Ulu

My P15 was insured with Farmer's. I had a stated value policy which, after selling it to me, the agent explained that they would pay the stated value (but no more) if the car were lost or totaled, only as long as the car was actually worth that much at the time of loss.* I asked how they determine that if the car is stolen and not available for inspection. He really gave me a hokey answer: "We use a formula based on several different factors." He could not, however, recite that formula. That was "the adjuster's job". In the end it all sounded like a scam to me. They charge you the premium based on a stated value, but they pay out based on some latter "determination". One guy sells you the policy, but someone else determines what it actually is. I did have one minor claim with them over comprehensive coverage. They screwed me over on the repairs, which is silly as it was such a small $ amount. I've had better claims coverage from AAA, which I really don't like either. Anyhow, I'd been with Farmer's for 10 years, and I dumped them like a hot rock for being such cheap bastoids. *I don't know if this is still their policy, as I dumped them about 20 years ago, just as soon as the car was paid off.

Hell, I just thought it was photoshopped.

Yes indeed, and be proud Lakota. It takes some real gumption for a kid to put out that kind of effort & be a winner. Too many kids (and their parents) don't understand at all. They take modern life at the least possible energy level: letting machines do all the work while they get fat and lazy. That was me 10 years past (lazy and fat) and then one day I read this quotation from some wealthy guy. He said that the most common characteristic of intelligent and successful people was physical fitness. That was a definite game changer. Not that I felt particularly unsuccessful or unhappy, but I knew that everything in my whole life would be easier and simpler if I was in better shape. (It is too.) I have seven grandkids, and this is an idea that I promote to them all the time. Get out there and run! Get some exercise now. Fat people might seem jolly, but fit people are happy people, and fit kids grow up to be happier adults IMHO.

I didn't realize that fact, but I know the San Joaquin Valley has sunk like 50 feet from groundwater pumping (or so they claim) and groundwater levels have dropped 500 feet & more. Here we have what they call "recharge ponds", which are just artificial ponds that collect water from the storm drains and let it percolate back into the ground. They can't be putting back much compared to what we've pumped out. Anyhow, all the shallow wells here are giving out, and everyone is drilling much deeper wells.

My lawn and plants are actually looking healthier since we started watering with soapy washing machine water. That Ecos laundry detergent must make a good fertilizer too. Like most, the active ingredient is sodium carbonate (dehydrated baking soda) which is already in the local water. All the other little "guaranteed organic" ingredients must be doing the job. Every gardening show tells you to add some dish soap to your watering can, and now I can see why. It evidently makes the water soak in faster, before it can evaporate, which is a good thing.

Mine has T-bolts there, but U-bolts on the engine mount bracket.

OK, I get how a flanged axle drum can be transported to a tapered axle car (if it has the correct brake width for that drum) but that "drum-behind-the-hub" business still freaks me out.

My strikers and rotors are quite worn too. My doors had huge play in the hinges, due to two of the pins having risen from the lower holes. They were so loose you could lift the tail of the door 1/2" or more when open, yet I could still open and close the doors OK.

OK, that's amazing. How do they sense that?

I just re-read the letter and the city said nobody would be penalized for not meeting the 36% reduction mandate, if they were still under the baseline. Nobody who waters the lawn will be under the baseline, & until just this month you could be ticked for having a dead lawn, dead tree, or dry weeds in your yard etc. so everyone watered if they didn't want to pay a fine! Therefore, only scofflaws will have a prior usage history that low (below baseline) but now anyone under baseline will have a brown lawn. I abandoned the 1/3 of my back yard that I was going to re-sod as the dogs had ruined it. I cut watering times back 50%, and still we will be more than 2x baseline for this 61 day billing period, as we still water the maximum 2 days a week., It would still not be enough to keep the remaining yard green without the recycled water too. Much of the overage has gone on my redwood trees, which are much too valuable to allow to die if I can help it. Fresno county has started giving away "recycled" (non-potable) water to anyone who brings a tank or a bucket. I may get something temporary on my trailer to avail myself of this, the other problem being the 25 mile drive across town to get it. Well drillers have been coming here from out of state to work. I'll bet many are from Texas, too. The waiting list to drill a new well is over a year now, unless you have some kinda pull. I sure hope this drought is on the wane.

Actually, brass is not a chemical element like iron or gold. All types of brass are alloys of copper and zinc, with other stuff often added for special uses. All types of bronze (copper+tin+etc) are also alloys.

Very interesting, Don. I suppose that making a positive ground alternator basically involves reversing the diodes, but to make it 6 volt means heavier diodes and heavier windings, or adjusting the regulator way down to prevent the skinny 12v windings from melting. Alternators replaced generators for a couple reasons, weight was a factor, and cost, but mainly because the alternator charges better at low RPM. Then again, it was possible to order delivery vehicles and such with special generator/regulator sets designed to charge more at idle speeds.

Alternator on a positive ground? Hmmm...Every time I saw an alternator conversion, it was also made neg ground at that time. As for diagnosis, clip a voltmeter on the car and go drive it. See what the voltmeter tells you about what the charging system is doing and when.

That's too bad. I remember the local Chevy guys really liking the Steele stuff, but I always bought from Bernbaum because I had an account there & they always had what I wanted too. Everything I bought for the old Plymouth came from Bernbaum or Robert's or NAPA. I'm going to go through this again: buying new rubber parts for the P-15. I'm so happy to see that it's all still available.

We have some big june bugs here most years, but they don't bother me much. It's mosquitoes that I hate & Clovis has fewer mosquitoes than any place I've ever lived. We have guys who kill off mosquitoes for a living and it works. Anyhow, I went to high school on the banks of the Rainy River, and I tell ya Minnesota has mosquitoes so awful they can carry off a live trout. OK, maybe not a trout, but I remember the Smelt used to swim upstream to get away from the mosquitoes!

It used to be that Steele had a reputation for better quality rubber parts than Bernbaum, but that was 25 years ago, and things may well have reversed.

Our meter is indeed marked in gallons, and we're at about 12,000 for the month of May so far. 1/3 of that is going on the trees, and 1/3 on the lawn & plants. The water softener takes a big chunk. At least 1200 gals a month. Lots of the rest is laundry. I brought home the third 50 gal cistern last night and got it set up to collect shower water. Right now we're using about 25 gals each morning (total) for showers, with my wife using 2/3 of it. I'm not collecting 100% of it yet, though I managed to recycle about 20 gals today. We only run the dishwasher about 4 times a week, so that really amounts to about 40 or 50 gals. But every drop we recycle is a drop I don't pay a premium to buy, since we are well over the baseline. BTW, People here are being mislead to believe that the baseline is really all they should be entitled to use without penalties, but the baseline is really the minimum you can buy. It's not the average necessary amount. It's the least they will sell you. I can't justify penalties, in my mind, just for exceeding the absolute minimums.

Not at all. I deal with public building projects every day buddy. The government always passes its waste on to the taxpayer. Never the reverse AFAIK

We get 10,000 gal baseline bill 6 times a year, plus extra $ for every 1000 gallons over that, on an increasing schedule. It used to be about $2.50 for the next 1000 gals, then $2.75 for the next, then $3 and on up. I don't know what the new (emergency drought year) cost will be on the next bill, but they say if I go 1 gal over the allotted amount, there will be a fine. My washing machine uses about 12~16 gallons, depending on how big the load is & if I do a "2nd rinse with extended spin". My dishwasher is 15 years old now, but it only uses about 9 gallons. I have a big, tall 1959 model American Standard toilet, which I refitted to save water. My wife is rather short & has a Lamosa 3/4 scale girly toilet, which somehow uses just as much water but certainly doesn't flush as forcefully. I never met a low flow toilet that I liked. Anyhow, since the kids are gone, we don't have a lot of toilet action anymore. It makes more sense to conserve other ways.

They have to recoup the cost of installing and maintaining the meters. I know you're old enough to remember when people were saying that Atomic Power would make electricity too cheap to meter. Well that was never possible, but say it was: Just because something is "too cheap to meter" doesn't mean the government is going to let us have it gratis unless they are forced to. Same with water.

Oh, geeze . . . cubic feet? I'm pretty sure my meter clocks gallons, but I never really considered that! They bill us by gallons. I'm certain of that. But if it's cubic feet I'm reading, we're using 100,000 gallons a month!

I missed the dent. Possible sign of abuse, or carelessness? Maybe it just got dropped off the top shelf. Obviously some butcher has been trying to take the drum off by prying against the backing plate. He may well have chipped & warped the drum in the process, resulting in the rubbing noise and eventual splitting of the drum.

How sure are you that your timing marks are correct? There's an easy way to find TDC and verify the zero mark, if you aren't sure.

This is freaking me out too. It's like somebody put a narrow drum & shoes on an axle that should have had wider brakes. I've never worked on a Wayfarer, but WTH?

If you want a car low without dragging the suspension, you channel it down over the frame. Then you'll be able to drag the bumper without dragging the u-bolts.