Good morning!!!!

[rswyan]

Currently 63F and supposedly "Mostly Cloudy" @ 10:00 ... but there sure is a lot of sun of streaming in thru the window. Had some rain last night just before I fell asleep ... local weather station within a mile of the house says we got just over 1/2" ...

Outlook for the next four days is more rain and more clouds.

Got the four tabs for the lower hitch pins welded on the 3PH frame for the LPGS yesterday. Did a little more grapple/box blade work before I quit for the day.

Also got the carb pulled of the Simplicity and cleaned out. Not hard to imagine why it had a fuel starvation problem:

I didn't bother rebuilding it ... just cleaned it out real good, put it back together, and stuck it back on. Had it purring like a kitten.

Went and got about 1/2 the lawn around the house mowed before it started acting up again, so I pulled it again ... same deal: more crud in the float bowl.

At this point I'm guessing it's fuel line deterioration (original line, circa '85 - '87) after the filter ... since it has a fuel filter on it which is clear and I can see into it and it looks good.

Cleaned it again in the hope that I could get the lawn around the house done before the rains came last night. Same deal: got a little more done and it started acting up.

So ... after doing a search for the correct size fuel line here in a little bit and probably not finding it, I'll probably be heading down to the local NAPA to pick up some neoprene line.

Once I get it running, hope I can trailer it in to cut the grass at the commercial property ... before the city gets to it.

Have to swing by Kromehard Twist Drill and pick up another snagging wheel while I'm in there, as the one I bought a couple of years ago is about gone.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning! 66F @ 6:30AM. Plenty of sunshine. High 87F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.

Drilled spot welds most of the day yesterday, but had to quit at around 4:30 PM because the tools were too hot to hold without gloves and I was having a hard time seeing the spot welds because of where the sun was. I did switch to a plug in drill and the extra power made the work quite a bit easier. Only problem is it's also much heavier, and all of yesterday's welds were up under a ledge on the inside where I had to work overhead to get to them. More of the same today.

Geese make noisy neighbors. Must be fifty or sixty down on the reservoir honking and squeaking at each other, all day and all night. They'll almost all get quiet, then one will fire up all of the rest of them. Hope Canada warms up early this year so they'll leave. :laughing:

TGIF gang!

 

[RedNeckGeek]

So ... after doing a search for the correct size fuel line here in a little bit and probably not finding it, I'll probably be heading down to the local NAPA to pick up some neoprene line.

If you can find it, pick up some Tygon F4040-A. An old friend swears by it for our air cooled BMW motorcycles.

Have to swing by Kromehard Twist Drill and pick up another snagging wheel while I'm in there, as the one I bought a couple of years ago is about gone.

Ya got me there, RS. What's a snagging wheel? Whatever it is, I could do some real damage to my budget in that Kromehard store. :laughing:

 

[toppop52]

I picked rattlesnake chili as my 3rd favorite in a blind taste test chili cookoff.

I had rattler in New Mexico in 1972, between Santa Rosa and Tucumcari, It was at a little taco stand sort of place on the side of a road off 66. As I recall, it tasted like chicken! Seriously, it had a very mild taste and I dipped it in white sauce.

 

[toppop52]

64 and fog, going to 78 but more rain.

First full sunny day in almost 3 weeks coming Sunday, so after a day of drying, am planning on a Mow Fest on Monday. This will be the biggest test ever on my mower - tall thick juicy grass.

Same weather here, one mostly sunny day in 20 days, one morning I could see sunrise in three weeks. And it's mostly been cool, but yesterday was humid and mild.

 

[toppop52]

Squirrel and rabbit were very normal at out house when I was growing up, used to eat more deer than beef and chicken together. Tried groundhog and really liked it fixed it a few times before I quit meat. Ed

I was raised in northeastern NC and groundhogs were non existant then, around there, they're plentiful now, same with coyotes.

 

[toppop52]

They are good at playing dead but when they want to act mean they are pretty good at that too. Here's mine behind the garage.

Don, a possum bite is guaranteed infection, they don't have rabies much , but they're nasty little critters, like squirrels, they'll eat a dead horse as quick as they will a persimmon.

 

[rswyan]

Ya got me there, RS. What's a snagging wheel?

Grinding wheel designed for fast/heavy material removal:

Puts those normal/typical grinding discs to shame ...

Whatever it is, I could do some real damage to my budget in that Kromehard store. :laughing:

I hear ya ...

 

[sodamo]

66°F and .07 inches rain last 24 hours.

Run on wife's mower today, she threw the belt.

Be safe
Have a great day

 

[mostly_gas]

Good morning all. Chamber of commerce day today 60F at start, 10-20 wind and 82F for the high. Already have worked on dishwasher, it had been cleaned out by a service guy last year and worked better but wasn't working well lately. Found every filter full of pulpy looking stuff, and rinse cycles left the machine full of suds when no soap added. Verified machine drained ok , cleaned all parts and bailed out the sump. Ran 4 rinse cycles to clean out residual soap and reassembled, should get more cleaning action. Will start research on replacement, all comments welcome . Have to finish consulting work and mowing, rain forecast for in the morning.

 

[rswyan]

Fuel hose replaced on Simplicity with some high-priced Gates spread ($4 a foot) that is supposed to hold up well against the ethanol in today's gas.

Once again purring like a kitten.

Mowed around the house a good bit with it, no evidence of any problems.

 

[daugen]

worked outside for six hours, watering and weedeating, the former for sure bringing on a downpour around 2pm. Good for the garden and grass. I was glad to get chased in actually. I had been pushing the weedeater trimmer for hours along the property edge, doing the woods line and ended a fine run with a wack wack wack and off goes the machine. Great, barbed wire, again... I'll cut it out tomorrow. Doesn't seem to hurt the thing, which is good. Really pouring out now, intermittent showers before, while working in the barn I could hear it start to rain before I could see it. Finished the painting on the Cub Cadet restoration, so in a week when my mechanically proficient buddy visits for a few days, the yellow machine is going back together. It's going to pull my 55 gallon water barrel, rigged up with a 12V pump.

Finally bought myself a mid life crisis car. No, not a Corvette. But I did find a supercharged Jaguar sedan from 12 years ago for all of 15 grand, wow did those things depreciate, and after selling my Avalon because I didn't think I needed a car, now I'm buying one again. Will be a garage queen and go to dinner car. For the first time I might actually have bought a car that will hold its value

ok, for Toppop: 4.7 0-60 ,not bad for a sedan, 155 regulated top end. 71k miles. 255/35/20s on Alpina like oem optional wheels.
good thing there are no potholes down here...
When you don't obey the nav system the Queen's picture comes on the screen with a nagging finger...just kidding.
I like the car because it has very little chrome, was fully gone over by the Jag dealer
and it appeared to be a bit of a steal...

 

[daugen]

What I find somewhat ironic and a bit amusing is here is Eric waiting for a hybrid SUV, while I'm buying a British hot rod.
but then my gasoline is about half his cost or less. $2.09 gal for yesterday's fill up.

 

[toppop52]

Drew, those are nice cars, drive sweet. The reason those, Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac, pretty much all luxury and pseudo luxury cars from around 1995 on, lose their value quickly is that they are extremely expensive to repair, and have a high rate of failure, relatively speaking. I drove late model Cadillacs and diesel trucks for years because I could get them cheap and if needed, repair them cheap. They're not for everyone, I often told people, if you can't afford a new luxury car, you d@mn sure can't afford a used one! You bought that car right, and you can afford it if Lucas, Lord of Darkness, rears his ugly head! I love Jaguars! It's a sweet looker, enjoy.:thumbsup:

 

[Ed of all trades]

Ed, are your plans to eventually get the shop stuff out of storage or is that your new tool shed. It must be tough to downsize for the move to the city.

Yes it is but we are saving some of the $$$ from the sale of our house to build a shop. Won't be very big but bigger than what I have now. Have not figured out the size or even where it will go but it will hopefully come soon after we move. Ed

 

[RoyJackson]

...if Lucas, Lord of Darkness, rears his ugly head! I love Jaguars! It's a sweet looker, enjoy.:thumbsup:

Jaguar sedans were almost always beautiful classy cars, but always had a reputation (sometimes true) of poor reliability.
I can't recall when Ford bought Jaguar, but that resolved a lot of the Lucas problems. Now, IIRC, Jag is owned by an Indian company named Tata. I'm sure the newer Jags are much more reliable then the older car with Lucas electrical systems.
My all time favorite was the Mark 2 sedan:



Almost bought one when I was stationed in Naples, Italy. Nice clean car and ran very well. One of the minor regrets in my life...

 

[txdon]

What I find somewhat ironic and a bit amusing is here is Eric waiting for a hybrid SUV, while I'm buying a British hot rod.
but then my gasoline is about half his cost or less. $2.09 gal for yesterday's fill up.

Converting .60 Euros per liter (right?)

 

[daugen]

Now that older Jag would be worth a whole lot more than what I just bought. And mine was totally built by Ford, fully aluminum, and has consistently had high
JD Power quality ratings for low repairs. Night and day difference from before, Ford stole parts off their Mondeo probably for the electrical system.
No more Lucas. I think an comparable year S class Mercedes would not have been much more expensive. But yes Randy, it's like buying an old yacht.
All the parts are expensive. Parts for the suspension system are about five grand, and it's only a matter of when. But that should be it. ZF trans, very durable.

And I grew up with Lucas, Girling and Strombergs. My two older brothers had beater MG TD's, actually that was nice, a MG Midget which I thought was a death trap and a few Austin Healey 100-4's. None were mine, I drove an old Chevy. 3 on the tree and a Blue Flame Six.
Odd what silly stuff you remember. I wonder how many different names GM called their straight sixes over the years.
My parents considered cars appliances, and expensive ones when they broke.
fun was not a purchase criteria
My father had been through the Depression and he never bought anything other than utilitarian all his life.

Which always made it amazing in my childhood to see our relatives cars at summer family picnic/reunions, when one of them from NJ would come in a car just like Roy's pic, darker burgundy, saddle leather interior, folding walnut tea tables in the rear. I remember as a young boy playing with those rear seat tables and being highly impressed in general.And then they went home and life went back to usual. Chevrolets, maybe an Olds if the years were kind. Odd, my grandfather owned a small Ford dealership in West Orange NJ in the 1930's and I never saw a Ford bought, ever.

 

[toppop52]

Drew, I wasn't belittling your car in any way, just explaining the general reason why luxury cars built over last twenty years have their values fall off a cliff at about five years. I'd still love to have an XK-E or an XJ-12. With all their flaws, they're just cool.

 

[lostcreekranch]

Drew;

I'll still race you, 1/8 mile, 1/4 mile, top end or whatever .... In Texas.