Hot and humid of course, because it is still Texas… but less than Houston. Still gonna get hot later.
I did some of my errands and made it to the BOL, with some minor drama, recounted in the comments late yesterday.
Spent some time last night with the shortwave and looking at the sky. Only saw one shooting star, but it was a good one- bright and long across the sky. Too soon to be Chinese space junk deorbiting, I think. Dark sky with some low wispy clouds. Very pretty night.
Shortwave had a lot of lightning noise. Someone is getting some thunder, and maybe some rain, but it wasn’t us. Band conditions weren’t great but were still so much better than in the urban area of Houston. BBC news, Australian news (from Australia), and a mix of other programming. Not much from Cuba though. Sometimes it be that way.
Today I get to pick from the huge array of things that need doing, and hopefully I’ll get one or two of them done. Started at least, surely….
Stacking up some skillz, plumbing work or electrical, or stone masonry…
Skills or stuff, stack it up.
n
A tradeoff. Toyota doesn’t offer a V8 in the truck anymore in an attempt to meet the insane CAFE standards for 2025 without buying credits from Tony.
The release was also carefully timed. If what my wife’s source in San Antonio says is true, the Japanese know what the Jesus Truck numbers are really going to look like, even with “plaid” power.
I have no idea how old the coolant was in the Exploder since my wife handles the maintenance. Her vehicle. I couldn’t see anything in the records beyond one entry that the tech thought that the coolant “looked dirty” and suggested flushing for $100. Otherwise, the vehicle has received all of the recommended services at the right time/mileage.
The prior experience in our household was with Toyota Red coolant. I flushed the coolant from my Solara recently, and, after ~ 40,000 miles, it was still clear and looked like the replacement.
Thanks to the pandemic, I only have 20,000 miles on the Camry, but the coolant is due at four years so I’m doing it soon. Oil changes have always been twice the recommended rate, but the dealer gave me cr*p when I would pay to have it done while ToyotaCare was still in effect.
“We try to minimize the damage to then environment,” was the excuse one service rep dropped on me.
I responded with Dr. Pournelle’s line, borrowed from Freeman Dyson, “The polar bears will be fine.”
I’ve kept my distance from the Exploder since my spouse got financially beat down in the F&I room and I had to claw back all of the damage over several weeks of phone calls and faxes to Dearborn. My Christmas vacation in 2016. Avoiding involvement afterwards was probably a mistake.
Ford also has a cr*p design. Like the transmissions in the last generation Focus and Fiesta, everything will probably get swept under the rug since fixing all of the engines or buying the vehicles back would bankrupt the company.
The last class action lawsuit was thrown out of court. Even if one succeeds, the repair claim rules and calendar will be really narrow like they were with the Focus/Fiesta buyback program.
No one outside Dearborn knows where the cars went even today.
@JimB – thanks for the coolant lesson – I learned some things.
Every auto company has at least one. I started life in a GM town where the venerable Generous Motors could do no wrong. The insiders knew better. Companies are in business to make money, plain and simple. They often make money with superior products, but a little arm twisting can be involved. In moderation, we all win.
The US automakers have lots in their history. They would have happily continued selling sh*tboxes (thank you Brock Yates) like the 77 Cutlass or the 78 Fairmont if it hadn’t been for the Japanese.
Even in the 80s, cars were mostly compromises for the pipeline until late in the decade, when the exiting vehicles started to improve in a big way.
@ITGuy1998, thank you. I have been fighting corrosion most of my life. If I had my way, silicone fluid would be in cooling systems, but water is just too cheap. Pretty good heat transfer medium, too.
I really like air as a heat transfer medium, but that’s a whole other story.
US automakers also have lots of great cars in their history. Just look at Duesenbergs, and the prices collectors pay; but where is the company?
Oldsmobile died after more than 100 years. Pontiac? Plymouth? Nothing is forever.
Killing Oldsmobile and Pontiac were decisions forced on GM by their new union masters supported by Obama “Car Czar”, the hideously unqalified Van Jones.
Plymouth is wholly a decision by … Stellantis (?) … management
Not just cars. Trace the history of Sunbeam, Frigidaire, Bell & Howell, to name a few.
Shoot, Pontiac Motors started as the Oakland Carriage Company.
Plymouth was killed by DaimlerChrysler in 2001.
I could argue it was a redundant line for a couple decades.
THe automakers bifurcating into a “normal brand” and a “luxury brand” is redundant.
Lincoln is just tarted up ford product. Lexus, tarted up Toyota, and every maker does the same thing. The “luxury” marques could just be trim levels in the main maker’s name.
But it keeps the illusion of choice available, keeps the brand loyalists happy.
And there are people that would never buy a Jeep but are happy to give the money to Dodge for the Jeep in different plastic, or vice versa…
There is a lot of irrational behaviour with cars. My wife would get sh!t from contractors, about how her margin must be pretty good to be driving around in a Cadillac (SRX mid trim level crossover – ie station wagon) and how she could afford to give them a discount, while they sat in their $80K pickup trucks…
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85F and sunny today. Moderate humidity.
I better get something started, but first– coffee on the dock.
n
As was DeSoto long before that.
My parents had a 1957 DeSoto Firedome four door sedan. It was a great car for its time. Its 341 hemi provided surprising acceleration, and handling wasn’t too bad.
My first car was a 1957 Plymouth Savoy four door hardtop. Its 318 wedge engine was a bit sedate, and handling wasn’t as sharp as the DeSoto.
Brakes on both cars were unimpressive. The DeSoto’s ride quality was decidedly nicer, even though both cars had similar suspension. Torqueflight transmissions were very similar.
Comparing a Plymouth to a DeSoto is unfair. The real question would have been, how did the DeSoto compare to a Chrysler? I never got a chance to even ride in a similar year Chrysler. So, the redundancy question is not answered here.
I will add that both were good looking cars for their time. Fins! But… a friend had a 1957 Dodge that was gorgeous, one of my all time favorites.
It’s up to 94F in the shade. only 50%RH though. Sun is like a firey furnace.
D2 has completed her sailing requirements and is now officially a Girl Scout Mariner. Both kids can sail now, and my wife has some experience. Probabilty of buying that little sunfish just went up.
Spent the morning chatting with a neighbor. Not getting much work done. Oh well. It’s a beautiful day.
n
After marriage, my wife decided on a 1968 Dodge Coronet station wagon and I specified the 318 cu in V8. We both loved it and used it to ’84 when gave it to son and replaced it. Yes JimB, used it for camping out in the Mojave, among other areas, until I got a 4WD Chevy Blazer for myself.
I really like air as a heat transfer medium, but that’s a whole other story.
Air as a energy transfer medium sucks. Unless, you are eventually going to send that heat to the air eventually. Designing heat exchangers for air heat transfer is an art, not a science. Good design engineers spend time in the wind tunnel with their heat exchangers. Just cranking the fan speed up does not always work as well as putting a bigger liquid cooling pump in.
I got to spend some time with an air cooled steam condenser in Sweetwater, Texas. It had to condense about a million pounds of steam an hour. I went out there in July on a 110 F day and stood underneath the huge apparatus. All 24 ? Of the 24 foot diameter fans were running and the back pressure was 3 inches of Mercury absolute, way below the 5 inch guarantee. Of course, this was new and the guarantee was for dirty.
My parents had a ‘57 Chrysler Windsor. I remember how scratchy the back seat upholstery was. We were going from 29 Palms to Oregon. I’m in the back seat, little sister is in a bassinet in the front set between Mom and Dad. So, I’m about a year and a half old, if that. I still remember seeing the Golden Gate Bridge.
Not sure I knew what a bridge was.
It was a pretty car.
Three years later we moved to Hawaii. Three years later we moved back to California and the Windsor stayed in Hawaii. “Not worth enough to ship back”.
I don’t remember it ever breaking
Dilbert: “Fund Long Covid Support Group”
https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-07-30
Wally is always trying to figure out an angle instead of doing his job.
I looked around and found out why you add more water to your egg cooker with fewer eggs.
It cooks with steam. The vent hole in the lid controls the loss of steam. Once the water is steamed off, the thermostat turns the heat off. So, six or seven eggs takes more space than a couple of eggs. That’s why you need more water for a couple of eggs than you need for six eggs. It’s the volume of steam.
The steam is venting at X rate no matter how many eggs you are cooking. Once the water is gone the machine turns off.
This may be the glossed over Cliff Notes version used for a 4th grader’s book report.
Come to think, this may be how a rice cooker works. I’ve only ever made one cup of rice at a time. Which makes about two cups cooked. My rice cooker can make six cups of cooked rice. If I still had chickens, I would try a full load in the rice cooker. For Science Yeah!!!
I did that for commercial airliners. Cooling or heating air for the cabin and cockpit.
Over The Hedge: Home Birth
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2022/07/30
Oh my.
“Wally is always trying to figure out an angle instead of doing his job.”
Yeah. Right there is why I walked out of HEB one day.
I’m going to get written up for not going to lunch? Hey, I have a certain amount of stuff I have to do everyday. I have to cover the Business Center while the Business Center person goes to the gas station to cover their breaks and lunch, come on man. It’s 15 minutes for a break and 30 minutes for lunch. Add almost a half hour to both and then the Business Center person takes her breaks and lunch. There goes half of my day. I complain and you waffle around the issue. Oh yeah, and you don’t seem to give a shit about my breaks and lunch when the Biz Center person calls out sick and I have to run the whole show by myself.
But I’m the insensitive one. Whatever.
Added: The folks in the Gas Station were never the problem.
I’m sort of bouncing off the walls here. It’s a very nice looking day outside. Tho, 104f ruins that.
It’s so dry I’m not going to mow anytime soon. Just for the dust.
Grumble grumble.
My little project of taking a Desktop shortcut and putting it on the Task bar? Nope.
You can putz around and make an empty txt file. Change the extension to exe. Add more voodoo. And now you have a shortcut to a folder that is not pinned to the Explorer link on the Task bar.
Which isn’t what I want. I want a shortcut to another folder sitting on the Taskbar that I can drop files onto.
Oh well.
>> Wally is always trying to figure out an angle instead of doing his job.
Figuring out an angle is his job.
@paul – if I understand correctly, you want to put a desktop ‘shortcut’ to an app on the task bar.
In Win 11 (and probably 10), you can right-click and (in Win 11) select “show more options”. From that list, select “pin to taskbar”.
Sometimes the ‘pint to taskbar’ option will appear on a right-click of the desktop icon.
The above works for desktop icons (shortcuts to programs) and File Explorer folders.
And in today’s ‘dog bites man’ news…Slo Joe has tested positive for the Chinese Crud again.
Does anyone want to buy the new Jeep Wagoneer for $69K or the Jeep Grand Wagoneer for $89K ?
Those prices just make me want to run out and buy two. Shoot, four.
Do you know why most blond jokes are just one line ?
Men cannot understand anything longer.
Your ‘68 318 was different from my ’57. In the 1950s, Chrysler produced a bewildering variety of engines that differed mainly by displacement, but all belonging to only a few series. Even so, there were a lot of parts variations. By the time your 318 was in production, all series were simplified, with mostly interchangeable parts within the series. That was a good thing.
The first 318 was a member of the A-series engines. These were produced from 1956-66 in Detroit. There were also Canadian versions that were produced through 1967. I don’t know much about them.
The A engines were heavy, based on old foundry practice. A new, lighter, lower cost version was planned. It was called the LA engine, for Lightweight A series. Versions were produced starting in 1964, and lasting until the Magnum series was introduced in 1993. A footnote is that the Viper 488 cubic inch V-10 was based on the LA engine, although it is all aluminum. I am not familiar with the 488 cubic inch V-10 all cast iron truck version, but it is likely similar. Remember, engine production is all about tooling, so the engines might not appear related, but major parts such as blocks might be machined on the same line.
Another footnote is the Poly or semi-hemi, which was planned to be an interim replacement for first generation hemi. It used the A block with different heads, and one of its displacements was 318. It had great potential as a performance engine, but performance versions were never produced. Instead, the B engines took over. The 383 was almost as lightweight, and had a displacement advantage.
Confused? The only people who care about this are those who have 1950 through 1964 old Mopars and might need parts. Fortunately, lots of parts are still available.
I started this just after Stu posted, but was interrupted by lunch, plus some other stuff. I think I forgot my original purpose. 🙂
Re water pumps: My 1999 3 liter V-6 Ranger has over 200,000 miles and the original water pump. Coolant has not been changed in at least 12 years.
R3 Chrysler 318 with poly spherical heads: I had a ’60 Dodge Dart 3-speed stick. Ran fine no water pump issues. lol
The humidity is up, here in the California High Desert, and we are starting to see some vertical development. The main front is still 50 miles to the east, near Victorville.
The big concern is lightning strikes in the Sierra Nevada’s, starting wildfires. So far so good…
https://www.lightningmaps.org/?lang=en
@JimB
Didn’t you have some old New Yorkers? I saw an old science fiction movie not too long ago which had a spanking new ’57 New Yorker in it. A helluva car. Can’t recall the name of the flick off-hand, but if you’re curious I’ll try.
My “spare” family car when I got my license was a 66-ish New Yorker station wagon.
I only got to drive it a few times. It was losing a wheel bearing and instead of getting it fixed, my brother arranged to get it sold to the repair shop.
Looking at pictures now, I can’t imagine how you could drive something so freaking huge.
My Dad worked for the Ingersoll Milling Machine Co back in the day. They had produced the milling machine line for Ford Cleveland’s V8 engine blocks. Raw casting at start and 20 or so stations later, voila! Finished engine block. The machinery was very specific to the product produced.
Ingersoll liked to test new formulations for the carbide inserts that did the actual cutting, trying for longer lasting inserts. Ford would only allow them the chance to “play” on the Xmas Holiday shifts when the usual Union staff was off. The claim was that the blocks were THE determining part that decided how many cars/trucks would be made that year. When the Union guys came back, playtime was OVER.
The company also built a line for the Soviets’ Kamaz trucks’ engines in the 70’s. The Soviets built a city of 100k people that ONLY built those trucks. There was tension and disagreement for the specs/tolerances of the broached crank bearing partitions in the block. Ingersoll maintained that the partitions weren’t thick enough to hold tolerance. The Soviets’ demurred and were holding back the last payment (profit). Got paid eventually.
Also built 2 four cylinder lines for Chrysler in the Iacocca era. The engine that went into the “K” car and later. The first line was somewhere in America. (NJ?) The other was in Mexico. The line in Mexico didn’t get the block handling transfer stations to move blocks from one machine to the next. Shaved a million or so $ off the contract. Instead, added Mexicans to do the pick up the block and stuff it into the next machine. Getting paid to weight lift!
As long as everyone around here is ‘stacking’ – don’t forget the chocolate.
Hershey’s says that they will not be able to meet demand for Halloween and Christmas candy.
See https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/28/business/hershey-halloween/index.html (among others).
Including the “Choco Taco” – which has been discontinued. (See here.)
Chocolate keeps well in the fridge or freezer – assuming you can keep it hidden. Stack FLASHLIGHTS – and CHOCOLATE .
Was slojoe getting the treatment that starts with P? IIirc when you come of the stuff you get sick again.
Got the sink installed in the hall bath. Ended up cutting out one of the old fittings and redoing it with shark bite. IDK what old boy used as pipe dope, but I couldn’t get the quarter turn valve off with a 12″ wrench. It was blue. Maybe lok-tite?
I decided to stay out of the attic and just connect to the existing. Praying that it holds together until I can repipe.
Did some landscape cleanup. Put a load away. Pulling the master toilet tomorrow. Can not put it off any longer.
Dog doesn’t know what to do without the kids here.
Time for a night cap and some radio.
N
SPAM goes on lockdown due to inflation in NYC
Good grief.
Add a tweed hat, driving gloves, and keys to a Cadillac coupe and that’s our office Wally from the tolling company job.
If the dealers have any on the lot.
I’ve heard of RAV4 Prime deals with $40k ADM, but I’ve yet to see one in the wild.
A hybrid would not do well sitting on blocks in a storage unit. Most modern cars would be storage problems.
Wasn’t Trump given the antibody infusions?
The two Navy doctors serving the previous and current President probably got together and discussed what worked. No BS. No political agenda.
Practicing medicine. Imagine. You would think that Fauci would have been curious about doing that at some point beyond residency.
Even the dictator of Syria *practiced*. IIRC, he was quite gifted and helped a lot of people before taking over the “family business”.
Lovely night but not clear skys. Radio reception was ok, some stations I’ve never heard before. Lots of bugs. Maybe because I had the dock lights on earlier, or because I didn’t build a fire in the ring. Dunno, but they were unpleasant until they went away. Little tiny things flying in my eyes and nose. Gah.
n
We’re reduced to discussing ChacoTacos and skeeters? And of course the size of the engines our dads had. Freud forgive me.
I’m a rather more curious how these mass delusions, this is zealotry takes place. It could Covid, it could be climate change. Witch hunts, tulip bulbs or Ponzi schemes like crypto.
Hell, even God is not excused.
What’s the counterspell?
>> Was slojoe getting the treatment that starts with P? IIirc when you come of the stuff you get sick again.
Yes he was. And yrc. They call it “rebound.”
@~jim, I bought a 1969 Chrysler New Yorker in 1969 from Chrysler Corporation, as a family member of an employee. It had 1200 miles on it, and was sold to me as the first owner. It had almost every option offered. Drove it hard, and retired it in 1983 when I bought an immaculate 1968 Imperial Crown from a friend. I still have both, but the Chrysler is a parts car. I will eventually sell the body when I have removed all I want. Before those, I had a 1968 Chrysler 300, also purchased from the company. I drove it for ten months until I bought the New Yorker. It was a gorgeous car that likely had special handling on the line, and then a lot of TLC from the service center at the company. It was as close to perfect as any unrestored production car I have ever seen, but it was a two door with modest equipment, and I wanted a loaded four door with the new body style.
That’s it for my older Mopar ownership. My father was an advance body designer for Chrysler, and had previously worked for Kaiser, and GM before that. He also had some interesting cars. One was a 1963 Dodge Polara four door sedan, purchased new from a dealer. It had the 318 Poly engine, the pushbutton Torqueflight, and was probably the most practical and economical of all the cars I have mentioned. It did everything well, but was not scary fast. He also had a 1968 Dodge Coronet four door sedan with the high performance 383, I think the highest rated output 383 ever produced. In that intermediate sized car, it was very impressive. Those old 383s were close to indestructible. The car also had a drivetrain and suspension to match, and was a very good handling car. Its forte was surprising other fast cars on curvy roads.
@lpdbw, One of my favorite cars-never-owned is the 1965 New Yorker, which is similar to the 1966. One of my father’s co-workers had one. He kept it in like-new condition for years, no small achievement in the rust belt. He drove it on many long trips, and said it was his magic carpet. In my opinion, its styling was the epitome of understated luxury. I think the mid to late 1960s were the pinnacle of large barges. Some of them handled well, yet were still comfortable over rough roads. The 1970s started a downhill slide toward cheapness.
@Nightraker, Ah, Ingersoll! Very few car nuts know much about production. I interviewed Ford for a job at their stamping plant in 1968. They wanted EEs to modernize controls. It really sounded interesting, and Ford was a good employer in those days, but I wanted out of Detroit. I had forgotten about that, and how my life might have been different.
I have a cousin who was part of a delegation to the USSR, which might have been the one you talked about. He was a casting designer, and was part of a small company that did the casting design for the Ford 300 cubic inch inline six cylinder engine, one of their best engines. Why a capable company like Ford farmed out such a project is a mystery to me. He said the Soviets could build weapons quite well, but couldn’t make good shoes that were affordable. The implication was that they were smart product designers but poor production designers. Books could be written.
That must have been hair-raising! Just curious, wouldn’t putting the whole thing in a cooling tower have been better? Too much water consumption?
>>The implication was that they were smart product designers but poor production designers. Books could be written. <<
So while the engineers were spirited off to the Manhattan Project, the production designers were working for Kaiser and his Liberty ships?
That must have been hair-raising! Just curious, wouldn’t putting the whole thing in a cooling tower have been better? Too much water consumption?
It was a gypsum plant making sheetrock. They bought the gas turbine to replace the steam boiler they used. They sold the power to us for 4 cents/kwh and put a heat recovery boiler behind the gas turbine to make steam with for free. Cogeneration.
And yes, all closed cycle due to very limited water. The 24 air condensers worked well until the Chinese sheet rock put them out of business in the 1990s.
It’s hard to imagine that dichotomy existing back then. Back in the days when University was reserved for the best, and not every child in the village.
Design and implementation are two different things. I’ve known exactly two engineers who had probably mastered a bit of both.
Yes! Remember that brave soldiers can’t fight for long without trucks and ships and supplies. The US outproduced the enemy in the protracted war. This was not lost on the Soviets and others. I am not the only one here who had relatives who remained stateside to contribute to the war effort.
@JimB Those Kamaz trucks were visible in the news when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 80., Ingersoll desperately needed the 20? 30? million $ contract for the line during the Nixon recession/detente years. Lloyds of London insured payment would happen.
There was a 3 man Soviet delegation that visited to liase engineering the line. Came to the house one weekend. Thoroughly trounced my meager chess playing skills. They loaded up on jeans to take home. Their slacks were missing the left rear pocket as an economy move of the latest 5 year plan and the shoes were a bad plastic imitation of wing tips.
That broaching kerfuffle sent Dad to Kamaz, the city, after delivery. He had a Soviet minder, was put up in what would become an apartment block when the Westerners left. He was not impressed with the linoleum covered table top as the cut edge was quite jagged. He described the broaching discussion as similar to a police interrogation with 3 Soviets on one side of the table and himself with his back against a wall.
Each of those 20 odd milling/drilling/tapping stations was the size of a short billiard table. The gear box was welded 1 ½ inch steel plate, more than a foot deep, with a custom milled casting for the cutting/drilling/whatever heads. The back plate, also 1 ½ inch thick, had the drive shaft for the 20-30 horse power electric motor and the oil pump with associated plumbing. The station sat on hydraulically powered ways to drive it in and out. The ways sat on a base that was another heavy duty weldment a couple feet tall. The whole line stretched hundreds of feet. Very impressive to watch when assembled and working. Loud, too!