Dan - Sorta/Kinda. I'm stuffed for sure. If I were going to make some real Nachos I like the ingredients found on this one (canned Web image).

 

Duh! Not.surprising my mind didn't go there though, never cared much for their music.

 

Nice!

 

John - Very nice Pinewood Derby stories. I also did Pinewood Derby in both Indian Guides and Cub Scouts. My car's were a bust. However, I had a chance at redemption when I was pleasantly surprised that the Girl Scouts also had a Pinewood Derby. My youngest daughter won a 2nd place one year and a 3rd another year. Dad's were allowed and encouraged to help substantially. She still has all her cars and trophies, they're displayed in her oldest son's room.

 

Chris - No one liked ABBA

 

The music anyway. 40 years later and I still remember a video with Agnetha wearing parachute pants.

 

Good morning everyone. This time of [night] shouldn't be allowed.

Was raining when I let the dog out this morning. Yuck. So much for mowing this afternoon, unless it gets quite warm and the sun stays out all day. I haven't seen the weather forecast yet.

Chris love the pictures. I think the 442 convertible is my favorite as well. What, no Barracuda's?

Norm is that what they are singing about, Waterloo IL?

John at work we call that the FIM. Fault Isolation Manual. Every plane has one. I think a lot of them read similar.

Only a couple people here so far, and there are no wheels ready to be built. This will be a slow 2 hours. Eh, the company wants to pay me so here I am. Another week of the lead not being here.

Hope everyone has a good start to the week.

 

So I thought this was funny. I had never heard of Waterloo, IL before Chris posted his pictures. Now I see a Cars Wanted ad and the guy is in Waterloo, IL. Guy wants a 79 Delta 88 Holiday coupe in silver. My Grandmother had one just like that. The paint was so bad it chalked. I tried waxing it once and the wax just soaked in, never to be seen again. But it had this beautiful bright red velour interior with the fasted power windows I'd ever seen. And it had an Olds 350 and that car moved! My aunt talked her into trading it on a Taurus, and she got -zero- for the trade. I was furious. Well, I won't get into it.

So anyway I thought it was funny I saw that guy from Waterloo, IL.

 

The song is a love relationship metaphor employing Napoleon's last battle of Waterloo (Belgium), at the time under United Kingdom control (United Kingdom Nederlands). In a way, I suspect it's about Waterloo, IL since many North American towns/cities derive their names from European ancestral nomenclature.

 

Mike - Glad you liked the pictures. I was also surprised there were no Barracudas there, or classic era Challengers either. My buddy who owns the Valiants, and several other Mopars, lives only 10 miles from Waterloo. Unfortunately he had plans and couldn't swing by. I did see a couple of guys I used to work with that I hadn't seen in several years. One of the guys owns the blue '57 Chevy truck parked next to me in the pics, and the other has the 2 tone, white and orange El Camino. It was nice to see them. One of the nicest things about the show was that it was far enough away from me that there was a whole bunch of nice cars I hadn't seen before.

 

And, no fire trucks.

 

I'm keeping my eye out and my camera ready Norm. Somehow, some way, I'm gonna get ya another Fire Truck picture!

 

What starts with F and ends with K and has UC in the middle? Firetruck.

I always thought Anni-Frid was better looking than Agnetha.

Chris did you ever post up pictures of your friend's Valiants? Did he ever sell his truck?

Closing in on 30 wheels here, not too bad. Got a couple errands to run after work, and it's been sunny all day so maybe I can mow a little bit.

 

Mike - No, I never posted any pics of his Valiants, I don't have any. One of these days when I'm over there again I'll try to get some pictures if the opportunity comes up. These days when I go over there I'm usually busy doing heavy physical chores to help him out, or helping him with his 4-door Dart restoration when he needs an extra set of hands. He's still weak from all his cancer treatments and can only do limited physical activity. Yes, he sold the big 4-door Dodge Dually to a guy who owns a Ranch in Texas.

 

Spent two hours on driving range. Tee-time 9:30am, tomorrow.

 

Good morning everyone.

Came in for overtime, been sitting. No wall guys showed up. Four robot guys, the wheels are stacked up, no one to work them. Now, one might think two of the robot guys could move to the wall so we'd actually have some progress, but one would be wrong. Eh, above my pay grade.

Turned out to be nice all day yesterday so I mowed some when I got home. Looks way better. If it doesn't rain today I'll mow at Mom's.

I've got a big air compressor at my house that is plumbed throughout the basement and up to the garage. The guy that put it in used PVC for the lines, which I'm not a fan of. The whole deal was completely tight for about a year after I moved in, the compressor stayed on but never ran. All of a sudden it would run and run and not build pressure. Both the hose reels had tiny leaks but I have a feeling the PVC has cracked somewhere I can't see. I need to chase the whole run and see what's going on. If I find a problem, can I use Sharkbites to patch in black iron pipe to the PVC? Eventually I'd like to put all black iron pipe in, but that's down the road.

Almost regular start time. Boy I'm glad I sat here for two hours doing nothing. At least I got paid. So Happy Tuesday everyone.

 

Mike - I have no experience w/ Sharkbite fittings. I replaced all the metal plumbing in my home w/ PEX. I purchased the crimping tool and used brass crimp fittings throughout. I've never used PVC for compressed air lines. My only experience w/ PVC has been water plumbing.

 

So I'm at 29 wheels but still have had a lot of time for surfing, thinking, snoozing, etc. And I've come up with a couple questions for my trusted, learned colleagues.

Lately I've seen more than one person say that if you run bad gas(ie very old gas) through your engine it will ruin it. How? My thinking is, if it's bad it won't burn and the engine won't run. Sure it might be a pain to get all the bad gas out. But ruin the engine?

I have flex brake hoses for my Valiant that are 10-15 years old. They are never used, still in the original packages, parts. Are they still okay to use? Yes they are old, but not exposed to the elements and certainly not any fluid run through them. Not genuine MOPAR. They came with the car and I'd hate to not use them, but again I don't want to step on the brake and end up in someone's back pocket.

Norm I'm curious as to why, after all the bad press PEX has gotten, that you'd choose to use it in your house.

Think I'll walk down to the roll up door and see what the weather is doing.

 

Mike - There are certainly others on this thread that are more knowledgeable than I am and I'm sure they'll chime in. There are two ways that I can think of offhand where I can see very old gas doing damage to an engine. First, as gas ages it's combustion properties change which can lead to detonation which is never a good thing. The other thing is that if it is very old and originally contained Ethanol, there's a high probability it's picked up water which can damage sensors and other components. I wouldn't take the chance, I'd get it all out of there if you can.

 

Old gas turns to varnish. Back in the 90s I ran some old gas from my Cutlass in the lawn mower, and while the mower ran well with it, it was a one-time thing. The next week when I needed to mow the lawn mower wouldn't start, so I had to clean the carb and then it started. Repeat every week after that. So while old gas may not "ruin" the engine, it can gum up the carb and cause the engine to not run. I guess for non-mechanical people that would be a ruined engine.

 

Mike - I installed my PEX >15 yrs ago. Like most things, there's controversy anywhere you look. I have had zero issues w/ my PEX installation.

 

My only experience w/ bad (old) gasoline has been "gum". I've never had an ICE suffer engine component failure as the result of bad (old) gasoline. My worst case scenario was my 5500W portable generator which I hadn't started for a couple years (I use it primarily as a backup power supply during hurricane season; although, I occasionally might use it for running power tools). The generator carburetor was full of gooey gum and clogged the several orifices w/in the carburetor disabling the ability to start the generator. I've heard of guys who had to replace pistons in two-cycle weed trimmers from using bad (old) gas but it hasn't been the case for me.

 

I did have one experience w/ bad gasoline which destroyed a piston. I was running a brand new 90hp Johnson outboard on a 19' skiff ~2 miles off the coast of Tampa, FL when the engine suddenly took a ****. The engine was only six months old at the time. I limped into shore to a marina w/ a marine engine shop. Four or five days later they diagnosed the issue. Water in the gasoline had blown a chunk of metal from the crown of a piston & created a hole in the crown. I normally had never filled boat tanks w/ marina gasoline because of the chance this may occur someday. I always filled any of my boats on land at service station pumps. The night before I set out to fish that fateful day, I had in fact filled the tank from a marina because I didn't want to be bothered with going to a service station. Didn't catch many fish that day.

 

Note To Self: Good time to fire up the generator since hurricane season just began.

 

I heard this the other day and your story brought it to the forefront

 

Why are fireworks (big fireworks) going on all around town (somewhere). I realize it's the 4th, but isn't it a month too early?

 

Keith - I have to say these guys (Little Roger and the Goosebumps) are bizarre.

 

That was the first thing I have heard from little Roger and the Goosebumps (quite a handle) Norm. I looked up a few more of their parodies....I agree a bit bizarre.

 

Good morning everyone.

Another day of 5 mechanics and no wall guys. This can't continue. Someone will notice that all this overtime money is going out and zero production is being seen. Eh, ride the wave while we can.

Got a late start mowing at Mom's yesterday, so only got a little bit done. That's okay, it does look better. I wish I had some help moving a couple cars that are still over there. I can do it myself but it always takes me all day to move one car. So much to do and I kick myself every day for not doing any of it in the past 18 years. I either needed money or time and never does it seem I have them both at the same time.

What's worked for me forever is I put in a couple gallons of fresh gas in the old gas that's been sitting and the car fires up and runs, usually poorly, until I can get more good gas in there. What I'm picturing when someone says old gas will ruin the engine is the whole thing explodes and springs come out of it, like in the cartoons.

Guess I'll find something to do. Go for a walk maybe. I could use some money I'll walk down to the ATM. That will take up a whole 10 minutes.

Happy Hump Day everyone. Hope it's good for you.

 

Figured out what the BIG fireworks & all the booms were last night. North Carolina Fort Macon State Park is celebrating by firing off these HUGE old cannons and tons of fireworks. I've been to the Fort on numerous occasions. Quite a fortress honestly.

 

Thats a very cool fort. I love seeing historic military sites and installations. The grounds where I worked are part of the National Historic Site of the St. Louis Arsenal. There are still alot of the original buildings there on the grounds.

 

The 5550W Portable Gen fired right up. Reaffixed several labels, tank is full & hoping for a mild season here.

 

Good deal, hope you don't have to use it for a second. Since we've been on the topic, if you haven't already done so, I'd put some StaBil in the generator tank and run it for a minute to get some of the treated gas into the carb. Ounce of prevention, since it's entirely possible you may not need to run it at all.

 

Good idea. I added Lucas when I put it away two years ago. I might put a little more in. I ran it for 10'. I have a gallon of Lucas on my shelf which I use to routinely fill smaller Lucas bottles. All my vehicles, equipment & motorcycle gets Lucas.

 

Received my wage and bonus letter yesterday. It was insultingly low, especially since they just raised the line worker's wages 13% or so in all North American plants. My coworker and I are on assignment installing some stuff in Alabama, and we just about walked off the job.

I still have a couple promotion opportunities applications in the works. If none of those go, I am going to burn vacation, and then hang out at my home plant and do as little as possible and bail at the timing of the next big project. Indiana requires payout of PTO. I work in that state. Texas, where my company is headquartered, and Kentucky, where my department sits, do not, so I should use it before giving notice.

 

I use StaBil 360 in my power equipment gas can, the motorcycles, and the 4-4-2. It is not only supposed to preserve the gas, but also neutralize the effects of Ethanol, and clean the entire fuel delivery system.

I do use Lucas octane boost in the 4-4-2. I used to occasionally hear a very faint pinging, even running 93 Octane. Putting a small amount in the tank at every fill up totally eliminated any hint of pinging.

 

Man, that really sucks! I hope you get one of the potential promotions.

 

John - Do you work in one of these buildings?

 

Norm, yes, I do.

 

Big place.