I I lifted the driver’s side of he car and took a look at the exhaust system.  That  was the deciderator.  And it was fine.  I put the exhaust pipe back into the catalytic convertor, ruefully eyeballing the heavy scratching on it from hitting the road on the way home Monday.

There was a bracket there, so I took a coat hanger and wrapped it across between the two brackets and made a sling.  That way the exhaust has some support when it bounces.  I need to get Shatney’s to weld that back together…

Once I did that I went ahead and did the rear brakes.  I thought they would have been worse by now, but at half-wear, they don’t look any more used than last fall.  I cleaned everything out and put in the new pads I had bought.  The brakes did feel better.  And I scraped all the caked on mud off the rims from the day I took Kamina from East Calais to Stannard.  The tires were less wobbly now.

And when I did the other side, I discovered why the car has been shaking recently: the right ball joint is broken again.  I bought the control arm assembly today, and I’ll see about doing this in the next couple of days.  Finally I need to replace that tire, the ball joint being bad has worn the tires down.  After that I’ll see if I need to get it aligned.  Taking my time, and not rushing took me 4 hours.

Tomorrow I’ll change the oil filter, too as I do the control arm.  I might not do it tomorrow, I don’t know.

I took the kids to Hardwick today to get medicine for them.  The hospital confirmed strep and he called in a prescription.

Nice to have the car working well enough again.