terrawombat

No, Sir.

I'm still poor enough that I personally qualify for it. Both of the houses I'm interested in putting a bid on also qualify for it, so I should be good.

I qualify for a USDA Rural Development loan, which means no down payment. The USDA RD loan is also a better interest rate than the FHA...I need to do some research on the downsides of RD loans...

Took a peek at another house yesterday that has promise. Older house that was redone from the ground up - including foundation, electrical, windows, walls, appliances, A/C, heat, hot water heater. Comes with a wide, long garage with upstairs storage. Downsides are it's very close to neighbors (who are older and apparentely very quiet people) and it's close to two major roads so plenty of road noise. The road noise doesn't bother me too much, but the fact that I've got grandma on one side and great grandpa on the other will likely be an issue when I'm firing up engines in the garage or hosting parties for my friends. Going to keep it on the list of potentials while I take a second look at one house (without the tenants inside this time) and then go down the street some and take a peek at another house that just went on the market recently. Also need to deal with about 32 pages of fine print from the potential mortgage company. I want to shop around and get some competitive rates, but I don't really like that each one does a credit pull on me - too many in a short amount of time normally leads to a drop in credit score, which is ridiculous.

The first agent I was using was going after the homes that were at the upper limit of the budget I gave her. I kept telling her that even though I can spend up to XXX amount doesn't mean I want to. Didn't seem to sink in as she kept sending me home after home that would have stretched my budget thin. Stopped wasting my time with her. The second agent that I went with, and am still using, is a friend of the family. Don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but she's been doing it for 8 years and she knows what I can and cannot afford. We talk more about the things that are wrong with the house and how much we can reasonably lowball the seller without them getting insulted. A much different experience than the first agent who would try to sell you on every little aspect of the house. I hear you on the privacy thing - none of it whatsoever. I got some random guy at a bank asking me for my W2's from the past two years. Also wants my pay stubs and bank statements for the past two months. I understand why, but geez - I don't even let my GF of 4+ years see that stuff. And the amount they pre-approved me for....yikes....I'd have to live off Ramen noodles to pay off that monthly mortgage. I did find one house with a nice garage and a good amount of land for a nice price, considering the neighborhood it's in. It's currently being rented so the tenants didn't exactly take care of much. It's a definite fixer-upper and the owner knows it and listed it as such. I just have a feeling that a home inspection is going to reveal some pretty ugly things about it and I'll have to go back to looking/waiting. I've looked at the house once and the tenants were not supposed to be there - of course, they were. Makes it incredibly awkward, especially when the wife isn't feeling well and is sleeping in the master bedroom - probably the one room in the house besides the garage that I actually care about...and now I can't go in. Trying to get a second showing of the house with a guarantee that no one will be there as I want to bring my GFs father with me to check it out as a bit of a "pre inspection." He's a carpenter by trade and knows what to look for structurally. He's also in the market to buy a house so hopefully he doesn't like this one too much :D

My expectations have been lowered. Twice. Originally looking for a house with a very large detached garage and/or workshop. Found a couple, but the actual house was in such poor shape, it wasn't worth the $$ even if I'd be in garage heaven. Now looking at houses that have some form of garage, but also have the land to build a separate shop in the future. Again, found a couple, but the house is trashed. What was once a nice home with a beautiful interior has gone to crap because the owners simply didn't care. Nothing a little elbow grease can't fix, but still a bit disappointing, especially with some of the asking prices - you'd think these places were in pristine condition. Might be time to re-work the budget or ask the GF to help pitch in for the mortgage so I can get up to the next tier of houses.

I thought house hunting was supposed to be fun. All I've experienced is fatigue and disappointment. Seems like there are a lot of hoops to jump through... Anyone have any good housing buying experiences?

You need to start your own build thread so we stop crapping up this one.

That's odd. I'll have to re-test my '99XJ fuel pump assembly when I actually drop the tank and have the thing on a bench.

Looked like 97+ XJ interior door panels at a first glance. Yes, the iPhone 4 does not pick up low frequencies very well, if at all. Good to hear that you did a little bit of math on the enclosures and didn't just "make it fit." I've seen some very clever sub box enclosures that were made to fit awkward spaces, but the subs did not sound good at all. I understand the "work with what you have (are given)" mentality. When I started piecing together the system for my YJ, I was given an old mono amplifier that was actually worth a couple hundred. I decided to build my system around that and it wound up only costing me about $150 for the enclosure and the sub woofers. Fortunately, the volume of the sub box was right smack in the middle of the requirements for the subs that I wound up getting. I didn't do any math beforehand and just got lucky. My 2 10" setup in a properly sized box sounded 10X better than the kids with 3 12" subs in a box that they found for sale at Best Buy that they thought looked cool because it had neon lights and a clear panel where you could see their amp. I always thought those kinds of setups were a vehicle break-in waiting to happen, hence why I chose to hide all of my equipment. It may not have been as loud, but it was crisp without the typical droning you get from crappy setups. It also didn't rattle every nut and bolt on the truck, which I thought was pretty impressive in a YJ with a soft top, consider how loosely the soft top frame fit together.

I applaud the craftsmanship of the sub enclosure, but a few questions on it: 1. Is it going in your MJ? I see the video had it being used in an XJ, which would seem like what it was built for, considering the flat bottom base. If it i going in your MJ, then I must ask you this (this is not meant in disrespect and is a simple question seeking a simple answer...hard to convey that through text...emoticons don't help): aren't two 10" subs too much for a cabin the size of the MJ? I feel as though you will need to turn them way down if you don't want to rattle your teeth, unless that's what you're going for. I had two 10" subs in a downward facing enclosure in my YJ when I was in high school (I was young once, too, and I understand the appeal of big booming bass. We used to have parking lot wars in High School to see who had the loudest bass. I never won because I went for sound clarity over raw loudness). Anyway, in the larger volume cabin of the YJ, those two 10" were still too much when they were turned way down and tuned correctly. I have a feeling that much base in an MJ is going to get real old, real quick. 2. Are the sub boxes made with the subwoofers volume requirements in mind or are they made to fit a space? You would be surprised how much more you can get out of a subwoofer if the enclosure is built for it. When I took my two 10" subs out of the downward facing enclosure in my YJ (which was built to fit the Jeep, not to fit the sub) and put them in an appropriately sized box, it was night and day. They were two relatively cheap subs that I bought from a friend, but they sounded like a mid to high end sub in the right enclosure. I actually sold them for more than I initially paid for them because the buyer was impressed with the quality of the sound.

I haven't looked at the fuel sending unit too closely, but I do remember a few things about it when I contemplated doing exactly what you said. It's incredibly flimsy and looks like something that break into a billion pieces if you tried to remove it and swap it over. My original thought was to just swap over the "resistance" pad from the XJ assembly onto the Dakota one and I looked at how to go about doing that, but gave up when I felt like I was going to destroy it. I did some resistance measurements on the two assemblies and I don't remember what the numbers are off the top of my head, but this could all be solved by adding an appropriately sized inline resistor into the circuit....potentially...

The Dakota fuel pump has a different output resistance on the fuel level sender, by the way. I don't know of any way to change it in the PCM programming, which would mean your fuel gauge is going to read funky.

Jim - question for you. On your A215, did you ever have problems with the DC power connector coming loose from the motherboard, which basically required you to wiggle it around and prop it up on something to get it to charge? It seems to have been a major design flaw with the the Toshiba laptops in the A50+ models and was wondering if it was ever corrected. The problem was that Toshiba decided to use the two solder joints of the DC power jack as the only means of support, whereas other manufacturers would put a machine screw or two to anchor it down. Eventually the solder joints would fail and you would have to tilt the jack up or down to angle it so that it would make contact with the motherboard. I have an A75 and a A105 that both have the exact same problem. When I was in college, I got tired of having to open up my A75 every year to resolder the thing, so I machined a little "bridge" that would prop up the power cord. The A105 was given to me by my brother after he got a new laptop and there's simply no hope for that thing...needs to be completely taken apart and resoldered. Also noticed that my room mates also just got a new Toshiba A665D. They are absolutely horrible with the care of their computers so it'll be interesting to see how it holds up.

My first lappy was a Toshiba. Bought it in 2003 for college and I put four very hard years on it lugging it to and from class, throwing it in my back pack, carelessly tossing it around. It took the abuse and took it well. That laptop still works great to this day, but it had an Intel P4 processor in it and was a complete battery hog. I had to pop it open a couple of times and resolder the power connector to the motherboard, but other than that, it was a solid computer. I bought a Lenovo T61 in 2008 to replace the Toshiba and I still use it to this day. Even though the Lenovo is five years newer, the LCD screen on the Toshiba is 10x better. I think you'll be absolutely 100% fine with the laptop that you got. However, I am in complete agreement with the other that you need to ditch Best Buy. I only EVER go there if I need something ASAP as I know I'll be paying 10% more than any online vendor. Since you had to wait 2 weeks for the thing, anyway, I would have definitely kept my eye on Slickdeals.net or Fatwallet.com and waited for a deal to pop up. Edit: Took another look at the Toshiba - my girlfriend's little sister just got that same one from BB. She seems to love it, however, when I messed around with it for about 15 minutes, I could not get used to the keyboard at all. The spacing between the keys was too much.

That ad is written with a pompous undertone that is going to hurt the sale of the truck.

That thing needs a brake upgrade immediately!

We can go around in circles arguing that engineers over think and over complicate design scenarios while fabricators and craftsman don't think about it enough. It's an annoying argument and one I grow very tired of. In my opinion, the best solution is to have the two work together to come up with something that benefits everyone. I don't really see how this is in any way connected to the statement that you made before that all engineer's in their 20's and 30's are unimaginative because of their reliance on a computer program to do the work for them. All you've done is create another stereotypical scenario that I don't agree with considering 2 of my 3 Comanche's are non-lifted and ARE the $#!&. Well, if we're going to do a show and tell of our imaginative projects, then here is the most current picture of my 1988 Jeep Comanche that is getting the best that Jeep had to offer - a 5.9L V8 Magnum engine, the 97+XJ interior and front clip and Rubicon Moab wheels. The engine bay harness from the '98ZJ donor will be spliced together with the '97XJ donor interior harness which will be spliced together to the '88MJ rear lighting harness. I can only name a handful of other people that have done this sort of project. I remember the first computer my parents bought (a Tandy) and their first cell phone (the gray Motorola brick). I also remember when we had to adjust the rabbit ear antenna on top of our only TV to get channels 3, 6, 10, 17, and 29.

Pretty sure they were speaking of MD, NJ, and PA. Funny stuff, though.

I believe I had two welded on either sideplate (one on each side) and then there were four loose ones.

I'm having a hard time understanding why you are so opposed to me putting in a little bit more effort than the next guy in determining a safe and effective design for a trailer hitch. I'm not charging anyone for my time - I just wanted to use my IMAGINATION and not do a straight copy of an existing design. Plus, I wanted to have the peace of mind in knowing that it would perform as it was intended. Again, it was my name and reputation on the line and I want to protect that even if, by your standards, it means making it out to be more "complicated or engineered" than it actually is. Seesh. Sorry. I'm sure any Joe Blow that is good with a torch and a welder can come up with a perfectly acceptable trailer hitch design that fits on our trucks and works just fine. That's fantastic. Through my over complication and engineering, I was also looking for ways to reduce material costs, that I could pass down to the consumer. When it comes to sheet steel, weight = money. And finally, your generalization is somewhat insulting. Since I'm 26 and fall directly into your blanket statement of unimaginative engineers, I take offense. Computers, CAD, FEA, CFD etc. are all tools that aid engineers and are, by no means, a replacement for imagination. It was no different for the engineer's of days past that used a pencil and paper to come up with designs and perform calculations. The ideas have to come from somewhere and that's usually up in your noggin'.

Personal cell phone is an iPhone 4. Had a 3GS before that. Loved them both, great devices and very durable. My iPhone 4 has withstood some pretty good abuse. When I need the iPhone to just work - it does. Old work phone was a Motorola Droid. Loved it, great device and very easy to customize. I never like to keep anything stock and the Android-based operating system allows for that. For me, it's not about the hype. It's about form and function. Most 'i' devices generally score well in both categories.

KROIL. It eats PB Blaster for breakfast.

I just finished the first step of the ultimate MJ rust protection. I moved to Maryland. Next step is to move further south.