Anyone who knows me knows about the usually-annoying attention to detail that I employ in automotive projects, but it's something that really interferes with everyday life. I mean who cares if every slice of pepperoni is exactly 3/32"? Can't some be 1/16 and the next one be 1/8? It tastes the same. So I generally try to tone it down for mundane purposes.

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So one of the Things I Do is read books. Like a lot of damn books. Someday the house is going to collapse under the weight of all these books. And I usually find a typo, or a factual error, usually car-related.

Sidebar:
Anyone who's read Tom Clancy will cringe at his mention of the Jaguar's "powerful V8 engine" (this was in the pre-Ford days.) Stephen King is even worse. Seems like every time he even mentions an automobile, he gets it wrong. I think he does it just to fuck with me.

So I'm reading this book, right? And right there in the middle of page 499 someone (likely someone's kid or grandkid) has inserted POOP in the middle of a word.

How did that get past proofreading? I mean it's POOP, in all caps.

The author sends out e-mail blasts promoting his new book (which is where I found the POOP) and actually reads the replies.

So I replied. Hey dude, you might want to check this POOP out.

Quite naturally, the author was aghast.

This led to a discussion about some other, less significant, errors in the same book (the seventh in the series) and long story short (too late for that) he sent me another copy, and one of his first book which is due for another re-print with instructions to pick all the nits.

This is right in my wheelhouse. So I grabbed a hi-liter and did work. Still doing it, should finish up later today. And holy shit, what a goddamn rush.

I've never really let that OCD dog off the chain before. I'm checking spelling/grammar, editing for Chicago style (which is more or less universal in literature) and fact-checking.

I'm a bit reluctant to call him out on automotive facts, because this is a guy who hangs out with the likes of David Hobbs and Dan Gurney, and has driven most of the cars he talks about in the books. But a few mistakes made their way in, and it's my job to find them (for a given value of "job." We haven't discussed compensation.)

But I'm Googling team transporters from 70 years ago, checking pre-Interstate map routes, tire sizes, shit like that. Details, in other words, that damn few people would ever pick up on or care about if they did.

It's a rush, and I don't know why. It should be boring as fuck. I literally get up at 0400 to do it, because it gets my heart going, and my brain (or what passes for one, see first image) is bouncing off the rev limiter.

The one time I tried cocaine, it felt a lot like this.

So yes, I am fucked in the head, and enjoying it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to verify the tire size on an old Alfa.

Back in '04 or so, I was into RC rock crawling in a big way. Back then you had to make your own stuff, and modify things you bought to make them work better. This includes tires. Available tires (with a few exceptions) were too stiff and nowhere near grippy enough. So I learned the fine art of siping.

Siping is accomplished with a Dremel tool cutoff wheel, and involves cutting fine grooves in the tread lugs.

This creates a lot of dust and smoke. The smoke goes away. The dust sticks to ya, because it's melted rubber. Hand cleaner won't touch it, soap is a joke, shampoo, and other household cleaners were similarly ineffective.

Lacquer thinner does a hell of a job on it, though. Dries the skin something fierce.

While I was doing this job, I was wearing shorts, and boxers, and holding the tire between my knees. Seemed the most comfortable way to get things done. Didn't think about the rubber dust on my hands or legs, because I knew the thinner would take it off.

After the third tire was done, I had to take a leak.

Uh oh. Seems that rubber dust gets... everywhere. The old twig & berries had a liberal coating of the stuff.

Only one thing gets it off, remember?

Well, what's the worst that could happen? Thinner doesn't hurt when I use it on my hands, right? I went to work on it.

Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ, that hurts! I mean, I'm on fire down there, and it doesn't stop hurting, either. We're talking major, tear-inducing, screaming pain. It went on for hours. The worst part was knowing I had to finish the job after the pain started (the job was finished).

I suppose a moisturizing lotion would have ameliorated it some, but at that point I wasn't thinking real clearly, and I probably didn't have any anyway.

No, I didn't even start on the fourth tire.

TL;DR version: Don't clean your cock with lacquer thinner.

Went to AutoZone to turn in my used oil (that I didn't buy there) and saw this:

That's an odd secondary reflection... or IS it?

Separated at birth, together again.

Belongs to the store manager. We had a nice chat.

Cop was a real hard-ass, too.

The Challenger is now a 2018 CX-5 Sport AWD. I'm gonna miss it, but Mrs Hotness can get into and out of this one without pain or drama.

Happy wife, happy life.

The dealer did a good Svend job on it. Very nearly acceptable (OCD speaking). They overdid the tire shine, but I guess that's par for the course.

10K miles, CPO warranty, etc etc. The trade-in on the Challenger was too good to pass up.

The owner's manual is a fucking brick. Like Stephen King wrote it, and then got the OK from the publisher to put all the cuttings back in. Someday I will figure out the infotainment.

Overall, it ain't bad.

Seems like yesterday I brought this thing home:

So you're all just dying to know, what's it like living with an outdated, oversized, underpowered, underdamped land yacht on a daily basis?

Pretty awesome, actually, once you get the bugs ironed out. Most of those bugs were due to bad repairs by previous stewards. And while that was annoying and occasionally expensive, it's also done.

Reliability has been 10/10, never failed to start on the first try, even during the sorting-out period. That's because I fired the parts cannon at it early, in a sustained barrage.

It's been driven in all weather, from 0F to 90+, wet and dry, for 22 months. So here's the review:

Interior: 10/10

Look at all that blue velour.
New for 1988 was lumbar support in the seatbacks, and 33 years later it's still comfy. You don't sit in these seats, you sit on them, and you rely on seatbelts and friction to hold you in place during cornering, but if you're moving around you're going too fast. It's an obvious case of "not a sports car" and if you can wrap your head around that and drive it as such, it can get on with what it's good at, which is comfort.

This isn't performance luxury, it's grandpa luxury. Grandpa wants quiet and soft, and moderate speeds. And lots of room in the back seat. Adults will be comfortable with lots of room, even wearing a hat.

There are seatbelts for six. Might get a little tight. Four will ride in supreme comfort.

Chassis: 7/10

Yeah, don't have too many chassis pics.

What it's good at, it's really good at, being smooth and comfy. If you push it, you're gonna get lots of body roll and tire squeal (215s don't give you a lot of contact on a 3800 lb car (255-60's in the pic)) but it will turn, predictably and safely, but with a bit of drama. This is the car's way of saying "please don't do that." Keep doing that, and you're going to Understeer City.

Steering is super light and over-assisted. You really can park with one finger, if it's a decently-strong finger. Not much road feel. Back to doing what it's good at, which is isolating you from the road.

Brakes: 4/10

Front 10.5"discs, rear 10" drums. They do the job around town and on the freeway exits, but for any sort of spirited driving, they're seriously undersized. Overboosted and with no ABS, you'll want to leave some room in front. Don't drive it like you have a lot of brakes, because you don't.

Gadgets: 6/10

Well, you've got a primitive trip computer and a radio with six speakers. What more do you want?

Luxury touches include automatic temp control, which still works and works well, even. And a power antenna, which still works:

In 1988, poors had to get out of the car to put their antenna up.

Power seats, windows, locks mirrors, tilt wheel and cruise control we take for granted today, but you were big pimpin' if you had all those 30 years ago. And I do, and they work. I guess that makes me a pimp. I sure feel like one driving this car. Automatic headlights, too.

Power: 4/10

Five liter V8 with a whopping 150 HP, but a good 275 lb-ft at 2000 rpm. The torque gets you going quickly enough and then it's time for the transmission to do work. Usually you're running at 2,000 rpm or less, which keeps you right there at the torque peak. So it feels faster than it is. 1/4 mile time is in the low 17s which is hilariously slow by 2021 standards.

All this is down to the throttle body. It's 52mm, about what you'd find on a Harley. Good port velocity, but it's all done by 3.500 and literally will not rev past 4,000. Kind of genius engineering for its intended use.

Sequential EFI was a really big deal in 1988.

Economy: 2/10

Did you expect better? Why? 15 city, 25 highway. If you need more, get a Prius.

Cargo room: 10/10

22 cubic feet. You can literally haul 4 mounted tires and a week's worth of groceries at the same time, and get the lid closed. Room left over for a dead hooker, if she's small. If you need more room than that, you can always rent a van.

Safety: 2/10
No air bags, no electro-nannies. Don't crash and you'll be fine. If you do crash, the full perimeter frame might help. But don't crash.

Style (subjective) 8/10:

It's your thing, or it isn't. Insert your own number here. Personally, I dig it. Even the padded vinyl roof.

Maintenance: 9/10
This is all stone-age stuff. The oil filter is easy to get at and change, and you don't need to digitally pair any replacement parts. I'm gonn ding it one point for the single-stage enamel paint, which takes a bit of care or it'll go chalky. But with regular svending, it looks really good. 90% of the paint is original (half of one quarter panel has been resprayed).

What else ya want to know?

Covered my door strikers with 1/2 inch CPVC pipe. Why, what's that do? The striker is quite a bit smaller than the opening in the jaws of the latch. So with the door closed,it would sometimes rattle. And closing it wasn't a sure thing, sometimes the door would bounce back off the weatherstrip before the latch closed, and it would latch in the halfway "safety" position. Also very noisy when opening. CLACK!

Now: Opens silently, and closes every time effortlessly. Like with one finger. Feels like somebody stole my car and left me a 1980s Mercedes instead.

Had the roofers come over for a little party today. Party for me, anyway. I got to stay inside and drink while they did all the work. Since a full tear-off wasn't much more than a lay-over job, that's what I decided on, and glad I was that I did.

Not really a surprise was that the roof itself is planks rather than plywood. Back when they built this house, plywood was more expensive than dimensional lumber, so the roof deck is a bunch of 1x8s (I think, didn't go up there to measure and it's way too late now).

What surprised me and shouldn't have was that there was NO underlayment between the shingles and the wood. None.

This roof was laid on as part of the airport expansion back in the 90s, and everyone in the neighborhood got a new roof, windows and air conditioning, the idea being that you could just close your windows and not hear all the jets. More likely it was a bribe to the homeowners so they wouldn't bitch about the noise. Whatever. Covid did more for noise abatement than anything else could have.

Bottom line, the contractor cheaped out on the roofs. Which explains all the loose shingles and the amount of roofing going on here the past couple of years.

Another surprise was that when the crew removed the three square attic vents, there were no holes under them. Maybe the contractor figured the gaps between the planks were ventilation enough. So the attic vents were purely decorative, while also being hideously ugly.

So now we've got 30-year shingles, underlayment/vapor barrier, a proper roof-cap attic vent, and a 110mph wind warranty. And the half-assery has been banished. By the time this roof fails, I'll be too old to care.

Scratchbuild time!

I wanted a challenge, and got one. Fully scratchbuilt body with lots of curves and a not-so-simple nose.

Chassis is a Tamiya TA-02 (yes it's RC, and yes I ran it) so the wheelbase is comically short. If we base the scale of the model off its width, the wheelbase would be around 80 inches. Yugo territory. So if it's gonna be malproportioned, I had a free hand.

The only parts I didn't make are the headlight buckets, driver and passenger. Everything else started out as sheet styrene. I think I missed the boat with the front wheel spats, the upper curve should go the other way.

Bird is hand-painted, mostly successfully. The head is a little off. The shaker is screwed to the hood, because of course it is. Really bugs me when people do that.

The shaker was the first thing I made. Actually made it for another model, but it didn't look right, so I put it aside and then decided to build a car around it, as one does.

I thought the fender extractors would be easy. They were not.

Had some fun with the back seat area.

One taillight and the passenger-side door are from a '77 Blue Bird edition. Lettering was fun. The spoiler end caps were hugely challenging, and I think I pulled it off.

Lace curtains.
Body mounts to the chassis with tubes ove the body posts in front under the hood, clips are hard to get to but well hidden. I definitely did not want exposed body posts. Rear inner fenders screw to the shock mounts. There's a clear 1/8" Lexan skid plate under the nose to keep it from getting torn off.

The hardest part to get right was the roof, because compound curve. Styrene will bend easily one way, but many pie cuts were required to get that big panel to curve properly. T-tops would have been a lot easier, but I wanted a challenge, remember?

More weathered scratchbuilt good(?)ness tomorrow.

That's a landau bar.

1962 T-bird landau bar for comparison:

Fight me.

@vondon302 You can dooooo iiiiiittt!

@vondon302 said in There is a Stella Fireball for sale. This is not a drill.:

@aestheticsinmotion If it wasn't on the other side of the country I'd be sorely tempted.

That would be an epic road trip.

Final piece of the puzzle has gone in. Ordered a PCV grommet from LMR, since their picture didn't match the Dorman. They didn't give a ship notice or anything after 5 days, so I got impatient and found an OEM part on ePay. So yeah, they both arrived on the same day.

@CobraJoe The LMR part is NOT a Dorman, and it's not an OEM. It's made in China (because of course it is) but the ribs on the outside are thicker than either the OEM or the Dorman, so it could be a viable alternative. Keeping it as a spare, installed the OEM part.

Thanks Ford, for putting a maintenance item in such an inaccessible location. It's at the back of the lower intake, under a bunch of large wiring harnesses and other vacuum lines. Have to install it by feel. Lots of fun when it's 20 degrees.

While the Dorman can be put on the valve and the whole mess stuck in place, the OEM is just that much fatter that it has to go in first, and the valve expands it enough to stay in place. Whereas the Dorman grommet just falls out if you touch the hose.

So I think I'm done here.

Wordle 218 3/6

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That was unexpected.

@thejustache It's probably been done by now, but the cam sensor tower (basically a cut-off distributor) often fails, due to poor lubrication. I usually poured a bit of oil down mine at every oil change.

Big problems to look for include the leaf-spring perches (rust) and corrosion at the fuel-pump wiring, which you can't see with the bed in place, so you have to wait for it to fail entirely. Also the fuel inlet hose cracks, causing a CEL and emissions test failure.

I have a painted front bumper (Sonic Blue) if you ever need one.

Also, have fun with that oil filter.

If you can live with working 70 hours a week, living in the truck and eating truck-stop food all the time, then you get to experience the joy of camping overnight at a paper mill while they wait to load your trailer. You're away from home pretty much all the time, and all the stuff you'd get to do at home (TV, shower, laundry) you have to pay for. Not even gonna get into the anxiety of trying to find a place to park overnight anywhere within 500 miles of I-95, especially when you've been driving for 9-1/2 hours and need to shut down to be legal. Or driving I-78 into Jersey and getting hit in the head by your CB radio because everything in the truck is flying out of its shelf, and all the fun of backing a 53' trailer.

These days I guess trucks have GPS, so getting lost or having to detour thru the williwags isn't so much of a problem.

I did it long enough, and I'm glad I don't anymore.

@roadkilled said in DOTSV: Borgward Isabella:

@sam-blockhan

Rust Park - The name fits.

On both counts.

@poor_sh If it's Caturday, I'm gonna sleep in...

... this here sunbeam.

@pip-bip The first Harlequin edition!

Needs more full-size content:

Although I gotta say I'm a little worried that we'll end up with YouTube commenters here. FAKE AND GAY!