Friday and living is easy.

The hardest thing I did today, was to go over to the home of a friend of my younger brother to look over his, wife's minivan. She had an accident with it and while the damage didn't look too serious he was questionable about the nearly $6,000 dollar repair estimate.

Now its been a while since I've worked in an auto repair shop and front wheel drive cars aren't my cup of tea, but it doesn't hurt to look and provide a sound judgement.
The body damage was reasonably minor and easy to take care of it was what was underneath that caused me to look a second and third time. Unibody construction and minor fender benders are one thing this was a substantial impact. The lower control arm for the steering was snapped in twain, the Macpherson strut bent, sway control rods snapped out of their sockets, steering rod bent, also it looked as if the engine and transaxle shifted as well although there was no obvious damage to the front of the vehicle. Still the front engine mount didn't sit square any longer. Now I'm up for most any mechanical challenge but not being overly familiar with front wheel drive vehicles I took a second look. Using a good straight edge of a four foot level I placed the on the front braces and supports across the car. I was looking to see if there was deviations in the brackets supporting the suspension and there appeared to be some. While steel will bend and cast iron will break, aluminium even castings have some flex before breaking but is still very rigid. I can only surmise that the steel the aluminium was bolted too had flexed as well.

My best advise was to try to divest yourself of emotional attachment to the vehicle check the Kelly Blue Book values base on before the accident condition both for high quality and good quality and then relook at the repair estimates from certified shops. I felt the work needed was beyond my meager skills as a wrench turner. With quite a few hours of dissasembly being required to facilitate repairs. Also I was worried about the shaft seals for the axle outputs. With the type of hit the car took those would probably need replacing as well. It litterally shattered the factory aluminium wheel on the side that struck. Again signs of a substantial impact to a vehicel that is designed to collapse to protect its occupants, even with out airbag activation.

Still Its Friday! and living is easy, for today I took a day off from my marathon training. Why yes there are days i don't run so that the biomechanical machine of my body canhave some time to recover from exertions. And exert it I did on Thursday afternoon with a 22 mile training run in 4 hours and 33 minutes followed by a 15 minute, 1/2 mile cool down walk. Still my total time was much shorter than I desired for training purposes. But I am confidant I will be able to complete the marathon in about 5&1/2 hours.

As for the conditions of the run on Thursday, I was a bit surprised. All summer long I had been dealing with warm humid conditions, yesterday afternoon the temps were in the lower 60's with a moderate west wind. While I was sweating, I wasn't watering the roadway in sweat for it was evaporating at a good rate and my running apparel was staying fairly dry all considered. Yes I had white salt stains on the strps and body of my Camel Back /hydro pack and black shorts. But my running shoes were not squishing with sodden socks, orthotics and liner. While I was somewhat tired at the end of the run I didn't feel spent and was even able to head out in the evening for a few beers.

Yes, I caught part of the Biden/Palin debate while out for the beer, but it wasn't as deep in issues on opening as I had hoped.

still I called it a reasonably early night returning home at 9:45PM to hit the hay.

As for tomorrow, I need to check my calendar, I think there is a 10K race nearby on Saturday, I can go to and harrass the people running in it as well. I've a Snowball's chance of surviving the Simpsons of winning my age group, but hey its a diverson for me as well. Especially when the guys younger than me are puking their guts out wondering how I'm keeping up. hehehe.

Safe weekend everyone,
Q