Pete J.

Yup, that pretty much covers it! At one very large business I use to work for we had an alert for that. When paging for a manager to assist with unreasonable people we would page "Manager to the front. We have a ID code ten tee. (ID10t)

Any body else headed to Dallas in a week and a half for Eagle Quest! For once I am looking forward to just enjoying the show and not having any duties.

Thank you Harry. I am the second owner and have had it since 2004 so I have had it for 10 of it's 21 years. I got is from a very good friend who babied it. It is getting to the point that it is a collectable, which means they are going to be harder to get parts for but I will be keeping for as long as I can.

Problem solved! But to the tune of $1,200! I went to tire rack and after 3 discussions and a visit with Michelin, I found that I could fit(just barely) +2 rims. So instead of 15" rims I now have 17" Enkie rims wrapped in a new set of Michelin Pilot Sport AS 3s. I was able to size them to almost the same specs and the originals. The real issue was the fronts. I had less than 3/4" clearance from the top of the struts. I now have a little less than 1/2" but that is enough. I was really concerned that they would look stupid with big oversized tire. I didn't want any Donk going on. Well here is what baby looks like with new shoes. What do you think!

The tools will be around for a long time if you get good ones. The kit isn't on my bench that long. Yes you can get American tools if you look around a little, especially on the internet. If I can't get American, I buy Japanese, German or Swiss. Since the quality of the work is to some degree dependent on the quality of the tool ,it makes sense to get the best you can afford. Your Harbor Freight calipers will never have the feel or longevity of my Starret's(The ones made in Massachusetts, not their Chinese ones) and if they ever get damaged, I can get them refurbished for less than the cost of a new set. I have been buying tools for the last 50 years and I have bought a lot of junk that wound up in the yard sale or trash can. Ultimately, I paid more for multiples of cheap tools buying and replacing them than I would have if I had spent the money on a good one the first time around. Talk to any old craftsman and he will tell you the same thing.

At 64 stuff is just deteriorating. That is a fact. My darned arms are to short! Well, the Doc just says it is my eyes going bad, but I insist the arms are shrinking. I am not a steady as I use to be, but I get by by resting my hands on the edge of the bench to get a little more accuracy. I have been getting progressively stronger lenses for Optivisor. The problem with that is that I get really close to the model and then the fumes from the glue start to sting the eyes and I have to take a break. My back won't tolerate sitting hunched over the bench like it use to but that just means I have to take a break a little more often. Growing old sucks but it sure beats the alternative! Keep after it until you drop at the bench.

Wow, I wasn't aware that Littlefield had passed away. Just as an aside, when I was doing contract work with Tamiya, I became aware of this collection. The vehicles in this collection were used as a basis for a lot of Tamiya's armor. They are going to miss having this collection close to their U.S headquarters.

You would think so wouldn't you, but no. I called Toyota and they have no suggestions(too afraid of getting sued). I have gone on line to every place I can think of. It is like the industry is phasing out 15" tires. Granted 225/50 15's performance tires were not that common and most of the MR 2's have been turned into race cars at this point, but not finding anything that I can get a matching setoff front and rears is a bit annoying. Even the MR2 forums seem to be without ideas.

Tire companies! I have a car I love, a 1993 MR 2 Turbo. Thing is fast as stink and goes around corners like a go kart. Part of the handling is a direct result of having staggered tires. Problem is they are on 15 inch rims. Little car don't need no donk rims! Well, to make a long story short, every tire manufacture on the planet has decided that the rear tires for this thing are not worth making. Not even anything close. Well that is not entirely true. You can get drag slicks or full on race tires at $800 a pop. So now, I have to go out a pop $1200 for a new set of rims and tires. Had to go +2 to get a decent selection. Now we have to wait to see if they are going to fit. The front tires have very little clearance between the suspension but if I have done my math correctly, they it will clear by 5/8". It didn't have 3/4" clearance to start with. I'm hoping! All this stress because I love a piece of machinery that no one else seems to like.

Ditto, especially the part about showing your work. As good as some of the builders here are, you can always find models models that make you feel pretty good about your builds.

While on the subject of skill, no matter how good you get, there will always be someone out there who can make your jaw drop. Here is an example.http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/images/Chenot001.jpg This is a fully operational(running) 1:8 scale Duisenberg. It is in a museum about 8 miles from me here in SoCal. Any time I am feeling pretty cocky about my skills, I stop by and get a good dose of humility. It does a body good!

You have to keep in mind that this is SoCal and I think they just kind of make the rules up as they go along. The problem was that the buyers name was on the check as a payee and it was issued to both with an "and" connector. If it had been "or" Wells would have had no problem, but processing a check of that size from another bank for someone without a known history at the bank is a problem. Navy Fed were just being jerks, because it was their cashiers check and the minute I saw the check with the "and" I knew it wasn't going to be easy!

As we are talking about cash transitions, I ran into a issue the other day and it really ticked me off. I was the co-owner of my sons car and we sold it the other day. The young man who bought it went to Navy Fed and they cut him a bank check for his loan. They decided that they needed to make the check payable to the buyer and my son. We went to our bank to deposit the check. They refused because the buyer didn't have a Wells Fargo account. So we took it to Navy Fed and they wouldn't cash it because my son didn't have a Navy Fed account. After about 15 minutes I requested to talk to the manager(ever so politely!) and after a few minutes of me getting progressively louder, they decided to cash it. Really made me nervous because I walked out of Navy Fed with over $13,000 in $100 dollar bills. I couldn't get to Wells fast enough and dump all that cash and have them cut me another bank check to send off to the lender to pay off the loan. This should have been a simple transaction, but it seems like every bank has it's own rules to prevent anyone from doing business with them that is not a account holder even on their own issued checks. FUBAR

Ok, so it looks like I have been living under a rock some where! Missed this thread completely. It took me a while to get caught up but just great machine work! This s just a great build. There are only about 4 or 5 guys on this entire site who do this level of work in metal and all of them are at the level of jewelry. I particularly enjoyed the repartee over your use of CAD and CAM. I am not that old, but I remember the time before the computer became a household appliance. People did stuff with skilled hands and sharp minds not semiconductors and stepper motors. For centuries watchmakers have been creating works of art at a very small level. I am always pleased to see that this skill is very much alive and well. It is too bad that todays generations may not be witness to such skill. Keep up the great work and I will definitely be following this. It is great inspiration.

Cato - Carnac, no, just patient. Rather than posting a page, which would be hard to see(the instructions are 11" X 17") here is the company web site, customer service. At the bottom is a link to download a PDF of the instructions. http://imcth.co.jp/english/support/ With High-speed internet it takes about 5 minutes to down load them It is a very high definition PDF so as you zoom in, the resolution on the pictures gets much clearer. The first thing I did with these instructions in down load them to a 10" tablet. My tired old eyes don't work as well as they once die so being able to zoom in on one step, makes this work a lot better. The company did a very nice job on the instructions but not every thing goes together in exactly the order they show. I have had to backtrack a couple of times to get this right. This is really one challenging kit!

I agree Harry except for one thing, bank fees. When I pay with cash, the merchant has no fee. When I pay with a debit card, there is a fee that the bank charges the merchant, but it is less than if you use a credit card, which has the highest fees. My local merchants that I like, get cash, the ones that are just a place I do business get the debit card. The gas companies and other high end stooges get the credit card. It makes no difference to my bank account but if I can "stick it to the man" even just a little bit, it makes me smile just a bit.

and now it is June 2nd and still not Harry? Well, maybe they don't have internet in the emergency room!

Cockpit is finally coming together! This is really a pain to get it in with epoxy. Thank goodness it is white metal and photo etched. I can clean up the outside with a Q-tip and acetone even after it has hardened.

I spent some time in hospitals of late(no I not 102 but sometimes feel like it) and I have had discussions with the dieticians. Although the local hospital has very good food for a large institution, the main problem is that they generally take commercial recipes an take all the bad stuff, like fat and salt out of them. When we go out, those ingredients are what makes taste the way it does. It takes a lot of talent to cook fine food without these cheap and readily available "taste makers". As a cardiac patient, I have learned to limit the amount that I use but substitutes are not cheap. Olive oil is a good fat substitute but it is far more expensive than lard or butter. Fresh herbs can be substituted for salt but again they are not cheap. Our local hospital is a 600 bed unit so with employees, they serve over 3000 meals a day. Imagine what kind of restaurant it would take to do that. Kind of ups the challenge when you are cooking to very specific health criteria.

Tamiya TS50 Mica Blue was designed for that model. Or you can go to your friendly local Subaru dealer and get a bottle of WRC blue touch up paint for one of these. I just brought this home. It is my sons and he away for a couple of days and it just arrived.

I hear you Danno! I refused to hire landscapers for years. Finally relented, but went around to my neighbors and found out who had been around for a while and hired them. Been very satisfied. About once a month I get a business card in the door from people looking for work, but I think that is a bad way to hire someone.

$120 a month here is SoCal for a do my yard once a week. Everything done. More than worth it to not have do anything.

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Ok, great, now get back to work! It's been a week since you put any new photos up and I'm starting to show signs of withdrawal! Great work Mark. I know I've said this before but this is the show stopper.

You guys have it easy! Here on the left coast gas makes wild swings for no apparent reason. Last week regular was $4.35 average and now it is down to $4.05. No reason, it just is and it does this on a regular basis. Lord help us if the "refinery" has to close for repairs! We are looking at a $.50 swing for months. The really weird thing is that California and Southern California in particular we have large oil reserves. In fact, California is third right behind Texas and Alaska and is poised to move ahead of Texas when a new oil shale deposit is opened in the next few years. The Los Angeles basin has a lot of oil wells pumping the stuff. Remember the La Brea tar pits? Yup, same oil field. Oil just oozing out of the ground. You can't get any closer to the source and we have some of the highest gas prices in the nation. I guess what really gets my underwear bunched up is that we are paying through the nose and the oil companies have been posting record profits. I can just see the oil executives in the back room, rubbing their greedy hands and chuckling. Kind of like the bankers, but that is another rant altogether.