Yet another load of books arrived on Friday last week.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

A philosophical book on the concepts of quality. This books is very highly regarded in the software industry so I decided I better read it. It is about a motorcycle journey made by the author, his son and two friends during which he contemplates on various philosophical topics.

I’ve read through a few chapters so far and I must say that it is beautifully written and if you are like me you will probably want to get a motorcycle after reading this.

The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks

Another book seen as a must read by software developers. It covers topics on managing software projects and is organized as a series of essays based on the authors real-life experience from working at IBM on the System/360 and later OS/360 projects.

If you are in the software industry you have most likely heard about this book before.

Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers by John Alderman et. al.

Core Memory is a beautiful coffee table book which presents the reader with beautiful photographs of various vintage computers along with brief summaries. It covers such machines as ENIAC, the Apollo guidance computer and the all too famous Commodore 64.

So far I have only flicked through a couple of pages but the photographs are beautiful and high res. If you share my passion for vintage computers this book is a must.

Mazda 626 and Mx-6 Ford Probe Automotive Repair Manual by Jay Storer et. al.

It’s your run of the mill Haynes manual so it should need little introduction. I have a tugging sound somewhere in the steering system of my Mazda 626  so I decided to get the manual in order to make my life easier when fixing it.

I’ve been having some problems with the power windows on my car. They always go down but sometimes they refuse to go back up again. I started fiddling around with the haywire of cables located under the panel and eventually managed to get the windows to move again but while doing this I also found a very strange black box.

It doesn’t seem like the box was installed by GM. The electrical work can only be described as shoddy as the wires are all tangled up in a bundle and several of them had the insulation cut for no apparent reason.

The black box has “M3U Quasar” written on it along with “Milan – Italy”. There is a terminal block with a lot of wires attached to it along with two positional switches. The purpose of this box remains a mystery.

Here are a couple of poor pictures I took with my cell phone camera.

M3U Quasar (front)

M3U Quasar (back)

As you might already know I bought an ‘88 Camaro IROC last year. Being a moderately old car it of course requires some attention in order to keep it in good shape, that is also one of the reasons I got it since I felt the need for a new hobby. The undercarriage of the car had been sealed pretty well with corrosion protection but there were a few minor spots where rust had gotten a hold and the rear axle was mostly unprotected so I decided that is what I would spend my time on last autumn.

The idea was to remove as much of the rust as possible and seal the components to prevent them from future attacks. For that purpose I used a recirculating spot blaster and aluminum silicate blasting abrasive to clean up the worst parts and a steel wire wheel brush fitted on a standard drill to polish the blasted surface. Having never blast cleaned anything in my life it took a while to figure out the proper technique and hence it took me quite some time to clean up the surface but it was a learning experience and I actually enjoyed it.

Sadly the batteries in my camera ran out so I was never able to take any pictures of the polished axle but last week I was finally able to snap a photo of the end result. I’ve been driving the car and apparently have picked up a couple of seed capsules which stuck to the corrosion protection I put on. They account for all the small white spots that you see on the following picture.

My next project will be to convert the air conditioning system from R-12 to R-134a.

Our media department was playing around in the parking lot outside the office and managed to take a couple of pictures of my car in the process. I have just taken it out of the garage for the summer and so far it seems to have survived the winter.

During the off season I replaced all the (original) pintle-type fuel injectors with disc-type injectors from Ford. The car was difficult to start when cold before but with the new injectors in place it fires up instantly.

I also did a lot of work remove rust from the undercarriage and rear axle, when I get some decent pictures of the end result I will post them together with the before-pictures. Hopefully before I get too much dirt under there.

There is still a lot of work to do but I’m well on my way.

If you have an extra hemi to spare and too much time to spare check out these neat projects over at gizmag. There are projects ranging from a hemi powered barbeque to a heavy duty shredder.