DonaldSmith

A photo of the Optima battery shows the positive post to the right when the "Optima Battery label is read right Maybe your pics will show whichway the label reads.

The light tube is to light the glove box and ash tray on an S-11 DeSoto. It's wired with the clock light and the other dash lights. The round thing is the back of the clock. Its light socket is barely visivle behind the socket-light tube. The light socket for the glove box is at the foreforont. It's light tube descends to the ash tray, the rectangle at the bottom of the picture. This socket needs that shabby ground wire, since the glove box is non-metallic cardboard

Mzy be Victorinox (maker of the Swiss Army Knife) makes knives to order, with the customer's logo. I spent my youth making Pocket Protectors, many of whicn were imprinted with the customer's logo.

The tri-bar is the "thingie", of which I spoke. The dark brown thing is the hub and spokes of the steering wheel, which are plastic and isolated from ground. As pictured, the spring is in contact with the tri-bar thingie, to which the horn wire is connected. Completed circuit, horn soundsconstantly. The shiny metal thing, the horn ring, has lugs in itw back side, to hold the spring down. The steering wheel and the horn ring cover are plastic, so the horn ring is isolated from ground. What's missing is a center piece to push the horn ring and its lugs against the spring, breaking the contact. The horn ring spends most of its life pushing evenly against the spring. Push or pull the horn ring and the lug or lugs opposite where you push will pull back, allowing the spring to make contact - honk.

With the horn ring setup,there is a big spring that is grounded, that tries to contact a metal thingie where the horn wire is connected. The horn ring itself is isolated from ground, and has lugs that push the large spring away from the thingie. When the ring is pushed, it rocks back from the spring, opposite from where it is pushed, allowing the spring to make contact and blow the horn. Horn rings are counterintuitive. You would think push to make contact, like maybe a horn button, but in reallity, it's push evenly to keep from making contact. Disurb this evenness, like pushing the ring in one place, and contact is made.

My 2011 Enclave, with all-wheel drive, needs all four tires the same diameter, or the differentials make the computer crazy, or everything wears out, or something bad happens. If I mount a compact spare, the computer is supposed to figure it out, and disconnects the rear drive.

Fess up. hep2jive, is that really your picture? Recent? or 60 years ago?

Baed on my one year of mechanical knowledge repeated sixty times, I would opine: Valve job needed: Low compression in one or more cylinders. Vacuum gauge needle swinging widely in sync with engine speed. Magical suction test at the exhaust pipe, with dollar bill alternately blown out and sucked back.

The litle dog laughed to see such a sport...

Slap a little joint compund on that hole and call it a day. The house equivalent of "It'll buff out."

Dodge limo? We need photos! How come the front running lights are blacked out? Or do they flash red while some foreign dignitary parades by? Dodge limos have to be rare. I heard that foreign countries would tax horse power, so a Dodge, with the Plymouth-Dodge 23-nich engine, would be taxed less than a DeSoto with the larger DeSoto-Chrysler engine.

I'm an excellent driver. But not everyone thinks so. Visitng my daughter's parish, the epistle and sermon were about us all being part of the Mysical Body, all of us with different functions but part of the same body. After Mass, on the way out, I told Father that sometimes when I am driving, people suggest what part of the body I am. He laughed.

My photo is looking across the engine at the transmission relay. (The Voltage regulator was to the right of, or in front of, the transmission relay.) Upper left is TH. Looking doen on the relay, top left would be BAT with the fuse, top right would be TH. Afrermarket relay? Huh?

Here's a photo of the transmission relay: TH (Yellow to carb) BAT PRI SOL INT

How about "Kickdown Circuit for M5? The kickdown circuit goes from the kickdown switch at the carb (yellow wire) to the TH post on the transmission relay and to the governor at the transmission. The kickdown swiurch is at the back of the carburetor and is acturated by the throttle linkage and grounds the circuit. Normally, the transmission downshifts when the governor senses that the speed has dropped below a certain point. The kickdown circuit overrides this, to shift at a higher speed. I forget what the circuit does within the transmission relay. The shop manual shows the circuits and the functions. In the meantime you can connect the wires and get the transmisison to downshift when you floor it.

Canada ain't so bad, either. Nice people, (except for those Doukhobors my mother used to tell me about. Aw, the Doukhobors ain't so bad, either.) I remember 911, when air flights were diverted to Canada. Some lady with a van drove her van full of yanks from the west coast to a border crossing at a plains state, so the yanks could cross wihout interminable delay. I remember a dozen or so Americans trapped in Iran, who escaped with Canadian passports. (Great movie about it.) Today is 11/11, on the 115th anniversary of the end of the Great War (World War I). We celebrate Veterans Day. You celebrate Remembrance Day. Let's rmember our vetrans, and those who gave their lives defending the homeland.

Trying to remember- I ihad to get under the car to remove the bottom bolt. I removed the wheel and had the jack and jackstands firmly in place. Bolts a bitch to get to. Open end wrench to start, or maybe crowfoot. Socket and extension couldn't quite line up. I think I hoisted the starter up. And of course I had the fender covers on. Finally bought a set, No more old towels.

I had to move my starter recently to get at the oil filter pipiing. I put a pipe actoss the fenders and made a sling to support the starter while I moved it out. ith the top anf bottom bolts out.. I was able to pull he starter out and lower it. It was a bitch allenging. (Deliberate typo) g

Let me understand this. The ignition switch of the era has OFF in the middle, where the key can be pushed in and pulled out (notches up). To the left, (counterclockwise) is ACC, powering all the good stuff. To the right (clockwise) is ACC plus IGN. All the good stuff works, and the Ignition is hot. The way this switch is wired, turn it left for IGN, and the ignition is hot, reportedly. Are the Accessories on? To the right, are the Accessories on, but the ignition is off?

Pondering deeply the question "The best way to time an engine?" Surely, Labrauer knows how to time an engine; he's probably done it once or twice. He was asking the best way to time an engige. Maybe that's like asking the best oil to use. No single answer, and don't call him Shirley. Labrauer mentions the timing chain. When assembling an engine. one has to get the cam working in sync with the craink. That's a form of timing. The usual situation is timing the distributor to the crank and the cam. This involves finding top dead center of the crank and determining the end of the compression stroke for No. 1 cylinder, so the rotor points to No. 1 spark plug. Some guys use the probe hole in the No. 6 cylinder to find TDC. Some of us use the timhg marks on the pulley or damper. And the compression stroke can be found by a thumb, or golf ball, or whatever, on the spark plug hole. (Add your own favorite metnod.) As in all philosophical matters, further ponderings and opinions are in order.

See the crankshaft pulley. The pully or a damper, if one, should have timing marks on it. See recent posts on finding top dead center when No. 1 is finishing its compressionstroke.

Hmm. So, you have your probe in the spark plug hole, over the intake valve, rather than in the plug hole over the piston. It took me a minute to figure it out. Whatever works.

Shirley, you can't be Sirius. ( I have trouble being serious. Sometimes I just can't help myself.)

Hmm. So, you have your probe in the spark plug hole, over the intake valve, rather than in the plug hole over the piston. It took me a minute to figure it out. Whatever works.

The starter solenoid is the entire apparatus that rides horseback on the starter. The upper posts power the coil that closes the heavy duty connection between the two bottom posts and also engages the bendix drive to the flywheel.