Glamour

Nothing like a warm summer night in a welding jacket. The concrete footing was an efficient heat sink making it take longer than you would ever dream when starting out.

End of the Dyno

When I bought my shop, there was a Clayton water brake dyno in the floor. Though it did not provide add financial justification for purchase, it certainly added a lot of the romanticism. The previous owner said that it was working 6 months ago. The old 6 months ago...

The operation is simple and quite crude. There are two bellhousings, one for each roller. Inside there is a stator and rotor with blades that look like turbo fans. To load the dyno, water is filled in the bellhousing and the resistance of the opposing fan blades provides the load. Though it sounds simple, it never worked.

I went through heroic efforts to save it despite Clayton no longer supporting them. Bought a second dyno in San Pedro for parts, had the roller brake shoes re-lined at Valley Friction, bought a fire hose to use as a replacement bladder for the roller brakes, used a donor bellhousing for the supposedly bad unit, married the best of the two dynos, upgraded the water input to 1" as the flow/pressure were way below spec and hired the last existing old-like-rumplestiltskin Clayton mechanic. He drove from Apple Valley and we spent 14 $150 labor hours replacing bearings and such. Still never worked.

I probably had $3000 and 100 hours into the project.

Things I learned:

• "worked six months ago" is like saying it just needs freon
• Don't let the old Clayton mechanic start fixing things without proving that the bellhousings are going to work
• Stuff that works on water, that sits for years (not 6 months), is likely to have issues 
• It is cheaper to get your car dyno'd many times for the efforts required to revive a water brake dyno
• Water brake dynos are not great. Having a really solid understanding of how they work, I would be suspicious of any horsepower rating that was not on a calibrated system.

Finally, I had enough of tripping over the rollers. I knew I wasn't going to spend another 10 hours or $100 bucks.

4 hours with a cutting torch and it was out. The supposedly good bellhousing - that they previous owner and Clayton repair man said was good - was total junk. Once I had it out, I can see it was leaking for years. I am certain that the little orifices and passageways inside were packed with the sort of rust you find under the carpet of a leaky convertible Cadillac.

Still Life with Ball Chain Jar

Ball chain is the best. Such an efficient and customizable technology. I had a daydream of attending a hardware convention and finding out what was new with ball chain. Hard to imagine how it could be better, but I would like to see the latest and greatest in ball chain!

Roseville Tourist

More often than a blue moon but less often than a full moon, a piece of Roseville Tourist is listed on eBay. There is never a chance to scoop one up for a mere $100 with a big chip in the rim, as even the imperfect sell for big money. Only Martha Stewart could afford a service for 12.

Always humorous, the Tourist pattern makes fun of rich guys racing around the roads when cars were the folly of auto-tourism and not transportation.

Roseville Tourist on eBay

Secondary, Post-Carb Air Filter

 

 

The 1960 Ford Vanette ran so poorly that it took me 1.5 hours to drive back to the shop from Leimert Park. Backing the idle mixture valve out until it was loose in my hand told a lot of the story. There were four individual vacuum leaks plus this brass fitting stuffed with cotton. Is it a plug or an intake filter? Intended to be the former but functioning as the latter.

Sorry about the photograph quality. When you are mid-curse, mid-knuckle bust, it is difficult to remember how to focus on the near field with our phone camera.

Black/Gold XZA 077

I'm fully loaded with hoopty projects, but I want this wagon so bad that I could spit in your soup and poke momma in the nose. You could eat dinner out of that taillight lens! Serve banana splits for 6. Rack on top for your kayak and PX10? A tri-color on the aerial?

Here on the list.

Look at the rear bumper with the euro plate window. I can't keep looking at this.

In the 6PM-9PM photo, it appears there is some interesting stuff in the background. Seems it is owned by a true believer.

I would name it, Table Wine. I can't keep looking at it.

Milwaukee Power Cord

 

 

Despite the previous owner's expert duct tape rewire, the Milwaukee Polisher/Buffer deserved an upgrade.

Enter Tool Shack

Could have bought a generic cord at Home Depot but then I would have been grouchy, would not have supported an important micro-business and my cord would be without a strain relief/cord protector.

Webley Hurricane and Tempest

Wrinkle finish Halliburton case from garage sale last week: $5
New foam from Foam Mart in Burbank: $41
Beeman Webley Tempest from garage sale 8-10 years ago with two tins of pellets: $40
Beeman Webley Hurricane from garage sale 1 year ago: $85

$171 well spent

 I was obsessed with airguns when I was kid and despite shooting thousands of pellets, I never shot an animal. These interests are quickly rekindled. Searching for scans of manuals to determine what to use as lubrication and where to apply it. I must admit, I joined the foremost airgun forum today and lead things off with a WTB.

General Whale, a heartbreaking story of our smog testing our most grand mammal

I must admit that it has been a few years since I have trolled the junkyards. The weather is beautiful in Los Angeles - perfect for a George Seurat stroll. Without need for a taxi cab sway bar for American iron, I thought there was little to interest me. Though snooping around Pontiac Grand Am trunks is always interesting, there was no commercial reason for me to go even if I do enjoy it more than the zoo.

Beyond acquisition and aspirations, a more interesting view of contemporary culture is what people throw away. And, as a function of government programs, throwing away now comes with financial benefits.

Let's say the your Volvo 145 fails smog. On these older cars the smog equipment is so primitive, that troubleshooting and repair is pretty cheap and easy. 50% of the time it is just addressing exhaust gas recycling. However, the way that smog testing is structured, the tests are just tests and there is no analysis or advice. The people testing the cars know how to test but may not know (or care) about the underlying causes. I am not an expert in smog testing bureaucracy, but it seems people cheating the system have created divisions in the system to separate testing from fixing.

So, it eliminates some cheaters, but so what? At what cost? I would propose that the catching of cheaters has lower net benefit to society than a system that would allow for informed repair of emissions errant automobiles.

The junkyard was full of great, great, great cars. I was amazed.

It has become 'the right thing to do' to junk your polluting car. God damn it. Junking the General Whale. The ecological insanity of removing this well maintained, original paint, tank like Volvo from the world to build another Prius. Certainly, somebody somewhere, has weighed the ecological impact of replacing a 1972 Volvo 145 with a 2011 Prius. I am too upset to look.

It was like a farmer's stand acorn squash. Gorgeous green exterior with an buttery orange interior. 

Perhaps I am wrong and this car was not junked for the emissions Junk Your Car for America program. Perhaps it was the Junk Your Car for Your Favorite Charity program.

Lurking Behind

Bought a sweet little quartersawn oak desk the other day and removed hardware for cleaning. Like finding change under the backseat of a used car, these washers were a bonus.