As I recall, an '88 - '91 CRX-Si weighed about 1900 pounds in race form. That's one of the reasons it was such an outstanding race car. But the Japanese origami with sheet metal comes with a cost. Thin things flex, and flexing things crack.

This is the rack assembly and rack support subframe. So what you are looking at is the bracket above and in front (to the left) of the aluminum steering rack.

Now notice the lower A arm below the rack. What could that be connected to? Yes, the lower A arm support is one and the same as the steering rack support. That means that when you stand the car on a hard right turn, you might have 1000 pounds force transmitted into the chassis using the same bracket.

Is this a problem for a street car? Not so much unless you are making a habit of bouncing your car off of curbs. Is it a problem for a race car, probably not if you are racing the chassis a couple of times per year.

Is it a problem for an endurance race car that runs a couple of 12 hour races a year? It sure can be!

Why, well that much force flexes things. And if you flex something enough it cracks.

And when the bracket cracks, the lower A arm mount starts moving. And when it starts moving, camber changes, toe in changes mid turns and your razor sharp steering starts going away.

Here's my Frankenstein rack mount with its many repairs from years of endurance racing. I fixed it and it kept on cracking. See the last crack I found? See the start of a crack at the red arrow?

Ok, lets take a look at the hidden side. That sure wasn't going to last another race. And when it breaks, you are done at best, hurt at worse....

I guess the lesson is when you notice that things change on your race car, you need to investigate what's up before it jumps up and bites you.

This is from Huey, the best most winningest race car I have ever had.

By the way one of these days its coming out of storage after 15 years and I'm taking it vintage racing!

We won that endurance race but that is another story.....

We rented Lemons rides in our Opel Breadvan for a couple of years before Willy and I bought it. When we were renting, its theme was the Vunderbread Van.

We decided it was time to re-theme it and its Ferrari theme was born. So I started searching Breadvan images and I found this slot car and the rest was easy.

All the images were hand shot by me using my Cannon S100 and rendered by our local car wrap guy. Here are some of the many shots I've taken.

Everything from the headlights, throttle bodies on the hood, to the side air scoops, to the rear plate was taken from hand held pictures.

The artwork was done by me using powerpoint and microsoft paint.

If I say so, it came out pretty great! Pretty amazing considering that all this detail came from hand shot pictures of a 4" slot car!

The first time I went endurance racing was 1986 Nelson 24 hour. Three of us built a VW Rabbit, and we had about 6 racing buddies entered as co-drivers. The amazing thing was we won our class in our first endurance race. I decided then and there I was doing a lot more endurance races. Over the next 35 years there's been a bunch of teams I've either owned, co-owned, or rented rides on.

Back in about 2006 I bought the Type R that is my present race car with my friend Dave. Dave went to my high school and was about 5 years behind me. He grew up 4 blocks from my house and I met him at the race track where we were both running CRX's in ITA. Here's me in Huey 07 and Dave back in the day.

One thing led to another and I mentioned he might enjoy a Nelson 24 race I was renting a ride in and why yes he did. We finished second in class but that is another story.

After the race I mentioned to him that we could have a lot more fun if we split a car and that led us to our Type R.

Off it went to my buddie's shop to get converted to endurance specs.

I believe we had run 5 races in the car over 2 1/2 years. By that point we had no wins and the partnership was starting to wane. It wasn't due to problems but Dave is an intense guy and at three years his focus was moving to new adventures. There was always something unexpected happening that prevented a class win (example; the oil pressure gauge fitting breaking off the block). So it was 2009 and it turned out the 12 hour at Summit Point would be our last big race as a team.

This race weekend didn't start out great with something going wrong in the transmission. So we had 0ne teammate spent what was supposed to be our testing day driving to cross country to borrow a gearbox while the rest of us pulled the box apart.

Here's co-driver Mark tearing down the box. Mark later would drive to a SCCA national championship in his own Integra.

The race itself was a blur like most. If you want to exhaust yourself, just be team owner, crew chief, head mechanic, strategist, fueler and co driver. Here was one of our stops.

This was one of Dave's Miata racing buddies who pitted next to us. The guy was a lot of fun and a hard core racer. He also was undergoing leukemia treatments. I believe he passed within a year of the race. Its a reminder to do it while you can,.....

There was the obligatory torrential thunderstorm. We had awesome rain tires, it was one of our unfair advantages. (good fuel dump cans was another).

The storm was over and they let us mount the dry tires.

About time to go back out. By the way, the car we rented four years before is two cars behind us.

Home base for the race....

Its midnight and guess what, the Type R finally won! No drama, no urgent repairs, Dave drove it to the finish!

Who is coming home with a trophy, Us Guys!

Racing is a fickle Goddess. She made us wait but boy when it finally came the win was sweet!

Dave and I talked and I bought him out. The Type R became my sprint race car that's that I race today. Two years later I started my Breadvan adventure but that is another story!

What google drive served up today

1. Huey. My '88 ex-Firehawk endurance racing '88 Honda CRX-Si. I bought this after it was retired from the series in '94. I also actually rented a ride in it in '92 at Watkins Glen. This car was the best car I've raced and won a lot of races. I haven't seen it for 18 years, its stored by me with a friend. Almost time to pull it out and get it back on the track!

2, Louie, Team co-car with Huey. I rented a ride at Road America Firehawk in '92. The Si was supposed to obsolete the CRX on the track but it never worked out that way. This car was rode hard and used up. ended up on its roof at Sebring.

3. The lemons breadvan. Best endurance car I ever owned. Opel GT with pinto motor, mustang transmission, bmw brakes, and Alfa rear axle. If I had to pick a car for a 50 hour race, this would be it. Sold it right before Covid, It now lives in Michigan.
   

Today's Onedrive activity suggests this was one of the last days of the original Oppositelock. As I recall it was supposed to be dead on Monday so here's some of the stuff I saved back to my PC on the Sunday before.

One of my snarky last posts....

My Avatar at that time

My cousin Anthony shows that you can use a sawsall to come up with an easier way to change the heater blend door on a Silverado My last race of my Citation X-11, proving that pigs can fly (but they don't stop or turn very well) However an X-11 made a very satisfactory tow vehicle for 8 years. A post about Comic Ozzie's site. He's got 25 years of race pictures posted here, and if you attended a pro race or did Ice Races in the upper midwest he probably has it here. Our Ice Racing Rabbit John Menard's Shelby Our Opel GT Breadvan after its sale. RacinBob with our SAAB 99 Ice Racer rocking the white tennis shoe look... One of my favorite shots taken of an old repair shop that dates back to the Model T being torn down in Bloomington Wisconsin. The picture from one of my last original OPPO posts "10 seconds before I almost got killed". It told the story of me towing at about 70 mph when a Hyundai pulled out in front of me at the cross over in the picture at about 45 mph and leisurely accelerated in front of me with me being blocked into the right lane. I passed him with trailer on the shoulder. My Uplander packed for a 24 hour Lemons race. Me driving the Breadvan at Blackhawk Cousin Anthony's late great Camry. It died in the last year due to a dropped valve seat at 300,000 miles. Don't cry for it, he got about $3500 scrap value for it including the air bags he sold off of it! The earliest known competition picture for RacinBob. I am driving a icekhana in a '71 V8 Maverick, perhaps the worst icekhana car ever built having the directional stability of as claw hammer.

RacinBob's luck expired today. Known for his scornful attitude for brake maintenance, he was last seen going through his collection of brake pads dating back to the 90's looking for a set that had one more race in them. Bob, always the optimist, when asked when he was going to change his fuel cell bladder (which dated back the the George Bush 41 administration) Bob always had a cheerful answer of "next year".

He leaves behind RacinJanet and a "hair trigger" stopwatch that he never got around to replacing for her. She is now wondering how to dispose of his 16 trombones.

RacinBob leaves behind a collection of hand tools that dates back to the Nixon administration. Tools that reflects the least expensive tools available for that time. RacinBob will be missed by his many friends at Harbor Freight.

In leu of a celebration of life event, RacinJanet will be holding an "All You Can Carry" garage sale at a later date.

My great grandfather Pierre was born in Luxembourg in 1871 in a small town that his family had lived in according to church records from 1600. He emigrated to the US as the youngest boy in the family with the assistance of his brothers who were 10 years older and had established plant nursery businesses in Chicago who offered to pay for his medical education in about 1890.

He did not enjoy Chicago and moved to Bancroft Iowa where the Luxembourger Mayor was looking for a "German" Doctor.

Here's Pierre (left) with his cousin 1908

His Model T

Him in '52

and a professional photo.

Pierre inspected the newborn RacinBob in '56. And I believe my grandfather at the age of 14 drove his Model T the 300 miles to Chicago to visit the family.

This picture is from the first race of 2021 taken a year ago at Blackhawk farms outside of Beloit Wi. Same place I showed up for my drivers school with a showroom stock VW Rabbit that was also my street car in April of 1984.

It felt kind of funny missing that first race of the season this year. Unfortunately RacinDad passed away this Spring at the well lived age of 91 so I've been busy with other priorities. All is good.

But this is a reminder; Like Ferris Bueller says "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"

I was pleased to share the track with him.

RacinBob

Me at age 33 and at peak auto ownership in 1989.

I was about to be married, and I was working as an engineer. We were buying a house and I didn't have the storage. So this is the Alfa part of my fleet that included an '84 Omni GLH, a '80 Rabbit race car, and a '75 Alfa Alfetta Sedan, a '69 Alfa Berlina Sedan and a '74 Alfa Spider.

In two years all except the Spider would be sold. The only one I didn't regret selling was the GLH. It was worn out at only 6 years and 90,000 miles of age.

Bandit asked me for some stories about my Coop work at GM in '78 and '79. Here's, a couple of quick ones. At that time it was a straightforward manufacturing plant. Pretty straightforward stuff.

My Industrial Engineering supervisor was as I recall Dan Cameron, who was 40 or so at the time. He had a Sunbeam Tiger and was very involved in the Tiger club. He was a real car guy and top notch engineer. I really liked him. I tried searching for him on the web but no luck.

There was another supervisor that had a '79 Vette 454 that he bought through the factory plan. Everybody bought a new car every year and had a 13 month balloon loan so they had to sell it as there was a new one coming. I thought at the time it might be a deal. I guess it was one of the worst vettes ever. https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/top-10-worst-corvettes-of-all-time.html

I remember one time walking with another supervisor through the plant and he said boy, "this plant must be behind in production". I asked him how he knew and he said look at all the inventory at the manufacturing stations. He said they did that so that whatever happened they wouldn't have a shortage of raw materials.

He explained to me that a factory is like a beast of nature. He told me "there is no beast in nature with an alligator's mouth and a tweety bird's ass" If you stuff enough stuff in one end, something has to come out the other. He also said the fastest way to be an ex-GM plant manager is to shut down Willow Run due to lack of parts.

Another story was '78 was the last year of the big FWD Eldorado. And they got a lot more orders than expected. Saginaw made the tripot front wheel drive axles. The supplier had built to forecast and the tooling had been pulled so now they had orders but no way to build the tripot CV joints.

I found out because one day I walked by a corner of the plant and there were a bunch of guys with a pile of reject CV forgings that were supposed to be returned to the supplier and scrapped. They had micrometers and were measuring the surface that plugged into the transmission seals. I believe the problem was they were not concentric and they were looking for rejects that were good enough to build axles with. I bet a bunch of those last run Eldorado's had leaky transmissions. Well, you know the saying about plant managers and Willow Run.

One last story for the night. The plant made the GM emission Air pumps and they had a chronic problem was that some would show up at the assembly plant locked up. They found that out after the car was built when they started up the engine on the line for the first time and the pump is locked up and won't turn and the belts are screaming. I recall being told that they cars were pulled off of line and sent to a rework department to be repaired. It was a big department.

Now each pump was dyno tested after assembly so they were turning when they left the test station but maybe something loose internally and locked it up. So I was asked to look into it. One last thing was that the pump had a filter fan (a plastic fan on the front of the pump that made it hard for dirt to enter the pump).

The plastic fan was on the front of the pump and as a part of the packing, the guy on the line would pick up each pump and give the fan a twist to see if it was free. I walked by the station several times a day, and the guys were always doing it. I did not believe that they were letting bad pumps through, so what was the problem?

Well I looked into the fans which were also molded in the Saginaw plant and they were made on three different 8 head/station molding machines. Well guess what, nobody really was following the ID dimensions of the fans because as long as the hole was big enough that the fan pressed went on the shaft everybody was happy. And that was the problem, one of the stations made fans whore ID's were really too big which resulted in a loose fit. Not a problem as long as the pump worked because the fan was pinned by the pulley. But this was a problem as the guy packing the pumps could not tell when he grabbed the fan to spin it whether it was the pump turning or was it the fan spinning with the palm of your hand when he gave it a twist.

Well that was it, they tightened up the tolerance by rejecting the bad fans and they could find the bad pumps.

Anyway I walked into Dan's office and told him how I had figured it out and there was the department supervisor there. Well afterwards the supervisor told me that in no uncertain terms I was not to go to a manager above his head without talking to him first. He was pissed. Lesson learned.

I did my second summer and was one quarter from graduating from Iowa State. I considered my options and decided I did not want to work in manufacturing Industrial Engineering. The reason was if you were really good, maybe you got to run one quarter of the plant. Not my cup of tea. I ended up in new product development/marketing in the air conditioning industry which much better fit my interests.

Nuff for now.
bob

@Cé-hé-sin said in Down at the port:

To be pedantic, that's a quay. The ship moors alongside a kind of barge which allows it to stay in deeper water without having to dredge right up to the quay which in turn would mean having to make the wall deeper.

Or said differently, it is not an elevator, its a dock. See the doors at the water level? As you say it allows a smaller boat to pull up and pick up or drop off passengers.

@farscythe said in Everything is Fine:

the hitch point is where it will fail
says little metalworker me

Its interesting to think about how it will fail.

Having such a lever arm, there will be a lot of stress where the box tube goes into the receiver. The box tube may crack there.

But that receiver is probably just welded to the bracket and that may be the trouble. Everything there is designed around the hitch having about a 6 inch lever arm. Having a 3' lever arm will probably put a lot of twist into the assembly which will not probably be good.

Chrome bumper MGB's like that pictured are the "classic" MGB. Those are the ones without much in the way of pollution controls.

Rubber bumper MGB's are the end of production '70's MGB. Different carbs and cams (I believe) sucked the joy out of the engine. Also rubber bumper cars about an inch higher than chrome bumper cars in order to meet bumper/headlight regulations. Rubber bumper cars are just as good if "tuned" and lowered.

Whichever car you get, chose the frequently driven one. Old cars that sit will have problems. Also, people that don't drive cars don't fix them.

If its been run on gasohol, keep it on gasohol. If straight gas, keep it on straight gas. O rings don't like fuel changes. Finally. Replace all the fuel lines if they are original.

@ttyymmnn

SYDNEY MAISLIN, 73, DIES TRANSPORT FIRM FOUNDER

LEO RYAN | Feb 21, 1995 7:00PM EST

A funeral service was held Tuesday in Montreal for Sydney Maislin who, with his family, started one of the largest transportation companies in Canada and the United States.

He died Sunday at the age of 73 after a brief illness.One of 10 children, Mr. Maislin and his five brothers began to build an enterprise around a second-hand truck in 1946. In 25 years, the company, Maislin Industries Ltd., had expanded into a $US30 million-a-year business with a fleet of 2,500 trucks and over 3,500 employees.

A passion for baseball was translated in the 1960s into a 5 percent share of the Montreal Expos Major League Baseball team.

Maislin, once ranked among the top 10 trucking firms in North America, went bankrupt some 10 years ago. It began running into financial difficulties following the takeover in 1980 of U.S.-based Gateway Transportation Co.

The acquisition coincided with soaring interest rates, a recession, and faster-than-expected deregulation of the U.S. trucking industry.

Maislin Transport, the main operating subsidiary, received a controversial C$34 million loan guarantee from the Canadian federal government in 1982, the year the company reported a C$20 million loss.

In 1983, Maislin Transport, Maislin Transport Delaware Inc. of Detroit and four other U.S. affiliates sought protection from some 2,000 creditors under Canadian and U.S. bankruptcy laws. The bankruptcy and the subsequent effort to collect undercharges from shippers led to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Maislin vs. Primary Steel served as a test case for tens of thousands of outstanding undercharge battles involving tens of millions of dollars.

1965 0r 66?

@ibRAD said in How about this one?:

I have other cars I can drive if I need to. Life is short! Besides, that's only 15 in SAAB years.

If that is the case, you don't need a real car so why not? If the top fails, drive it only on sunny day, if the head gasket blows, drive it only for short distances. You don't need it as a real car, so don't sweat it as long as you like it a lot!

@HammerheadFistpunch Yep its hard saying from afar. But my sister has had it happen twice to her. She can't prove it but it both times it was a "too good to be true" deal that got switched on her at the last minute.

Mighty strange, in both cases the renter through great effort found an lesser quality alternative for her to stay at the same price......

@HammerheadFistpunch

I am going to go out on a limb and say this is a scumbag AirBNB, or VRBO renter and you are being gamed in a bait and switch.

Here is what I think is happening,. What he has done is listed the place at a bargain price on Airbnb where you found it while he also listed it a higher market appropriate price on another platform such as VRBO. So you snatched it up but now somebody and has rented it too on VRBO at a higher price and now he has a problem. So he contacts you with a reasonable excuse such as "my kids need it", or my favorite which is " the sewer backed up and it needs cleaning" and he then they offers you a substitute.

That is what happened to my sister in Rome. And usually you are screwed because it happens days before you arrive. I wouldn't be surprised the guy owns both the bait and the switch house. Heck I bet he sas 3 crap places that he is continually rotating renters out of the quality place to.

The problem is what are you going to do? You have made your arrangements, there may be no other room options at this late date, and you are at arms length from the owner.

There are skumbags out there, even if he is telling the truth, he is not honoring the contract. I would say no thankyou and pay what it takes to stay where you want.

@VincentMalamute Ah yes, I forgot the picture.....

@ttyymmnn I believe one of the surprises they found was at 500 rpm, they had to do a good job a balancing the bomb or else it would shake the plane apart.