Ulu

Edith d’ Plymouth

45 years ago, I was assistant manager of an equipment rental co. We only used Wix, except for a few oddballs Wix didn’t cover. I still buy Wix when I can. I quit buying Fram in the ‘70s too. In the past 50 years I have only bought Fram when there was no choice. That happened twice, maybe 3 times.

If they strip you just JB weld that right in.

Yeah, that’s a defect a blind man would find. RIP Champion…

Whoa! That is a lot of scratch. I should put some price tags on my parts, for my wife, in case I die suddenly. I’ve just let them sit around for 30 years and somehow they have grown valuable. But she doesn’t know better and would sell them for scrap iron.

So how did your wife take to the tandem bike? Mine hasn’t been back on a bike since she fell off 2 years ago. I have been considering a tandem bike since then. We had a long wet spring, and almost zero riding time here. Lots of indoor shop time though….

There is a guy in the Nomad riders forum they call Red Tube, because he shot some WD-40 in his spark plug hole, and shot the red tube right into the cylinder. Of course the magnet trick was useless. I think he actually got it out with chewing gum.

The Champion story is very sad. My other parts bane were GM hvac blower motors. The ground wire is riveted thru the steel case, but they also put it through this cardboard insulator board. Totally unnecessary, and eventually the cardboard wears and shrinks, resulting in a loose ground wire. I have fixed three of these and they always failed the same way. If you split the motor you can drill the rivet, remove the offending cardboard, and repair it with a screw and nut, staked tight.

Less than 50% here. ;( I got an iPhone alert at 10:48, I first noticed it on my floor, as there was a pinhole in the cloth awning above. My wife pulled out glasses she still had from 2017.

Too much oil can cause it to migrate to the desiccant. It swells the bag, which is mainly to collect water. If the bag swells and bursts, it can clog the expansion valve immediately. Then the hose from the dryer plugs too. But, where the desiccant goes depends on the design. Mopar put the dryer before the expansion valve. GMs put it after the evaporator, and called it the accumulator. I believe that the theory was an accumulator could hold extra contaminants and keep them out of the compressor. My Cadillac and Chevrolet both had this and being General Motors products they probably had extra contamination too. The dryer on the Mopar was on the high-pressure side of the system. It was made of steel, while the accumulator was on the low pressure side of GMs & was made of aluminum, I believe.

These systems run with very little oil. Over-oiling is actually a worse issue. If any of the the old desiccant had leaked into the system, you will likely have a plugged hose or orifice. If the system sucked dirt in the same could be true.

It’s a burn day in the San Joaquin Valley (for Ag purposes.)

More random content… I decided to build another little stove, for my own amusement, and for TIG practice on unusual surfaces. I am building it from a small refrigeration compressor. So far I’m just cutting, and no welding yet, but probably today. The wind is almost gone and it has blown the boatyard 100% dry. A while back I bought three new Oscar fish for my largest aquarium, and I’m sure I have a breeding pair and one runt. This is a pic of the pair. I had to put the runt in a separate tank to keep him from being chewed up and spit out by his tankmates. He looks the same as the pair in my photo, but he is about 1/5 the mass of the largest fish, yet these 3 were all born at the same time. I named these fish “the three bears” when I bought them, and “baby bear” is now in his own 55 gallon tank, with 100 baby guppies to snack on and fatten him up.

If you have that they just rip it all out. Nobody will patch that stuff.

I threatened my wife with that 5 gal bucket, or she could drive to Walmart 1 mile away. I got “the look” . . .

Settlement of the house is to blame. Fortunately we still have plenty of slope. Roots from a rose bush had found the crack and plugged the sewer. This is how we found out.

Nothing intellectual has gone on here. I’ve been clinging to the dumb end of an idiot stick. We had a cracked sewer, so my whole week was shot. We took out a yard of silty clay & brought in a yard of real soil. Really lucky the crack was almost under the garden.

The rain finally stopped, and wind blew everything dry. I had been hiding in the garage for days, building a small rocket stove from some old junk. Last night I fired it off and tried to burn off whatever paint I hadn’t wirebrushed off already. This started life as two boat seat pedestals. I was easily able to boil water over the chimney with a little grate. The sooty teapot got its soot elsewhere. This stove is smokeless. Once you get it going, it has a constant chimney burn.

I vote for gold metalflake on the wheels.

I am plodding along alright. I decided that with 3 vehicles running I had no reason to rush. BUT, this season has been the wettest in 50 years since I moved here. Lots of rain days, and it just started again as I sit here typing... This global warming/cooling/changing Is making us less a desert and more tropical. Things are rusting faster ;-( Anyhow, the metal is cut and there’s no going back now.

I finally got the new frame rails cut, notched, bent, and clamped up in approximate position. Tomorrow I can clean it up a bit more, square it up, and tack it together.

SAFETY It’s all in your head . . .

Yeah, those bits are amazing! I expect them to snap off, then they bend over 90°.

I haven’t had to wrestle anybody since I was a school boy, But I was a regular skater with a huge collection of boards, right up until the time I decided to start building bicycles. My 69th birthday is about 6 weeks off. I think I will tune up my favorite board and take my chances. BTW, I don’t do any stupid skateboard stunts. I ride strictly for fitness & distance. I don’t do serious downhill either.

This thread is about the worst car parts you ever bought. I have been pretty lucky, except rebuilt Ford starters, but here is the real deal: This 50 year old sticker on a fruitcake tin is the only remaining proof that I once owned the worst aftermarket stick shift ever sold. It frequently slipped into the neutral position while the transmission was in second, meaning you were stuck in second, until you stuck your arm under the car and shifted the trans to neutral. I sold the car to a guy who decided not to bother. He drove from Reno down to Sacramento in second and cooked the engine. Good riddance to him, my high school built Ford coupe, and that awful Spark-O-Matic stick!