Post #16 · 5:03am Dec 17th, 2018
How’s everybody(pony) doing? I hope you’re all ready for the holidays...
Cuz I’m not.
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OK, this is gonna be kind of a year-end blog; I know I’ve been on the quiet side lately, and I’ll get into that in a bit.
First, I have some bragging to do:
Yay.
(I missed the 100K views by ONE! I’d been checking my phone all morning at work that day, trying to get a screenshot of it at exactly 100K, and it stayed at 99,997 for like an hour and a half. Then the next time I checked it, it’d moved to the number seen here and I was like: 
)
Anyway, it goes without saying that I greatly appreciate every one of you for following this story. Without the support from some of you, it would never have gotten this far, nor would I have gotten some of the ideas that ended up going into it. (you know who you are)
THANKS!!!
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So... yeah. It’s been busy here, as it always is this time of year. First off, I had that nasty cold that, believe it or not, is still lingering. I’m still coughing a fair bit, but at least the headaches and back pain are gone. That stuff went away after seeing the doctor six weeks in – once I finally admitted it wasn’t going away on its own, and the inflammation between by shoulder blades got so bad it affected my ability to work; if I pulled a wrench the wrong way, it would nearly put me on the floor – and was given a five day antibiotic, which helped a fair bit.
That, and tomorrow I see the urologist who removed my kidney three years ago to make sure the cancer hasn’t come back. I had the tests done last Tuesday: ultrasound, X-ray, bloodwork, –all that shit– and tomorrow I get the results. I don’t expect any bad news, but it still weighs heavily on my mind. I tell ya, I’ll never forget that night, the Friday of labour day weekend in 2015; after working a ten hour day I was stuck in the ER from 1:00 to 6:30am, pissing out dozens of grape-sized blood clots every 20 minutes – well, only up until about 3:30am, which was when my right kidney was plugged by a large clot and began to fill continuously with more blood and piss, building pressure until it felt like it was going to explode for the next three hours. Then they finally got some morphine into me. Woooo...
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The other thing on my plate that happens every fall (especially November) is the hell that we mechanics in this area (southern Ontario) refer to as ‘snow tire season.‘ This is a time when unknown amounts of fucking people who act like they’re surprised it’s snowing again this year all decide to show up to get their winter tires installed on the same day (the first snow day, naturally).
Luckily, it got cold for quite a few weeks before we got decent snow this year, which was pretty late, so many of our regular customers trickled in before it got really bad.
I’ll never fucking forget 2014; it’d been unseasonably warm through October, and then the first or second week of November we had a foot of snow dumped on us and HO-LEE-FUCK, it was pandemonium. Fucking everybody showed up at once, demanding to have their tires changed over. It actually got so bad that the cops showed up and blocked the entrance to our parking lot with their cruiser. It would take twenty minutes to bring the next car in to work on because the lot was so congested you had to move about five other cars just to get to the one you needed. It was like one of those puzzles with the squares that you slide around to make the picture. Just nuts. And we were working two shifts from 7:30am until after 1:00 in the morning; ALL cars from that day had to be finished because the next day that many more would show up again. It was insane.
Luckily, it doesn’t always get that bad, but it’s still a hectic time of year; get up, go to work, run your ass off, come home cold, wet, tired and sore, go to bed and start over again the next day. This year, add this damn chest cold I had the whole time, and you get many fistfuls of yay.
Then, just as that tapers off, it’s time to worry about Christmas shopping!
I’ll be honest, all of this is one of the bigger reasons I put the story on hiatus last fall. I tried to keep at this year, but it’s been a rough go. I think I did OK though, especially considering the issues I’ve been having with writing motivation as of late. It was all I could do just to get those two Twilight chapters out last week. I honestly can’t remember the last time I wrote any new stuff.
The next chapter I have to write is the first really big action scene for this arc. I’m a little nervous about it, mostly because I haven’t written action for quite a while, plus a LOT happens in that chapter, so it’ll probably be a big one. That said, I doubt I’ll have time to finish it with the holidays going on, so unfortunately that means you guys probably won’t see a new chapter until January. I wish I could do better, but there just isn’t time.
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Another thing that takes up a good chunk of time is Golden Arrow’s my truck. I’ve had it since 2004, and modding/customizing it is still a hobby of mine that I love, and I’ve slowed down on it quite a bit since I started writing 'MLP EG Forever.' The only things I’ve done on it in the past two years were the gigantic exhaust last summer:
And the 18” wheels from a 2017 Ram late last winter:
Earlier this summer, my wife – who hates it when I spend so much money on a 24 year old truck – was finally like: “You seriously need to stop,” so I pointed my finger at her and said, “You know what? You’re absolutely right, hon; a custom brake upgrade is the next logical step.”
She rolled her eyes and walked away.
Anyone familiar with the old Dodge diesels knows how sorely under-equipped they were in the braking department, and I was getting tired of experiencing the infamous ‘pucker-butt’ every time the light turned yellow or someone cut me off.
Anyway, I found a pair of front knuckles for the 94-99 Ram trucks...
...and machined the brackets for the OEM brakes off, then made a new bracket to mount the front brakes from a 2015 3500.
After some machining, welding, paint and new ball joints, you get this:
Rotor size, 2015 vs 1995: (these things are huge!)
Anyway, I don’t wanna get too wordy here, (I'll eventually do a full step-by-step walkthrough on a truck forum that I've been on since 2011) but that front brake upgrade snowballed into installing the removed OEM front brakes onto the rear (with rotors from a 2001 2WD) and discarding the factory drum brakes. I have tons of pictures of the process, which involved cutting apart the factory front knuckle to use the bracket and machining an adapter plate to mount it to the rear axle, but I’ll keep this short and just post this shot of both front and rear after the upgrades:
As if that wasn’t enough, I also bought a used hydroboost brake assist unit from a 2000 Ram (the ’95 used vacuum assist, which kinda sucks).
And I got it installed just yesterday. I’m still fiddling with the hydraulic lines, though; the extra turbo equipment I have under that hood kinda takes up too much space!
Anyway, yeah. I’ve been working on this since early June, (although I didn’t tear into the truck itself until October). This kind of thing takes a long time to do, especially when you’re juggling work, family, home life... oh, and writing a long-ass fanfiction.
It’s been kinda weird the past few weeks because I’ll be out in the shop for a bit, then I’ll come inside, scrub my hands and then sit down to proof-read ‘Musical Reminiscence‘ or something like that. It’s a big shift, going from working with metal to working with words in the space of ten minutes, and my mind often times has trouble making the transition and keeps thinking about the other thing I was doing. I get distracted a lot lately when I’m writing, usually thinking about how i’m gonna go about doing something on the brake project, and conversely, I’ll be thinking about ‘MLP EG Forever’ when I’m out in the garage.
Craziness.
Anyway, moving on...
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Mandatory Megadeth.
Did ya’ll enjoy that? (aside from Coffee Minion) I kinda had fun with it, except for the last few because of being sick and unmotivated. I wouldn’t mind doing it again, so long as you folks are into it. I enjoyed posting songs and chatting about music with whoever was interested.
Tell you what; for old time’s sake, let’s do a song.
Angry Again
From the soundtrack to the 1993 film ‘Last Action Hero’
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Welp, that’s about it for tonight. If I’m not active or I don’t talk to anyone on here for the next few weeks, I wish you all a safe and happy holiday – and if you don’t celebrate the holidays, I hope you have a great regular December – and I’ll catch you next year when I can hopefully conclude the story.
Maybe that could be my goal: to finish 'MLP EG Forever' by 2020!
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Oh, and I usually do this, don’t I?
[EDIT] I forgot to mention, I finally finished the rewrite on chapter 33. Check it out! (warning: hardcore sex)
Well look at that you need to be damm skilled to make that
Hoping to see more of your world
Happy holidays
Happy Holidays big guy.
HAPPY HOLIDAY!!!
Hey, you just gotta roll with the times and stick the worst of it out. We've all been there, done that, so if you need a little break while you get your other priorities straight, go right ahead.
Look, I need to know wether your truck has a stick shift or if it’s an automatic. It’s killing me to not know wether it’s a standard or an automatic because I’m obsessed with standards because of the fact that almost no one can drive them. And I have a feeling that your Cummins is a 12 valve rather than a 24 valve because it looks nothing like the 24 valve under my uncle’s hood. But I also admit that I don’t know sheisse.(German so I can spare the kiddies from rude language)
4992619
) is a 5-speed and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It has the factory auto, which was built to withstand the extra power, with a triple-disc converter matched to the engine’s torque curve. Manuals work well in a stock truck, but the 5-speeds that came in these 90’s era trucks were more fragile than one might think, and they tend to break under added power. At high power levels with two turbos, etc, it’s hard to beat a well-built auto.
That’s not to say I don’t like manuals though; my VW Golf TDI (yes, both my vehicles are diesel
And you are correct, it’s a 12 valve. 24 valves didn’t arrive in the scene until ‘98.
4993045
Yeah they changed from 12 valve to 24 valve because of the fact that under certain conditions the 12 valve engine block would crack and render the engine a large block of scrap. And I’m a fan of manuals in the Dodge trucks because until the 3rd or 4th gen the automatic transmissions tended to fail pretty quickly. Now I get to replace the entire body of my ‘02 2500 Ram which living in NW Pennsylvania is the worst place for this kind of truck because of salt and brine, and the sad thing is that it’s a gas, however it’s a V10 Magnum so it’s got that going for it.
4993120
I assume you're referring to the infamous "Killer Dowel Pin" that some of the 12 valves suffered from. Basically, there's a locating pin that positions the timing gear case to the front of the block, and this pin had the tendency to vibrate out after so many hundred thousand miles, (but not always) and when it falls out it can either fall to the bottom and end up in the oil pan with no harm caused, OR... it can get wedged in between the timing gear and case, which can cause the case to break, creating a massive oil leak.
Like this: notice the crack just above the gear, straight up from where he's holding the pin.
dieselarmy.com/image/2017/12/arties-answers-the-12-valve-killer-dowel-pin-0001.jpg
When this happens, the engine isn't necessarily scrap; the timing case can be replaced. It's just a REALLY big job.
It's an easy thing to prevent though. You'll notice in the picture that there's a bolt just to the right of the pin hole. All you do is make a washer with a "wing" or "tab" and install it under the bolt so that it holds the pin in place. Like this:
hanksdeuce.com/images/032114/04.jpg
Problem solved! I did this to my truck back in 2005, about a year after I bought it. My pin was maybe 1/8" out? Not very much, anyway. I just tapped it back in and installed the retaining tab, and all has been well ever since--which is good, because other than this particular design flaw, the 12 valve is essentially bulletproof.
As far as actual cracked blocks go, there was a production run of 24 valve Brazilian(?) cast blocks (known as the dreaded '53 block') that would crack along the passenger side. Not sure why, maybe too thin? Most of those were found in '99 model year Ram trucks, if I recall.
cumminshub.com/img/figures/53-block-crack.png
I test drove a V10 truck before I bought the diesel one. It's a pretty neat engine with lots of power, but not the greatest on fuel. And yes, the 6-speed autos in the 4th gens aren't great. The older 4-speeds were much better.
4993166
Well thanks for the info about the pins for the 12 valve now I can let my cousin fix that before he turns his into a pulling truck, so now I can help him prevent a possibly catastrophic problem and save the stress of looking for and replacing the timing case. And like I (might) have previously stated that I know practically nothing so I was nowhere near what I read on some forum or I skipped over the essential part of it ie. the engine model.
4993275
No worries. I’ve been messing with these engines for a long time, so if you need any help, feel free to hit me up. Are you a member of Cummins Forum or anything like that?
4993298
Thanks and as soon as I can afford a new truck I will get some kind of ‘94-‘02 Cummins so I can get help from a professional and from family. And I just joined Cummins Fourm so more help to those that are new to Cummins, and for future reference I used the exact same username as here.