1966 Plymouth Fury 3

[riek]

19 hours ago, PhilA said:

*The name of my cheater bar. Don't you name your big tools?

I've got a six foot length of scaffolding pole called Isaac.

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, riek said:

I've got a six foot length of scaffolding pole called Isaac. piotr

 

[PhilA]

Collected and fitted the cork valve cover seals. 

Couldn't get engine to fire yesterday, need to check see why.

Phil

[PhilA]

Cooked the starter motor.

Took the spare, which previously only crackled and smoked, and since had been sat submerged in rainwater.

Figured out how it came apart.

Solenoid terminals are crusty.

Not any more. Reassembled, lost the pingfuckit on the end of the motor shaft that stops the gear from wandering. Oh well.

Tested it and it spins now without any issues so I'm going to bolt it up another day and give it a try.

 

Phil 

[PhilA]

Against all odds, I managed to find the clip that shot off into the garden last night.

I thought it had gone into orbit.

[LightBulbFun]

12 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Against all odds, I managed to find the clip that shot off into the garden last night.

I thought it had gone into orbit.

it probably has, and you have just found someone else's from the 1970's thats finally come back down due to atmospheric drag

[PhilA]

Rebuilt starter works better.

However, the engine refuses to run, it'll pop and fart a bit but that's it. I'm not sure how much more time and effort I want to expend on this block, it was pretty wrecked to begin with.

Phil

[Asimo]

Valve(s) stuck open?

[PhilA]

6 hours ago, Asimo said:

Valve(s) stuck open?

Yeah, that and sticky rings.

[PhilA]

Needed a mental boost.

Stuck the bumper back on.

Just bought 3 headlight buckets (a lot of 3, handily).

Need to straighten the bumper a little but hammering it with my 4lb hammer resulted in nothing but noise and wasps. It appears to be made from battleship armor.

Phil

[PhilA]

Removed one of the indicator units.

Both are missing their lenses, which appear to be made from unicorn poop.

I cleaned this one up and painted it, fitted a new gasket.

Now just on the hunt for the lenses.

 

 

[PhilA]

Bought some bulbs.

Still works well.

Might make some temporary lenses for the time being.

Phil

[PhilA]

Found the orange plexiglass I bought for my clock project.

Bosh. That'll do for now. No focusing/diffusion lines on the front but at least it'll keep the elements out.

As expected, illuminates orange.

Back on the car. How very Canadian. It should have clear lenses; Canada had gone to orange on the front by '63 so this looks like the Canadian export model now.

[somewhatfoolish]

Could try adhesive "privacy" window film for the lenses; I'm sure I've seen fresnel-like patterned stuff for bathrooms/toilets.

[PhilA]

55 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Could try adhesive "privacy" window film for the lenses; I'm sure I've seen fresnel-like patterned stuff for bathrooms/toilets.

That's not a bad idea.

[PhilA]

Repeat; both turn signals now good enough to at least work.

[PhilA]

Tested heating up and then pressing against the mesh of this strainer to see if it would give a nice pattern. 

Answer: yes, but it is difficult to do

[Fumbler]

29 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Tested heating up and then pressing against the mesh of this strainer to see if it would give a nice pattern. 

Answer: yes, but it is difficult to do

Have you got a screen door nearby that might come to your aid?

[somewhatfoolish]

Could experiment with leaving it in the oven at low-ish heat for short periods; it should droop well enough.

[PhilA]

49 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Could experiment with leaving it in the oven at low-ish heat for short periods; it should droop well enough.

Yeah, did this in school with vacuum-forming- it is a bit of an art, I will try again and see.

[PhilA]

Bought a pair of ratty looking Sport Fury outer tail lights for cheap ($50, a decent inner lamp is in the $200 region...!) so hopefully they'll match what I've got. I need new lenses for the inners because those got smashed when they fell off the bench during the storm.

Picked up more of the garage debris then got rained off. It's great fun pulling nails out of wet wood..

Phil

[PhilA]

An hour tonight, started cloudy which means the temperature is tolerable. Made a tiny dent in the pile.

Then the sun came out, which is killer, even with a fitful westerly breeze.

More tomorrow

[PhilA]

Hot bloody work.

Made a dent today but a lot of wood got thrown on the "later" pile.

[Back_For_More]

Always wondered - when places are hit hard by storms - do recycling firms or similar not show up with offers like 'we'll clear it all for free/small charge and earn from the recycling'? 

Or is it mainly municipal tes for utter disaster areas only? 

[PhilA]

3 hours ago, Back_For_More said:

Always wondered - when places are hit hard by storms - do recycling firms or similar not show up with offers like 'we'll clear it all for free/small charge and earn from the recycling'? 

Or is it mainly municipal tes for utter disaster areas only? 

Yup, the scroungers, chancers, looters and thieves all turn up.

[Back_For_More]

Could've guessed that unfortunately... Was hoping more official or professional help.

How's the motor going? Running OK yet? 

[LightBulbFun]

14 hours ago, PhilA said:

Hot bloody work.

Made a dent today but a lot of wood got thrown on the "later" pile.

I really hope you dont mind me asking as I know its very small potatoes in the scheme of things but it has been nagging away at me!

during the initial rummage in the clean up, you managed to find a fluorescent tube that survived it all against the odds

and I am curious what happened to that tube in the end do you still have it somewhere? and also do you know what happened to the very early GE 250W infra-red reflector lamp that you had/have did that manage to survive?

[PhilA]

1 hour ago, Back_For_More said:

Could've guessed that unfortunately... Was hoping more official or professional help.

How's the motor going? Running OK yet? 

Oh, they're all professionals. Didn't you know?

The only municipal assistance is side-of-the-road collection.

 

Haven't touched the engine in a while, want to get the car free from the garage area first. 

[PhilA]

39 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

I really hope you dont mind me asking as I know its very small potatoes in the scheme of things but it has been nagging away at me!

during the initial rummage in the clean up, you managed to find a fluorescent tube that survived it all against the odds

and I am curious what happened to that tube in the end do you still have it somewhere? and also do you know what happened to the very early GE 250W infra-red reflector lamp that you had/have did that manage to survive?

Yeah, got the tube. It's nothing special, a GE Eco or something I bought at Walmart when they still sold tubes.

This one was it's neighbor in the fixture.

 

The heat lamp was in the house, it's in the back of the office here.

[LightBulbFun]

glad to hear they both survived/still around!

 

the Shop-light tubes where an interesting tube used to get around the lamp bans of the time

due to stupid US legislation banning tubes on CRI level, not efficiency levels, it mean the classic F40T12/CW got outlawed, (but the less efficient but higher CRI Cool-white Deluxe F40T12/CWX variant was not banned)

but these rules only applied to 40W 4ft T12's

 

but also separately due to the US rapid-start ballast always providing constant cathode heating, several manufacturers started making cheap ballasts that did not run the tubes at full power

normally if you run a tube bellow its rated power its cathodes will sputter to an early death, but if you a separate heating transformer like all rapid start ballasts do, to keep the cathodes up to temp, then it will run fine at lower power levels, (this is also how dimming ballasts worked back in the day with a separate always live cathode heating line)

these under-powered ballasts where known as shop-light or residential ballasts, because you would most commonly find them in cheap fixtures for residential use

so US tube makers created a tube dedicated for these ballasts which where only rated for 25W and thus not of the outlawed type, but otherwise where more or less identical to the classic F40T12/CW

however these tubes also had weaker cathodes as a result of the 25W rating, they run at about 265Ma vs the 430Ma of a proper F40T12

(funnily enough 265Ma is also the same drive current as a F32T8, so one would run quite happily in an F32T8 fixture, and thus they amusing inadvertently made a T12 tube for T8 fixtures)

hence the "not for commercial use" as they would be somewhat over driven on a proper F40T12 ballast, but otherwise would function like a normal F40T12, and some collectors have still had decent life out of them even on full power F40T12 ballasts

 

as you say they are not generally considered anything special/rare but they have an interesting story/reasoning behind them and I dont think they are made anymore, so I would hold onto it as a keepsake especially given its all managed to survive against the odds