PhilA

Second coat of black. Gearbox only acts the fool when it's heat soaked. I have a theory. I'm going to test said theory next week. Watch this space. Phil

That capacitor is way and above better than the chewing gum wrapper and stolen electrolyte recipe that's in modern ones. Looks like the dwell on the cam is fairly long too, that generally helps to extend the life of the things as the charge-discharge period is lengthened. Exterior ones are so much easier to deal with too. They also tend to run cooler than being cramped up in the dizzy. Phil

One lid, shiny but far from smooth. 600-grit paper, dish soap and a touch of water. Smooth down and caress with the paper. With still fairly soft paint you can't just rub at it, it'll clog the paper then rip up (the paint) and put deep scratches into the surface. You can feel when it's working well, the dish soap lubricates nicely while taking the sanded off paint away; you can hear the gentle hiss of the paper across the surface working at it gently. Patience is essential. First pass complete. Dried off with paper. High spots have been taken down to a matte finish,

Which dodge? Couple houses down, old black Ram?

You can see what it does- out of the driveway it gets hung up. Bottom of the street it works perfectly. Phil

Thing is, they were never... Slow. Not the biggest engined ones, at least. Lazy, yes. But that uninspiring push at low speed just continues well up to the legal limit. Most get really wheezy above 3500-4000 rpm and the shift points were a bit optimistic but a hefty multi-element torque converter meant that you would accelerate like in a Jaguar. Suddenly you're going fast after a but of noise and not much feeling of actually doing anything. Very squidgy cars, given that America had last spent any major money on road infrastructure 30 years prior to this being built, so a lot of very

Went for a ride today to the grocery store, round trip journey of about 15 miles. Although a good portion of it is spent in 4th gear, it only one time decided to stick in first for any appreciable time and that was after sitting at a red light for about 3 minutes waiting to turn left in traffic. That's a lot better than it was. In regular running it's been pretty good so I think maybe I'll pull it again and recheck and clean but I'm pretty happy with that. Phil

Loctitus of Threaded Bore

Ugh. Central air system quit tonight. Thermostat was telling system to run, but the compressor was off. Went outside, pulled the side panel off, nothing looked amiss; the trip hadn't triggered and pushing the contactor in caused it to start up. After a minute bugger all was happening in terms of heat pump activity so I pulled the contactor off and heard what I didn't want to hear... Hissssssssssssss Buggeration. Looked about and saw an oily mark by the pressure shutoff switch; the thing has been replaced in the past and technician X has ziptied the wires to the main

So, to work! All the valves have a lot of miles on. They're all worn. Found a couple burrs and high spots, took them down carefully. First impressions are good, we'll see how that continues. Phil

The parts aren't that small, but the edges have to be accurate and those are tiny. I just can't see that well up close any more. Phil

I am going to inspect gearbox parts

Arse. I dropped the horn body moving it, and now need to wait for it to fully harden, rub it down and repaint. That sucks!

First buzz down, 120 grit. Got it to here, bashed the dents out. 220 grit to here First coat of black. Phil

Sanded down Painted That can dry overnight then I'll do the other side. Need to sand the lid down next. Phil