Ace-Garageguy

I'm reasonably sure I have that one, but I better get one just in case...

Still cool for this time of year...86F...and rain's kinda headed this way again, but if the trend the NWS radar is showing continues (system sliding off to the northeast) , we'll only get a little sprinklege here. Let's see if my forecast is more accurate than their 60%-70%-60% chance of precip after 5 PM.

"Care" is something I hear a lot about, but see little real evidence.

War is THE MOST STUPID thing supposedly "civilized" humans can engage in, and there's just NO valid reason for it today, anywhere on Earth.

Beautiful, but even the little one is somewhat beyond what my wife would let me spend on a toy. WAIT...I don't HAVE a wife!!! Yipee!!!!!!!!!!

Be good swap material when the engines start hitting the junkyards, which, if history is anything to go by, ought to be a couple of days after the first one is delivered. EDIT: Hmmmmmm...seems like it's been around a while in milder tune versions, and is already available as a crate engine: https://www.streetmusclemag.com/news/hurricane-powered-dakota-blows-down-the-9-second-e-t-barrier/

Enforcement of the tiniest HOA regulations by women named Karen is absolutely essential to the well-ordered operation of civilization.

Great trick. Thanks for posting the idea.

Monkey hear "camber make car handle better". Monkey do "more camber, more better". Monkey have no concept of contact patch or vehicle dynamics in general...and don't care anyway. Monkey must look like other monkey.

"Normal" always seemed to imply "boring, unimaginative follower afraid to show any individuality or think for oneself" whenever I heard the word.

Yup. First instance I encountered of "new" parts being defective was in the early 1990s. Replacement cylinders (made in China) for a Porsche 914 engine were so porous, you could hear air puffing through the cylinder walls when you rotated the thing by hand on the stand. My first thought was that my guy had somehow failed to get a good seal at the top of the cylinder where it plugs into the head, but I found the real problem when we tore the engine back down. Next time was in the early 2000s. '86 Ford pickup, brake master cylinder, made in sunny Mexico by highly skilled, smiling workers. Seals were put in backwards, just like they were in the next three I got from the parts store. Last one I got, I just took the seals out and put them back in the right way...after which it worked as it should. Had I known what I'd be facing, I'd have just bought a rebuild kit and fixed the old one, but of course that was around the time parts stores stopped selling rebuild kits for brake parts. Next one was a couple years later, a new radiator for a 2001 PT Cruiser was so poorly made and out of spec, I had to spend half the day partially reengineering it so it would physically fit the vehicle. And yes, multiple trips to the parts store to double-check the part number and physically compare it to another one they had in stock, and one we ordered. ALL MADE WRONG. (Trying to save the owner some bucks by not buying a factory part, so who got hosed? Me.) And it's been going downhill from there. I buy OEM parts when I can get them for repairs these days, whatever the cost, but that's no guarantee of decent quality anymore either.

PM'd.

That's pretty much the way it works now, and it doesn't work well at all for anything that actually takes some knowledge and insight to diagnose. Self-diagnostics and scanners only point a "technician" in the right direction, and there are literally millions of instances where shops replaced every single part the car "told them to" and it still didn't function right. I've been in the business over 5 decades, it's badly broken, and shows no sign of getting better, ever.

What he said. Pretty fine indeed.

Laughing when things go horribly wrong can get you some odd looks though, and possibly make companions, friends, and acquaintances question your sanity.

Heljan repopped a number of excellent HO structure kits originally tooled by Revell in the early '60s as well...

Vids of people losing their tow vehicles in lakes or rivers on boat-ramps and even in the surf abound on YT too. Hard to believe that level of ineptitude is so common, but then again...nah.

Monkey no think. Monkey do what other monkey do.

Language skills are important, especially your native one.

One part stuff is fine for thin fills if allowed to dry completely. It dries by evaporation, so if it's recoated with anything with solvents, it WILL swell and then shrink again.. But you can't do heavy fills on heavy mods with it in one application. Modelers used the one-part stuff very effectively before the two-part catalyzed fillers became widely available and accepted, and I still use one-part for pinholes and very minor imperfections. But using one-part putty for heavy fills takes repeated thin applications to prevent excessive shrinkage and cracking. The two-part catalyzed stuff can achieve a very heavy fill (for a model) in a single application, saving a lot of drying time and inter-coat sanding in the process. This is not opinion. It is actual observed and repeatable fact. EDIT: Don't even think about trying something like this with one-part filler

We haven't had "safety" inspections for decades, but we do have increasingly stringent emissions inspections. The "safety" inspections were, frankly, a joke...so why bother?

It's considerably more complex than that. When the neutral is lost, the two hot legs of the system effectively become a series circuit with the loads acting as resistors. If the loads are balanced, the voltage distribution might appear normal...which it did on some circuits, causing me to think the problem was inside the house. However, with unbalanced loads, the voltage will shift, potentially delivering too much voltage to some devices and not enough to others. The most immediate consequence of an uneven distribution of voltage across the loads is that some devices may receive significantly more or less voltage than their rated value. Lights may flicker, or devices and appliances behave oddly. High voltage can damage or destroy sensitive electronics, while low voltage can cause motors to overheat and fail. A lost neutral outside can cause the neutral wires inside to carry voltage, potentially energizing grounded surfaces like appliance casings, creating a shock hazard. Many common appliances are not grounded, and in an old house like mine, ground circuits may not be adequate anyway...so there is a very real electrocution risk. Lights may flicker or dim as other loads are switched on or off...even on entirely different house circuits. Appliances may operate erratically, with some working faster or slower than normal due to voltage variations. Or they may not work at all. In extreme cases, a lost neutral can lead to overheating and potentially cause a fire. I did have one circuit overheat badly, and had there been flammable material adjacent to it, there would have been a fire. The neutral connection at the pole had apparently been "hanging by a thread" for a few days, and as more and more strands of the multi-conductor failed, problems inside the house became more noticeable. When the last one parted, I just happened to be under the computer desk checking connections, as my internet, having just been repaired by a tech from my ISP, began cycling on and off, and I noticed the power light on the router varying in brightness, which it had never done previously. While I was checking connections at the power strip, I heard a pop-sizzle across the room, assumed it had to do with something I'd done under the desk, smelled electrical burning, and ran to pull the main breaker. As I'd been aware in the back of my mind that interrupted or fluctuating supply voltage or a failed neutral connection from the pole could do strange things, I went outside and looked at the line coming to the meter. It was hanging low, barely high enough to walk under, and I immediately called the power company. There's more, but I'll leave it at that. EDIT: This vid may be a little confusing to people who have no AC house-power knowledge, but it's a reasonably good illustration of what happens. NOTE THE VOLTMETER READINGS ON THE LIGHT BOARD

Asking that question here is strictly verboten.

Much as I was a fan of Marcos cars way back when (they had plywood monocoque chassis, which made it a lot more realistic for a budding-but very inexperienced-car designer to think in terms of building his own sports car someday), I think this one looks like a cross-eyed Viper that needs braces on its fangs.