HotRodTractor

Except with USPS it might never get there, tracking will be spotty at best, it might arrive as an empty box, or it will be declared lost.... and then arrive 6 weeks later. All things that have happened to me within the last 3 months.

1269 unique photographs and videos have all been downloaded. It turns out I did have some duplicate links in my collection. They are all stored in one folder - so I now need to figure out a way to sort them (some will have to be hand sorted as several have the same name). I think I can do a quick script and use the folder structure from the download links to make a new folder structure and automate that part of it, but the hard part is really over - the files are no longer only on PB. The download itself probably only took 10 minutes. It probably took me an hour or so throughout the course of the day fiddling with actually getting the links.

I'm totally going off of memory here - but I think that was the reason that Don lost access - he created it with an old email account and never updated it when he switched email accounts. I remember him telling me when I bought the car, but I can't say that I remember the exact details. In any case - I've extracted and converted almost 1400 links at this point and I think I have a bulk of what everyone cares about - including his pictures of tools. Its not 100% everything - but its 95% of the technical car stuff. I'll fire up the downloader tonight and see what happens.

Its my understanding that Don himself lost access to this PB account when a computer died and he didn't have the login information. I'm not going to to trouble Lisa with it - I think I have almost all of the links now that pertain to this car and P15/D24/Pilothouse vehicles in general ( I still can't get a couple of sub folders to load, for whatever reason).

Let me see if I can get them downloaded (and then there will probably have to be a sorting exercise too...). I love the idea of trying to keep these as public as possible, as there is so much information contained in there about many subjects. I do want that to be the ultimate goal - so I am glad to see this offer.

Except that is really the only way to share files/photos with others - unless you are setting up a server somewhere to host all of the images yourself. I do however understand the issue with privacy if you have all of your stuff on the cloud, potentially anyone has access to it. I think it would be impossible to pay and gain access to it. It was never my account. If I could pay and gain access to it, that alone raises so many red flags for me that I would never want to actually use that service.... imagine you used them and were fine with the free account.... I came along and paid them for full access to all of your stuff..... the implications of something like that scares me. Did I just pay them, for the rights to your stuff? Plus I loathe the idea of paying them anything - that rewards them for changing business models and wrecking the free image hosting service that they were based upon.

You can do that and get the full size image if you aren't in the thumbnail views - so you need to get each picture that you want to actually load up, then do that. In my case for Don's photos, over 1000 times, just for the pictures that I want. RIght now - if you can get an album to load - you can select one image, then hit the select all button, which can give you links to the images (The direct links, which is what we really want, are blocked behind the pay features of PB). You can then take the links, copy and paste them into a text editor, and do some "find and replace" tricks and actually end up with the direct links. Once you have the direct links - you can use a program like Jdownloader to just download them all (or that is the theory).

I ditched PB long ago as well.... it sucks because it was the go to for so long. They broke so many threads on forums across the internet.... so much information was lost. I've been meaning to go after getting these photos since I bought the car, but there always seemed to be some roadblock. I'm afraid it might be a now or never thing with the October 1st changes.... so I gotta do, what I gotta do. I've managed to extract a little over 1000 links so far - and I think that covers almost everything that actually pertains directly to the car. Hopefully, after I massage the links to get around the paywall, they download smoothly.

With another new change coming to Photobucket on October 1st, I finally have decided I would try and figure out a way to download all of the pictures of my P15 from Don's account. This isn't an easy task with a login, and its even more difficult without. I'm essentially attempting to strip all the links out of their system and then do some magic and have an auto down-loader actually download the linked images. Unfortunately there are several pages that Photobucket won't even load for me to even extract the links. It seems pretty hit or miss, as if I keep refreshing the page eventually it might load. Its all very frustrating - and I just felt like venting. Also - if there is something specific someone wants/needs out of Don's account - let me know and I will see if I can snatch it. Or even if there is something in general elsewhere out of Photobucket I can probably do that too if there is time before it disappears.

Several years ago I was cleaning out the shop to have a downsizing sale for the family's antique tractor collection. In the corner of the shop sat a John Deere 830I - it was a big beastly tractor weighing in at 14,500lbs. I replaced the injectors and injector pumps in it in the fall of 2003 just a couple of months before my dad passed away. The tractor more or less sat in the corner of the shop untouched until spring of 2011. We hooked a chain to it to drag it out of its corner just so I could get around it and check it out before firing it up. I had the clutch disengaged (or so I thought) - but I left it in gear just because I was absent minded probably. Now - this is a nearly 500ci diesel engine on 2 cylinders that takes a small 4 cylinder gas engine to start it. It has its own decompression lever to allow the engine to get turning before putting compression to it, to get some momentum before firing. I would be surprised if I moved a single foot...... before that tractor sprung to life with no way to disengage the clutch. I nailed the decompression lever and killed it, but it could have been bad.

I've managed to get out and about a little bit up here in Ohio. Mostly just out driving a bit, but the local "Labor Day Festival" was altered into a "Celebration" because you can't have a festival, but the rules say nothing of celebrations. Included in that celebration was a "Preview" where everyone drove antique cars, trucks, and tractors through town because we were not allowed to have a "Parade" due to restrictions. The event was fairly muted compared to past events, but all in all it was still pretty quality. I wasn't there full time, but I didn't see anyone getting out of hand. Other than that - I've been too busy with work all summer to even worry about doing anything extra curricular. Since my specialty is essentially industrial automation - many of our customers have been investing to improve production with less workforce headaches due to COVID restrictions. Work even has us traveling again to visit customers - which I was quite surprised at.

Installing a Pertronix ignition (or slant six) by itself might not solve your underlying issue - particularly if your issue is that the advance mechanism (both mechanical and vacuum) are not working correctly. Going with a setup from Langdon gives you an entire distributor that is supposed to have an ignition curve that works well. Another option is to have your distributor rebuilt by someplace like Advanced Distributors. I have yet to use them, but they do solid work and have experience with flathead mopars. They did the distributor on the Belgium Dodge Brothers car that ran the Peking to Paris race last summer.

I'm not worried that this fan will do that. It came off of a fire truck engine that has almost no run time. I do understand the risk though and should have made that clear for those that haven't seen that happen before.

2020 has been a cruddy year for me to get the Plymouth out. I've maybe put 100 miles on it just putzing around, but I am hoping to put some miles on it in the next couple of weeks on a couple of day road trips to Amish country. So ever since some of the mild overheating/stumbling issues that I experienced after running it on the interstate and then getting off and sitting at stop lights, I have been wondering why Don didn't install a mechanical fan on the car. I looked it over a couple of times and couldn't see why - and last night I was in the shop and had a few minutes to spare. I stole the best fan blade that I have off a spare engine and physically tried to put it into place.... it was snug, but looked like it would fit, so I just went for it. After fighting with it for a few minutes due to fat hands and fingers and not a lot of working space, I had it installed. I only had to remove a cross bar that went along the top of the back of the radiator that mounts to the core support on both sides. It fits, its close, but I see no issues with it. I probably do a 100ish mile round trip test run to to the office on Thursday after the rain the next couple of days gets through the area and see how it works (or doesn't). I probably should have painted it, but that can happen later. I really need to refresh and detail out the engine bay. I still plan on doing some phenolic carb spacers - but simply haven't had a chance to gather up all the little parts and the thermal camera to really do some cool back to back testing.

I'll have to peruse through his videos. Similar problems for sure.