this week.

Didn’t see the new puppy

I drove on home stopping at John’s house. I heard they have a new beagle puppy, but no one was home.

Doing the repair

Once home there was still time in the day to go over and try and repair the leaky faucet if someone was home.

Fortunately John was home. Does it seem like everyone’s name is John?

It looked like I could do this without turning the house water off. I turned the valves off and turned on the washing machine for a moment to drain the water pressure out. All I had to do was take out the screws that held the faucet handles on and remove the seal packing nuts. I was being real careful not to drop anything behind the washer and I thought I was doing a good job at that until I looked for the Teflon string and couldn’t it.

Back behind the washer

Sure enough, some how it dropped behind the washer. John says wait a minute and came back with some fireplace tongs so I was able to retrieve the string without moving the heavy washer.

Now the next problem was trying to keep the string on the stem while I put the treaded cap back on. Too much string and I couldn’t start the threads and the string wouldn’t stay tight on the stem, so I decided to just do the best I could and see if it stopped the leak.

I figured that the string would make the original seal washer thicker and put some pressure on it and it might work and it did.

No leaks John

I showed John that it wasn’t leaking and said to keep and eye on it for a bit and call me if it had any further problems and that was that.

The days drizzle had stopped but the day was cool and not a good day for working outside and there wasn’t much light left in the day, so I went on in the house for a nap and that was it for me for the day.

Good to get that leak fixed so I can be off on a trip to Oregon in a few days or so.