Seven-Eleven Day! · 4:34am Jul 12th, 2014
Happy 7-11 day!
Well for a few more hours, anyway. Or it was yesterday where you live. Heck, it might be yesterday where I live before I post this.
There is a madness to my method, though. I told myself I wasn't gonna blog until I was substantially done with the draft of OPP 16. And I am! All that's left are some transitions and minor research and a bit of fluff here and there.
Now my pre-readers are at it, poking holes in it.
For example, I used the phrase "tradesmare's wagons." To which I am asked: "How many tradesmares? How many wagons?"
Not always simple question! Stupid grammar rules.
[Kidding; I love my pre-readers very very much because they help keep me from sounding like an idiot.]
Today was one of those days. Last week, on Thursday (the day before the Fourth, if you didn't remember), we had a car towed in with a flat tire. The owner of the car was friends with the boss, and had called and told him it needed a tire; apparently our shop is closer than the boss', so he sent it to us to fix. We were informed that the boss had already ordered a tire for it, so we were good to go.
Well, he screwed it up. Long story short—we got the tire, finally, fifteen minutes after we closed. I stayed late . . . co-worker was already on the road, heading up to the sand dunes to see if he could finish off his Cherokee for good this time. (he didn't)
(his doesn't look this nice, but he still tries for that much air [which is one of the reasons it doesn't look that nice)
So that was last Thursday. Today, the same Mountaineer shows up on a wrecker, with the other rear tire flat. Boss says he's already ordered a tire.
We order one, too. Just to be sure. This week won't be like last week.
About 3:00, co-worker goes off for a longish test drive in a Venture van, which apparently only malfunctions after long drives. It's kind of slow, since two of our appointments didn't show up. Then he gets called over to the other shop. Boss has a Windstar they just did a tune-up and intake gaskets on, and it ran okay when it came in, but now it barely runs at all. Boss and his crew can't figure it out. So co-worker heads over there to be the hero.
I'll save you some of the pain . . . the reason it didn't run well was because they left off one of the intake gaskets. And, they also tore it down a second time, and still didn't notice the missing gasket. Good thing we're big damn heroes and can fix the boss' screw-ups.
Okay, enough complaining.
Hopefully, this weekend will be calm enough to work through some of the backlog of fics-to-be-edited. Starting with OPP. . . .
And after the first weekend in August, all my obligations/vacations/etc. will be done with (except for a friend's wedding at the end of August, but that's only a one-day commitment). This means I'll be able to get back on schedule with my fics. Or else I'll be in a padded room.
Oh, yeah, and one of the actresses in the upcoming play lives next to a small farm and they've got a pony and the pony just had a foal and a pony foal is about the cutest thing there ever was.
LOOK AT THE PICTURE AND D'AWW!
Lastly, I just got some more details on my brother's upcoming wedding. It's in Banff (which I always thought was an airline), which Google Maps tells me is 2000 miles from my house.
Well, I've always wanted to drive the Trans-Canada highway. Now I have an excuse to do so. And the wedding is to be in May, so the snow probably won't be too deep.
We own a Windstar. Whatever engineer designed the engine should be shot. The inside and the controls are fine, but you need to be a contortionist to do anything under the hood. And if you blow a heater core, you are so SOL...
I didn't d'aww, but I did have a spontaneous heart attack. Does that count?
P.S. Did you get my pm?
I know that feel bro. The Windstar I was just about to say it's a vacuum leak. Technically was, but that's just a big fuck up, missing a gasket. Whenever we do transmissions on those types of fords, a vacuum line on the back of the intake gets pulled off and the engine runs shitty. And everyone at my shop fucking forgets that that happens. ALL THE TIME. So I'm always the one to push past all the onlooking head-scratchers, dig my arm behind the intake, and plug in a loose hose. Then I cross may arms and say 'LIKE A BAWS.'
I had a good, satisfying job today. You know the type you put yourself into, do it 100% right, and feel good about yourself aftewards? Yeah, that type. 03 Toyota Tundra. It's kindof a heap, and while I was under it, I looked at the newish exhaust. Damn that was a good-looking fabrication. Oh yeah, I did it!
So the brakes were quote "sticking and grinding." Fronts looked fine. Before I even took the drums off, I see the E brake cables hanging on the axle are all slacky. They were stuck in full-on. lol. So, I freed up the 2 rotate-y bits that move the cables. Drums off, shoe lining paper-thin. And it has those E brake levers that the cable pulls (not the one attached to the brake shoe with a horseshoe), and they were both frozen. Oh, and I can't beat the living shit out of them, because they're a chunk of aluminum. Bolted to the backing plate, with a pin that holds a steel lever. Rusted as shit, of course.
Some VERY careful torching later, I had both levers disassembled. Filed them, wire brushed, greased up the wazoo, and carefully drilled out one broken bolt from that aluminum bit and retapped it. Assemble and adjust. Those E brakes worked PERFECTLY. Versus not at all when it came in.
Oh and the 'grinding'? One of the drums had its outer ring cracked off and rubbing on the backing plate. Nothing a big hammer couldn't fix!
Real life ponies look weird to me now.
x4.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/god+thats+cute+_75fc5b94a6c4b6a352a860712d4d0e02.gif
That last picture reminds me of a VHS I used to watch. Something about trains and snow and de-icing and tunnels. I think I'll look up what that was again. Whatever it was, I always thought it was super cool.
2276333
When I saw the last picture, I thought "I bet they repaint all their rolling stock every spring"
Because you just know that even when they try to limit which units go through the areas with snowpack, stuff happens, and almost every unit will go through at least once. And all it takes is a little sway to rub. And snow exposed to the sun refreezes as sandpaper.
I mean, if my employer, a school bus company, can't keep one bus on one route, because logistics, including required PM inspections, and wear and tear (~350 miles a day, seven days a week in 100+ weather with full loads in hilly terrain, when the bus has already nearly got 200k miles and is ten years old is bad enough, but the bus is underpowered, too, and the main radiator is kinda small.)
Well, I kinda figure that a railroad would have the same problems.
Next week I get to drive a new bus for that route, because the old one has started randomly going into limp mode, usually on hills, without throwing any codes...
2276216 I always envy you guys, having nice big shops to work in. Me and my dad just redid the intake gaskets on his 86 K20 Suburban... in the back alley, under a sugar magnolia tree. Used shop rags to keep contaminants out. Also redid the passenger side rocker cover gasket. The block is newer, but the heads and intake are more or less stock (intake is less stock, edelbrock performer 3701, "OE replacement")
And now we know why ponies are the dominant species in Equestria.
You know, that pony picture makes me wonder if MLP ponies didn't go through an evolutionary neoteny process. They are closer to baby ponies than grown up ponies in proportion.
2276134
Protip: That big plastic piece that has the windshield wipers on it? It comes off, fairly easily, and then you've got all the room in the world to work on stuff under the hood. Chrysler minivans do that, too. Heater cores suck on pretty much anything made in the last 20 years.
2276156
Yes, it does.
I did. I'm going for a small-ish print, so the one I have should be good.
2276310
I guess I spent enough time around them as a kid to be used to the real deal. Still, I do occasionally hold out hope that one of them will talk back to me. So far, no luck.
2276333
Let me know--I'm intrigued.
I wonder what car makers excuses will be when we finally switch to serial turbo generator electric systems with capacitor, battery boost. Sort of like the decades old diesel electric trains, but only using the 60% plus turbine for cruise and the batacitor only for acceleration.
Look Ma, VW say they can get 300 mpg out of theirs, Mercedes are aiming at 250 mpg.
Even light aircraft can get 100. 8(
I remember stories about things like that last photo, and the one locally taken many years ago when a train got buried at the top of the hill. Things got a lot less snowy the last 40 years here. Then again, to an automatic, an inch of snow effectively cripples it. Well, to the guy at the end of the road.
As they say, your milage may vary.
2276433
As deep as that snow is, they have to be clearing it with a rotary, and those are usually wider than the normal equipment (for obvious reasons). I don't know what the life-cycle of locomotive paint is, but I do know that rolling stock is generally not repainted until it's really horrible. Pay attention to boxcars and covered hoppers in trains that go by--a lot of them are still painted for railroads which went bankrupt decades ago.
They do probably touch up the locomotives a lot, though.
Yay for new equipment!
I used to drive wrecker, and the truck I normally got had over 400,000 miles on it. It went out of service one day when the frame broke, but the mechanic was able to weld it back together.
If it makes you feel any better, there's a limit to what I'm allowed to do at the shop, so I got to do all the brake lines and power steering lines on a 95 Wrangler in my gravel driveway. And I've swapped out a few transmissions on older Chevy pickups in my driveway as well.
2277128
Well, most of your gas/electric hybrids have a similar-to-a-locomotive powertrain. I'm impressed that they shrank it down to Prius-sized, to be honest.
And I do attend new technology classes, and I'm getting pretty enthusiastic for what's coming down the pike. Even Gasoline Direct Injection has been a game-changer for the automakers, and they're only beginning to scratch the surface of what they can do with it. Fiat has a system that doesn't use an intake cam, so they can do whatever they want with their intake valves. Toyota uses multiple shots out of their injectors to get the optimal burn, and of course Tesla keeps making better and better full-electric cars.
For driving in snow, I recommend four snow tires and mad skills. I personally prefer a rear-wheel drive manual pickup for the winter, but I can make due with an auto.
2276449
Fluttershy's weaponized adorableness is pretty good, but Sweetie Belle has it down to an art.
fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/174/4/6/sweetie_belle___dress_by_cptofthefriendship-d54m4o0.png
2276921
Yeah, I could totally buy into that theory.
2276216
That's what I first thought, too, or else the ignition wires on the back of the engine got switched around. I've done that a time or two myself. Pretty much the first thing I check when it ran okay when it came in but misfires after a tune-up.
One of our customers has a Highlander, and every time the air filter is checked, it pulls off a vacuum line for the emissions system, and sets a code two days later. We now have a note in the computer to make sure that line's attached after every service. It's a really dumb design.
We once welded together the sad remains of the exhaust on a Previa to get the customer by for a few days (parts had to be ordered . . . can't imagine why no one local stocked them
) . . . anyway, he did a good enough job of welding mostly air to air that it stayed together when we dropped it on the floor after parts came in.
Isn't that about the dumbest, overly-complicated parking brake cable arrangement ever made? First one I saw, I thought "that'll stop working after one year of salt exposure." Good thing the only customer we had with a Toyota pickup had the frame break.
2277146
Just about every hybrid car, still requires th complex and inefficint IC engine to supply full acceleration torque, intead of just power for the highly efficint torque compact electric motors.
Quick example, I took the first modern UK designed vehicle, the Morris 1000, and based on acceleration, speed, etc, looked up what would be needed. 24 electric drill motors, 6 per wheel, a 3kW Honda generator, and a yet t be finalised electronic control block that looking at other PSU designes, lets use a variable voltage version, can reach 95% throughput efficincy.
A Toyota with a broken frame? What did they do? Stick it on top of a 12 story building then blow it up?
2277117 Found it!
It's an old video called The Battle for Donner Pass, by Video Rails, documenting the colossal effort that keeps the Sierra Mountains railroad open through the winter. It features, according to the back cover...
SHOTGUNS & DYNAMITE!
FLANGERS & REGULATORS! (???)
SPREADERS AND BULLDOZERS!
THE MIGHTY ROTARIES! (Rotary snowplows that look really awesome.)
& MUCH, MUCH MORE!!
The only thing I could find online that was definitely from the video was its end credits song... note: the idle engine noise is in the original video. (Warning: loud) However, you can still find other videos on the subject if you look.
P.S. 2277171 Freakin' adorable.
i.imgur.com/Wz7FL.gif
2277102
Their proportions look weird to me. Normal horses are fine, ponies are strange.
Ohhhhh, I've done that plenty of times. I'd like to think that I'm good at it actually. I had a 3 bolt exhaust flange once that was SO far gone, the bolt holes no longer existed. I actually managed to weld an arc shape around each bolt hole, and it was a flange again!
No shit.
I've seen one worse though. Sprinter vans' E brake "equalizer." It's basically a steel frame, that 1 cable pulls a lever attached to a linkage with a couple moving parts and an adjustment bolt, and 2 cables leave. It's... all steel, and all completely open to the elements on the underside of the van. At least the Toyota levers had rubber boots over them. This shit had nothing.
I think I spent half a day heating, grinding, and wire brushing the shit out of that thing. These guys are good customers that pay well and they're right next door. So what I did was, cut up some oil bottles to make a top cover, sealed with silicone, added a nifty rubber flap (I always keep a pile of roofing rubber handy!) on the front to cover the lever hole (since the lever moves...), FILLED the entire thing with grease, and bolted on a bottom access cover (oil bottle again), with silicone too.
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dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37540750/2013-09-21%2016.55.00.jpg
Lucky you! I've got like 3 regulars with those bastard over-grown Corollas. At least they all pay well.
2277305
Just because the batteries aren't good enough. Yet. That was what killed electric cars back in the olden days, and that's what's keeping them from taking over now. Nobody who knows anything would disagree that you can get way more torque out of an electric motor than an IC connected to a transmission; it's just the range that's lacking. Now that there's a lot of money going into developing better batteries, I expect that to be a problem which is solvable.
Hell, just watch videos of White Zombie (pure electric) drag racing. He's hard to beat, 'cause he's got 100% torque from zero MPH. For that matter, that's why diesel-electric locomotives conquered steam so easily. FTs didn't have the horsepower or drawbar pull to beat a compound steam locomotive, but they did have all their tractive effort available at 1mph, not 40--and that's what made the difference.
Drove it in Michigan. The drawback of a fully-boxed frame is that water gets in, but it doesn't get back out. They rot out from the inside out. The Japanese have had trouble figuring out why we would put a chemical on our roadways which dissolves cars, and haven't always engineered around it.
For what it's worth: my grandpa worked for Fisher Body, and was on the team that designed the body on the Nova (the ones that infamously had the engine cradles fall off the car due to rust). Based on his experience as a boater, he proposed drain holes to let the water out. Other engineers said that they'd designed the car in such a way that water couldn't get in. History proves who was right.
2277310
Ah, yes, Donner Pass. A thorn in Southern Pacific's side (and now Union Pacific). Where annual snowfall is measured in dozens of feet. It took a special kind of person to keep the trains running through that, and they occasionally got stuck for days or weeks. They even had locomotives or sacrificial gondolas with icicle-breakers for the tunnels.
I've never seen a video of snow-removal in action, which is a pity.
2277317
Yeah, you've got a good point. They do look funny.
We generally don't work on Sprinters. Only one of our customers has one, so we don't really have the desire to invest in the weird Mercedes-only tools to work on the damn thing. Same for VWs.
I guess that's an advantage of working out in the conservative country--most of our customers wouldn't dare buy a foreign truck; they'd rather be emasculated (which is why I take particular delight in seeing made-in-Mexico F-150s with their 'buy American' bumper stickers). Cars are a little different; it's okay to buy a Japanese car.
I don't mind; we make a lot of money fixing Ford pickups.
2279215
Piston steam engines have full torque from standstill, boiler pressure applied over piston, for full stroke length. Its only at speed, when the blast is partially turbo charging teh fuel brn that you get maximum heat, pressure and maximum torque, but they use choke so that you get full pressure only at teh beginning of the cycle, then the pressure drops until exhaust, leading to great increase in efficiency. The thing that killed the steam engine was that they refused to switch to mobile power station style mechanical burner in a water tube boiler, followed by variable hydraulic or turbo generator electric power train. For the stylists the cylindrical design works great not only as a cold water tank, but also for a closed loop condenser, given the size. The faster you go, th more cooling air, the more power or more efficincy.
Dont forget, using a battery when you are in an atmospher, is just like using a rocket motor instead of a jet engine, then complaining you are only getting 450 seconds instead of 10 Thousand.
2279810
They might have had full torque on the side rods, but by the time it got to the rails, there wasn't enough useful torque to always start a train. I don't remember all the specifics now, but over the years I've read a few articles on what advantages diesel-electrics had over steam locomotives. FWIW, water consumption was another issue that the diesels didn't have.
Not that there weren't some creative designs at the end of the steam era. I recall a few steam turbines were built; if I remember correctly, Union Pacific's succumbed to fly ash, and the Jawn Henry was too complex to be practical. I think the Soviets built some steam turbine locomotives, but I don't think they were particularly successful.
If wholesale electrification of a railroad network were economically feasable, it would give the freight roads a huge drop in operating expense, but the payback period's still too long, even at today's fuel prices.
2280844
Unfortunately, overhead electrification is sort of like renewable energy. Without local storage, as soon as something goes wrong, cheap power lines, corrded spring oading or such, it takes hours to recover teh passengers and in modern sealed AC electric doors, toilets etc systems, you need to keep diesel haulage traction units on standby, costing.
The thing that confuses me is these people who adore the idea of in road recharging, missing the bleeding obvious. If you can recharge at speed, then for lower power, you have propulsion, and in you have propulsion, you dont need power transmission, because you have wheeled maglev. just like the old trams and trolley busses, which despite the power efficincies, couldnt compete with fuel based free drive transport.
2281356
Major electrified railroads in the US generally didn't have massive outages, so the need for protection power was minimal. True, PRR lost all their GG1s in a snowstorm once (very fine snow + electric motors = a fleet of dead units); diesels and steam locomotives were prone to mechanical failures, too (sometimes spectacular, in the case of boiler explosions). Of course no machine is perfect.
One of the reasons that trollies lost popularity in the US was due to the high initial infrastructure cost, coupled with the inflexibility of the system. When the federal government is building roads for free that anyone can use, but a streetcar company has to shell out all the cash for track, property, catenary, etc., it's a losing prospect. A bus will always be cheaper than a streetcar, and you can take it (nearly) anywhere.
2282766
Heh. Maybe we should just go back to sticking things into capsules and firing them down pipes.
An American Tail 3;Treasure of Manhatten;Pneumatic Subway. Geoffrey Pykes Project Pluto Infantry Delivery System, In store pneumatic delivery system. Colombiad.
2283700
I have a feeling that a large-scale pneumatic tube system would look much like the one in Futurama. Upfront cost might be a problem, too.