For those who may have missed it:

I finally did the writeup for the replacement vehicle, here. Read on to find out why I decided to go out on a limb and get my first PHEV! In red!

I haven't quite summoned the inspiration to write my ownership review of the vehicle. It isn't that I hate the vehicle, but I have a lot of personal things I'm working on right now that are taking the time and energy. I may get around to it in the next month or so.

NE DC Represent!!!!!

@tysmagic Congrats! The first couple days with a project are always the best, enjoy and keep us posted on her progress!

Shiplopnick, planelopnick, let's lopnick all the things!
Very good read, thanks.

@whoistheleader said in Making a faster horse... [In trouble with Management]:

@orneryduck How soon's the move? Congrats on the coming new digs. Will the Mustang have its very own car-hole?

Hopefully we’ll be settled before the end of April. Thank you; yes every present vehicle will have their own spot if all goes to plan.

@haveacarortwoorthree said in Making a faster horse... [In trouble with Management]:

Congrats on the home purchase. One thought based on experience - do not cheap out on home inspectors. In fact, I would say get the overall inspector, get a separate roof inspection done, and if there is a pool involved, get a pool company out there as well. If any work needs done, make sure to bring the relevant inspector back out to reinspect. And if you really want to be anal, hire two separate general inspectors up front and compare the reports.

Noted. This will be our third time purchasing, so we’re more familiar with the process than we ever hoped to be. After all, it’s always “This will be the house we live in forever.”, right?

@racinbob said in Making a faster horse... [In trouble with Management]:

As a suggestion, do everything you can do now to confirm what you received is correct. It's a lot easier to exchange the still warm parts than to wakeup 4 months from now to discover that what you got is wrong or incomplete and sort it out then with the supplier. especially the transmission,,,,,,

Yep, already checked it all, and all good. Had I known it’d be deferred until April, I’d have held off on the clutch and flywheel until closer to go-time.

@onlytwowheels said in Making a faster horse... [In trouble with Management]:

@orneryduck

Congrats on the new home. The purchase of my first home forced the early payoff on a motorcycle and pickup. It also stalled the Chevelle project and forced the sale of the Chrysler 300 so furniture could be purchased. The constant home upgrades and maintenance always took away time and money for the Chevelle project, plus working 70 plus hours per week didn't help. Get that Mustang done before the home improvement budget stalls the project.

Thankfully we are pretty happy with how this place is, for now. We talked about doing floors and paint before moving in (our typical process), but both are in good shape and are of a nice enough style that we’ll just get them steam cleaned and move in.

The Lancer is amazing to look at. I looked up the recalls:

2008 Lancer recalls NHTSA

It must be for the most recent one that calls for anti-corrosion treatment or complete replacement of the crossmember that the control arms attach to. The crossmember on this one looks like a piece of cast iron that came from a ship that was wrecked in the 19th century and was dug out of the sand on the beach recently but otherwise the underside of the car looks pretty decent. My guess as to the chain and ratchet strap kludge isn't that they just put that on there rather than try to get the car towed to the dealership, but that it's been on there for some time as a fix. They may well been driving around like that for ages but just found out about the recall a few days before they dropped it off.

@atfsgeoff Good point! Thanks!

@peter_black What about paddle tires on sport bikes?

@facw
pictured, Clarence Johnson and his pal Rusty :

@i86hotdogs Those are some awesome photos, but I see a distinct lack of Rally Yugo, which is quite an... interesting pick as a snow going rally car.

Better luck next time, at least you didn't finish 16th (was it the Yugo?)

@100percentjake Get them to do Judge Judy - the lure of TV helps ensure compliance, and the whole case will take her about 30 seconds to decide.

@pip-bip you could say that

@urambo-tauro Some choice stuff this week. It terrifies me that we share the roads with this kind of thing. Glad the wabbit was okay.

@trivet said in A cyclists trip back in time...... BikeOppo:

I found out later (Through other cyclists and this experience) that shop had no idea what they were doing

Amazing! I would've thought you would realize that you should know a little bit about what you're doing before you go into that particular business!

Nevermind - I just remembered all the stories of incompetent contractors and my own experiences with them. Lots of people like that out there.

@annoying_salman Curator note: moved to the Best of Oppo!

@sony1492 I LOVE this thing already.

@nauraushaun Thanks for the encouragement, it's good to hear from firsthand experience the timing belt isn't impossible for a home garage. The internets were divided on replacing the shifter bushings without dropping the y-bracket from underneath, but it wasn't much of a struggle with a flex-head ratchet to flip underneath for the upside down stud/nut removal. I'll keep Oppo posted on progress.

@roadkilled I grew up in Jeff City, and remember helping neighbors closer to nearby creeks sandbag around their homes. And then again 2 years later...

@66p1800inpieces said in The Kat (Long Read):

It sounds like you now have tons of experience under your belt. These days are you mainly on newer, well maintained, and dare I say cushy ships?

Not so much time but I've seen an insane amount of different equipment from the late 50's to brand new out of the shipyard.

I've worked: Large Cruise Ship, Various Ferry, couple Bulk Carriers, couple Product (Fuel) Tankers, Self Propelled Barge, and Tug.

Main Engines: High Speed, (2 and 4 Stroke) Medium Speed, and Slow Speed Diesel Engines, Gas Turbine, Steam Turbine, Dual Fuel: LNG - Diesel. Running on a range of fuels from the cleanest LNG gas to basically tar...

Propulsion: (both motor and engine) Direct drive, CPP, Azipod, Z-Drive (both motor and engine driven)

New vessels come with their own problems. It's usually not worn mechanical like older ships.
It's electronic weird things like PLC not booting back up, bad set points for actuators or sensors, hard drive wipes, and bad breakers, things wired wrong, things tuned wrong, equipment not fully buttoned down, questionable equipment placement (heat), questionable equipment choices. It takes about 5 years to get any vessel really sorted.

@whoistheleader said in The Data of Driving For Doordash:

That sounds actually pretty fun. Did anyone ever try to tail you home? Seems like a pretty good application too.

I'm glad to see you're savvy enough to make the best of the local geography.

Nobody ever tried to tail me home. I was commuting by bike at the time and many of the roads I took were only two lanes. Anyone following me or trying to watch my movements would have been very obvious.

@jminer said in Let's Talk About Bars:

@BicycleBuck I'm moving this to Best of Oppo - it's an excellent piece!

Thanks!

@annoying_salman I'm moving this to Best of Oppo. It's an amazing post with beautiful pictures and a very enjoyable read. It motivated me to dig my film cameras out of a box and order some film too!

@AestheticsInMotion I'm moving this to Best of Oppo. You put a lot of great information and experience into this and it's been helpful to me and I know it will be to others.

@jminer 😄