I had every intention of knocking out a storm drainage project in my back yard this afternoon, but wanted to get a haircut first. As I was about to leave my house, I noticed that one tire on my truck was severely low on air, so got out my mini travel compressor and started to fill it up. Except that as I was checking the air pressure, the valve stem snapped at the threads for the cap and the valve core started leaking by. Crap. It's a TPMS valve stem, and I'm not sure if I can replace just the stem or if I've got to replace the entire sensor - never messed with one of these before. What's frustrating is that just last week I spent over $800 on brake pads, calipers, and rotors to get my truck to pass inspection, and the TPMS light was already illuminated when I dropped off the truck (at that time none of the tires appeared visibly low and I didn't have time to check them all when I dropped it off). I had hoped the shop would top off the tire pressure while they had it in, even though the tire in question is in the rear and the brake work was done on the front. Normally I do my own repairs but had too much other stuff going on to tackle the brake work, and I would have gladly paid the shop to replace the valve stem while they had it in had they noticed it. Oh well.

Anyway, I hopped in my old Isuzu beater and went to get a haircut and figured I'd stop by the parts store on the way home. The "no wait" sign was lit up in the window at the barber shop, but when I walked in, the customer queue showed over an hour wait, so I skipped that. As I was walking back to my car, I noticed something hanging down below the vehicle and realized the exhaust tailpipe was completely disconnected from the muffler. Looks like it had rusted completely through. So, I added that repair to my to-do list and picked up a few exhaust clamps and fittings at the parts store on my way back home...I'll see if I can make an acceptable no-weld repair.

So, it looks like it will be a toasty afternoon of wrenching in the driveway. Oh well...that's the trade-off for owning older vehicles that you own free and clear and don't cost an arm and a leg in property tax payments.