Archive for the ‘Projects’ Category

• Busy lately – Camping, Jeeping, Motorcycling, Partying

  Date: 2010.05.16 | Category: Family, Friends, Jeeping, Music, Party, Projects, Toys, Travel, Work | Response: 0

  I haven’t posted in quite a while. That time has been filled with all sorts stuff. I’ve been riding my motorcycle around, going camping and Jeeping, Ward’s wedding, more motorcycling, and just hanging out with people around Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

  I guess I’ll start with links to albums in chronological order, just to document things. I have such a backlog of stuff that I can’t really write it all out in detail. Instead, we’ll skip straight to the pics, and brief blurbs.

  Pete and I took our motorcycles down to the beach one random day for lunch. We ate, walked around looking at girls in bikini’s then we turned around for Easter Dinner.
  

  I went to Ward’s wedding and met up with a whole bunch of RIT and Cisco folks. It was incredible to have everyone together again. There was a lot of bittersweet talk about how this was the first and maybe last large reunion of so many RIT grads in one place.
  

  There was camping and Jeeping after that.
  

  Brendan and I took a random Thursday after that and went up to Richmond, VA to see Flogging Molly and Big D and the Kid’s table. They added ridiculously hot dancers. I was immediately in love. We also met up with Esther and her friend that night. It made for a long night. I eventually wound up riding my motorcycle at home from the Cisco parking lot at 3AM. Heated grips are AMAZING!

  The next night we went out for Sasha’s birthday party. Raleigh was in full blown skirt season. It was excellent.
  

  The first week of May is a Blur. Brendan’s friend Daniel had a grad party
  

  I saw Steve’s band Idiom play at The Berkely. We met a cute Brunette that worked at an Animal Hospital
  

  Aric had a house warming party where it was decided that everyone loved this girl
  
  We also ran into another short Brunette who had opinions on whether or not Earth should be keeping a backup planet in the works for disaster recovery. Awesome.

  Shapess, Andy and I had a random day out at Uwharrie. I had time to dial in the scope on my 22, AND spent some time shooting Shapess’ AK-47. Too much fun there.
  

  On May 12th Kenneth, Pete, and I drove down to Charlotte to see Say Anything and Angels and Airwaves. Say Anything put on a good show but the set was too short unfortunately. It was nice to know that the girls belt out the lyrics to “Every Man Has a Molly” even louder than the guys.
  
  You god damned kids had best be gracious with the Merch money you spend.
  Cause for you I won’t ever have rough sex with Molly Connolly again.

  I met a beautiful girl with so many awesome traits it’s hard to believe she actually exists.
  1. Bartender
  2. Graduated Culinary School
  3. Loves the music scene
  4. Gorgeous
  5. Incredibly friendly / nice
  6. Brunette
  7. Tiny
  8. Likes jeeps and motorcycles, knows how to replace a radiator.

  Doubtful that said girl will actually get in touch with me – but it was a good night regardless. Another weeknight of getting home around 3AM. Energy drinks are my savior.

  Just last night I went to a Skinny Tie Party at Justin Tiexera’s place.
  
  I proceeded to introduce myself to a girl so forcefully that she immediately notified me she was someone elses wife. I need to do a better job looking for rings.
  I also met another beautiful brunette who can bust out the quadratic equation at the drop of a ‘hat’. Math teachers for the win. There was Rock Band. People rocked out to Coheed and Cambria, and I sang my heart out to NIN – The Hand That Feeds. I don’t even need the scrolling words to sing this one:
  

  And finally – today I went on an awesome motorcycle ride out to Wilson NC with my motorcycle gang. We hit up Parker’s BBQ and it was delicious. There was some really beautiful back country and great roads between here and Wilson if you avoid the highway.
  

  After riding around NC I went over to Andy’s house and helped him tinker on his new front axle. We removed the diff cover and took out the locker, getting it ready for the new axle. We also greased up his lower control arms, and I drilled some holes for his new bump stops.

  I am now VERY tired just thinking about all of that.

  The future holds a trip to DC to see the air and space museum, and hopefully a trip out to the mountains with my Mom to check out the roads there.

  In other non fun related matters, I’ve REALLY got to recertify my CCIE

• Jeeping with Wes: Catastrophe

  Date: 2009.07.11 | Category: Friends, Jeeping, Projects | Response: 3

  Just got back from Jeeping with Wes in Uwharrie. Wes decided to break in his BRAND NEW Jeep on the trail. He seriously got it no more than 10 days ago. It’s a 2004, but it was in pristine condition at the beginning of the day.

  I fixed that. Got the new off.

  Dumbass that I am, decided to back down a bit to get another go at an obstacle. I was pretty close to Wes, but thought not much of it.

  I took a good look at the hill, mentally pictured going up it, and hit the gas. I needed to get a bit of speed because not all tires would be on the ground, and I don’t have lockers. I needed to roll over the obstacle a bit until all 4 wheels touched again for traction uphill.

  Note to self: Before hitting the gas enthusiastically, check to see what gear you are in. If you want to go forward, perhaps the big R is not the right choice.

  Wes received 5700 lbs, 290 ft-lbs of torque, in 4 wheel low straight to the Grill / Hood / Radiator. This required us to actually replace the radiator shortly after the incident as the life blood of the cooling system drained away. Poor environment.

  On the plus side, I now know how to replace a radiator, and how much they cost.

  Witness the carnage:

  Luckily we were able to restore it to “just like factory” specifications:

  Yep. Classic.

  That will be an experience I’ll not likely live down. I normally wouldn’t post something this embarrassing so soon after it happened, but listen closely to 1:58 in the second video. I’m pretty much awesome.

• WordPress on a new server!

  Date: 2009.06.07 | Category: Projects | Response: 0

  So I’ve switched to WordPress on a newfangled server (ok just a newer old server, my old 2.4GHz P4 “Quagmire”).

  Migrating all of my Serendipity posts out was sort of a bitch. I lost all my comments, and am thinking of adding them back.

  Here’s what I had to do to get my Serendipity info into WordPress:

  insert into burns_wp.wp_posts (
  post_author,
  post_title,
  post_content,
  post_date,
  post_date_gmt,
  post_modified,
  post_modified_gmt)

  select
  serendipity.serendipity_entries.authorid,
  serendipity.serendipity_entries.title,
  serendipity.serendipity_entries.body,
  FROM_UNIXTIME(serendipity.serendipity_entries.timestamp),
  TIMESTAMPADD(HOUR,4,FROM_UNIXTIME(serendipity.serendipity_entries.timestamp)),
  FROM_UNIXTIME(serendipity.serendipity_entries.last_modified),
  TIMESTAMPADD(HOUR,4,FROM_UNIXTIME(serendipity.serendipity_entries.last_modified))

  from serendipity.serendipity_entries order by serendipity.serendipity_entries.timestamp

• Man Pill

  Date: 2009.05.02 | Category: Projects | Response: 0

  I’ve decided that I want to make a product that brings me ridiculous amounts of wealth and allows me to pursue my dream of flying planes and racing motorcycles.

  My new invention will be:

  The Man Pill

  This once a day pill (for men) will be a multifaceted wonder drug. It promises to:

  1. Grow hair back on your head
  2. Increase the length of your penis
  3. Give you a rock hard erection for 6 – 12 hours
  4. Lower cholesterol
  5. Increase muscle mass

  An optional version of the man pill will even act as a contraceptive.

  BAM! Let the money start rolling in.

• Jeep – 4″ Superlift – DONE!

  Date: 2008.12.19 | Category: Jeeping, Projects | Response: 0

  I just picked my 05 WK up from the shop last night. As promised here are the pictures of before and after, and some info for you.

  Jeep: 05 WK 4.7L Laredo

  Lift: 4″ Superlift w/ SSR Shocks

  Install Difficulty & Time: Professional Installation at 4WheelParts, 3 Days. Requires welding and cutting.

  Tires: 285/70-17 BFG A/T KOs

  Spacers or New Wheels: ProComp Extreme – 17″ by 8″ with 4.5″ of Backspacing

  Rubbing: Front Driver and Front Passenger fender at full lock. Driver side at full left lock. Passenger side at full right lock. Pics to follow.

  Problems:

  1. Shop forgot to hook the E brake back up. Whoops. No big deal there.
  2. Very light rubbing on front fenders at the pinch weld area.
  3. Drive shaft contacts exhaust pipe during some driving situations. Reproducible by driving up onto a curb with both front tires and letting the Jeep roll back a bit in Park.

  Handling: Tires are a bit louder and you can feel the extra tread. I like this.

  Takes a bit longer to slow down those 33″ tires.
  Takes a bit longer to get those 33″ tires up to highway speed.
  Must downshift to accelerate on some hills where I remember just powering through with torque before. Not a huge problem though as you can still get where you’re going quickly.

  Before Pic:

  

  After Pics:

  

  

  

  Here is the Front Driver side Fender rubbing at the rear of the wheel well. You can see where it touches slightly at full lock to the left.
  

  Here is the passenger side rubbing at full lock to the right:
  

  Here’s the drive shaft hitting the bend in the exhaust pipe:
  

  Full pictures available here.

  The tires stick out a bit with the 4.5″ backspacing, but I think it’s a pretty good look.

  I like the Matte Black rims with the white Jeep. Way better than chrome to me.

  I picked it up at the shop last night. We knew about most of the issues when they handed me the keys and we’ve got some time setup for them to get it taken care of.

  It’s muddy already because my coworkers wanted to see if it would climb some of the trails behind the office. It has been raining for the past few days here in Raleigh. The answer to their question was… yes it can.

  One minor drawback, or a point of entertainment… depending on how you look at it. My short friends have a hell of a time getting in. Very funny to watch.

• Jeep WK 05 Front Tow Hooks

  Date: 2008.09.28 | Category: Jeeping, Projects | Response: 0

  I think I’m going to start taking pictures of projects and posting instructions.

  I always find the instructions to all sorts of things lacking. The only way I figure stuff out is to sit down and actually look at it. Hopefully this will help some random internet user, or will at least be interesting to someone.

  My first project is installing front tow hooks on a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee WK.

  I bought the Mopar parts off of justforjeeps.com.

  Included was two tow hooks, two nut strips, two nut studs, and six nuts.

  The tow hooks mount to the frame, but there are no bolts in the frame, so that’s where the nut strips come into play.

  Here you can see the nut strip with two bolts on it inserted in the frame rail.

  

  There is also a nut stud for the third bolt that goes through the frame cross member.

  

  Getting this nut stud through the cross member is simple. There is an open hole that you can get to without any effort at all to put it through the top.

  Getting into the frame rail however is a completely different matter.

  To do that you need to remove the front fascia, and to remove that you need to take off the grill.

  The grill is just held on by a handful of plastic rivets right on the top black plastic section. The plastic lip right under where the hood closes is part of the grill, and all that holds it on.

  Here is an example of one of the rivets for that piece

  

  These rivets are reusable. The pin will pop right out. First use a flat head screwdriver or something flat to pry out the pin from the body of the rivet. After that the pressure on the rivet will be removed and you can just pull that out with your fingers, or pry out with a screwdriver.

  Once all the rivets are out the top of the grill will come forward, releasing the tabs on the bottom of the grill and then you can just lift up and off.

  The front fascia needs to come off next.

  This has 2 single use plastic rivets on each side holding the wheel well backing to the fascia. These are usually broken before you even start the project anyway. Just snap them off with whatever you can get a grip on them with.

  

  Next there are two 7mm head screws holding each side of the front fascia to the quarter panel / fender (one on each wheel well). Look right above the rivets you just removed.

  Next crawl under the car. In my case there were 3 – 10 mm screws holding the very bottom of the fascia to the metal rail under the radiator. The instructions showed 3 plastic rivets that were supposed to be there. My guess is they didn’t cut it and whoever had the jeep before me replaced them, but I could be wrong.

  Once these 3 screws are out you’re almost home free.

  The next step is removing the 4 reusable rivets holding the top lip of the fascia (right under the bottom lip of the grill you just removed)

  

  Here’s what that rivet looks like. The pin doesn’t come out, all the way. Just pull it out until it stops, then the whole rivet should come out.

  

  Now you are almost there. With those four rivets out the fascia will slide forward, and drop down off the little hanger at the bottom of each fender

  

  If you have the fog lights though, don’t forget to unplug them!

  

  You should now have the front fascia in hand.

  

  At this point there are only two small access caps in front of the frame rail stopping you from sliding in the nut strip, and that’s why we took this whole damn thing off anyway.

  Unscrew the single 10mm screw from the cover, it’ll pop off – then install the nut strips.

  The bolting on of the parts is pretty straight forward. The nut strips and everything only fit one way.

  Instructions say torque to 50 ft lbs.

  This is really important. They don’t mean 100ft lbs. They don’t mean 75. Use a calibrated torque wrench.

  Here’s what happens when your asshole friend hands you an uncalibrated torque wrench set for 50 lbs, but that is actually putting out closer to 100.

  

  Popped that bolt right in half on the nuts strip. Pow!

  I figure using some grade 8 bolts with big washers would most likely serve the same purpose as the nut strips, so here’s what that looks like:

  

  I’ll let you know how it holds up when pulling another car.

  So that’s it. Torque all your bolts to 50 ft lbs and then reassemble.

  1. Frame rail end caps back on
  2. Front Fascia lined up
  3. Plug on fog lights (optional)
  4. Hook top of fascia through hangers
  5. Make sure fascia goes outside, then behind (closer to rear of vehicle) the wheel well backing
  6. Put the top screw in the fascia next to the hanger
  7. Put the screws on under the car into the radiator rail
  8. Put the 4 reusable plastic rivets back into the front fascia
  9. Scrounge around for 4 more crappy disposable rivets to hold wheel well backing (or just leave them out like I did )
  10. Set grill in place
  11. Push in all the rivets for the grill

  That should be everything!

• Open Source Tinkering – Wireshark

  Date: 2008.07.06 | Category: Projects | Response: 0

  I never thought I’d be able to say this, but I’m contributing to an open source project.

  I’m pretty damn excited about it.

  I use Wireshark almost every day to decode all sorts of voip messages. One thing that has always bothered me is not all the SCCP messages (the protocol used to control Cisco IP phones) are decoded properly. I would wind up referring back to the standard and decoding the hex. Ugh.

  Thanks to the wonderful world of open source I can fix this.

  Here’s the dissector for sccp packets.

  I’ve got my build environment all setup with SVN syncing the source from the wireshark repository.

  I’ve compiled the code from SVN and it worked right off the bat!

  Next step:

  Make my modifications to packet-skinny.c and compile it again. I’ve got a slew of SCCP packet captures to test against.

  I would love to have my name in the AUTHORS file of Wireshark. How bad ass would that be?

  Wish me luck!

• Forums!

  Date: 2008.05.04 | Category: Projects | Response: 0

  I had a few extra minutes today and installed PHPBB.

  I was hoping we could use this forum software to coordinate trips and events and post randomness.

  You can get to the forums here.

  And also in a new link I’ve added at the top right of the page you’re looking at now at least if I haven’t changed the blog style.

  Register and let me know what you think. I think we need some way to organize all of our thoughts and plan a trip out. A forum could be a nice way to collectively solidify plans. I hope.

• Vista PC

  Date: 2008.02.08 | Category: Projects | Response: 0

  I bought a new PC and am rocking the Vista on it.

  I’ve also installed WoW, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. I play all of these on high cranked up to 1680×1050. It looks so smooth and awesome.

  Dual GeForce 8800 GTS 512s in SLI will do that.

  So far I like Vista. I will let you know if that changes.

  After I figured out my memory timing and voltages had to be manually set, life was a lot better and Vista stopped crashing. Another huge help was properly seating the heat sink with the right amount of thermal paste.

• Moving to Serendipity

  Date: 2007.08.30 | Category: Projects | Response: 0

  No looking back!

  I’m ditching my custom blog application and moving over to Serendipity.

  It’s got all of these cool features that would take me WAY to long to program.

  You can still catch my old blog at http://bbbburns.com/burnsblog/ but everything going to bbbburns.com should punt you right to /blog/ for serendipity.