Hmmmmmm...Should Have Put This On The First Engine I Built.....

Well, not really. Out of the dozen or so engines I've built over the years, I never lost one due to bad assembly or bad parts.

Came close a couple of times, but caught the suspect parts before they went into the engine one time, and caught myself very late one night almost firing a dry engine until I looked at the list I had taped on the windshield, and noticed the *one* item not crossed off was "ADD OIL/CHECK FILTER/PRIME ENGINE".

Sure enough, the dipstick was bone dry, and the filter was empty and loose on the remote oil filter setup I'd installed along with the oil cooler. So, I filled the filter and tightened it, and added the 10 quarts I'd estimated the system would hold. Since the distributor was out, I grabbed the 1/2" electric drill and dummy shaft I used to prime engines, and cranked away with the dummy shaft engaged to the oil pump. After a few minutes we had oil pressure, so I checked the level on the dipstick, added another 1/2 quart, and installed the distributor and connected it all up.

Started and ran fine after waiting for the electric fuel pump to fill the carb.

Set the idle to 2000 RPM, and ran it for 30 minutes to check for leaks and break-in the cam and lifters, and took it out for a cruise the next day.


Anyway....saw this over at the Hot Rod Magazine website, and it cracked me up.....

Another Moldy Oldie

From my vast collection of "Music of My Youth".

This one is by Les Dudek.

Les was one of those "Who?" musicians that played with lots of other groups before trying a solo career.

Who'd he play with?

Oh, little known groups like The Steve Miller Band, Stevie Nicks, The Allman Brothers, and Boz Scaggs, to name a few.

BTW, the guy who posted this appears to have the same turntable I do.

Enjoy!

A Little Travelin' Music, Please.....

By Elvin Bishop.

Did you know he has a PhD in Physics?


Amazing......

RATS! My Little Weather PC Went Casters Up

Doggone it, the little Intel Atom PC I put together for my weather station has decided to call it quits.

I'm wondering if the UPS it was connected to had anything to do with its demise. This was the UPS I changed the batteries on a few weeks ago.  I've been monitoring it quite closely, and all seems well, but I'm wondering if it did some weirdness when it had athe bad battery in the pack,

Generally, when the batteries inside are no good any longer, they default to "bypass mode", hopefully saving anything connected from voltage fluctuations.

The little PC acted up a week ago (dropped offline and shut down), and disconnecting the DVD drive seemed to bring it back OK.

I know I have some spare power supplies for it *somewhere* out in the garage, but since I'm in the middle of tearing apart the radio room to clean it and sort all the "stuff" that's in here, I think I might be better off just grabbing a new bare-bones unit and swapping the solid state drive from the dead PC to a new one.

As soon as I finish up the radio room, I'm attacking the garage with a vengence so I can start working on the Supra.

Never Forget

President COWARD

Another home run from Mr. Whittle....

Ever Wonder Where Your Gasoline Dollar Goes?

Here's a new chart by the American Petroleum Institute.

Exxon-Mobil recently published a report that they made a profit of 5.5 cents per gallon sold.

In The People's Republik of Kaliforniastan, the state tax on gasoline is almost SEVENTY-ONE cents per gallon!

So much for the "Greedy Oil Companies"......

The Weekend Already?

Geesh.......Been busy the last few days, so haven't posted.

Spent Tuesday on the Iowa playing radio in commemoration of the signing of the "Instrument of Surrender".

The Iowa was anchored in Tokyo Bay, alongside the Mighty Mo, hosting the Missouri's crew members who had been moved off the Mo to accommodate all the VIP's and dignitaries on the Mo, and handling all the communications from Tokyo Bay.

Trimmed a tree back in the backyard, but only about 20% done with it. The "tree" started out as some kind of potted plant my wife put out there years ago. It outgrew the pot, and completely took over a corner of the backyard.

I've cut it back several times, and last year we had a tree service come do it, and the damn thing just keeps growing like a weed. She'd like to completely get rid of it, but I kinda like trees, so I guess I'm going to get real good keeping it in check.

By the time I'm done whacking it back, I'm going to have to go rent a chipper to get rid of the limbs I've cut off.

Got my Jeep smogged today, and then ran over to AAA to get the new sticker for the rear plate. The smog place had me in and out in about 45 minutes, and AAA had me in and out in about 15.

Guess that's one nice thing about being able to take care of stuff during "normal business hours".

Came home, did the dishes and vacuumed, and then had to go to an emergency board meeting of my radio club. Two of the club members have various problems with the museum staff, causing the museum curator to tell us if we don't put a SHORT leash on these two, that we may be asked to leave.

ANYWAY......I'll try and get something creative (HAH!) posted this week.

In the meantime, check out the folks on the side bar.

I think you already know each other, so play nice......

Flying Through A Fireworks Display

Found this over at Bill Whittle's website.

I'm speechless.......


But thinking of buying a quad copter to mount my GoPro on! 

It's in High Definition, so watch it in full screen. You'll be amazed.

Headed Off to the Hollywood Bowl Tonight

Going to see one of my favorites, John Williams.

Enjoy the sample.

Papa Oom Mow Mow

Was scratchin' around for some Surf Music today, and came across this.

The Rivingtons sound great, but the artwork really caught my eye!