Free the Tree

55 degrees - nice weekend after a long week.

It felt like a long and difficult week at work and to top it off on Wednesday I noticed a thumping feeling and banging noise while driving the Touareg to work.  I pulled over immediately because my first instinct was to check for a flat tire.  All tires looked good and so I got back in the car and drove in through the NASA gate and the thumping came back.  I decided to continue driving but at a slow speed and I looked a little more closely at all four wheels once parked and saw that the balance weight was missing on the front right wheel.  Great!  I should be able to get this fixed for under $20 and at lunch I drove it over to the VW dealer and they rebalanced the tire for free, which was nice since they put the tire on in the first place.

Wheel caps - $16 for four on eBay.

I could not believe it when I got back on the road and the thumping vibration was back; now getting even more pronounced.  Later that evening I scoured the Internet to find a wide variety of similar symptoms and solutions from other Touareg, Q7 and Cayenne owners.  This looks like it is going to be expensive.  If it is just one of the air suspension struts I'm looking at around $2300.  I brought it back the next day and talked to the head mechanic and he said that it definitely sounds like the drive shaft and he confirmed that after a short test drive.  The work was done on Friday and they also flushed the coolant and replaced the brake fluid and gave me a free oil change and wash.  It feels good to have a vehicle that is now running well and I spent a little bit of time this morning gluing a piece of trim back on at the base of the door that I accidentally kicked off several times and I also replaced the VW wheel caps that were either missing or badly damaged after driving for almost eight years.  The Touareg took a little of my time and a lot of my money away from the Pointed Playhouse this week.  Frustrierend!

Just before lunch on Saturday I cut some more shingles and another heavy bag on the standing support outside the second floor window.  Once up on the roof I worked to weave the tiles on the left side of the dormer window and the large facing surface on the north side of the house.  I used a lot of the roofing tar that comes in a tube with the expectation that this will keep the tiles glued onto the roof during a strong storm.

It was quickly getting dark with the short days and I decided to hold off putting the last ridge cap tiles over the top of the dormer and main roof until tomorrow.  With the hour that I had left to work I got back up on the standing support over the roof and up on the little ladder and threw the yellow rope attached to the boom over the tree branch and went back downstairs to pull at the two connected ropes to pull the boom off of the hinge pins on the tree.  I don't need this hoist any more and this is my last chance to get it down while I have the standing support and ladder up on the roof.  I pulled the boom up and two of the hinges cleared the pins but the middle one got hung up and I had to go up there and pull at the two ropes and slip the boom over and off the pin by hand.  I then used the ropes to lower the boom and removed the straps that tied the other side of the hinge on the tree while I was up on the ladder.  The hoist was now down.

Boom now on the ground.

Hinge pin piece that was strapped to the tree.

Tomorrow I plan to finish installing the ridge caps and paint primer on the exterior walls and then get the three upstairs windows installed before it rains this week.  I have been pretty fortunate to have nice weather on most weekends and some rain during the week over the past month.

Tree with one less arm.