Off Road SHO

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20120707arizona-unmanned-drones-concerns.html Tom

The truck has a nice torque-to-weight ratio. Tom

The anti-theft relay that Ford used in some of their cars was neat, the key fob had to be within a certain distance for it to allow anything to work. I was going to sneak one into my son's dune buggy and drive him crazy by being able to start it, only to have it die on him a few feet away. But then I remembered who might be picking my rest home. If you just want to deter people from stealing it while in storage, a flat tire or two will do the trick. Tom

Here in the Phoenix area, like elsewhere in the US, we have self serve wrecking yards. I just bought a 2.2 liter for a Subaru Legacy at one of these places. They come with a 30 day exchange warranty and it cost me 165.00 USD. It had high mileage, 190,000 miles, but the car had 206,000 miles on it so it was a perfect match. In other full service wrecking yards, low mileage engines go for about 700-1000.00 USD. But I'm a LoCost bastard, so I chose the former. Tom

Fur sure!

Yep, a Cephalapod from the planet Ubeenahita. Those weren't eggs, they were miniature barbeque'd hamburger patties she was carrying back to the Memorial Day party they were holding. That'd be my guess. Tom

Is the stock crankcase vent used? It it on the side of the engine as opposed to on top of the valve cover? If it's on the side of the block, is there any chance that oil could have been forcefully thrown up against that side on a continuous basis and then blown into your catch can by excessive blow-by? Tom

Two things needed to cool a water pumper engine: Water flow and coolant flow. Sounds like you have coolant flow. Does it have a clutch fan or ridgid mount? I replaced an entire engine and exhaust system on a Dodge 1 ton bucket truck trying to solve an overheating problem. Turned out to be a bad clutch in the radiator fan. That was an expensive lesson for me. Tom

Duane, I'm not that tom, but I can help a little here. The pressure plate, with its disc clamped in between it and the flywheel, can stay bolted to the flywheel if you can attach that bracket without removing the flywheel. If you can't, you will have to remove the flywheel and to do that you will first need to remove the pressure plate. To remove the pressure plate, you will need to keep the flywheel from rotating when you put the wrench to the pressure plate's bolts. You do that with anything, from a large screwdriver stuck into the flywheel's teeth and held against a large bolt stuck through one of the block holes, to an old timing wrapped around the flywheel and vise gripped to something on the engine. Loosen the pressure plate bolts in a cross pattern untill all of the spring pressure is released. Remove all of the bolts except for the top one. While holding onto the bottom of the PP to keep it and the disc inside from falling, remove the last bolt. Lay it and its disc upside down on the bench, noting that the disc has an engine side and a clutch side. Try not to get oil from your hands or grease on the PP surface or disc. Now loosen and remove the flywheel's bolts in the same manner and patterns as the PP, remembering to hold onto the flywheel as you remove the last bolt. Most flywheel bolt holes have a keying to them, that is to say that the spacing between one set of holes will be greater the the spacing of all the rest. If you don't want to have to try six different times to get the wide space on the flywheel lined up with the wide space on the crank, make a mark on both before you remove the flywheel. Try not to get oil from your hands or grease on the flywheel surface. Clean all old loctite residue off of all the flywheel and PP bolts. Install your new CPS sender bracket but not the sender at this time. Bring your flywheel back and bolt it up to the crank with just the top bolt and bottom bolt hand snugged. Do not tighten at this time. Now install your crank sensor and make sure it does not actually touch the flywheel's sensor ring. If it does, something is not right. If it doesn't touch, you're good to go forward but remove the sensor out of harms way for the moment. Now grab the blue LocTite and your torque wrench and your flywheel holding method. With the flywheel secured from rotating in the CW direction, remove the bottom bolt, apply a thin bead of loctite to the threads and re-install it. Do the same with the remaining bolts, leaving that top one for last. After all bolts are loctited and in, set your torque wrench to half of final torque and proceed to torque the bolts in a criss cross pattern; 12 oclock, 6 o'clock, 1 o'clock, 7 o'clock etc. When finished, set the torque wrench at full final torque and do it again. Now comes the tricky part of centering the disc in between the PP and flywheel. If you don't have the neat little plastic tool that comes with modern clutch kits, you can make your own easily enough. Find a long bolt, wooden dowel, aluminum or copper pipe that fits snugly inside the pilot bearing of your flywheel. If you can only find something smaller, no problem; you can make it just the right diameter by running layer after layer of electrical tape around the tip of the bolt/dowel/pipe until it is snug. Now build up the section of the dowel/bolt/pipe that will be inside the disc's splined center section with tape until it is snug also. Now you have a centering tool for your flywheel/disc combo. With the flywheel holder still holding the flywheel, you will now bring the PP and its disc back up to the flywheel and use the same process of holding it with two loose bolts. Pass your new centering tool through the PP's fingers, through the spline of the disc and into the pilot bearing hole. This will center the disc on the centerline of the flywheel/crankshaft axis. With the centering tool still installed, you can now loctite and install the PP bolts in the same crisscross pattern, but you just do a few turns on each bolt before you skip across. The final tightening is done with a torque wrench, and I always go around the horn twice, counting out loud to help me not forget one. You can now remove you centering tool and throw it in the top of your toolboxe for the next time. Hope this helps. Tom

The main problem with the old Triumph Spitfire's rear end was it loss of contact patch under hard cornering, leading to some immediate end-swapping. It was fixed in the Series IV Spits with some kind of shackle system on the transverse rear leaf spring. This allowed the spring to compress without "tucking" the rear tire. I had a 73. Tom

I think the above poster wanted to say, "If you are NOT using a CPS, block off that hole where the CPS normally rests. That irregular gap on the other side is due to a missing bell housing shield that usually is bolted in between the block and bell housing. Tom

Holy Cow! They picked up Microsoft as a sponsor. Will that cause their engines to quit for no reason and then need rebuilding?

Ditto on what Terry said, but I would spec out a Roots style blower and not a centrifigal type. A Roots style is in bypass mode most of the time and therfore not a tremendous drag. Only when the vacuum goes away does it start to push more air. A Roots style also comes on right off of idle and will not have any delay whatsoever. Tom

Well, the first part, yeah I sure do. The second part of your question doesn't apply to me, so no. But congratulations anyway. Your life is about to change in ways you won't believe. You will wonder why you didn't skip the kid part of parenting and instead went straight to grandkids part. Tom

I work in street construction sites all day and that is a poorly barricaded work site. Me thinks there is a lot more to that story than the bicycle rider who took the pics is telling. Smells like Porsche envy to me. My guess, and just my guess from being in the business, is that the insurance company of the contractor or his barricading company and quite possibly the City's insurrance carrier will pick up the tab for the cleaning of the Porsche. Makes for a funny pic in a Wiley Coyote / Roadrunner kind of way though. Tom

No doubt the Legislators had "help" in figuring out what is healthy. No doubt again that the "help" came from a company that just so happens to make money from this scam. The only solution to this is to take away 10% of their funding every year for 5 years, period. Let them decide what silly rules they come up with then. This country is run by lobbyists. Tom

$ 18,350.00. Not bad. Tom

From the Dune buggy people up here in the peanut gallery: http://www.chircoestore.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=148_161_349&products_id=1986&osCsid=c4krb0fqaimnlahap9fr6tid92 I also might have a used set you can have real cheap if condition doesn't need to be perfect. Tom

The only thing that slowed me down was the "7" as a T. Otherwise, that's about what my handwriting looks like. Tom

So are the two tools a plasma cutter and a CNC mill? Also, it looks like the tip of the torch is angled. Is it really or is it just an optical concussion? Tom

Dick, Get one of those flashing led lights that are on the back of Highway Patrol motorcycles. I believe that flashing red or solid red is allowed and the flashing red draws so much more attention. You cannot look directly into them from close distance they are so bright. As an alternative, a flashing led bicycle light wired into your stop lights might work. Tom

Those guys definitely need to learn how to attach a flat webbing strap to a hook. The guy filming this should have got a close-up of the tow company's name. Tom

Just about any of the offroad car fabrication shops can whip you up a roll cage. Tom

Did you get a fuel pressure gage on it yet. I think your regulator is hosed, if it has one. If it's the returnless type, make sure that what is supposed to be grounded to the battery's negative post, is in fact grounded to it. Tom

If he's serious about selling it, he should just come out and say it, and list his price. Tom