slomove

Not really. There was a lot of cinder gravel on a few ice patches that made its way into the cockpit but as far as I know they don't use salt in the Angeles National Forest.

Quick drive up from L.A. to Newcombs Ranch in the local mountains (5300 feet). Almost got stuck in Rose Parade traffic.

Looking over my options again....maybe I can do this anyway. I am surely not going to pay a few $1000's for shipping but maybe 2 days towing to Boise from L.A., then 4 days nice drive through Idaho wilderness & Glacier NP to Red Deer, then the tour, 2 days drive back to Boise and another 2 days towing. Barely more than two weeks plus weekend. Might actually work. But I still need to hang in another 3-4 weeks to make sure :sadangel: 4500 miles round trip, not too bad.

Hello Terry, I believe the North Americans (at least here in the US) are just procrastinators and try not to commit to anything until the last moment I have organized a few Se7en tours and found it difficult to get people to sign up more than a few months in advance. The problem is while your tour is only 10 days or so, with transport/towing and travel, the whole trip will take at least 2 weeks. And, unlike Europe a 2-week vacation is a bit of a luxury here. For the last 2 trips I did not provide a comprehensive organization. I just planned as if I was going by myself, then published the list of hotels and the route and whoever felt like it could come along or not. The only other thing I did was compiling a participant list and checking that nobody got lost. Worked pretty well but with participants from the UK obviously a bit more needs to be done. I would think there should be a few more "locals" signing up (sometimes) and I would be really interested. But....not a good time for me. Cheers!

Come on, stay on the topic. One is a big time botched government sting operation (where somebody should be held responsible) and the other one is preventing nutcases from shooting up little children. Bringing that up is for me a lame attempt to steer away from an undesired discussion. Normally I stay out of gun control discussions because that has become such a toxic subject that people just throw around buzzwords and get very aggressive. So there is little to gain but once a while i give my 2 cents. I would be O.K. with the 2nd amendment if it would apply to the arms that the authors of that amendment knew, i.e. flintlock rifles, pistols or swords. Dangerous enough but hard to use for a massacre. It baffles me how somebody can derive the right to own a semiautomatic weapon from a 200 year old text. And if so why stop there and not allow hand grenades or anti-aircraft guns. If there is a public agreement in this country that gun ownership is desirable so be it. I don't like it but can so far live with it (although the latest incident is really hard to bear). But IMO the public can decide just as well that this is stupid and need to be changed without violating the constitution. I am not confident this can be solved anytime soon. Guns are plentiful, no matter if there are new laws coming or not. The famous law abiding citizen can legally own all that fun hardware and 99.9999% of them will just use them for target shooting, hunting or because they have a small dick. And the remaining 0.0001% may sometimes snap and go kill a bunch of school children.

Really a shame but I never appreciated the high end stuff. Maybe because I am deaf on one ear and the other one isn't that great. But I still have a Thorens turntable and an Akai cross-field head tape recorder somewhere in the shed. Got to dig them out sometimes and maybe they still work, if powered up carefully. But I just suspect the power supply caps are gone after 20 years of non-operation. And there is still the 60 year old Grundig tube radio on my parent's attic in Germany that I need to check out. I know I tried it sometimes in the 90's and ist still worked. http://www.wolfhard.com/images/forsale/Electronics/Grundig%20Radio.jpg

You got a point there :seeya: but I did not really say it is generally a bad idea. Just that there is a point of diminished return of investment, especially for a mainly street-use car. If the car is already stripped down to the bones and lighter than helium the 10 pounds do make sense. But e.g. for my heavy 1300 lbs barge there are another dozen pieces that I should shed first.

While the lithium ones are in a way cool I think that is getting into the area of diminishing returns. The Odyssey PC625 that I have right now is a whopping 1% of the car's mass so if I save some of that it may give me bragging rights but probably not any measurable effect. I am still impressed with the Odysseys. My current battery in the car is 8 years old and sometimes sits for a few months without charging but never fails to start the car. It even survived a broken alternator regulator that tried to charge it for a while with 16 volts. The Odyssey PC625 that I had before and swapped for the wrong reasons is now 11 years old and still does duty in my trailer, charged every 6 months or so.

I am anyway planning to be in Colorado around the memorial Day weekend. Your suggestion is interesting and if that happens I may take the Birkin out there instead of some airline.

That is unlikely to happen. My experience from the big 2005 tour is that more than 6 or 8 cars will break up into groups and drive more or less independently. Some left in the morning 2 hours later than others. But I agree, such a number can become unwieldy and limit the hotel choice.

I removed the tire rack long time ago and went on several tours of 3000-4000 miles. For the unlikely event of a leak I have the fix-a-flat inflator. In case of a larger gash the Seven can drive a while on a flat tire (slowly) or I can just whip out the AAAplus card.

Man, that looks like a hellhole to live :cooldude: How in the world are you going to motivate yourself and go to work in the morning? Anyway, congratulations !

Also not related to pot stirring but regarding 5-hour energy....as it happens one colleague did not show up last week and when he finally came in he said he spent the night in the ER because his 21 year old son tried to keep going for 30 hours with that stuff (he may have had 5 or 6) to finish a term paper. He ended up getting serious heart trouble and needed treatment for a few days before they let him go home. So, at least you got to be careful to not overdose....

The problem with most of these scales is that they don't like horizontal forces. That means if you lower the front down on the scale the track gets wider and the scales mis-read. The rear axle is less a problem but still need to make sure there is not too much tugging sideways. A few years ago I built a 4 rigs using analog 300 lbs scales and a 2:1 leverage (see image below). It works pretty well and takes care of the side forces although the car needs to be lifted quite high. However I have not been using it much lately. If I really need to re-adjust I just go somewhere to use proper racing scales. http://home.earthlink.net/~slomove/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/cornerscaledetail.jpg

I used such adjustable draw latches in stainless with safety lock from McMaster. Not exactly the same as the ones installed before but pretty close: http://www.mcmaster.com/LIBRARY/20120730/1864A170L.GIF

I am not a banker or economist but that looks like Internet hype. If you look up the actual report it mentions about 1 trillion maximum for emergency loans outstanding at the end of 2008. The 16 trillion number appears to be the total transaction amount, i.e. aggregated in and out over the 4 years. Not that I like this money juggling and a trillion is nothing to sneeze at anyway.

See, that is what I meant. I totally agree that the country is big time going the wrong direction. I would be happy to vote for a politician who gives me the "blood sweat and tears" story, meaning to be honest there is no nice and easy way out of this mess. Obviously there has to be a reduction of entitlements and more revenue or this debt pile will not be paid off. Would be nice though if the pain is somewhat shared fairly. But there is no candidate and no party who will go for that, probably because without promising paradise the money machine does not work. So I guess I will vote for the same guy again. Not really happy but we really don't need to make it worse.

Not sure anymore but maybe Hitler promised them 12 million new jobs and maybe he even succeeded preparing for war. But the hard working and industrious Germans are anyway overrated. Believe me I am one of them I am disgusted how the politics here have been eroded by money to a caricature of democracy. Bribery (a.k.a. political contributions) in one of the other form has become a morally accepted and even proud way of doing business (free speech, sure...) and indispensable to win any election. I would not bother to vote if I had not a slight hope that one side is is a teeny bit less corrupt an promoting minimally better ideas. But I am sure no side has the balls to even mention the real issues, god forbid tackling them. On the other hand, politics in Europe are not really that much better. Less money involved (yet), but less professional, too and just about as dishonest. A bit more entertaining, though

Maybe they wanted to use this as a donor car for a nice Seven ? :jester:

Jim, nothing to bitch about your opinion. Pretty much fully shared. My son started working Sheriff Security in a SS office in the San Fernando Valley, specifically for singles and he has to deal with with the homeless, drug addicts, gang bangers, welfare queens and the like. Some are O.K. but many are just lowlife. He also said that there is no push to clean up the welfare lists because more "clients" means more resources for the office and job security. Welfare abuse may not be the biggest financial burden for society but it is surely breeding a leeching attitude and criminal subculture. That said, many of these folks are mental or physical wrecks and totally unable to work.

Hope this is not considered a highjack, but since we have been pootling around NorCal and Oregon week earlier, maybe I can help out with a few pics. Also, it saves me starting a new thread.... The unavoidable Yosemite Valley picture. Pretty busy with tourists but is has been worse. At least no traffic jam. Preparing far the hail storm on Tioga Pass. We were in good shape with the sunroof and screen/wipers but 2 other participants had only goggles. Could not see a thing when the rain and hail got bad and apparently quite painful. On Monitor Pass Road (near lake Tahoe) Near Lotus, CA (could not find a sign that was 7 miles away)

No special reason except the problem was not big enough while touring and usually way too hot outside to care. I just topped off every day. But now I am home and have no excuse to get it fixed. The paper towel is a good idea (provided the belt won't snatch it). Thanks for the tip. I had the weep hole leaking at one time (actually 6 years ago) and got the water pump rebuilt. So what is the reason that it should suddenly start doing that again? Just regular wear?

No, nothing special. It definitely does not run into the oil because at that quantity I would have butter in the crankcase or would smell it if it got into the cylinders. Forgot to mention: there is actually a small fresh puddle under the front when I turn the engine off. I can still see it dripping when I hurry. I guess I have to run the engine for a while without nosecone and watch where it comes out. Just did not have a chance to do this yet and was wondering if this symptom is common.

On the latest 2300 mile trip I noticed a serious loss of coolant, maybe a cup to a quart per day. It does not appear to be leaky hoses or radiator because I can run the engine all day even at ambient temperatures up to 110 degrees F and the engine stays at stable 85-90 degrees C. But when I shut the motor down, it pees a certain amount of coolant for a few seconds and then stops. I have the typical Raceline water rail setup with 16 lbs cap and an overflow reservoir. I am not exactly sure when that started but on the last summer trip I had to fill up barely a sip after 2 weeks. Since the drip stops before I can take the nosecone off I could not really see where it comes from, that may take a bit more experimentation. But in the meantime, is that a known symptom for something on the way out (like the water pump)? Thanks

Not exactly cheap, though.