Big_John

I had a '76 New Yorker Brougham years ago.... I bought it from a friend who ran a shop. The car really needed to be painted, and his brother was going to paint it if I helped prep and mask the car. I was finishing the masking and his brother showed up very drunk. The car was supposed to get painted that night, and I figured he would just pass out somewhere and I'd have to wait another day. He painted the car.... and it looked like a drunk painted it. I have never seen that much orange peel on a car. It was all one color though, and looked good from about 40 feet.

No rear end problems, but I did have to have the transmission rebuilt this past summer. That was a bit expensive, but I said it was less than replacing the truck. It's a southern truck originally and it doesn't see much, if any winter duties now. I've had it almost 7 years now,

We've had him for over 4 1/2 years now. Believe me, he has a pretty good life. Everyone just loves him. He's a great dog.. I've said many times that I wish I could clone him. We think he's about 10.

Local guys used to run one. It's been restored with new owner in Ohio

I'd say that was true. We don't have a lot of history on our dog, but we were told a couple things. One was that he was brought in with another dog that was deemed too dangerous and was put down. The other was that he was chained up outside. Some of that makes sense, as he seems to get a bit "needy" and looking for us to sit with him. I think he misses the other dog. As far as chained up, the fur on his neck showed that must have happened. He has great house manners though, so we think something happened where he ended up outside... Or possibly the other dog was the problem. We'll never know. This is actually a little rare for us to only have one dog.... We've talked about getting him a buddy, but one dog is enough at this time.

I've read that the UK has a lot of very narrow streets that aren't big car friendly. In fact, just today, I read on a 1:1 Chrysler forum about such issues, including 6'6 width restrictions where you have to fit between some poles to proceed down the road. If it's too narrow, then yea, it's too narrow... But c'mon... In the video, getting that car through the entrance in the parking garage was nonsense.

IMHO, that guy can't drive. That's his big problem. I think that I could take that car through most of the stuff he was struggling with and do it at speed.... I learned to drive in my Dad's 1968 Chrysler 300, so big cars are second nature. You have to swing the car out a little wider and get it straight before entering that parking garage. A modern pickup truck is roughly the same size, but I know they aren't as popular in Europe as they are in the US. Going forward is easy... If the car is straight, as long as the front will fit, so will the rear. Parking is a little more challenging, but if you are driving something nice, you'll want to park away from everyone anyway. Some people just don't like driving big cars, but once you get a few hundred miles under your belt, it becomes just another car. My '65 Chrysler 300L driven at the local high school "Crystal Ball Cruise" where we take seniors to their senior ball.

I had two Rotties. They were great dogs.... I lost one in a divorce, but managed to keep the other. They do like to chew... Normal dog toys get destroyed in minutes, so some of the tougher chew toys may be worth trying. Take the object out of their mouth and hand them a chew toy... See if that helps. I used to get Lacrosse balls for the dogs. Too big to swallow and too tough to destroy (at least right away LOL) and great to play fetch with.

I posted my fun cars. These are my daily drivers. 2010 Ford Ranger. One of my favorite drivers ever. It hauls everything I need to. 2019 Ford Edge. We bought this used from a local dealer that my son used to work for. He's been gone from there for a while, but his buddy still sells cars there. The previous owner's wife had passed and wanted a smaller car that was easier for him to drive. The dealer took it in before the lease was up. I saw it the day after it came in, not even cleaned up yet. I shot them an offer, figuring on going back and forth.... and they took that offer, so I think they needed to get it off the books.

I don't think he found Santa too scary, but I do think he thought we were going to leave him there. He has zero problems going anywhere else. Vet is no big deal. Same for going to the folks that board him while we're out of town... In fact he loves it there. We have a groomer come and he runs out to see her, so like I saw, no issues with anything.

We took our dog to the shelter where we got him for a pic with Santa. He's a normally pretty mellow guy, but he was a bit on edge when we got there. Completely out of character for him. We got our turn with Santa and didn't he lift his leg on the poor guy. Seems there was a "intact" dog in before him that marked old Santa's boots. No one was upset, except us, and Santa was wearing rubber boots and had a bucket of soap and water with a brush to clean up. We decided not to take him back the next year.

These? https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/1-24-scale-mopar-440-long-tube-headers

Yes, they can be cleaned, and I do clean them, but there comes a point with a $10 (on sale) spray gun gets gunked up enough that it's cost effective to toss it. It depends on how much paint work you do and how well you clean it between uses.

I've had a Paasche H since the late 60's and have always loved it. When I started using acrylics, I started using a Paasche Talon as the H really didn't work as well for that. The gravity fed Talon just works better for acrylics. I also bought a fan air cap for it the Talon that I use all the time and while I don't due larger scales, the fan gives a wider pattern that I think would work. I've used door jam guns, but not for modeling. They work great for some 1:1 stuff I've done and and an entry level could easily be a Harbor Freight version. At $15 for a gravity fed jam gun, it's worth a try. FWIW, I've used their larger HLVP purple guns and they do a great job and if they get too dirty, you toss it. Paasche fan air cap.

I've lost a bunch of friends to drunk drivers and drunk driving. At first blush, I was thinking that it was funny for the DA to contact you over what I would call a civil matter. Then thinking about it, the DA is trying to get some sort of punishment for the drunk that hit you and the owner of the truck. Since I live in New York State too, I can tell you the owner of the van is the one that has to be insured and not the driver. I can also tell you from owning a company, that the if the truck owner's insurance is commercial, they often don't cover any damage caused by someone driving under the influence. We actually got a letter about it from the insurance company. The other thing is you may or may not have had some liability from your car striking someone else's. I was told that if you get hit and you get driven into another car, your insurance company may be responsible. That may have changed, but a call to your company may be in order to see if your premiums will increase. Since your insurance has paid for your car, that's great. The insurance company is the one that will be compensated though. Chances are good, you (or your insurance co) will only see pennies rather than dollars, but both the owner and the driver sound like they are perpetual offenders, so some financial pain might be in order. So, I'd call the insurance company and speak to someone besides the agent that sold you the policy. See what they say, but I'm in favor of getting these guys to pay for their actions. Too many get away with this stuff only to do it again in a couple years.

Try here: https://public.fotki.com/drasticplasticsmcc/mkiba-build-under-c/revell-instructions/automotive-cars--pi/chevrolet/ I wasn't sure what year, but this gets you real close.

Chronic pain is one reason I retired a bit early, but I digress.... I mentioned that I do most of my own work on my old cars.... It seems like an awful lot of that is going back and fixing what was done by previous owners. Here's an example... On my '65 Chrysler, there's a red reflector on the inside door panel. Some previous owner decided to make it light up when you open the door. Nice idea.... Until I took the panel off. It was cobbed in place with bits and pieces. The wiring was like a kid did it with scraps they found... Like 3 feet or so then a splice, then another 2 feet and a splice... and on and on. To stay with the theme of this thread... That irks me a lot.

Sleep depravation is hard on both body and mind. I've been there, done that. You get to the point where you are so exhausted you can't sleep. Medical cannabis after I retired was the answer, but working guys, especially if you are required to do a urine test, might not have that option. My issue now is mostly chronic pain.. I was up at 1AM and then 4AM and got back to sleep until the dog woke me up at 7:30. Over the counter sleep stuff doesn't work for me, in fact it has the exact opposite effect, something my GP tells me is common. Melatonin might help and don't be afraid to take a couple. Tylenol PM works well for my wife and that is just extra strength Tylenol with Benadryl. I used Ambien for a short time 15+ years ago, but got a little too dependent on it. A few sleepless nights when I stopped, but it had the effect of resetting my sleep patterns, so that worked for a while. Ambien has some bad side effects for some and that often outweighs the good, so it's a last resort. It needs to be taken well ahead of bedtime too, so it's not something that you can take when you are having a sleepless night. It's a tough thing to deal with and an awful lot of people don't understand. I hope you can get some rest.

That is the way the hobby seems to be heading. There are a lot of guys that don't or can't work on their own cars. I've had that exact same conversation several times. The number seems to be increasing steadily. One problem that I see is those folks that can't do their own work also don't realize the guys in the tire shop might not be able to do the work correctly. I hear the stories and the first words out of my mouth are "find another mechanic". That is more easily said than done because as the older mechanics "age out" it's become even tougher to find younger mechanics that are old car savvy. I do 99% of my own work on my old cars and to me that is part of the fun.

They have a bunch of rental electric bikes around here (Syracuse, NY) and I see them left just about everywhere when I'm in town. I don't pay much attention as I'm outside the city in the country. I would think they would have the same problem... Or just some clown even trying to ride one in a snow storm could get themselves killed. We were averaging 10 feet of snow a year, but that's been a bit less the last few years.

With the road salt that they spread around here all winter, I can't help but wonder about how that affects the EV's batteries.

Pics taken by the fire department. The first was taken right in front of my house and before the trucks came. 5 different volunteer fire departments were there.

I expected to see someone "babysitting" afterwards to be sure nothing rekindled another fire, but there wasn't. That could also be because these were our great volunteer firemen that had real jobs to get to when they were done. (emphasis on great) I don't want to/won't get political about this, but the reality is that pressure to produce these cars is pretty high, so you can figure corners are going to be cut. On the other side of the coin, you can't predict every "real world" scenario either and hopefully, problems will get identified and solved. It really comes down to us being the lab rats for progress.

I'm not familiar with all the variants. I do know it was a Ford Escape and my neighbor told me that it was plugged into a charger in his garage when the fire happened. It was also real quiet when I heard him driving by, so I assumed it was a full electric. I looked it up and I now understand it was a "plug in" hybrid which means PHEV. Had to look up what the acronym PHEV too... LOL.... That's how little I know (or care) about them. That explains a couple things. I had read, and talking to firefighter friends, that the electric cars did not extinguish very easily, if at all. My step son's girlfriend, a Scranton, PA firefighter, told me that there basically is no extinguishing them... They knocked down the fire pretty fast, although the fire was obviously very intense. I expected the car to be melted rather than looking like a typical burnt car. It also makes me wonder if the charger was "Level 1" which is a simple charger that plugs into the exiting 110 outlet and apparently comes with the car. The same builder built our house in the late 50's and my garage wiring was marginal, so that may have been a factor. This was a very intense fire though.... The sheriffs had us leave our house and go sit in our car in our other neighbor's driveway in case it spread. It was pouring rain, so I think that helped it not involve our house and may have kept it from becoming much worse.

So... This happened next door early this morning... The aftermath. This was a garage. About 6AM we were awakened by the neighbor pounding on our door yelling for us to call 911. Flames were shooting out of the garage about 30 feet. Long story short, the house is beyond repair. Everyone got out, the main part of the house is still intact, but there is a lot of damage to the attic area and therefor the roof joists are burnt. One is still in the hospital for smoke inhalation and going to be overnight for observation. He's about 80 and has been in bad health. His partner is OK, he just stopped by to return the shoes I gave him this morning. He's in his early 60's, but he's very shaken as he went through a house fire when he was a kid. Great neighbors.... This house has had 5 different sets of people living in it since I bought my place 40 years ago and they were the best of the bunch.