A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals: The mystery of the clunky Camry

Saturday, January 19, 2013

The mystery of the clunky Camry

Aimee's beloved 1997 Toyota Camry, which we bought for only $3,500 four years ago, when it had only 44,000 miles, has developed a nasty driver-side clunk that won't be diagnosed, and it's driving me nuts trying to figure out what it is. It's also costing a lot of money in parts.

It all began when Aimee convinced me that the struts needed replacing. We were down in VA visiting with her family, driving around with extra passengers, which we rarely do, and the suspension kept bottoming out on small potholes and bumps that shouldn't have been a problem.

Accordingly I went out and bought a new set of lifetime warranty front struts and one day when the weather wasn't too cold, I pulled the Camry into my shop and switched out the struts and the sway bar links. The car no longer bottomed out, but Aimee came home a day or two later saying that there was now a new noise, a clunk that occurred while turning left.

Wives and car noises, I find, do not go together well. It's best not to have both together at any time if you can help it. Either you fix the noise, or you remove it from the environs of the wife. No compromise between these choices will end well, however reasonable and rational said compromise may seem to the husband.

So I took my floor jack and a long pry bar and went at the Camry, trying to make the noise happen. I pushed up and down on the fenders. I drove around the driveway in ever-decreasing circles with my head out of the window, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from and when it was happening.

I couldn't narrow it down, except that the control arm seemed a little loose and the ball joint could be inspected easily as the old control arm was being removed, so I ordered a new control arm with bushings and fitted it, inspecting the ball joint thoroughly at the same time. I put it back together and the noise was still there.

So again I took my floor jack and a long pry bar and went at the Camry, trying to make the noise happen. I pushed up and down on the fenders again and again. I drove around the driveway some more in ever-decreasing circles with my head out of the window, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from and when it was happening.

In a moment of faith-based inspiration I decided to switch out the driver side driveaxle and cv joints. The old one was bad -- the upper joint was bone dry and clicky, but not completely shot. I put it all back together, but the noise was still there.

I even tried to crowd source the solution on Facebook, but none of my Facebook friends seemed able to come up with a new idea.

I'm not completely at my wits end yet, and will try some more today with the pry bar and floor jack to make the noise happen, but I am very, very frustrated that I can't diagnose what seems to be a simple car clunk of a kind I've successfully repaired many times before.

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Welcome to our Farm Blog.
The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.

The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive and read backwards from there to get it in chronological order.

After getting tired of spam comments (up to a dozen or more per day), I required commentators to be Google "registered users". You can write me at mwomersley@unity.edu if you have a serious comment or question and are not a registered user.

Spammers -- don't bother writing -- there's no way I will post your spam to my blog. Just go away.

The Farm

The "Womerlippi Farm" is actually a homestead or smallholding where most of the food is grown for our own consumption and that of our friends and family. We raise Corriedale/Romney-cross sheep, feeder pigs in season, and Golden Comet, Aruacuna, Black Laced Wyandotte, Brahma, and Buff Orpington hens. We have wooded pasture, old apple trees, and a large kitchen garden. We build and maintain our own energy-efficient buildings, service and fix our own vehicles and farm equipment, and generally live a thoroughly self-reliant lifestyle. Our farm goals are less economic and more psychological/spiritual and lifestyle oriented. We like an independent, quiet home life with a lot of interaction with animals and the earth. Farming, building and energy-related engineering were also part of our education work at the former Unity College. Having said all that, we're practical people and grow a lot of pretty solid food and fiber. We're also happy to sell you some eggs or yarn or lambs.

PS: "Womerlippi" is a combination of our last names, "Womersley" and "Phillippi." The one is broad Yorkshire, the other Greek, although Aimee's ancestry and home culture is Pennsylvania Dutch/Shenandoah Valley Church of the Brethren. When Aimee and I married, she didn't take my name. She said she "wasn't trading up."

Why is this "A Great Farm Diary?"

Because the setting for the events recorded here is the "Great Farm" of Jackson, Maine, that's why. (Not because this is such a great farm, although we like it.)

Started by privateer and financier Israel Thorndike in 1806 as a vacation home, the famous Great Farm of Jackson was an agricultural showcase for this area of Maine, and Thorndike used it as such, an advertisement for his private land office business, as he disposed of the famous Waldo Patent, in which he was a part owner. Land purchasers could work off their mortgages as laborers on the Great Farm. Most deeds in Waldo County trace back to Israel Thorndike.

Thorndike, born to a family of modest means, went to sea to make his fortune. He captained a privateering vessel during the Revolutionary War, and tweaked the nose of the great Royal Navy more than once. He then settled to a life as a financier, merchant, and captain of industry in Boston. He remains listed as one of the fifty richest Americans of all time. He was the author, with Eldridge Gerry, of the first recorded gerrymander, and so his name went down in history for that peculiarly undemocratic deed too.

He was, in short, a rich, arrogant, unrequited arse, whose primary redeeming feature was impressive ambition. If you are such a person, you should feel ashamed. My work in academia has introduced me to many such wealthy people, and frankly, I'm tired of them. The world doesn't revolve around you and your silly ideas of what is important. Grow up.

Our own much smaller farm sits on a few acres of the original 2,000 that Thorndike developed as an agricultural showcase. As he was a famous Federalist, while Aimee and I are obvious neo-Jeffersonians, of sorts, I doubt he'd be pleased with what we've done with the place. But we don't give a rat's wotsit. As I said, we like it this way.

Read the very last posts in the archive for more details, or use search terms like Israel Thorndike or "Great Farm history" in the Google Blogger search engine (above, on the left).

How this Diary is Arranged:

From Mick:

The purpose of this blog is for Aimee and I to communicate with friends and family, with those of our students, and other folks in general who are interested in homesteading and farming activities.

The earliest posts, at the very end of the blog, tell the story of the Great Farm, our purchase of a fragment of that farm, the renovation of the homestead and its populating with people and animals. Go all the way to the last post in the archive below, click on the link provided, and read backwards from there to get it all in chronological order.

To find out what is happening right now, read the first post first.

Other blogs by Mick: UC SAR, UC Sustainability, Farm Diary

Enjoy.

Farm Produce

Purchasing Womerlippi Farm produce in season can be done by email arrangement, and/or by shopping at the Marsh River Coop in Brooks.

We sell yarn, fleece, lamb, and livestock for meat or breeding.

The yarn is Bartlett Yarn's 4-ply, a medium-thick yarn, in natural gray and brown, as well as natural dyes. It is soft and bulky, and makes nice old-fashioned knitwear. You can buy it for $7.50 a skein by emailing womersleymick8984@gmail.com. We ship priority mail, minimum four skeins at a time. The shipping is extra. We also have raw white and brown (natural colored) fleece in large quantities each spring, unwashed, untreated. Email us at mwomersley@unity.edu and name your price. Expect to pay shipping or pick up in person. Coming to the farm itself without prior appointment is not recommended. We have a child. We also have a dog who bites. We like that he bites, because we have a child we want to protect. If you come unexpectedly to the farm, stay behind any temporary hot-wire gate or fence, or park in the driveway, until someone comes. We'll know you're there because the dog will tell us. Loudly. Annoyingly. They will wake us or our kid, if we are asleep. We will be mad about this.

If no-one comes, we're not home. Go Away.

If you are yet more foolish and try to get out of your car and/or cross a gate or fence, expect to get bitten by a shepherd dog, rammed by a ram, or chewed out by a shepherd.

A Great Farm Diary: Womerlippi Homestead Annals