Rants and comments on the world of auto repair, cars, and motorcycles from the other side of the wrench. Funny stories, apocryphal legends, and other shit too ...
Sam's dad stops by the shop the other day on his way to work. He comes in and lights a cigarette. "How long before she gets here?" He asks.
"About 20 minutes," I tell him.
"Good idea," Indian says and lights one up, so do I.
Backstory: Sam is very anti-smoking and no one is allowed to smoke in the shop while she's there (the little pain in the ass). Sam's dad isn't allowed to smoke at the house either and he has to hide his cigarettes. So in the mornings before she gets to the shop, we smoke like chimneys to get our blood nicotine levels up to carry us through the 3 hours she's there in the morning. Sam's dad stops by sometimes to commiserate (he went to high school with the Indian). Fine.
"Your daughter is a pain in the ass," I tell Dad.
"You're telling me?" He says. "I'm not safe driving down the street in my own car."
"What, is she following you?" I ask, laughing. Sam can be a pit bull when she latches onto something.
"I don't know," he says. "But the other day, I was driving down the Avenue, happy as a clam, radio playing, enjoying a Marlboro, when I see this green Pathfinder in my rear view mirror."
"No shit?" I laugh.
"Dude," he says. "I see her swing out, go around two cars, and get along side me. I see the passenger window go down and I hear 'put that cigarette out, daddy'. And then she passes me and speeds off."
"Sucks to be you," I say.
He laughs at me. "Don't talk, pal," he says. "Look at the three of us. Grown men scared of a teenage girl."
"Damn straight," Indian says, keeping an eye up the Avenue for a green Pathfinder.
I used to be a crazy bastard in my day, I can not get on a motorcycle, period.
For me, there are only two throttle positions, OFF and ON.
All The Way On.
The following article doesn't surprise me a bit.
Modern bikes will easily do a hundred fifty miles an hour.
They are marvels of modern technology.
The part I am calling bullshit on is ANYONE reading and remembering a fucking license plate that is three inches tall and six inches wide as it goes by at a hundred fifty fucking miles an hour.
I can see getting on the radio and telling dispatch there is some crazy fucker on a bike going down the freeway so fast you barely caught what color it was and then another cop ahead nailed ya , but reading the license plate?
It's that time of year again where New York State tries to increase their revenue from independent shops by sending undercover cars out to make sure inspections are carried out correctly. If you'll remember, I got banged a year and a half ago.
Well guess what?
Yesterday they sent the same guy who got me last time. I don't know, maybe they think mechanics are stupid, but to send the same guy that cost me a lot of money is ridiculous. He's damn lucky I don't make sure he isn't eating the rest of his meals through a straw. I put him off yesterday (I acted as if I didn't recognize him) and made him an appointment for Tuesday morning. I'm still debating whether to let him know he took a big risk coming back or not, or just ripping an eyeball out of his head and skull fucking him until his brain leaks out his ear.
A word to the state inspection program. There's a buncha bigger assholes than me in the business. They pull this shit with some of the guys I know, they'll find their 'undercover agent' floating in the harbor and their car in little pieces in the county dump.
There seem to be millions of these converted, customized school buses in Panama. Some of the custom work is really good.
They have their own unique brand of taxi in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas too. There are hundreds of these converted pickemups who make a living taking passengers from the cruise ships in the harbor to the downtown shopping area during the high season.
This is a heads-up to Britbike enthusiasts and a movie review of sorts. I was skiddin' around YouTube the other day as I am wont to do whenst seeking relief from politics, and I ran across this video:
Through the miracle of the mouse, I went straight to Brittown and ordered it. It came in three days, which I think is pretty good for a pre-release order!
You can read what they have to say about the film there. Here's what I have to say about it.
The movie basically depicts "Meatball" as he strips and rebuilds a Triumph Bonneville, interspersed with some vintage racing scenes, general ridin' around, some bars and the bands who play in them, and some babes.
One scene made me cringe. I've been a Triumph mechanic for almost forty years, and I'm no stranger to the vices and vicissitudes of the 'home tuners', but this guy owns a shop and I've never before seen a shop mechanic attempt to remove the crankshaft pinion by prying it off with screwdrivers! I damn near dove under the couch to get away from the awful visual! They don't come off that easy, as he discovered, and to his everlasting credit he admitted he needed 'to get a new pair of chopsticks'. Later they showed him using the proper puller, which is unique to the application and pretty essential.
I was also a little dazzled when he sent the engine parts out to get cleaned. I've cleaned thousands of motorcycle parts, but I never knew you could farm this out any further than the 'shop gunk' AKA the 'lot boy'. The parts went to some machine shop that had a special Sunnen hot-soapy-water machine. The wonders of the modern age!
As far as the rest of the rebuild went, he built it for speed with hotter cams, lighter valves, a flow job, and some aftermarket parts like a Morgo oil pump, a QPD belt primary drive, and an ARD magneto. Apparently it was the last magneto ever built by Alan R. D'Alo, whose name was misspelled in the credits if memory serves. Those magnetos were the gold standard for Triumphs for years.
While ol' Meatball was buttoning up his Bonnie, his buds were all standing around drinking his beer (heh!) and betting on how many kicks it would take to start, like 'first' kick, 'second' kick and so on. Heh, youngsters! There weren't any old farts like me there who know the sure way to bet is on the kick that we know will start any motorcycle in the world, which is the 'last' kick. I'll leave ya in suspense on that one, but start it did and ran down the road just fine, as you saw in the video above.
The vintage racing scenes were like old home week for me, although I raced at some of the venues before it was called 'vintage' racing. I will sob for a few minutes...
Meatball raced his old BSA singles, a B50 (or maybe a TR5MX, mox nix) at the Elsinore Grand Prix, and flattracked his B44 at Perris Raceway. I own one of each of those and have raced both venues. He raced at Willow Springs as well. I've been there, mostly to aid and abet roadracing friends, but I always thought dirt was for racin' and pavement was for gettin' there.
There's a scene of him riding his Tiger Cub to a saloon out in the desert. Been there, done that. I've got two of those.
The general ridin' scenes were about what you'd expect from a buncha bozos who like to ride English machines that are often older than they are. Or motorcyclists anywhere for that matter. Everybody who sees this movie will recognize all the players as guys much closer to home than Southern California. These are just reg'lar guys who like to slick their hair back and gas it. Just like the rest of us.
As far as the bars, bands, and babes, pretty much good clean fun. The gals are pretty, all the music in the film is by no doubt local bands, none of which anybody outside SoCal ever heard of 'til now. All part of the depicted lifestyle, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
If this sounds good to you, click it up and order it. The price is commensurate with the low volume and rarity of an indie niche flick like this, but I doubt if you'll be seeing this one at the video store or Netflix any time soon, if ever. It's reasonably priced and good value for money. I've never seen anything else quite like it.
It's a 'must have' addition to any English bike enthusiast's collection and I'm glad to have it.
This to me is so far off the scale of illegal search and seizure I can hardly find the words to express my outrage.
4/2/2008 California: Police Raid Car Enthusiast Gathering, Generate Revenue Police raid Riverside, California parking lot to issue modified car tickets at local car enthusiast gathering. snip Using $503,000 in federal and state gas tax revenue to pay for overtime, nine police agencies in Riverside, California sent more than one hundred police officers to surround a gathering of automotive enthusiasts. Owners of imported sport compact cars had gathered at the Canyon Crossing shopping center on Friday night to swap stories, talk about their passion for cars and show off the latest enhancements to their rides. At around 11pm police surprised participants by blocking all exits with fifty police cruisers. Officers then began a warrantless search and interrogation operation of the 150 vehicles that were present.
"If you're not into street racing, why would you need that?" Riverside Police Traffic Sergeant Skip Showalter asked an enthusiast during a similar crackdown last year. "Why would you want more power going to your car?
"
Police issued a total of forty-eight tickets for "engine modifications" with police accusing the owners of the parked vehicles of being street racers.
snip, my emphasis.
Someone please explain to me just how this is anyones business but the owner of the vehicle? As long as the engine meets emission standards,how is it against the law to put performance enhancing parts on your own vehicle? And how is it possible to be street racing while you are in a parking lot full of cars? This is so far over the top I can't believe there aren't going to be several lawsuits stem from this.I know I would be in contact with the ACLU the minute the doors opened the next day. Class action against every single police department, the state AND the federal government for civil rights violations, illegal search and seizure, harassment and whatever else they could find.Turn the whole toolbox over and throw everything in it at them.This is outrageous.
Another fifty tickets were issued for paperwork violations, dark window tinting and lack of a front license plate. The most revenue, however, will be generated from the fees imposed on twenty vehicles that were confiscated. Despite labeling the parking lot raid as taking place at a "street racing venue," Riverside Police offered no evidence that any street racing actually took place.
Across the state, gas tax funds are regularly used to fund similar crackdowns that generate big revenue. In 2004, the California Highway Patrol issued a total of 101,553 "modified car" citations worth $10.5 million according to CHP data obtained by TheNewspaper.
Other law enforcement agencies participating in Friday night's raid included the California Highway Patrol, Riverside County Sheriff's Department, and police from Baldwin Park, Fontana, Irwindale, Moreno Valley, Ontario and Mount San Jacinto Community College
The original article is here, I found it courtesy of Fark and I am just about speechless that this can in anyway be considered legal.
It's a car. No, it's a truck. Whatever it is, it's back.
General Motors has jumped into the auto industry's retro trend, unveiling a half-pickup, half-muscle car amalgamation bearing a striking resemblance to a long-lost classic: the Chevy El Camino.
The original El Camino, along with the nearly identical GMC Caballero, has indubitably earned a niche in popular culture, with references in songs by dozens of bands, including ZZ Top, and appearances in plenty of movies and TV shows, including "My Name Is Earl." During its last three years of production, it was built in Mexico. The band Ween called it an "Aztec machine speeding to the light."
But much of the affection has fallen into the tongue-in-cheek variety, and Nerad wonders if the car will appeal only to those who might have owned an El Camino, say, 25 years ago. "Maybe you're just mining that vein and then the vein runs dry," he said.
I'm queer for El Caminos. You want vein? Take it. Make mine red to offset the pallor brought on by no blood.
The only thing that is permanent is change. The new generation of car designers is already making their mark and showing their stuff to us old farts now and they have some wild ideas for getting us down the road in the present and near future.
They also have a slideshow to accompany the article with the pictures of the young designers they are introducing. Take my word for it, you want to click the link to see the picture of the interior designer that works for Lincoln, trust me.
So it's Sam's 19th Birthday tomorrow. You've heard me singing her praises here for a year and a half, and her parents are proud of her for all she's done. As a surprise they bought her a Nissan Pathfinder (1998 - 42K miles) and gave it to her today. First thing she does is run up to the shop to show us.
She's been beating her daddy's 20 year old Chevy Silverado pickemup around, to work at the shop, to work at the grocery store, and to school every day. She's one happy little camper.
Once again, the shitty pics are thanks to my phone, sorry.
Mrs. W calls me today. "F-man, I'm hearing a noise from the back of my car when I hit the brakes. I don't have time to leave it with you, but could you look at it quick to make sure it's nothing life-threatening?"
"No problem," I say. "Can you bring it up now? I got the lift open."
She says yes and arrives 10 minutes later. I take the car for a quick spin and sure enough, the rears are noisy. I figure it's dust buildup and bring it in. Sam lets me in and I tell her to put it up in the air and take the rear wheels off. Mrs. W is standing there as Sam puts the car up on the lift and the conversation goes something like this.
Mrs. W: Who's this pretty girl?
Me: This is Sam.
Sam: Hi! (waves)
Mrs. W: How did a young girl come to work here.
Me: She came here on an internship program with the local high school.
Mrs. W: She's in high school?
Me: No. She graduated and she's going to college now but we can't get her to go away. It's been a year and a half and we can't get rid of her.
Sam (from the other side of the car): Suck my ass, old man.
I got this picture from my pal Bev with the title "How Real Men Use Post-its".
I respectfully suggest to Fixer, Harry, et al, that this system could possibly be modified to avoid making rookie mistakes involving twin redheads Windstars...
No one's immune from confusion. Once upon a time (signifying a fairy tale, even if true) I had a work order to rebuild a Yamaha Enduro engine. I took the engine off the shelf and stripped it down to the crankshaft assembly. Everything looked good, down to new gaskets and clean oil, brand new in fact, so I asked the Service Manager what was up. That's when I found that the next guy down the bench had rebuilt it earlier that day and I had grabbed the wrong one.
Now we're pretty sharp and on the ball, but sometimes the planets align (along with Harry's mojo) to throw us a curve we can't deal with. Today was one of those days. Harry, in his wisdom, booked Mr. H and Mr. S in with their red 2000 Ford Windstars on the same day. Both needed an inspection. Both had engine control problems (same problems by the way). Both were a quart low on oil.
Click pis to enredden. Sorry about the quality, I took 'em with my phone.
We forgot if we did the safety part of the inspection on one or the other. One of 'em also needed a new wiper motor. Almost put the new one on the wrong car. Writing up the bills later, we forgot which one we did what on. Oy, what a fucking day. We told Harry that if he ever does that again we were gonna shoot his ass.
I clipped a little more than I really wanted to but I also left quite a bit of relevant information there so please go read the whole thing.
Other American and NATO military machines, from diesel generators to stealth bombers, run on JP-8 to simplify fuel supply logistics. While JP-8, a formulation of jet fuel similar to kerosene and diesel fuel, works fine in those engines, commercially available motorcycles require gasoline.
That situation presented an opportunity for Fred Hayes, chief executive of Hayes Diversified Technologies, a military contractor in Hesperia, Calif., that has built specially adapted motorcycles for the Marines and the Army Special Forces for more than two decades. The bikes are modified to run in the harshest environments on earth with special lighting and more rugged suspensions and tires.
When the Marines requested a motorcycle that would run on JP-8, other military contractors proposed outlandish turbine-powered machines. But the Marines wanted a bike that would actually work, and soon, at a reasonable cost. Hayes won the contract.
The resulting HDT M103M1 uses the chassis, a few engine components and all the internal transmission parts of the Kawasaki KLR650, a workhorse capable of anything from daily commuting to Sahara exploring. But the Marine machine’s major engine components are all new, built for diesel service.
The difference was apparent the instant I thumbed the starter button. In place of the gasoline-powered KLR’s anxious idle, the Marine machine came to life with the low clatter of a London taxi.
In contrast to a gasoline engine, which responds instantly to the throttle, a blip of the twist grip resulted in — well, not much. It took a good three seconds for anything significant to happen.
On a half-hour test ride, the M103M1, though sluggish at first, gathered speed with dogged insistence. The footpegs and handlebars buzz as the engine revs — the counterbalancer that controls vibration in the stock KLR has been omitted to save weight and reduce complexity. Shifting through the five-speed gearbox gets the M103M1 past 90 miles an hour, a speed it will hold, apparently, until the end of time.
One of the great advantages of the M103M1’s diesel engine is its efficiency. At a steady 55 m.p.h. it gets 96 miles a gallon, according to Hayes, about twice the mileage of the gasoline engine.
This is really pretty damn cool, when the production starts keeping up with demand these things are going to be all over the world. Looking at the size of the fuel tank I am guessing this thing will go at least 500 miles on a tank of fuel.
Everything you have ever heard about mechanics being nasty perverts is probably true, there is a reason most women would rather walk over hot coals than walk into a repair shop. I will never as long as I live forget this one old guy I worked next to for years. Hell of a nice old guy, real quiet with a dry sense of humor. He never had a whole lot to say and when he did you had to listen good because he talked so quiet. One hot summer day both bay doors were open to let the breeze through and this gorgeous hottie came strolling through one end of the shop, wearing a halter top and a flimsy see through skirt. Instantly you could have heard a pin drop in a garage over hundred feet long, with twenty mechanics staring like they had just seen Jesus. As she sauntered by, I heard the old man say something I couldn't believe came out of his mouth.
"Look at that would ya boy, I'd let her pee in my face for sure".
I thought I was gonna die laughing,fucking bastard. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought of HIM to say such a thing. Of course the young lady didn't hear what HE said but she stopped and looked at me like I was retarded.
In one of the most entertaining reviews of a car in recent memory,writer Dan Neil takes the new Lexus hot rod out for a spin, I'll let you see what he thinks, strike that, I HAVE to tease you with one piece first;
The car also sings. The IS-F is equipped with an eight-speed automatic transmission, in which the gear ratio intervals are very evenly spaced. Eight speeds happen to correlate to eight notes of the diatonic scale -- do, re, mi, etc. If you hold the throttle and speed steady, and you shift up and down with the shifter paddles, you can actually coax simple melodies out of the stacked-pipe quad exhaust, for instance, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." And, yes, I get paid for this.
Today's Daytona 5oo marks the opener for another ten month long season of NASCAR.
I will be the first one to admit I don't follow it nearly as much as I used to. I know guy's who can rattle off statistics for it like die hard baseball fans can tell you who was on second base in the fourth World Series. Get a grip.
I grew up with racing, my dad raced little British cars and later Motocross bikes in the seventies. It can be lots of fun and I do go see a few races over at PIR later in the year but some of this is just overkill.
I watch and enjoy as much as I want and I find it hard to even keep up with who is driving for whom in what kind of car anymore. I did notice Ford has a much thinner herd in the run this year, oh well, the amount of money it takes to sponsor one team for one year is getting obscene and Chevy and Ford both are looking at some hard times ahead in the sales department.
Roland Sands has spent the last year peeling the skins off dirt bikes, reaching deep inside their body cavities. What he's found are the bikes' unlikely alter-egos.
The Super Single idea is so new that Wikipedia doesn't have an entry -- yet -- but when it does, it might go something like this: "A 450 Super Single is a single-cylinder 450-cc dirt bike that's been converted into an entry-level road racer. The frame, subframe, swing arm, motor and transmission are all stock, but the wheels, tires, suspension and bodywork have all been modified for on-track use and general skulduggery."
General skulduggery? Now ya got me interested...
Actually, it makes perfect sense if you've ever seen a good 500 single show its taillight to a Fastass Sumbichi 4-cylinder on a canyon road. They're light, narrow, and have a low center of gravity.
