Today I... "Redux Edition"

[ryeguy2006a]

Well most of the pictures that I take are of my kids or my car, but I dug up one from last summer. My youngest is obsessed with getting tractor rides and mowing the grass with me. So I hooked up the little wagon and we all went on a ride.

[Casey]

V8 Wrangler, I'm feeling it.  I wonder if you could squeeze the 5.9 Magnum into it since the 4.7 fits.

[roadking77]

Nice family pic Ryan,

Jim, congrats on the shop space, looks great. I think you need a new term for your paint guy though with his turnaround time. I think it should more like 'paint detention' instead of paint jail. I like the mini your nephew did. My wifes old car, ML320 is now sitting idle in the barn. I have been contemplating on making a jurassic park out of it. Either that or scrap metal.

[FormTA]

Great picture Ryan!  I may have to call on you again once I start on my Camaro project.

[737driver]

V8 Wrangler, I'm feeling it.  I wonder if you could squeeze the 5.9 Magnum into it since the 4.7 fits.

According to the Jeep gurus, the 5.7 swap is pretty popular. My nephew decided to go with the Dakota 4.7 mainly for cost reason. The motor runs quite well, and has no leaks or issues. We talked about other options ( LS, Chevy 350, even a Pontiac 350). Came down to cost and what motor was best suited for purpose. He bought the truck and a pretty decent price . The 4.7 V8 is actually lighter than the Inline 6. The V8 also has more torque which will be a plus.
Jim

[737driver]

Jim, congrats on the shop space, looks great. I think you need a new term for your paint guy though with his turnaround time. I think it should more like 'paint detention' instead of paint jail. I like the mini your nephew did. My wifes old car, ML320 is now sitting idle in the barn. I have been contemplating on making a jurassic park out of it. Either that or scrap metal.
[/quote]

I really like the additional space ,going from 600sq/ft to 1800 .
Jim

[737driver]

Today I finished building two work tables . I had four foldable tables I bought several years ago. I combined 2 3.5’x6’ tables using 2x4’s added a plywood base and tops. I added cashiering wheel to make them movable around the shop. I also made them so that they could be butted together lengthwise and width wise. It gives me a lot of versatility as far as work tables go. I will most likely add some sort of coating on the tops. One thing I can sat is that they are plenty sturdy with the bracing.
Jim

[Jack]

Nice job on the work tables, they look very strong and versatile.

[Jack]

Kerry I mess around like you here is one with my GF before the lockdown... funny thing is that my wife took the pic.

[roadking77]

Great Pic  Jack,  I think this may be the first one I have seen of you. Great to put a face with the name.

Jim, I really like the tables you built. You will get a lot of use from them. I made one in my shop similar, nothing fancy. I used a sheet of 3/4 plywood I had for the top. You will be surprised at how much you will be using them. I too thought of putting a finish on them, never got around to it (big surprise there), now theres paint, grease, cleaner, etc. so it doesnt really matter that much.  A clear poly seal would work nice tough.

[Jack]

Great Pic  Jack,  I think this may be the first one I have seen of you. Great to put a face with the name.

Thanks, few years ago I started a thread for this exact reason but not many people posted. I started two threads one to post pics and another to explain the meaning behind the user names. That's when I learned that road king was a Harley.   

[b_hill_86]

Today I.....had a little hiccup with my car. My wife’s grandmother is at her home under hospice care right now so we went to visit her. Her health declined dramatically in the last week and she likely only has a few days left so we visited her and other family that was over a good part of the morning and it was naturally emotional and draining on my wife.

After we left she reminded me we needed to drop some stuff off to a friend of hers. Earlier I had half jokingly suggested driving the trans am but she brought it up and suggested we take it. She normally doesn’t do that but who am I to argue right?? So we make the 15 minute drive or so, hang out for a few then hop in the car to leave. We made it to the end of the street and the car dies. 100%, no power anywhere, dead right there, DEAD. I’m at a loss. I assumed I fried the fusible link for some reason and knew I couldn’t fix that quickly. I felt terrible though. Here she has had a long, emotional day, still suggested we drive the T/A cause she knew it would make me happy and here we are broken down on the side of the road.

She called her dad to get her while I figured out what I was going to do. He wasn’t more than 5-8 minutes away but I felt bad taking him away from his dying mother. In the meantime I approached a couple guys outside who were working on something in their garage and borrowed a multimeter. Checked the battery and the alternator for voltage and both had it. As I was doing this my wife told me the dome light came back on. I turned the ignition on but before I could try to start it, power cut again and then came back on. This time I got the car started and thought maybe the 2 wire connector at the alternator was the culprit. Her dad pulled up and was going to take her home so I decided to drive it as far as I could with him following. I made it a couple miles before everything died again. Got pulled on to a side street and this time decided to wiggle some wires and watch the dome light. Turns out the 10gauge wire on the batt terminal at the alternator was loose in the ring terminal. (Not my connection, someone else did that years ago lol). Her dad had some basic tools with him so I was able to take the wire off, crimp the connector a little better and get the car home. All in all an easy fix but I certainly still felt bad. Thankfully my wife and I each have family we can count on and it turned out her dad needed us as much as we needed him. He said needed a short break to get his mind off of things before he went back to his moms and I think he was happy to be able to help.

I’ve been going over the service manual wiring diagram to try to understand how the alternator is wired  better. I get the basic idea but don’t completely understand it yet. Guess now is a good time to learn lol.   

[Jack]

Sorry to hear about your wife's grandmother.
The fusible link usually does not go but almost always the connection get loose at the battery (sometimes at the starter) or you could have some corrosion at the battery terminal. It's a good idea to include the battery terminals with regular maintenance (clean and apply some dielectric grease).   

[b_hill_86]

Sorry to hear about your wife's grandmother.
The fusible link usually does not go but almost always the connection get loose at the battery (sometimes at the starter) or you could have some corrosion at the battery terminal. It's a good idea to include the battery terminals with regular maintenance (clean and apply some dielectric grease).   

Thanks I appreciate it. Definitely won’t hurt to inspect regularly at minimum also. If there’s one positive, I couldn’t sleep well last night so spent more time looking at the wiring diagrams and think I understand it better so it wasn’t for nothing.

[Casey]

...few years ago I started a thread for this exact reason but not many people posted...

It must be my inherent ability as a woman to bring people together.   Seriously though I think it's cool so many decided to join in!

I'm sorry to hear that Brian, my condolences to your wife and her family.  It's never easy losing someone you love, and especially like that...

[b_hill_86]

...few years ago I started a thread for this exact reason but not many people posted...

It must be my inherent ability as a woman to bring people together.   Seriously though I think it's cool so many decided to join in!

I'm sorry to hear that Brian, my condolences to your wife and her family.  It's never easy losing someone you love, and especially like that...

Thanks we appreciate it. All part of life though I guess. As a side note, since I don’t do the photo hosting in order to post I changed my profile pic for a bit to show my mug and my better half. Like most everyone else, I hadn’t realized I don’t have a single picture of myself on my phone. Only a couple of my wife and I. 

[roadking77]

I second what Casey said, stay strong and keep the faith. 

On a side note, in regards to pics, I suppose its telling of the people on this forum that we dont spend a lot of time doing selfies 

[Casey]

You're right Kerry, I need to become more self absorbed and up my selfie game.  At least once a week should be my goal.

[Casey]

Was needing interior deodourizer after a milkshake mishap, tried all kinds of stuff around the house and only removed like 90% of the smell.  Hopefully this will get it the rest of the way.

[roadking77]

About a month after my wife bought her Fiero (her first brand new car!), she spilled a gallon of milk on the pass side floor. I cleaned all I could but did not take the seat out. It took what seemed like forever to get the smell of sour milk out!

[Mumbles]

This isn't a "selfie", but now that I'm finally figuring out how to post pics again, I thought this was a good candidate to post.



I snapped this on the last run of our 2021 skiing/snowboarding season.  Sundown Mountain in Dubuque, IA is nothing compared to Colorado (or so I've heard), but the boys and I have a lot of fun on these slopes.

[Gene-73]

BTW, the new site setup has the ability to host pictures directly now via "attachments". You click on the control at the bottom labeled "Additional Options" where you can choose a file and upload directly to the site, no photo hosting elsewhere needed!

There are size limits so it's best to resize your photos before uploading and get them as small as possible. A good target to shoot for is 480 pixels on the small edge.

Only problem is that I haven't figured out how to put the photo inline with the text. Here's a test.

[Gene-73]

Also, there are photo resizing apps available for your phone and PC that make resizing extremely simple.
Here are a couple that I use and can recommend.

• Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mberl.imageresizer&hl=en_US&gl=US
• Windows (installed as part of the Windows PowerToys package) - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/

[Gene-73]

OK, I've figured out how to put uploaded photos (TAC hosted) in-line with the text of the post.


It's a 3 step process.

• Create a new post (or reply to an existing post) and add the text and image attachments to your post. Click the Post button.
• View the newly created post and the attached image will be displayed at the bottom. Right click on the attached image and select "Copy image link" or comparable depending on your browser.
• Edit the original post and use the image embed button to insert the UBB tags and paste the link from the attached image between the tags. This is similar to the process when hosting externally but instead you are using a link from the TAC site itself. The attached image will still be displayed at the bottom, but it will also be displayed in-line with text where you inserted the UBB tags.

Note: The attached image doesn't appear at the bottom of this post because I used an image attached to a previous post for this example.

[b_hill_86]

Neither is working for me from my phone. It says the file must be a gif or jpg and my phone files are jpeg.

[Gene-73]

Neither is working for me from my phone. It says the file must be a gif or jpg and my phone files are jpeg.

SMF must be configured to check for attachment file type and can probably be changed by MrBandit to include JPEG.
Both JPG and JPEG are virtually the same format. You can also simple rename the file extension on your PC or phone to get around this.

[b_hill_86]

I’ll have to see if there is an easy way to change the file type on an iPhone. I’m not aware of one off the top of my head. Or hopefully jpeg can be added as an acceptable file type.

[Nexus]

Wasn't today but look what I found at Walmart while I perusing through the toy section!!

2021-03-21_07-00-31 by Charles Marson, on Flickr

I bought 3 of them

1 for my son and his collectables, one for me and mine, and one to strip apart and repaint

[Casey]

Woo, new toys!  That reminds me, I should find some Miata models.

[76455sd]

I’ll have to see if there is an easy way to change the file type on an iPhone. I’m not aware of one off the top of my head. Or hopefully jpeg can be added as an acceptable file type.

If you go to settings>camera>formats the default is high compression.  Changing to “most compatible” will save as jpegs but is less efficient.  FYI I have an iPhone 8 with OS 14.4.

[b_hill_86]

I’ll have to see if there is an easy way to change the file type on an iPhone. I’m not aware of one off the top of my head. Or hopefully jpeg can be added as an acceptable file type.

If you go to settings>camera>formats the default is high compression.  Changing to “most compatible” will save as jpegs but is less efficient.  FYI I have an iPhone 8 with OS 14.4.

I’ll give it a try, thanks. Are you able to post pics here then?

[Vroom_vroom]

finishing up my anchor pot in the garage and getting things ready for the next arrival. 63 corvette will be on its way whenever shipment gets around to it............. and trying to wrap up all my small projects on the bird before it goes into storage for the summer.

pretty cool find though, has been in a basement garage for the last 50 years. the corvette purists are very butt hurt we ended up with this one lol however we keep instigating them with what we want to do with it.

[EscapeRacing]

today i uploaded a profile pic. I agree, its great to see who we are chatting with, especially in such a great online community. And I started a rearend rebuild thread to add some "new old" content!

[Casey]

finishing up my anchor pot in the garage and getting things ready for the next arrival. 63 corvette will be on its way whenever shipment gets around to it............. and trying to wrap up all my small projects on the bird before it goes into storage for the summer.

pretty cool find though, has been in a basement garage for the last 50 years. the corvette purists are very butt hurt we ended up with this one lol however we keep instigating them with what we want to do with it.

Picssss, we DEMAND picssss.  Part of me wants to take a Corvette and K swap it just to piss everyone off, so I feel you.

[Nexus]

Today I went for my maiden voyage on the bike. Not too chilly today at 50 degrees F

I also created a new Avatar in Photo Shop

#1 by Charles Marson, on Flickr

[EscapeRacing]

Today I drove the Trans Am for the first time after the rearend build and swap to 3.23 gears from 2.41. It rolled forward and backwards, so winning! There is a very noticeable "diff"erence in acceleration and the speedo is now WAY off so I feel like I'm going super fast even though I'm really not. The gears are "humming / wooooooing" on coast / deceleration so I have some tweaking to do of the pinion spacking, backlash, or pinon preload but overall I'm pretty happy that my first time doing a full rear end rebuild seems to work!

[Nexus]

Right on, that's awesome news

[ryeguy2006a]

Today I drove the Trans Am for the first time after the rearend build and swap to 3.23 gears from 2.41. It rolled forward and backwards, so winning! There is a very noticeable "diff"erence in acceleration and the speedo is now WAY off so I feel like I'm going super fast even though I'm really not. The gears are "humming / wooooooing" on coast / deceleration so I have some tweaking to do of the pinion spacking, backlash, or pinon preload but overall I'm pretty happy that my first time doing a full rear end rebuild seems to work!

Haha, I see what you did there.

As for the humming/wooing. I'd fix that before you put anymore miles on it. Once those gears mesh, you'll always have that. Did you do the gears yourself? I've only re-built one rear end, but I learned from my buddy who has literally set up hundreds. If you re-use the pinion shim that came out of it, you'll get close if not exactly where you need to be. Then you'll just need to set the backlash per the specs set by the manufacturer. I think my backlash was .007-.009 with the Richmond gears.

I'll likely be setting up a new set of gears since I think my 4.11 is going to be too much for my new drivetrain and I'll be dropping from a 27" tire to 25.6".

[EscapeRacing]

Thanks for the info - I did do this entire build myself. It was the first time I've done gears and it was a fun project. I will open up the rear end and start by checking the backlash. Thats a relatively easy fix in the grand scheme of things so long as the pattern doesnt get out of whack when changing the carrier shims. But even if I have to adjust the pinion depth its not the worst thing - just takes patience and more patience....

My last check of the backlash before buttoning it up was 0.11. I can bring that down a bit.

[MalteseFalcon]

Well, not today, but last week, I found another VSE oil pan and pick-up kit. This one has never been used, and it was missing the baffle plate, but since I have one already and was going to rebuild the baffle plate, I can make another one using it for a template. It can't be used without the baffle, so its a good thing it was me that found it . 

It had the plate, spring, and HD drive shaft to convert the oil pump to 60 PSI, as well as the oil pan bolts, which are black Allen-headed bolts. I didn't know about the Allen bolts before, so I will have to get some for my other pan.





It also had a modification to the pickup that I have not seen before. Not sure of the rationale: