Blog

Ooo-ooo, Witchy Woman.

I've had a short list of blogs in my sidebar for a while, and for a long time I visited every one of those blogs every day. My apple cart has gotten upset recently, a confluence of extraneous factoids perhaps, and I've noticed that most of those blogs are not as reliable as they used to be. I've been looking for new sources, but I'm not having much luck. I don't know whether there aren't any high-quality blogs out there or whether my standards just preclude anyone whom I haven't already vetted. Whatever. Today Laura put up a couple of new posts. You might want to take a look.

Prayer of the Day

Helena Valley Timing Association grad races

As I lay rubber down the street,

I pray for traction I can keep,

but if I spin and begin to slide,

please dear God protect my ride.

Amen

East Coast Main Line

Comrade Misfit posted this train video yesterday (Because It's Friday). I wondered about the "ECML" in the title, and she replied:

Charles, yes, "East Coast Mainline" or "East Coast Main Line"...people disagree. It refers to the high-speed rail corridor between London and Edinburgh in the UK. It has no level crossings, one of the key criteria of high speed rail, and one of the main blocks to high speed rail in the US.

I'll be durned. That's something you never hear the talking heads mention.

1963 International Travelall

Someboy else's Travelall that didn't fall into the clutches of a crazed teenager.

My dad had a 1963 International Travelall that he custom ordered from the factory. Two tone, white over orange. 6 cylinder engine (for economy), automatic transmission (for mom), power window in the tailgate, biggest, thickest, cushiest seats you ever saw. It was a monster. I inherited it (bought it for a pittance, like $200, which is all a eight year old truck was worth in those days) and proceeded to drive it into the ground.

New Transmission Cooler, similar in form and function to what I had to deal with. Not similar in condition.

     I couldn't afford anti-freeze so I ended up crawling underneath the truck on frozen dirt in the middle of January in Ohio in order to remove the heat exchanger from the transmission.The water inside the heat exchanger froze and pushed the cap off of one end of the tube. Soldered it back on, crawled back under the truck, and bolted it back up.
     It was just high enough off the ground that the skinny, 20 year old me could slide under it. This was also the year that one of our neighbors came over to visit carrying a glass of whiskey and looking like he'd been in a serious knock-down drag-out. Seems he'd been working under his car as well, but it was up on a jack and it fell on him. To quote, "if it hadn't fallen on my head it probably would have killed me". No, I don't know what became of him, he had his alcoholic agenda and I had mine.
    These days cars route the hot transmission fluid to a small radiator co-located with the main radiator for the engine. In most cases the two radiators are combined into one assembly. The Travelall routed engine coolant back to the heat exchanger that was mounted on the transmission. It kept the transmission lines short but required that coolant lines be run back to the transmission.
    The back side windows were cracked because we had loaded it with 40 (50) pound crates of apples (that's a ton of apples) to haul to across the state to the wholesaler.  We got a flat tire on the way, and when we jacked up the overloaded truck (with a bumper jack!), it torqued the body enough to crack the glass.
    Eventually a rod bearing failed. It's a miracle it didn't throw the rod. I wasn't aware of it at first because of all the noise from the exhaust. One of the advantages of living in the boondocks is you don't need no stinking mufflers.

Custom! Seeing that emblem really threw me. The shock of recognition was palpable.

While I was rooting around looking for pictures, I came across a mechanic's story about his resurrection of an old Travelall. Some of the problems he encounters are pretty straight forward mechanical engineering type problems, but then he starts getting into EFI (electronic fuel injection), and it starts to sound a little science-fictiony. I mean it's all real, it's just so far removed from the kind of stuff I am used to working on.

Inspired by an email exchange with my far flung correspondents.

Troubleshooting

A 1918 sketch of ground crew receiving instruction on hand starting. 

Marc related this story at lunch yesterday. Seems he knows a guy who has equipped his small, single engine airplane with a whole boat load of electronical gizmos. Somewhere along the way it developed starter problems.
     A little background: the engines on small planes are equipped with magnetos which provide spark for the spark plugs. The electrical system in the plane is used for lights and radios and such. The two systems are not connected, so even if the electrical system fails, the airplane will keep flying because that failure will have no effect on the engine.
     The starter problem was such that the electric starter would not reliably perform it's duty. If it worked, the engine started and ran fine. But it didn't always work. So Marc crawled in amongst the wires, rooted around, and eventually found a small fuse in some obscure location and the fuse was blown. Aha! He found the problem. They replaced the fuse, the engine started right up, and they thought they were golden.
     Golden that is, until the next time they wanted to go flying, when the starter wouldn't crank again. Hmmm, better check that fuse. Gosh darn it, it's blown again! Oh, well, fuses are cheap. They replace it, the engine starts and they go on their merry way.
     This goes of for a while but it eventually gets to be annoying. The fuse is blown again, we're all out of spares, we'll have to go to the store to get some more. Besides, fuses shouldn't just blow like that. There must be something wrong. So they decide to reinvestigate.
    This time the investigation is more thorough and involves worming your way into small places, hanging upside down and backwards and fighting with god's own rat's nest of wiring. But Marc perseveres and discovers that the fuse was for a clock that was never installed. When the latest batch of electronical gizmos were installed, the installers found this loose wire hanging behind the instrument panel and secured it to ground with a screw.
    Well, no wonder the fuse was blowing, the wire goes straight to ground. OK, that explains the fuse, but what does that have to do with the starter? More rooting around, and Marc discovers that connections to the starter switch are loose. He tightens them up. Problem solved.
    The problem with the starter was that there was an intermittent connection at the switch, any little vibration could cause it to make or break contact. The blown fuse was just a red herring. Certification is no substiture for careful, competent workmanship.

Girls with Guns

Colombia Independence Day Celebrations

Cell Phones & Driving

 

Because I'm a sucker for a good one-liner.

While most people can walk and chew gum at the same time, there is a minority who can't, and it's this minority that are most likely to be using a cell phone while driving because they are also not good at following rules, which means that the people who use cell phones while driving are the people who are most likely to cause an accident in the first place. Add an active cell phone to the mix and you can see how this can lead to disaster, or maybe just a fender bender.

Problem is we have become blase about automobile accidents. Cars keep getting safer and the death rate keeps falling, but cars are not safe, and an accident that involves personal injury can pretty much ruin your whole day, if not your entire life. Why do you think you are paying $100 a month for car insurance? So insurance agents can play golf? No, it's because of the massive payouts for medical expenses when people get hurt. (Well, at least I think it is. I couldn't find any data on how much insurance companies pay out. All Google delivered was useless consumer information tips, probably because I wasn't holding my mouth right.) Never mind the car, that is just a thing, and easily replaced.

While most people can manage more than one task at a time most of the time, the penalties for screwing up in a car can be catastrophic, and since rules have to apply to everyone equally, and since even the inept can qualify for driver's licenses, nobody gets to use a cell phone while driving.

Inspired by Dustbury.