Dan Hiebert

I think knighthawk wants to cool the air from his compressor(?) I think the biggest concern is moisture in the air lines, escpecially in humid areas. Heating or cooling the air both will generate moisture and water filters or water traps are always a good idea. I think paint shops worry about their compressed air temperature because it can affect the evaporation rate of their paint thinners and hardeners, but otherwise I don't know what the benefits would be. Speaking of cooling your abode through the ground - the AACA Museum in Hershey is cooled by pipes run quite a distance into the ground - 300' if I remember correctly.

When we picked my Terraplane up it had been sitting in a barn for 12 years and had a strong mildew odor. I happened to visit my aunt and uncle in Norris City, IL on the way home to New Mexico, and my aunt said to let an open bucket of amonia sit in the car for a few days and the mildew smell would go away. (She's a retired school janitor, so I guess she knows about getting rid of "smells".) I never got a chance to test it, because once I got it home the hot, dry southwest air cleared it up. I'm a bit surprised it hasn't come back since moving to cooler, damper climes.

Its been a while since I put the "dog house" back on my D24, but I remember that what Tim already noted is very important - that radiator support is essentially the spine of the whole shebang, it's gotta be true or you'll have to brush up on your list of expletives for the rest of it. A tip that I hope isn't insulting (my Dad taught me this when I was a wee tot so its second nature to me, but I see mechanics not doing this pretty often) - don't cinch each nut/bolt/fastener up as you put them in, wait until you get the whole assembly together. It'll be a little loose and you'll have to be careful not to damage your paint in some places, but it will be much easier to make the adjustments to bring the parts into alignment without forcing them.

I had to completely rebuild my steering box last year after many years of "adventuresome" driving. Your sector shaft & gear don't look bad from the photo; some wear on the gears is normal and is what should be correctable w/ adjustments. What to check is that the sector shaft gear turns freely and the shaft itself. What deathbound shows with the straight-edge is important - if the roller gear is good and theres no wear on the shaft - then a "simple" rebuild (bushings, bearings, seals) may just do the trick. The sector shafts and steering worm gears are out there, but they're getting hard to find and commensurately pricey The smallest amount of slop in the gearbox translates exponentially to an exiting time keeping the car between the ditches.

Although 12V, I had the same problem with my daughter's Falcon a few years ago. I didn't heed the age old "start simple" mantra and fixed / rebuilt / replaced almost everything to no avail and it turned out to be the second simplest solution. Bad battery cable. (Simplest solution would have been the battery, but that was good.) I only have a rudimentary knowledge of things electrical. What confused me was that the voltage showed good everywhere I checked, but it would plummet when I turned the key. I knew the battery was good so I just thought a component was doing something funky. Finally decided to simply check draw between each connection (what I should have done first) and viola - the pos. battery cable was the culprit. I just didn't think something like that would go bad.

I'll champion silicone spray vs. soapy water. I installed the rear window in my daughter's Falcon a couple weeks ago, same procedure as the windshield on P15/D24s except it installs from the outside. Made two attempts to get the stainless trim in the seal. (On a Falcon it should be installed before the window is installed on the car.) Soapy water made me exhaust my handy list of expletives before I could finish. Broke out the Liquid Wrench silicone spray as recommended by a local hot rod shop and it was angels singing as sunbeams shone through parting clouds. I know soapy water works, but I'd suggest that silicone spray works better. And for those who were keeping track, no, the Falcon isn't finished. Had to take a "tax hiatus" - Uncle Sam didn't do it to me, the State of New York did. And I didn't even get a hug with it.....

For traffic enforcement it depends on the State, i.e. in New York any parking lot with access to a public thoroughfare is free game, including accident investigations. You can conceivably get a ticket for running one of those stop signs in the mall parking lot. While in Texas the police will only investigate an accident, or do traffic enforcement, on the streets. As far as general enforcement, any parking lot with public access to a public thoroughfare is free game - decision of several Federal District and Appelate Courts, and at least one Supreme Court decision.

The car did its barn time in southern Illinois (Effingham). It was sold new in Terre Haute, IN. Your right about nuts in NY, tho - most of them seem to be in Albany (the capitol)....nyuk, nyuk.

Our Terraplane sat in a barn for @ 12 years before we got it, we've had it 10-years now, and still everytime I have to monkey around with the underside I get showered with walnut, acorn, and pecan shells from a squirrel's old stash in the frame.....even after several concerted efforts to clean them all out.

Those are automatic license plate readers. Before every shift, the officer assigned a car with those on it downloads a hot-sheet for BOLOs, stolen, suspicious vehicles, etc. onto a mobile computer mounted in the car. The readers bounce what they see off the hot-sheet and alert the officer if they get a hit.

Not "inside" the car, but still technically "in" the car - pastic wadding from a 12 guage shotgun shell came out of the rocker when I was fixing a hole under the driver's side rear door. Didn't know what made the hole until the wad fell out. All the shot had already come out a long time before, and the wad fell out when I was hammering around the hole to straighten it enough to weld it. Not very exciting, but it was a surprise. All my rides had been pretty well "cleaned" out before I got them - unless you count mouse poop.

I bought a roll of that anti-squeek stuff from Andy Bernbaum almost twenty years ago, (its actually called "anti squeek", too), haven't checked that site for a long time (I heard on this forum that he sold the shop, but the buyer is continuing the business). I used it to put the Dodge back together way back when, and am still finding uses and will have enough left to do the Terraplane when the time comes. Its not really that thin, just crimped under pressure for all those years. Its a heavy duty weaved cloth. I think its impregnated with some sort of oil or parafin, but its not "soaked".

Assuming your talking about the panels between the body and bumper (everyone calls them something different), I just bought some from Steele Rubber. 1/4" hole x 3/16" high.

I'll echo; put #1 piston at top-dead-center and your distributor rotor will be pointed at #1, too. Then just run your plug wires clockwise in the 153624 firing order. You have to get the #1 lined up per the distributor, you can't always rely on where it "should" be.

New seals will stop leaks as long as the parts are still true. I'd echo avoiding leather, but I'm guessing new kits/seals are all made with neoprene or similar rubber anyway. I don't know how "thin" corn head grease is, but after seeing what regular grease will do (or rather not do) to the worm and sector shaft gears first hand I'd highly recommend the manufacturer's recommended gear oil. But whatever you decide to use needs to get between the moving parts and stay there. The type of lubricant you use shouldn't be based on stopping leaks or convenience.

They were useful in the desert, too. No hood to get in the way of spotting tracks out the windshield.....

Back before my days in the outfit, the Border Patrol wouldn't even order cars with air conditioning. When it started coming standard, a lot of the sector Chief's would order the mechanics to pull the A/C - and the "good time" radios if they came with them. Reasoning was supposed to be to ensure the agents were out of the cars working. "Good time" radios were no biggie, since most of the places we work didn't have good radio for the longest time anyway. A couple sectors still removed the AC into the 1980's, and we were still doing the "post delivery radio delete" into the early '90s in some places. Vinyl seats were the norm, and cool cushions were a commodity.

I didn't even think of looking it up on line, I thought it was an out dated term that hadn't made it into the computer age. Just goes to show you can find anything on the internet I like the "stylish" seat covers, too. I imagine the upholstery was getting pretty long in the tooth by the time the photo was taken.

Greetings all! I was perusing some historical photos and came across this photo of a U.S. Border Patrol auto maintenance garage in Yuma, AZ, taken in 1946. Unless I am mistaken, those are 1942 Plymouths. Early models I'm assuming because they have bright trim. They'd have been patrol cars, our vehicles were black and without any markings until the 50's. They were referred to by or quarry as "Black Marias", but I haven't found anyone that can explain why - other than the obvious, they were painted black, but "Maria" - I don't know. Cars built specifically for police use didn't come out until 1957 (Chevrolet claims to be first). Until then law enforcement agencies just bought the most reliable reasonably priced cars - with what the Border Patrol put cars through - kudos to Plymouth here. (A Border Patrolman could break and anvil with a rubber mallet.) You'll probably wonder about the Jeep - USBP was considered important enough to national security during WW2 that we got new Jeeps during the war. Anyway, thought some would find the photo interesting, especially the 42 Plymouth owners out there.

My car will start that quick if its been run "recently" - within a week or two - and will always start that quick once its warmed up. Getting it to wake up after a long slumber is a different story, that usually takes a few sessions of 3-5 seconds of cranking. The colder it is, and the longer it sat, the more sessions it takes. (It's still running 6v.)

They shouldn't flicker at all, but it's nothing to panic about. Most likely grounds and/or connections in the headlight circuit if nothing else flickers. 6v systems are picky if your car is still 6v. I'd start with the low hanging fruit and check the grounds first and make sure they have good clean metal to metal contact, then go through the connections and check same.

Asbestos is certainly dangerous, but you have to take a lot of the response to it with a grain of salt. Some people can breath it all day and not have problems, some will get mesothelioma with just one exposure - thats why all the precaution. Overdone? Probably. I put that in the same category of radioactive waste disposal. The stuff they pour billions of dollars into "disposing" gives off less radiation than if you were to stand outside for few hours, but people say the sky is falling because if it, and there you have it. Panic and expensive mitigation, and lawyers lining up to sue some one on your behalf because of it. I have a 6" x 6" patch of asbestos on one of the floor joists in my house, had something to do with the old furnace. Here in NY, it'll cost $3-5,000 to remove it. In Texas they'd just laugh at you and tell you to do it yourself.

Uncle Sam is very paranoid about cyber attacks, we have procedures in place that may seem overly simple, but are known to work as long as you ALWAYS follow them. One being to simply delete suspect emails right out of your inbox. Anything that opens them, to include previews, can damage your computer with viruses or allow spyware or malware to be downloaded without your knowing it. So just delete suspect emails, that's the best and safest bet. I, too, was detained overseas pending a bond. I didn't get the email, but my In-laws did. (Sadly, before they found out it was a hoax, I don't think there was much of a rush to find the money ) The lengths that cyber criminals will go to is, for want of a better description, impressive. They have such things as programs that do nothing but run number sequences 24/7/365 until they hit a valid credit card number and PIN, then the program automatically either withdraws the cash limit from your account, or purchases stuff. (My agency actually arrested some Iraqis near Detroit a few years ago, who had a laptop set up to do that.) You'll get a bill for some wierd thing you bought two states away. Latest trend is to buy small dollar items so you "won't notice".

He was a genuinely nice guy. We didn't even talk about our "jobs", we talked about the history of the area (such as; a young Lieutenant George S.Patton was the XO of the Army unit posted there before he shipped out to WW1). Zipping along I-10 one tends to miss Ft Hancock, but out of all the places I've been, I ran into more "famous" people there because it was a convenient whistle-stop where the celebrities didn't have to deal with throngs of adoring fans - that and Angie's being a salsa mecca for a few years didn't hurt.

Cool. I watched that. I have BB King's autograph on the bill of one of my Border Patrol ball caps. I was sitting in Angie's Restaurant (the only one) in Fort Hancock, Texas along I-10 many years ago having some iced tea in the middle of my shift, when his tour bus pulled up. He and his crew came into the restaurant for lunch (Angie's was listed at the time in Texas Monthly as having the best salsa in the state). We were the only ones in the restaurant so we struck up a conversation. Mr. King asked for my ball cap, autographed the bill, and gave my cap back. I'm not an autograph collector by any means - his is the only one I have - but I haven't worn that cap since. Folks wonder why I have a plain old BP cap in my bookshelf here at work, so I have that neat story to tell.