Monthly Archives: November 2019

I Can See Clearly Now

I haven’t been posting much lately as much of my time is spent dealing with the estate of my late step-dad, Ken Keller. Donna and I traveled up to his house to box stuff up for donation. We met my brother, Eddie and his wife, Rachel, there last Saturday and got much done. The house is in escrow and the buyer wants to close quickly, but also wants to negotiate along the way. I’ve made a couple of concessions, but now it’s time to move forward.

I was stymied for a while because I didn’t have the certified death certificates. The funeral home that ordered them for me from Riverside County just put them in an envelope and dropped them in the mail with regular postage. No tracking or priority. If I’d known they were going to do that, I would have gladly paid the $8 or so for a trackable Priority Mail delivery. After 10 days, they finally agreed that these documents were lost in the mail. They ordered four more certificates.

They called me on Tuesday and said they had the certificates and were sending them via courier to their San Diego County location in east El Cajon. I drove there on Wednesday and finally had the certificates in hand. Now I could move forward.

I had an Affidavit of Death of Trustee drawn up to allow me, as successor trustee, to handle the sale of the house. I couldn’t file the affidavit without a certified death certificate. Here’s what I find a little crazy about that. The certified death certificates are issued (at a cost to the estate) by Riverside County. The affidavit needs to be filed and registered by Riverside County. So, I pay them to issue me the certificate, then I submit an affidavit with the certificate back to them and they register it for another fee. Typical government racket.

Next I had to go to Wells Fargo Bank where Ken had his account. Again, I needed a certified death certificate to take over the trust bank account. This was a lengthy process and I spent nearly two hours with a banker. With that done, I can fund the trust with the proceeds from the sale of the house. Hopefully, things will get simpler from this point.

I also took care of a couple of projects over the past week. I mentioned before about the alternator on Midget-San overcharging the battery. The alternator is internally regulated, so it had to be replaced. Parts for the Nissan A15 engine in our Midget are easy to find and relatively cheap. I was surprised to find an AC-Delco remanufactured (in the USA) alternator at RockAuto for only $36!

The alternator charges the battery while the engine is running. The charging voltage will vary depending on the state of charge of the battery. As the battery becomes fully charged, the internal resistance of the battery rises and the charging voltage will drop. The old alternator was charging between 15.5-volts and 16.0 volts. This is too high regardless of the state of the battery charge. The new alternator charges between 13.6-volts and 14.5-volts. Much better.

The other project was something that only required me to write a check. The front side windows on our coach were fogged. These are double-pane windows. When the seal between the glass panes is compromised, moisture can condense between the panes. When the windows warm in the sun, fog forms and obstructs the view through the glass. A company called Auto Glass Boss came out to our site here at Mission Bay RV Resort and resealed the glass. They removed the windows, separated the panes, cleaned the glass thoroughly and installed new sealant. The glass is so clear now, it looks like there’s no glass there at all!

We had a major change in the weather here. On Tuesday night, rain moved in with a cold front. We had a blustery day Wednesday with periods of rain all day. The temperature only reached 60 degrees. Yesterday was partly cloudy and cool – in the mid 60s. We should have clear skies and mid to upper 60s for the weekend, but more rain is forecast to arrive by Thanksgiving.

I’ll close this post with a couple of dinner plates Donna prepared. First up is a coconut curry salmon dish with cashews that she made last week. It was spicy and very good – a keeper for sure.

Coconut curry salmon with cashews

Last night, Donna made baked lemon chicken. It was a simple single sheet pan meal and very tasty.

Baked lemon chicken

Cool Stuff at Gillespie Field

In my last post, I mentioned an issue I had with Midget-San’s oil pressure. The replacement oil pump I ordered came from RockAuto on Tuesday afternoon. I’d been in touch with Bill Masquellier about doing the work at his place in El Cajon. I met Bill when he was working at British Auto Repair and replaced the rear hub/axle seal on the Midget. I later found out he was only filling in there temporarily while another mechanic was on an extended vacation. Bill is very knowledgeable on British cars and also has experience with engine swaps. He knows the Datsun/Nissan line of engines.

I was to meet Bill at the Gillespie Field Cafe – a small cafe at the airport in El Cajon – at 10am on Thursday. I arrived early as I had made allowances for traffic but managed to have smooth sailing eastbound on CA52. I parked in front of the cafe at 9:30am and took a walk. I saw an interesting car in front of a hangar and met the guy working on it. It was an Intermeccanica Omega – an Italian car made in the late ’60s with a Ford 289 V8 engine. They only made 33 of these. While I was talking to the guy, I saw Bill drive his Austin-Healey Sprite in. Bill phoned me and directed me to another hangar on the west side of the airport.

He opened one of the hangar doors and I parked Midget-San inside. I immediately noticed a number of covered cars along with and airplane and lots of parts in the hangar. We opened the hood (bonnet) on Midget-San and while the engine cooled, Bill gave a me a tour. First off, he showed me a 1928 Hudson. He explained that the hangar and the cars inside belonged to his brother-in-law, John. John bought the Hudson when he was in high school and it was his daily driver in the 1960s.

John has a fascination with cars designed and built by Ettore Bugatti. Bugatti’s first design was a small car. He drew up plans for every piece of the car and the engine as well. But he didn’t have the money to actually build the car. So, he sold the plans to Peugeot who then manufactured the car from 1905 to 1916 and called it Bebe. There were two 1913 Bebes in the hangar. Then Bill pulled back a car cover to reveal a mint condition 1935 Bugatti. It’s one of the top examples in the world and has to be valued around a million bucks!

1935 Bugatti

There was another Bugatti – an all-aluminum 1938 that was in pieces being restored. This car only weighed around 2,200 lbs and had 200 horsepower making it one the fastest cars on the road at that time. Cool stuff.

Bill quickly pulled the alternator and oil pump from the Nissan A15 engine in Midget-San. I remarked how surprised I was to find the pump in stock at RockAuto. Bill told me this oil pump is used in at least three Nissan engine families and is a fairly common part. That made sense. We primed the pump and reassembled everything with a new oil filter and fired it up. The oil pressure came up within a couple of seconds. Much better!

Bill put a volt meter on the battery to make sure nothing went awry when the alternator was removed and discovered it was over-charging. The alternator was supplying over 15.5 volts. It has an internal regulator that must be bad. This will eventually fry the battery – the charging voltage should never exceed 15-volts and ideally would be around 14.2 to 14.4-volts. I’ll have to replace that next. This is what happens when you have a 48-year-old car with a 39-year-old engine.

Across from the hangar is the Allen Airways Flying Museum. The museum is owned by Bill Allen – a good friend of Bill M. Bill asked me if I was interested in a private tour of the museum. He had the keys and we entered the closed museum. There are a lot of interesting pieces of aeronautical history there. I saw a couple of Stearman Biplanes in the museum hangar and told Bill I frequently see two Stearmans fly over Mission Bay Park, almost daily. I described them and he told me one of them was in the corner of the hangar and the other – a orange-yellow one was a rental plane that sees almost daily use.

The other Boeing Stearman in the hangar was a beautifully restored silver plane with a blue stripe down the side and blue wing bottoms. It had tail number N-3188. This was the last plane owned and flown by Steve McQueen!

Allen Airways photo of N-3188

Steve McQueen requested number 3188 – it was his ID number when he was at reform school in Chino. Bill Allen bought the plane and completely restored it.

On Friday, Donna and I drove up to Sun City and cleared some items from Ken’s house. I also met with a realtor and we discussed marketing the property and a realistic valuation. The realtor is Sherry Dodson and she has a track record for the gated community Ken’s house is in. She’s sold around 10 homes per year there for several years. She had good comps to establish a realistic value. Setting the price too high could result in problems with a buyer obtaining financing. We needed a number that would appraise without leaving money on the table. After an hour or so, we came up with a price and a plan.

Saturday was a fine day. Donna and I rode our bikes along the Bayside Walk to Mission Beach. Along the way at Crown Point, we saw a large number of row boats for crew racing. It appeared to be a large event for mostly junior rowers. The crew teams looked to be high school age or maybe college. I’m not very good at guessing ages anymore – they all look young.

Racing boats
Crews sculling on the bay

We made a loop from Mission Beach to Pacific Beach Drive and back to Mission Bay RV Resort.

Saturday night, Donna marinated a flank steak and served it with baked potato and roasted brussels sprouts. Delicious!

Monday was Veterans Day and another fine day. We took a drive in Midget-San out to Cabrillo Monument on Point Loma. We made a stop at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

From the cemetery looking toward Naval Air Station North Island
Looking at San Diego Bay toward downtown

Last night, Donna tried a new recipe for a baked pasta dish with Italian sausage crumbles and broccolini. She’s used garbanzo bean rotini which has more protein than regular pastas. It was very good, though not something we would have often because of all the cheese and cream!

This morning I finalized a counter-offer on Ken’s house and it looks like we are moving forward on the sale. We ended up within $2,000 of the asking price and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we get a favorable inspection result and appraisal.

The weather forecast for the week ahead looks great. It might be slightly cooler with highs in the upper 60s to low 70s and overnight lows in the mid 50s. That’s November in San Diego!

Stuck in the Middle

I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels without gaining any traction lately. The death of my step-dad threw me for a loop and as successor trustee, I have much to do. But, there’s a hitch. I had durable power of attorney (POA) for his financial affairs. However, the POA is only applicable while he was living. The POA would allow me to make financial moves on his behalf if he was incapacitated. Now that he’s no longer with us, the POA is meaningless. That’s where the trust comes into play. The thing is, I cannot make a move as successor trustee until a death certificate is recorded with the county and I have certified copies. That’s the sticking point – I don’t have copies yet.

Once I have the certificate, I’ll open a new bank account for the trust. I’ve already obtained an EIN for the account. Then we can start converting assets and fund the trust and also resolve any debts. Some things that should be easy aren’t so easy. For example, I’ve tried to cancel his cable TV service. The cable company, Frontier, won’t do it unless I have his secret four-digit PIN. I don’t have his PIN and have no way of getting it. They’re happy to keep receiving the automated payment he set up. I’ll get it figured out.

Meanwhile Donna and I have been getting back into a more usual routine. The weather has been unusually warm for this time of year. The week before last, we rode our bicycles to Pacific Beach. After cruising up the boardwalk and making a stop at the bike shop, we went to Kono’s Cafe for lunch. Kono’s is right across from Crystal Pier – it was Tug’s Tavern back in the day. They have a patio deck across Ocean Boulevard on the north side of the pier overlooking the beach and ocean. We dined alfresco and watched the surfers while we enjoyed our lunch.

North side of Crystal Pier
View of the beach north to Bird Rock

On such a warm day – the temperature reached 90 degrees – I expected the beach to be crowded. But, as you can see in the photos, the beach crowd was light. On the way back to Mission Bay RV Resort, I snapped a picture on the north side of Mission Bay – called Sail Bay – looking southeast toward Riviera Drive. There weren’t many people there either.

Sail Bay toward Riviera Drive

A week ago Saturday, we drove Midget-San up to the Cuyamaca Mountains and the town of Julian. We went to an event called Belly Rumble. It was at the Menghini Winery and was put on by a group of San Diego British Car Clubs. They had food and drink, an informal car show for British marques and belly dancers!

Austin Healey’s and a MG TD on the end
Belly Dancers on the stage

The winery was a few miles outside of town. On the way back, we stopped in Julian – a small town with a population of around 1,500 people. Julian is known for apples – specifically apple pie. We found the usual throngs of weekend tourists in town and long lines for apple pies at the bakery.

Midget-San in front of the Julian Mercantile

When I started the Midget to leave the winery, the oil pressure was very slow to build. In fact, the gauge showed zero PSI for over a minute before it built pressure. I was about to give up and call for an expensive tow, then it suddenly came up. It’s usually a little slow, but climbs within 10 seconds or so. I suspect an oil pump or pressure relief issue. This is not good. Left unchecked, it will eventually lead to bearing damage.

I talked to Bill from British Auto Repair – he’s the mechanic who replaced my hub/axle seal. He’s familiar with the Nissan A15 engine swap in Midgets and knows our car. He told me something I didn’t know. The Nissan A15 engine has an external oil pump. The pump is built into the oil filter flange on the side of the engine and can be easily replaced without pulling the engine or dropping the oil pan. This is good news! Outside of engines with dry-sump oil systems, I can’t think of another application with an external oil pump. Usually they’re located at the bottom of the engine block near one end of the crankshaft and, at minimum, the oil pan needs to be removed to access it.

I ordered a new oil pump from Rock Auto – an amazing online parts store. The had oil pumps in stock for this obscure 38-year-old engine. I’ll take the car to Bill’s place out in El Cajon once I have the part and replace the pump. We have Ken’s car still, so we’ve been using his Kia Soul for transportation and Midget-San has been parked in the trailer for the past two weeks.

The hot, dry weather spell has passed and we are experiencing a more “normal” San Diego climate. The daily highs are in the low to mid 60s with overnight lows in the upper 50s. The 10-day forecast calls for more of the same with little chance of rain. The cool nights are just right for sleeping with a window open and a down comforter on the bed.

As we are getting back to our routine, I’ll close this post with a couple of dinner plate pictures.

Chicken feta sausage with sauteed spinach, peppers and mushrooms and garlic cauliflower mash on the side
Shrimp with a feta-tomato sauce and green beans – more garlic cauliflower mash on the side


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