Ace-Garageguy

Plant a colony on the Moon or Mars in my lifetime, please.

"Purpose" is not a large fish-like aquatic mammal.

Seals of the trained clapping kind may be looking for alternate employment in the near future.

They're logisticking again. A shipment of Christmas gifts for women in my life left Woodstown NJ on the 5th, and arrived at the Atlanta regional distribution center at 12:30 yesterday afternoon. Not bad. Normally it takes half a day to two days to make it from there to my abode in the Atl. suburbs. I just checked the tracking, as delivery was estimated to occur today, it didn't, and my package is now in Mobile, Alabama. I'm impressed.

Smart be hanged, but seal leakage is becoming more and more problematic, as many made offshore are of inferior materials that don't even meet specs for bubblegum, and last about as long.

Play me a song on your glockenspiel.

Today...I have a ton of stuff to do that HAS to be done by tomorrow, if it takes all night. (So I'd better get off the computer and get cracking.)

Cue Twilight Zone music...

Cross your fingers, but don't hold your breath.

Yup, but the kinda tricky bit would be doing it with the engine assembled, keeping debris and chips out of the engine, to avoid having to disassemble it. Just for grins I measured the vertical travel of the table on my Bridgeport clone, and a Corvair engine will fit vertically to do it with an end mill. Alternatively, it could be done with a slotting cutter, with the engine mounted horizontally on the table. Sure would be cool if somebody could find a manual on that engine that covers all the mods and special castings Horning made.

Again FWIW, these "primer" finishes are not flat, not gloss, but definitely semi-gloss...and there really isn't much noticeable overspray of body color, if any.

FWIW, at the ACME show last month, I saw an application of Revell's chrome that had been done earlier by the guy running the display, right out of the can. It was very obviously done without extensive prep or special technique, as there were multiple dust nibs in it. There was one flat-sided part and a set of 4 wheels still on the sprue. The shine was as good as "quite good" kit chrome, no silvering, no visible "grain" either from flake size or dry-spray. I purposely rubbed one side of one part with my bare finger, pretty hard, and the gloss did decrease noticeably. I believe that gentle handling, especially wearing light cotton gloves like come in some diecast model boxes, would make the dulling almost a non-issue. Wearing cheap latex gloves while handling Revell "chrome paint" parts might also alleviate the dulling issue. Obviously, the worst opportunity for handling-caused dulling is probably going to be in situations where higher pressure is applied, like pushing wheels into tight openings in tires. EDIT: IIRC, the guy who did the application thought the wheels looked better, and I thought the flat-sided part looked better (as far as the chrome effect went), so opinions are subjective, as always.

Morning means slowly rebooting my tired old brain and overcoming chronic pain, but once I get past those, everything is lovely.

Yes, at least twice, and one is still MIA...but it'll probably reappear as I finish packing to move.

Close the door on your way out, and don't let it hit your backside.

"Tomcat" also refers to the Grumman F-14 swing-wing fighter.

Many recent Mopar products do have light olive under panels.

To the best of my understanding, the pump isn't driven by the cam gear, but directly by the end of the cam on the gear end. My assumption is that the cam end gets a slot milled in it, and a tabbed "puck" that engages the slot drives the pump directly...though I could be mistaken. The apparent offset between the crank centerline and what appears to be the oil pump looks to me as though this is the case. But again, without clearer photos, I could be mistaken. Just FYI, a slot in the old VW bug cams drives the oil pumps directly via a tab on one oil pump shaft that engages the slot. EDIT: The more I think about it, the less likely it seems that Horning would have disassembled the engines to mill slots in the end of all the cams. It's possible to mill a slot in the end of a Corvair cam while it's installed in the engine, especially as both the bellhousing and the timing cover would be removed to do the marine conversion, and the engines don't weigh too much to go on something like a Bridgeport mill...but I just don't know. But if the cam gear drives the pump. there's the problem of driving a small gear (for an oil pump) with a much larger gear (the cam gear), which will spin the smaller gear much faster. Oil pumps I'm familiar with rotate at or close to camshaft RPM. Horning was a competent and creative engineer, and it would be very interesting to see good photos of how he solved all these interrelated problems.

The short answer is that a cast alloy sump bolted to the original flywheel-end of the engine cases supplies an oil pump driven by the end of the cam. The new flywheel/ring gear, starter, fan, and oil filter adaptor are mounted on the original rear (pulley end) of the engine, on top. The new sump, main engine mount, steering gear, and power takeoff to the prop are on the bottom, the original "front" of the engine (the original flywheel end). The new oil pump housing is internally ported to direct oil into the same oil galleries in the case halves as the engine uses in horizontal applications, delivering oil to crank and cam bearings, lifters, and valve rockers just as in a standard installation. Used oil finds its way back to the sump via gravity, with a few deflectors and guides made specially for the vertical orientation. Mounting flat six engines vertically is not particularly unusual (as in several helicopter designs), but the marine installation including hydraulic steering and power transmission to the prop is unique. http://www.corvairs.org/Corvairsation/01May.pdf (there are some photos that are a little hard to decipher due to copying limitations, but with the other info on the web, you should be able to piece together a reasonable representation)

"Alive" sometimes doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be, depending on the level of pain.

Out anyone who has a dangerous, vicious, and probably rabid pet squirrel.

"Yours is mine, and mine is mine, and ours is mine" was the worldview of one of my exes.

Lot scarier to be in a convoy not protected by a few.

Life choices made when we're young and largely ignorant don't always look so good when looking back through the eyes of wisdom.

Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Loved those things from the first time I saw one light up, still do. EDIT: I'd built Monogram's M34 "Eager Beaver" 6X6 as a kid, and when I saw similar-looking trucks fitted out with armored beds, multiple .50s and even M134 chain guns salvaged from helos, I was like "C O O L !!!"