Ace-Garageguy

Workers with advanced physical skills...like me...are pretty much immune to AI replacement in the foreseeable future. But because physical skills have been looked down on by the sneering clean-hands set for decades, they are in serious decline in the USA, and most everywhere else in the "developed" world...and consumer-grade AI seems to think it can do what I do fairly soon. Yeah, right. Good luck getting your fancy know-it-all AI to fix your plumbing leak at 3 AM while your basement fills with raw sewage, or accurately diagnose and repair complex vehicle systems. Remember...onboard vehicle diagnostics already don't have a stellar record of actually knowing where problems really lie, hence the "parts cannon" approach of most "technicians". Get two idiot computers talking to each other and all you have is GIGO, multiplied many times over. I'll be laughing until I fall off my perch.

Me feets sometimes smells like 5-day-dead rodents.

Angry Birds was a fad for a while, but I never took the time to find out what it was all about.

More like $2000... Just the decals would be $200.

"Fun" to some people is being jabbed in the eye with a sharp stick, while "fun" to others is doing the jabbing.

Forming replacement "glass" parts that are actually better looking than the thick kit parts has been covered in depth...and it can be done very effectively WITHOUT vacuum-forming.

"Public service announcements" presented by people who sound like they're addressing Romper Room rather than intelligent adults. Hmmmmmm...maybe they have a point.

Employees who lack competence are often bolstered by hiring even more incompetents, not exactly solving the problem.

Knowing what you don't know is at least as important as knowing what you do know.

Exactly. Barney Navarro, famed dry-lakes racer and mechanical wizard, is said to be the first to have used a GMC blower, specifically a 3-71 salvaged from a WW II landing craft engine. But another rodder named Jack Gillis was trying to make a 6-71 from an Army truck work on a flathead in a track car at about the same time. Great stuff: https://www.hotrod.com/features/barney-navarro-982-1647-112-1 https://www.hotrod.com/news/the-first-gmc-blown-roadster-jack-gillis

Parts for the SBC proliferated rapidly because it became so popular so quickly, and the great parts situation made it even more popular...and I still don't really get why GM didn't just put the LS heads on the venerable smallblock bottom end, as though the LS is good, it's just not (IMHO) THAT much better. (EDIT: There is, by the way, an aftermarket smallblock block that WILL accept LS heads; both engines have the same bore spacing, but the water passages and bolt holes are different.)

Like the two guys above me say, it depends entirely on the application and what you want out of the particular car. It's hard to beat the instant HP from a mechanical supercharger, especially on a fast road car that has plenty of bottom end grunt to start with...like a V8. Turbos are better for getting lotsa power out of small high-revving engines that you can keep in boost by keeping the revs up, but can be packaging nightmares with intercooler plumbing etc, and usually tend to dump a fair bit of heat in the engine bay. There's no one "best" solution. .

Chevrolet smallblocks were the most popular for hot rods and engine swaps due to their high specific power, light weight, and relatively small size.

Excellent, simple overview by Ryan. ^^^

We're into one of the standard southeastern summer weather patterns now: hot humid days with popup thunderstorms most every afternoon. Cool (lower 70s) but very humid nights. Mold and mildew and rust paradise.

Looks good, especially the paint. Thanks for the heads-up on the liquid chrome. That really is impressive.

I'd really like to see exactly how they come up with that. My service has been pretty good for months now, but I've also cut WAY back on non-essential purchases in large part because of the ongoing drama provided by eBay and UPS and USPS.

Sticky notes don't take long in a hot, humid shop before they fall off and you're back to wondering "what the jello are these things?"

Looks great. Glad the cat mods weren't terminal.

It's a good thread, covers most of what needs to be said.

^^^ That's pretty funny. I was in fact still paying off my big beautiful Snap On toolboxes when I got hit, and kept going for quite some time. Though I have a couple of nice rollaround boxes now, I bought them used for cash...and some of my boxes are pretty much rusty junk.

Then is before now, which is before later.

Old Craftsman tools are excellent. When I first got in the business I became a tool snob, and anything I bought new was either Snap On or Mac. Everything was stolen in 1977, and I replaced it all with lower line tools...all of which do the job just fine. Tools, contrary to some opinions, do not define the mechanic...HOWEVER...really bottom-of-the-barrel cheap "offshore" tools are only worth their value as scrap. EDIT: Special features that made high-line tools worth the money...like Snap On's "flank drive" (which kept corners of fasteners from getting rounded off), can be found on many reasonably priced tools today, as the patents have all run out.

Fujimi kits are some of the best in the business, but they tend to be complex and highly detailed. Some less experienced modelers find them to be "difficult" and "fiddly", but competent builders can produce world-class results with care and patience. Their "Enthusiast Series" kits are among my personal favorites, but they're not for beginners.

"Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do" had nothing to do with a figure in the recent news.