Ace-Garageguy

Tree rats (aka squirrels) haven't chewed much of the wiring in my cars' engine bays since I started feeding the feral cats.

Yeah, you know you're getting old when you hope Santa leaves ibuprofen and Bengay in your stocking and a back support belt under the tree.

Line up to sit on Santa's lap and tell him everything you want.

Very nice indeed. Gray was a good guy. Nice to see him remembered.

I'm sure at least 95% of you know what a Manx is, but how many know the Brubaker Box? I still think it's one of the coolest and best looking "kit cars" ever.

Without going into detail, I understand entirely where you're coming from. Hang in there and be a good guy. Sometimes it kinda bites, but if something is the right thing to do, that's what you do.

Which is exactly why I think AI is doing a remarkably good job of emulating stupid humans who already flood the web with "bad guesses, wrong answers, and just plain made up information", and mindlessly rebleated gibberish they got elsewhere on the "information highway".

Them babes I usedter go out with never smelled of antifreeze, but I probbly wooda been better off if they had.

Checked for leaks I did, when I started occasionally smelling coolant.

So are hot-rods and Lambos and Porsches and lotsa private aircraft and boats too.

And funnily enough, I agree in principle. Though DCC effects are now pretty advanced, the tiny tinny little speakers can't help but make locomotives sound like toys, even with startup and compressor and bell and brake sound sequences. But the clickity-clack of wheels passing over track joints still sounds like a real train...just a very small one.

A '63 Rambler Classic was available as a 1/25 scale promo, though I do not know if it was ever sold as a kit. Good luck finding one for reasonable money. EDIT: Auction prices start as low as $10, go as high as several hundred. A word of caution: some appear to have been molded of "acetate" and are badly warped by now, but others may have been molded of ABS or "Cycolac" (an ABS tradename), and seem to be warp-free.

Work that can't be done on a phone or computer terminal is pretty much worthless and should be paid as little as possible, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an unnecessary, uneducated mouth-breather, or so goes one very common opinion, so when a pipe (installed by a poorly-skilled, poorly-paid worker) breaks at 3 AM and floods your basement, shorting out your power-wall and all your smart-house systems and starting a lithium ion battery fire, good luck fixing it all with an app.

"222" according to googli's AI, "is associated with the angel number, which is believed to represent balance, harmony, and spiritual alignment".

Moving along nicely. Really like that color on this body style, and I'm a big fan of that throttle linkage too.

"Dictionary" is going the way of the dodo, as word meanings are no longer always particularly consistent day in, day out, and a lot of online definitions were obviously written by folks who failed Vocabulary 101.

I've been amazed, really amazed quite literally, at what guys were getting out of stock-block Honda B16 and B18 engines. Though to date I've never laid a wrench on one, if I ever build a serious 4-cylinder hot rod, that'll be the engine.

A lot of what it comes up with sounds like what school kids write for essay-question answers when they have no clue, but believe in the old saw about "dazzle 'em with bullstuff".

Googled " '67 Rolls water pump bearing", and this is what AI vomited up: A "67 rolls water pump bearing" refers to a specific type of water pump bearing with a designation code "67 rolls," likely indicating the size and design of the bearing's rolling elements (balls or rollers) within the bearing itself; "rolls" is a common term used to describe the rolling elements in a bearing.

Depends on how fond the fruit flies are of it, naturally.

Many years ago I worked in the same shop as a guy who "built engines" for vintage sportscar road racing. Last one he did, an iron FE side-oiler in a 427 Cobra, I saw him air-gunning the main and rod cap bolts during assembly. I asked him what the jello he was doing, and he just laughed it off. Engine wasn't dynoed, car was trailered to Road Atlanta, made it through the warm up lap, soon as the green dropped, not more than half a lap anyway, the bottom end came apart looking much like what we see here. That was the last time I didn't go to my boss whenever I saw somebody doing something blatantly stupid...for which I became kinda universally hated for a while. That was also about the time I began to realize how insanely difficult it is to find people who have the knowledge, skill, and DESIRE to get everything right the first time. EDIT: This was the same "restoration" shop that would pack rusted out rocker panels and other structural areas on unibody cars with steel wool and bondo over it. Once again, I asked the body guy what he was doing, and he actually said he was doing it right, "putting steel back in the rusted out areas". I never knew if he was pulling my leg or really believed it. I left shortly thereafter to start my own shop. One of the first jobs that came is was a '67 Rolls Silver Shadow with a cooked engine. The water pump bearing is an unusual design, made to be relatively easily replaceable, but a shop that "specialized" in British cars (and where I had also worked previously) had packed a badly worn and leaking pump bearing with silicone goo rather than replacing it, and of course it dumped all the coolant first time it was taken anywhere...which happened to be on the way to the airport, with the owner going to pick up one of his clients. The job ran long because, in the days before the internet, it was often difficult to quickly find parts for some European stuff over here. We had a Rolls dealer in town, but they insisted the part was backordered indefinitely. The owner became so enraged with the parts delays he threatened to have both my knees broken. Good times in the car biz.

Vacation time on a quiet, warm, sunny beach with nobody yammering at me constantly about what an awful person I am as I try to help them and honor my own professional obligations simultaneously would be a nice change.

Which is why it's absolutely critical to get everything RIGHT when you build an engine.

Mud wrestling doesn't seem to be as popular a spectator sport as it once was, at least from my perspective.

Although much of this work is now accomplished by CAD and CNC machining (and most of that has been "offshored"), without a pool of very highly skilled people who can do this stuff, "bringing manufacturing back to America" verges on being nothing but a pipedream.