10/18/2011

So as I mentioned yesterday, there was more to the wheel center cap story. As I approached the car to go to lunch with mom, I saw that the passenger side rear cap was hanging loose and about to fall off. I pulled it loose and dropped it in the trunk of the car. We went to a little Chinese buffet and ate way too much. The whole time I was thinking of how I could better attach the center caps. I came up with nothing. After lunch, and a nap, I went to the shop to see with what I could up with come. First I tried more silicone on the one which fell out. I wasn’t happy with that so I removed all of them. I cleaned off the silicone and began thinking of other options. Cyanoacrylate ester kept looking like the best solution. I knew I didn’t have any cyanoacrylate ester so I began thinking of other options. I actually had the two tubes of JB Weld in my hand and was looking for a mixing vessel at one point. I decided to hold off for a bit. I looked around and found three of the old caps in good order, except for the hole drilled just off center of each, and decided that I'd do something with them after all. That is, if I could find the fourth. I did find it finally but it had been run over in the gravel and was a little worse for wear. I decided I couldn’t make it any more broke and took it to the grinder. I fingered I could grind it flat, as in take the “H” down smooth, and maybe apply some sort of inoffensive decal. The grinding revealed that the surface was a façade which I subsequently pried off. Then I finished grinding down the “H” to reveal a smooth-ish surface. “Yes,” thought I, “this I can cover with vinyl and move on with life.” I set that cap aside and pried off the façade from the second cap. This time, rather than spend the time to pick and peel the double stick adhesive off, I took it to the wire wheel of the grinder before grinding the “H” down. Yeah, that was a mistake. All it did was melt the foam stuff into a gooey mess on the surface. I ground down the “H” and set it aside. With the third and fourth caps, I took the time to pick all the adhesive off before grinding. They turned out the best. They will go on the driver’s side. So, now I'm at a crossroads. I can go to the store and buy some vinyl. I can go to the store and buy some cyanoacrylate ester. Or I can blow the whole project off and drive with no center caps. I head for the store to buy vinyl. I'm thinking I'll get some of that fake carbon fiber stuff so that I have to do something with it in the near future. Instead, I wind up stopping at the Mobil station and buying cyanoacrylate ester and heading back to the shop. I clean the silicone off of the KDM caps some more and glue them in place. At first I'm not sure if the glue is going to hold. The caps doesn’t seem to be… oh, there it goes! It finally stuck. I held it in place for a bit and then moved on to the next wheel. Again I cleaned some more silicone off and wiped the inner surface of the wheel before attempting to glue in the cap. It eventually stuck and I moved on. When I was done with all four wheels, I stood back and waited for a bit. I was not confident at all. In fact I said several times to myself, “If those make it home I'll be surprised.” They did make it home. They made it to work Monday. They made it home from work Monday. They made it back to work today. I guess they are stuck good after all. So there you have it. Hopefully those caps will be on there until I need to remove them. Of course, new wheels might be needed before long. The driver’s front has a curb rash. I don’t recall hitting anything, John was never out of my sight long enough to have hit anything I don’t think, and I think I would have noticed it in the five weeks since the window tint guy drove the car, so it probably happened at the car wash two weeks ago. But then again, I didn’t notice it earlier in the day when taking that cap off and cleaning up the center of the wheel, nor did John say anything about it on Saturday when we were messing with the wheels. I only saw it when that spoke was at the top. It might have been that way all along. Then again, it is fun to blame things on John so… DANG YOUSE JOHN! GIMME YOUR KEYS!