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Dan Hiebert

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Everything posted by Dan Hiebert

  1. It's just moderately sad that they even had to have that foresight. I've been in planning sessions like that for big events - Moderator: "What are the stupidest things you can think of that people might do for this event?" *Agency reps spitball dumber-than-a-hammer stuff* Moderator: "Ok, that's farfetched, but someone thought of it, so we'll have to plan for it."
  2. Thanks, it does, and I had read that, but it didn't click. But it still created one of those "I wonder" moments. The bulbs in our car are Sylvania, I don't have the part number. That could be them. I haven't seen any for a long time, an article on a car in Hemmings Motor News many years ago. I don't even remember the make of the car, just that it was a high end '30's car and for whatever reason that's what comes to mind when someone mentions Trippe lights. I'll solve my confusion and look them up in the near future.
  3. The Maine State Police put an advisory out yesterday about navigating the State's roadways during the eclipse. They had the foresight to make one of the announcements - "Don't drive while wearing your eclipse glasses."
  4. Things that make you go "hmmm". I put new 6v bulbs in the D24 about 15 years ago so they'd match "side-by-each" as a friend from Vermont would say. Not because either of them quit working. I do remember getting them from AutoZone, as no one else carried 6v bulbs (that I could find). I don't recall having any problems with the aiming nubs (throwing another description in the mix). I gotta remember to check on the next trip out to the shop...because now it just bugs me.
  5. That was indeed a nice score. Didn't Trippe make a funky looking vertically elongated light, too? Looks kinda like the mask the "Scream" character wears? They tended to be put on high-end 1930's cars, I haven't seen any for a while. One of the headlights on our D24 was an original 4030 when we got it. Has "June 1946" stenciled in yellow paint on the back. It still works (worked?) but I replaced it pretty quick once I saw that date. Stashed away for safe-keeping right now.
  6. A vintage document from the "late 1900's". You'uns (we'uns?) who like meatloaf - if there are leftovers, try grilling a few slices. Depending on your recipe it may be a bit hard to keep together but it's awesome. It's already cooked, so you can prepare it from just heated through to crispy on the edges. I'll sometimes slather some BBQ sauce on it while it's grilling for some extra flavor.
  7. Welcome to the Forum! That is a nice car, is the patina original, or is it painted to look like that?
  8. I know the automobile companies do a lot of research and testing, which may be why Ford sent reps out to see what we were doing to their babies that they maybe hadn't thought of. That's actually kudos from me that they did that, they could have just as easily written us off as a bunch of mouth-breathing-knuckle-draggers and left it at that. Not suggesting they didn't call us that, but they did follow-up on our issues. I could regale you'uns with "war stories" to no end, (most of them would even be true), but I'll stick to using a few to emphasize or make a point once in a while. I'm not the "smoldering quiet veteran unwilling to recall past battles" type...getting me to tell stories isn't the hard part...getting me to shut up once I get started is. I feel as if I'm taking away from the discussion if my tale of daring-do doesn't help emphasize something.
  9. I think this year's eclipse is being touted so much because the moon is closer the Earth than other recent ones, so there will be more of the sun blocked out / bigger shadow on the planet. I'd say it's not something I'd go out of my way for, but I don't have to. It's coming to me this time. Weather permitting, I'll hang-out on the deck with a six-pack and "experience" it (not even gonna try to look directly at it, even with a welding helmet, I'll watch the shadows, if there are any). I'm just amazed at how many people are predicted to be here, and how there is no way this area can be expected to handle it. We can only hope/assume everyone coming here knows there's already not much here. The locals speak in hushed tones about a Phish concert here in the County several years ago that completely shut the County down for two days, and there were only "thousands" of extra people. No gas, no groceries, no parking, no movement, nothing, just people everywhere. I-95 was a parking lot for 25 miles from the border (yeah, yeah, that's normal in some places, but sometimes up here you can drive on it for 60 miles and not see another car, if there's three cars between you and the horizon, traffic is heavy).
  10. We tried thread lock, didn't work. Unknown about the other. Kind of a matter of how much work should an agent put into changing a flat. We were supposed to be LEOs, not mechanics, no one is hired for mechanical skills, although not having some basic mechanic skills could leave you in the desert by yourself for many hours. And, yes, we did have a good number of agents that didn't know how to change a flat in the first place. We had significantly fewer agents back then, five or six thousand nationwide, there's close to 19K now. Where I was stationed then had 8 agents to cover 64 miles of the border over three shifts. Back-up was often already an hour or two away. I often gave up on back-up getting there in time and did stuff to effect seizures or arrests that would be considered insane nowadays, back then, everyone at the smaller stations did the same thing. That extra few minutes to do more than tighten all the lug nuts if you happened to get a flat at the wrong time could make a huge difference. I vaguely recall that it was finally figured out to be how the wheel studs were made, as in the composition of the metal, a cost cutting measure that didn't work. They held up fine in civilian use, but we tended to be a bit rougher on vehicles. I still find it humorous that when the Ford reps did ride-alongs to try and figure out what was going on, they were aghast that most of our work was off paved roads. Those model Expeditions were apparently designed for 4x4 use only in poor road conditions.
  11. When I was working in far west Texas in the '90's, we had Ford Expeditions in our fleet (US Border Patrol), I forget what year model they were, but it was the fleet purchase for one year. Among other issues we were having with them, the wheels tended to come off on the highway. Seeing a USBP Expedition on the side of the road with a missing tire got to be a running joke with all the local law enforcement agencies. Good thing social media didn't exist at the time, I'm sure we would have been the brunt of many memes. Thankfully, to my knowledge, no one ever got hurt from it. Anyway, USBP tried to fix the problem by mandating torquing to OE specs, I think it was 90 ft lbs., every 1000 miles. That didn't work, so we gradually reduced the mileage to every 50 miles, and it was still a problem. Ford ended up sending reps to several field locations, their solution to the problem was to torque the lug nuts to 130 ft lbs. The wheel falling off problem went away, but we had to buy better lug wrenches than the factory ones for every single Expedition so the agents could get the wheels off when they got a flat, some of the "less robust" agents would still end up calling for help to get lug nuts off.
  12. Wildcat Auto Wrecking in Salem Oregon (wildcatmopars.com), Mopar only salvage yard.
  13. Start simple. Flush it in both directions with clean water. Pay attention to the flow in each direction, as well as how much stuff is in the water. If it doesn't flow to your satisfaction, or if you don't like how much gunk is in the water, then apply more caustic remedies. Check for leaks by submerging the radiator after it's drained and using air. Plug the filler neck, inlet, and outlet, apply air to the overflow at very low psi, as in no more than 5 psi or so. Any leaks will be more apparent this way.
  14. For consideration, I purchased a carb rebuild kit from these folks (The Carburetor Doctor) last year. The carburetor in our D24 has an odd number that this Forum helped track down, and then this shop was very helpful in finding the correct kit, a kit for the "normal" D24 carb would not have had all the parts. Carburetor kits, parts and manuals (carbkitsource.com)
  15. Out of curiosity. Many of us will be in the path of the total eclipse on April 8. Although I'm rather "meh" about an eclipse, apparently there is a huge following for them. Houlton, ME is the last place in the U.S. it will be seen from, and has the longest duration in the U.S. The locals are anticipating 10,000 to 40,000 people to be in the area for it. We've been planning for it for over a year, making a whole weekend event out of it. This will be "interesting" since this area cannot handle even the low end of that estimate, absolutely zippo infrastructure for it. Houlton's population is only around 6K, there are only 51 hotel rooms in town. The missus is doing a baked goods sale in town that Saturday, other than that, my plan is to hole up at home the week before and after. We'll have to stock up on supplies a couple weeks before hand, things are already running out. Even though there's a 79% likelihood it will be overcast, and even a 30% chance it will be snowing, we're still expecting hordes of people. What are your areas expecting or planning for?
  16. We usually have 3-5 feet of snow on the ground this time of year, but this year there's only a few inches in the woods, and none on the open ground. So far, the roads only had to be plowed three times this winter, what is usually a weekly event. It was 40 degrees out yesterday (t-shirt weather here) and I was sorely tempted to at least get the Beetle out, but it's too muddy between the shop and the driveway. The good ol' D24 is still partly disassembled from fixing the frame. Still addressing a myriad of little things I discovered. I generally plan to get the old cars out and about in May, despite the springlike weather, it's still "only March". In the meantime, I get a kick out of you'uns getting your cars out. Provides additional inspiration!
  17. I don't know how much castor oil and butyl alcohol costs, I'm assuming not very much. DOT5 is relatively expensive, I think I paid a bit over $30 for a quart about 20 years ago. But, DOT5 is readily available, does not attract moisture, and does not damage paint (if those are your concerns), and in a well sealed system, lasts a very long time. Personally, when it comes to safety things like the brakes, I wouldn't try to out-engineer something that is already proven to work well.
  18. Ach, I'll admit I'm the a-hole driver...in many other drivers' eyes. Speed limit, turn signals, obey traffic laws, "usually courteous" (nobody's perfect), etc. But I don't do it out of a sense of virtue, it's more like...spite! I know it annoys the heck out of bad drivers to no end.
  19. Ahh, tales of sewer / septic woe. Once upon a time, in a land far away, (round about SE Illinois), my brother and I inherited the annual purge of the septic tank on our grandparents' farm when we were about 8 or 9. 100-ish year old farm house with add on bathroom and afterthought septic system. When that was plugged, we always had the ol' two-holer originally issued with the farm. We were provided "the bucket" with a rope on the handle and couldn't do anything else until the tank was emptied. Thankfully it wasn't the first chore of the summer to make us rue visiting grandma and grandpa, so we'd generally forget that was on the agenda until the visit was almost over. Thats when I first heard the analogy "five gallons of poop (you'uns can probably guess that's not the exact word he used) in a two-gallon bucket", from our grandpa. I don't recall being overly put out by it, other than being kids that didn't want to "work", but our grandparents and any visiting relatives were certainly impressed by how bad we smelled, and kids being kids, we kind of relished that. Our grandma "bragged" about how bad we'd get to smelling during that chore until the day she died. And I still don't like messing with plumbing, although I will when necessary. I'd like to say I don't smell as bad after any plumbing chores, but the missus may disagree...
  20. I had completely rebuilt the brakes on the D24 before I began using the DOT5. I ensured all the fittings were as tight as possible, so I wouldn't have any "micro leaks". I wasn't thinking bleeding problems, but there were some seeps in the original system that really annoyed me, and I took this as the chance to prevent that from happening again. I slowly and methodically bled the system using both a vacuum draw from the cylinders, and the good old fashioned pumping the pedal method, to the point that if I had been working for a brake shop, I would have been fired for taking too long. It seemed more challenging to get the system bled right with the DOT5. The main reasons I used DOT 5 had to do with the car sitting idle in occasionally heated garages during long cold winters in humid climates, since the DOT5 doesn't draw moisture; and that it isn't (as) corrosive in case I did get leaks. This is going on 20 years ago, other than the mushy brake feel, I have had absolutely no problems with the brakes, no leaks, no weeping, nothing. I haven't even needed to add any brake fluid in that time. Our garage is constantly heated here, but the car still sits idle for at least 6 months every winter, and Spring can be humid with wide temperature variations, so I think I'll be sticking with the DOT 5. That said, I don't use DOT5 in any of the other cars, they are driven much more often.
  21. I use DOT5 brake fluid in the D24. I would call the brake feel "mushy", but I have good braking action.
  22. I dunno...does Sniper mean there's not a lot of content...or not enough intelligence in the content...?
  23. That candy affect seems more Christmassy, but the original looks nice, too.
  24. There was really no U.S. standardization for driver position until the 1940's or so. Joe Citizen could order a car with right-hand drive if he wanted, still can. There are a couple U.S. Postal Service contractors up here that have "civilian" right hand drive Jeeps. That and the export market already mentioned, so car companies designed their cars for minimum cost and manufacturing effort to go between right and left hand drive, easiest way to do that was to put the instruments in the middle so those didn't have to be changed, another was to make that instrument package so it could easily transfer from left to right. There is still no statute requiring cars in the U.S. to be left hand drive.
  25. I have the same issue with my number 3 and 4 cylinders. It is definitely oil, which doesn't pool, but there's enough to need sopping up. I'm pretty sure it's a combination of blow-by past the rings and more so worn valve guides. I've noticed on many L6's that there seems to be issues with valves and cylinders closer to the carb, I have theories why, but that would be a different conversation. But - you can indeed have the same issues at all the cylinders. (Someone brought up an oil additive touted to stop smoking and blow-by a few months ago, perhaps that is the "stop leak" being referenced.) I had the coolant pooling in the #1 spark plug well as well. The thermostat housing was the culprit, in part the same issue as kiethb7, which I fixed in the same manner (he had posted his resolution previously). But it still leaked a little afterwards. What I noticed is that I could not get a socket or box wrench over the left side bolt, had to use an open end wrench (which I did not appreciate, because I rounded off the bolt almost every time). I took a grinder to the area on the housing adjacent to the bolt to the point I could get a socket over it, which allowed the housing to be moved to the left ever so slightly, which took it a tad further away from that radius from the top of the head into the spark plug well. Absolutely no issue since. Exactly why it worked I couldn't tell you, but it worked.
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