Ulu

These are not video links but you can easily look up the videos on YouTube.

I mentioned this trick to Mr. Fleming a few years back. This is what I call a roll-over jig. (I think I once called a box jig but this is not correct.) These guys call it a rotisserie. It’s really not, because there’s no bearings or trunnions. They just weld up these two big stands that look like 12 sided hoops and they bolt right to the frame. They can roll the car upside down and weld on the bottom or the side or whatever. If you’re doing a body off the frame, it needs to be internally braced so it doesn’t twist; But the jig itself doesn’t need to be pretty and it can be made out of scrap whatever that you can get free in short pieces. You do need enough room to roll the car sideways and back as necessary. But not being round, having it centered on the body’s center of gravity is not so critical. Of course if you do get things too eccentric you will have handling problems and it may not stay where you put it without an additional leg. In fact you may want to clamp on some safety legs or shoring temporarily while it’s in any particular position where you’ve got to lean on it, or be under it, or any such thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO3RT_COX4Y So what if it blows? I don't know how the camera survives this treatment.

I never used anything but 3M wet-or-dry on cars, But I haven’t refinished a car in 45 years. It’s still what I buy for metal finishing. I was fairly pleased with the Gator-grit paper I bought, but it’s really not as good. Normally I just bought the cheapest Harbor freight stuff for sanding wood . . . until I learned my lesson. In side-by-side comparisons there simply was no comparison. Clogging was a huge difference. The good stuff does not clog quickly and you can knock the clogs out of it easily. It’s really a pain when your paper clogs far before it gets dull. I have been buying small packages lately though, and if I want to do any serious work in the future I will order online.

Sandpaper Has become very important to me lately as I am building a new desk for my office. I am using factory joined slabs of Baltic Birch, and as they are made from multiple smaller pieces fingerjointed together, they vary in hardness from place to place. This means that they are never sanded perfectly flat from the factory, and I have gone to extreme measures to make things so. In my quest for the perfect hand rubbed finish I have discovered that it more than pays to use the finest available sandpaper; and I will no longer buy anything except 3M premium quality no slip papers, for hand sanding. There’s a few photographs of the hutch for my desk. I just finished dowling in the shelves and drilling the matched holes in the hutch. Then I scuffed them and rubbed them out, and gave them the 2nd coat of rubbed polyurethane varnish. Here I have drilled the matching dowel holes, and I am mocking up the shelves without glue.

I didn't get more time when my kids grew and married. I just got more things done. My youngest daughter is now on her 3rd divorce. ;( Eldest daughter on her second. Ex-wife has left her 6th (?) husband now at 66. Fortunately, none of them ever moved back to live with me and the new wife.

Maybe restrict motorhomes and tractors etc from driving during peak traffic hours. Otherwise, to each his own. Some folks want to ban tiny cars and motorcycles as unsafe. A pencil is unsafe if you misuse it. Anyhow I believe in "reasonable use." Be reasonable with things and they don't need to be banned.

nice barn too . . .

In or out is the same way. Blade to the sidewall.

...as you drive?

I have been to many junkyards in my day and I even worked in one for a brief time, But I have never seen anything like that up close!

Well I have not been in such a hurry to work on mine. I still don’t have a title for it and the CHP and DMV are nowhere close to cooperating. Instead I’ve been out every morning working on my shed and trying to get my tools and hardware organized which is a big deal. Anyhow if I live to be as old as you, Paul, I will get all these projects finished. And if not, then my wife will be selling the rusty remains off of for peanuts.

This is a possibility, and you can’t always see the duct tape they leave behind.

Please forgive me if any of this sounds political. It's about safety. On the 3rd and 4th we had ten thousand idiots shooting off rockets, mortars and m80s all over the county. It's been normal desert heat and no rain for months. There's a lot of tinder where folks don't irrigate. It's hard to water enough. Modern people are beyond insane. This will be their footnote in history: Over The Edge. . . . . Fresno city had 211 fire calls in one night. Structures burned down and 911 callers could not get an ambulance. Every cop was busy, and the county Sherriff had nearly 2000 calls in two days. This is on top of a emergency force which has been severely reduced by quarantine, and (because we fortunately haven't had riots) has been sending many men to serve in Oakland and other places having big race-riot problems. Two nights of indiscretion had the police haul in two drunks from a party down the street from me. Two nights in a row they were shooting off rockets over the trees (fortunately downwind from me). I was in the back, soaking down my redwoods with a hose. I have a concrete-stucco house with concrete tile roof, so not a lot to catch sparks, but I have 7 mature trees, and they were not safe at all. People both upwind and downwind were lighting off rockets. I went out both nights to try and get them to knock it off, but Saturday someone heard me yelling at them from the center of the cul-de-sac, loudly, command voice booming off six houses like farkin sasquatch, "YOU better knock that OFF or there's gonna be TROUBLE!" Neighbors called the cops, who, amazingly came within 5 minutes... But by then I was already in back, watering my neighbor's unirrigated weed patch, so it wouldn't burn and catch my fence. When the cops arrived I missed all the action. I was told eight cops showed up in 4 cars. No firetruck showed up, but I guess the local cops were busting people in force. Nothing burned down here, but a downwind neighbor found his swimming pool afloat with burnt rockets. Anyhow, California fire camps are reporting 30% of their men are on covid leave or quarantined. The police aren't saying, but I know it's grim. So think twice folks. All our emergency responders are spread thin. Drive carefully, BBQ carefully, douse those campfires and bury those damn mortars!

I was always suspicious of the bypass filter oiling system. Perhaps this was completely miss placed. I have definitely seen engines where the cam bearings were Re-drilled with smaller holes.

I live in the section of town where all the streets are named after classic authors. Keats, Burns, Shelly, Scott, Twain, Poe, Swift, Shaw . . . those guys. Which is strange for a rodeo town, but then there are lots of poet-cowboys.

Evidently not. At least nobody's ever said anything to me in person . . . And it's probably worse than you imagine. We have a cul-de-sac on each end of the block.. You must enter from a cross street in the middle. Anyhow, once I get the fins attached, this will be the best defended cul-de-sac in Cul-E-Fernya. I was gonna set this off on the 4th, but there was already plenty going off.

Our town has virtually eradicated mosquitoes vs decades past. Proactive abatement, plus public education and the release of sterile males has killed them off. Of course right now we're into our second month of desert heat, and it's quite dry except where irrigated. Also they just re-topped our streets and it is nice. They did it on a hot Wednesday, 18 years ago, and the next morning at 6am the garbage truck came and tore it all up in our cul de sac. Nobody ever fixed it either. So garbage day has not changed in 20 years, and I had a fit when I discovered that the city scheduled it on a Wednesday again! Oh crap! Fortunately, it was cooler this time and the road had time to cure over night. Also, garbage collection was delayed a couple hours, which also helped, and I think the road crews had a talk with the drivers, because this time there was no damage at all. A beautiful job overall, and quite visible from my front bay window. EDIT...I was gonna post a photo, but I realized my neighbor's one-ton fire engine red GMC was parked right in the photo. It looks beautiful against the green lawn and blacktop and yellow posies. But it's a GM and it's so big and red. I didn't want Plymouthy to have one of those epileptic episodes nor nuthin'.

One Stroke Engine? Actually this is a comparison of energy loss in engines vs guns. But the interesting thing to me is the bit about adopting roller cams, because at cruising RPM, modern engines suffer from cam/valve/spring friction. He compares typical valves vs desmodromic (springless) operation.

I was not going to saddle you guys with periodic functions plus trigonometry. Really heavy duty engines do not have piston slap and such to deal with because they use a two piece connecting rod with an intermediate sliding block that carries the thrust loads otherwise observed at the piston skirt. And of course they are the worlds tallest engines.

A longer rod can operate at more favorable angles, pushing the crank. The vertical forces on the piston are slightly greater (Yay! More power) and the side forces decrease a lot. (Yay! less friction and slap and wear!) It usually allows better torque delivery than a short rod engine. But you gotta draw a limit, because the engine gets way too tall. The rod gets too heavy or becomes some expensive metal. Other minor issues. The roughly "square" engine has become a popular compromise.

Oh yes, thanks a bundle. I had totally forgot that ugly rubber-faced muther. And no wonder...OMG! Now that you've reminded me, I'll have to forget it all over again. That thing was styled by a sadist. They got even uglier if you parked them in the sun. Fortunately, they sold so few, and the rest couldn't pass the smog checks, so now there's no credible chance of ever having to see one on the street.

I can appreciate the sedan for what it's for. It just looks too wasted for me to consider restoring when it could be custom. I like removable hardtops, and I don't have a problem with ragtops either. Once you finish all that work, you won't park it anywhere I wouldn't park my ragtop. (Don't ask what. It's so OT I'd get banned just for buying it if anyone knew.) ANYHooo....That car might make a nice ragtop MoPaRanchero Or El CaMoParino....? Chrysler never made a city slicker pickup.

Yeah, the Bulgemobiles.

I can't imagine doing all that work to wind up with a sedan. Cut the whole damn top off!