Geeto67

Today I learned: all sedans are shitty cars. Ford axed almost all their sedans, and Toyota ramped down production of all it's sedans, including those built in the US. Ford cut their staff in Sonora, Mexico down to two shifts and plans to cut it down further once they stop making fusions after 2019. But fuck mexico, amirite?

Now hang on....$54 per hour is when your factor in the cost of benefits like health insurance, and benefits which not every employee gets. In reality the average GM hourly worker makes $28 per hour - At toyota, a non union shop, they make about $25 per hour. When you factor in benefits then you see $54 per hour but at toyota that's still $47 - so not much difference. Something GM has to pay but Toyota and other companies don't are health benefits for retirees. GM has a huge population of retirees whereas toyota doesn't - and the $17 per hour cost of healthcare paid by GM after you retire is often factored into the hourly wage as well, which is why you sometimes see detroit hourly wages at $71. https://www.forbes.com/2008/12/04/detroit-labor-uaw-biz-manufacturing-cz_jm_1205union.html#408c6fec1b5e

we will find out soon, I can't imagine someone isn't going to look into it and being a publicly traded company that just released a 3rd quarter report the information is available. I will say this, something that isn't getting as much airplay is that GM tried to offer voluntary "buyouts" to employees to try and get costs down...: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/business/gm-buyouts/index.html ...And it probably used the tax money savings to do that. Now, it was offered to white collar employees (i.e. high salary) with 12 years with the company, which still accounted for 18,000 employees - but the take rate on the voluntary buyout was very low which lead to the plant closings. As much as it sucks, and as much as I am literally heartbroken for the workers losing their job right before xmas, I have to find a little silver lining in that at least GM is being forward thinking. Old GM would barrel head first into a projected recession with assembly lines blazing, and then take a huge loss and discount a lot of crappy cars to move inventory, all while paying executive bonuses and doing massive layoffs. At least this "new" GM is trying to move with the market and be proactive.

https://jalopnik.com/politicians-are-real-mad-at-gm-for-slashing-jobs-after-1830676886

The Bricklin, a car really before it's time. With a 175hp 2bbl 351, it seems appropriate that the word "brick" appears in the name.

There is a lot of blame being placed on the UAW, but really GM made those deals. There are plenty of instances where GM executives created things like the Jobs bank because they didn't think it through. For those who don't know the Jobs bank (where a laid off worker could get 95% of his wages sitting around) was the creation of GM executives who thought they would never have to use it and weren't too careful about running the numbers - the UAW agreed to it because they saw it as GM giving them free money. A lot of GM'a negotiations are like that - GM proposing some alternative item for negotiation with the union that blows up in their faces. Roger Smith, Bob Stempel, and Rick Wagoner each did damage to GM tht would take decades to undo. The damage Smith did in the 1980's was still being felt in 2009 when the bailout happened. Let's not rush to blame the UAW workers who are the blue collar backbone of america, or the semi fictional boogeyman of the lawsuit, when in fact GM has had literally some of the worst executives in the auto industry making some really dumb decisions. Ford, Chrysler, BMW, and Mercedes all have unions in their houses and they don't have near the problems GM has. But these plants closing aren't about union wages - they are about products that aren't selling. GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc...are all pivoting because people are not buying sedans and compacts. in GM's case, the plants they are closing aren't able to make anything else that GM is making right now, and GM is getting rid of unprofitable low volume products anyway. All the automakers are doing this, but GM is the biggest so when it takes a proactive approach like this it makes news. Yes and no....sort of....In 2010, GM paid back the loan portion of the Bailout with interest ahead of schedule. However, the bailout included a loan and a stock purchase, and in selling off the stock, the government took a loss selling the shares for less than what they paid for them. They also forgave an approx $800m loan the government gave GM back as part of the initial bankruptcy filing before the new loan was given.

Figure it had to be some kind of alcohol fuel since the car has no radiator. M1 would do it.

nothing you are doing is super difficult, just take your time and measure twice. As for the center bore, once you know what size spacer you need you'll need a conversion spacer like these ones: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-h-and-r-parts/dr-series-trak-hub-adapter-10mm-pair/2055571665/ or a set of conversion rings like these to work on your 57mm hubcentric spacer: https://www.amazon.com/BLOXSPORT-Centric-Aluminum-OD66-5mm-ID57-1mm/dp/B07BK5CRVB the fun part is once you take your time and learn what all this stuff means, you can start shopping for rims by dimension and not just fitment.

I had another thought....Are the B8 rim bores the same size as the B6 hub? You may need hubcentric spacers if not.

Wheel medic

Don't forget to check the wheel/tire to fender lip clearance when spacing it out. nothing worse than getting everything spaced out for clearance on the back side only to have the tire crunch the bodywork, or the lip cut a groove in the tire, on the first major bump.

Not local but too cool not to share. https://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/d/chevy-powered-gasser/6755315346.html

Hard to say...probably a mix of both. The bumpers certainly look beat to crap, but there are spots, like under the decklid that look painted. It's also kind of "drippy" in some areas - like its rusted from being constantly dripped water on and not necessarily from sitting out in a field. Still a cool car.

saw that this morning and this: https://jalopnik.com/gm-may-also-close-its-lordstown-ohio-plant-amid-global-1830654246 That's a lot of people to be laid off in lordstown.

OK, so why can't people better themselves AND improve things? Why do you set these things up as mutually exclusive opposites when in the real world they can co-exist? It seems silly to me that you keep presenting that people can't work hard for themselves and work toward improving institutions in society - that they must pick one or that if they choose to work toward improving the systems and institutions they must not be working hard. Just saying "the system will never be perfect so why try" is just the laziest form of cynicism there is. the point isn't to make "the system" perfect, it is just to make it better. Also it's not really one "system" its a lot of smaller systems that have to serve a diverse group of people, what's wrong with continuing to make progress toward having it serve people better? Personal philosophy rarely makes good public policy. This is fine advice for you to live by as an individual, but to write public policy out of this is literally nonsense. And I don't mean that as an insult - it is objectively nonsense as there is no way to turn this into a policy on school funding or environmentalism without a truckload of flawed logic and Olympics worthy mental gymnastics to get there. It isn't a solution to any problem, or a method on how to address any problem - it's just an invitation to be judgmental about the laziness of others while justifying a status quo. Saying we should keep trying to make things better isn't saying you personally should work any less hard than you are able - but I can't seem to separate you from that position, why?

I don't think a single person here is advocating that any political party is going to be a savior for anything. However....using that statement as an excuse as to why you shouldn't at least try to fix a system that nearly everyone feels is broken is deeply flawed logic. If you want to focus on your own life, and let someone else try to address the flaws in the system that's one thing, but don't be surprised if they rig it in their favor (as people in power have done in america since it was first settled). Just do your own thing, sit on the sidelines, and don't pay attention to politics. But you don't do that do you? Where I can't follow your logic is on these two points: 1) you assume that advocating for addressing problems in a system means not working hard or getting some kind of handout 2) you actively advocate against those trying to advance things that are in your own best interests, and you advocate for those who are working against your own interests. Tell me how you get from "I can personally overcome a broken system" to "we don't need to fix this obviously broken system"?

I have to agree with Wagner on this one, it's not that different from old anglias, healers, or fiat topolinos they used to build in the 60's where they would take a short wheelbase car, stuff a drag car suspension under it, a big honking 'murican v8 up front, and go tear ass through the gas classes. This is an awesome car, with a lot of excellent work in it. Good write up on it too.

A friend of mine wrote this pretty good article for Outside magazine on the myths surrounding the forest fires, many of which are being presented in this thread as fact. This is worth a read: https://www.outsideonline.com/2368571/why-you-cant-rake-america-great-again

You realize that intentionally ignoring is functionally causing the same free speech constitutional violation, right?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/cnns-jim-acosta-has-press-pass-restored-temporarily/576049/ So...what do the pocket contitutionalists that support trump think of this?

yes, but until he was a citizen, who is to say he was "welcome...lol

so make your own. I've seen Sr20, 2JZ, 302 ford, ls chevy, and bmw 4.0L v8 swaps, and I have to say, the bmw v8 out of a 540i is probably the most interesting one. there was a guy on here who put a bmw v8 in an e30, I forget his name, maybe ask him what mounts he used.

I found this both funny and relevant

It made me lol too because it didn't happen. IIRC I said he was supporting a racist policy, which is pretty much true if you are talking about any socially conservative policy in the last 100 years.

Reminds me of the guys who race a Cessna 310 in Lemons All that work and it's an iron block old school 350. Also....Jacked up in the rear like a trailer park monte carlo kinda gives away the sleeper aspect.