Doc1647545523

I'm glad to hear that you're confident. That'll make beating you that much sweeter. Word is, the old Buick sedan that beat a bunch of you lames last year is coming back out to do it again.

Looks like a good 6-day rally, or maybe a two-day Iron Butt ride. Just kidding. Terrific thing to do and very kewl of you to share this. The trick will be to continue to have these types of adventures throughout your life instead of doing what most of us do: put them off to some "bucket list" which we never end up having the time or the money or the good health to complete. Don't be like most of us who spend our lives preparing to live. I'd say you're off to a good start. You've got moxie, my friend.

Cogito ergo zoom?

QFT To follow-up, I ended up taking Sean (Crossle) up on his offer and took the car today to Northend Wrench where he works. He spent a good two hours on this and multiple cans of degreaser, along with powerwashing. It took all of that to get the old crud off. We also opted to use the tracer dye, and FYI they make special tracer dye for diesel engines. Who would have thunk it? It definitely paid off. Sean located leaks from the injection pump/block seal, front crank seal, and the turbo tube. Many thanks to Sean for his extra effort and to the more-than-fair price charged by Northend Wrench for the time and mess. It was my first time there, and I was very impressed. :thumbup: Thanks for those of you who posted your suggestions to the thread.

All 80 teams are registered and paid for the rally, but you still have a final chance to go. A standby list opened this week but will be limited to 20 teams. Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/RallyNorthAmerica#p/a As of now, the only CR teams registered are Farkas, Paul-Michael (FyrhzrdGT), and me.

This :thumbup:

What do you mean? An African or European swallow?

You're quite wrong. The RAM V-10 shares virtually no components with the Viper's V-10. I owned a 90's Dodge V-10 pickup. I had no engine issues whatsoever in 50k miles. As you mentioned, though, the mileage is terrible.

Very, very nice build. It's sure a sleeper in that pickup.

With Christmas right around the corner and with the popularity of outdoor nativity displays, your experience as a manger should make you quite valuable. If I hear of someone hiring, I'll let you know. Seriously, best of luck in your search.

Got a table for 6 set. Plenty of room

I'm up for something that doesn't involve history lessons and math problems. Food fits the bill.

Well, it went 20 feet on the van. The van went 61.6 feet 0.6 sec x 70 miles x 5280 feet x 1 min x 1 hr ..................1 hr......1 mile.....60 secs..60 min Then I added the two together with the assumption that the speed was forward speed (the same direction the ball was thrown)

It travels 20 feet in the frame of reference of someone within the van. It travels 81.6 feet relative to a point on the road, assuming that the van is travelling forwards in a straight line at 70 mph. (slide rules are ideal for this type of puzzle)

A lot of our conventions come from earlier traditions rather than from what makes the most sense to our modern "advanced" intelligence. From what a remember from college astronomy, the division of time using systems of 12, 24, and 60 derived from very old (as in 20,000 year old) traditions which were passed down to what we now consider ancient times. Pre-historics used the natural world as their reference, and the year (when the sun rises and sets at approximately the same place in the sky) is roughly divisible into the 12 lunar months (12 new moons, 12 full moons, and so forth). The number 12 is also the number of finger joints on one hand. Thus, you can point to a place on one particular finger and indicate any number from 1-12. There are lots of pre-historic counting systems that seem to have picked up this base 12 system. So, if you consider day and night to each have approximately 12 divisions (from your base 12 thinking), you end up with a day with 24 divisions, hence 24 hours. Move forward in time to around 200 or 300 B.C., and you have the ancient Babylonians, who were superb astronomers, who used a sexagesimal system (base 60) in their math instead of our more modern decimal system (base 10). 60 worked well because of its divisibility by so many commonplace (in nature) numbers such as 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12. They gave us the tradition of 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour. Why did we keep these "silly" old systems when other ways of dividing time seem more scientific to us? Well, consider how hard it is to get someone who is used to thinking in yards, miles, lbs, tons, acres to start using metric equivalents and I think you'll begin to see that we humans sometimes stick to our old-fashioned ways of thinking, even if better ways come along.

I'd like to see a good 3" snow to get you snow removal guys rolling for the season, but I wouldn't bet the ranch on this forecast for Saturday. I don't see us even getting 1". fixed for you, Jeff. Very well put. :thumbup:

Sharp looking Duc. :thumbup: Instead of waiting for warmer weather, why not go in with a few other bikers on here and we'll get an enclosed trailer, take the bikes to Florida, and spend a few days riding in the sun? Driving in shifts we could fit the whole trip into one week and still have 4-5 days of riding there.

Thanks, Sean. PM sent. A detail shop would be down on my list, as most concentrate on degreasing an engine based on what you see from the top. I've got good degreasing products to tackle that part of the job. My mess is on the bottom of the block, and the most important part of the job will be getting things cleaned from that angle. This job needs to be done with the car on a lift. I hadn't thought of that ..... good suggestion, AJ. Is the fluorescent stuff (such as Tracerline Dye-Lite) the best way to go? Any suggestions on what shops use black lights for this? Thanks to everyone who made suggestions.

My 1981 Benz 300 SD has been "marking its territory" with a few drops of oil each night since I brought it home. It's been up on a half dozen lifts around town, and one of the sources identified for the leak was the lower oil pan gasket, which has been replaced (which reduced the dripping by about half). There are multiple places on the block which could still be contributing to the leak, but everyone who has looked at the juicy mess has said the whole underside will need a good de-greasing before the next biggest leak can be identified. Fortunately, the rear main seal is out of the running as a culprit. Ideally, this would be done by someone with a lift and also a drain that can handle oily waste and cleaning chemicals. I'm not sure if steaming it would be the best way to go, but I wouldn't mind having the whole engine bay degreased and detailed while we're at it. I'm not in any hurry to get this done, as the total oil consumption (burning/leaking) is now about one quart every 1500-2000 miles. It's the annoyance of having one dripping car that's motivating me. Suggestions on someone to do this dirty job?

I've got dibs on the seat next to Erica

Finding a business with honesty and integrity is sadly getting to be a rarer and rarer event in our society. CR is blessed in having many great sponsors who genuinely value their customers and deal fairly with them. Certainly the staff and owners of Pickups Plus Cars are among the very best. :thumbup:

Getting drunk in a dive tonight is sounding better and better as the day's family activities begin to take shape.

MB's aren't for drag racing ...... what sort of idiot would think they were?

You're all being far too responsible. Get your son what he really wants this Christmas (age 5 and older): http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r445/martyr65/beam.jpg Mine came yesterday. I've already accidentally set two things on fire. I'm lucky I don't have any pets, or they'd be dead by now. I'll be blind before the end of the week. I think I need supervision.

If you're trying to do practical on a limited budget, I'm not sure that you'll find a BMW 3 series or 5 series to be a good daily driver. They're great cars, no doubt. But if you're buying at the low end of the price spectrum, you may find your "bargain" to be quite expensive as you begin repairing/replacing. There aren't many guys who go from Honda to BMW because they need a more practical daily driver, but in that respect, you may get your wish to be a little different from the rest. Of course, I'm making the assumption that you're not going to plop down major cash for a new/late model/cpo vehicle, and I may be in error about that assumption. If you are planning on buying late model, then I take it all back. I'd have no reservation that a 2 or 3 year old 5-series would rock as a daily. In any case, GLWS.