#saw a guy put like three different oils on a piece and thought buddy that thing is going to fall right out of your hands its so slippery

[today-i-am-thinking-about]

grease lubricant

[kaynamiteineurope]

Day 12: A Successful Day of Looking at Art and Not Getting Smited Day 12 of our trip, the second Friday, we got to sleep in a bit later and meet up for the bus into the city at 10:30am. I struggled, as I usually do, and took a 10 minute shower and dried and put my hair up in a ponytail, choosing to wear my yellow dress for the Vatican (with my leggings rolled up underneath). At first, I thought I looked kind of cute. Then, I nearly immediately decided that I actually just looked rough. And whale-like. So that was a great way to start the day. We went down to breakfast a bit before 10 and ate some peach halves, pastries, and scrambled eggs before getting on the tour bus that was set to drop us off near Piazza Navona for the day. We started off looking at a shop near the center, 4 Rivers, fountain and picked up some great stuff--an ornament for Natasha and a magnet and gift for my mom for me and a keychain for Carolina--then we tried to find a dress shop we had remembered passing the night before on the walk to the bus. We didn't, however, end up finding it and instead walked around for an hour or so, ducking into other shops to no avail. After we gave up on that, we bought fruit cups for a snack and decided to head back over to the Trevi Fountain so Natasha could get a video of her throwing a coin into the fountain since mine had turned out so cute compared to the pictures we had already taken. By now, my sandal-ed feet (or tour director had recommended sandals for those whose feet were hurting in their shoes) were starting to itch and burn at the same time from all the walking, and the sun was pretty high in the sky, so my entire back was basically all sweat (sexy, right?). We wove our way through a massive amount of people on a couple main streets, before finally turning off to the smaller ones to reach the fountain. Right before the Trevi piazza, we passed a line of street artists and stopped to check out some of their work. Unlike Venice, where the mode of art was usually oil, Rome seemed to be a lot of watercolors--which is tough because watercolors, especially those on mattes, are very easy to do prints of and pass them off as originals (we saw another couple from our group who bought prints, though I'm not sure they knew it). So we had been very vigilant with our browsing to make sure what we were going to get was original work. We decided to circle back after the fountain because we were on a tight time-frame (we had to meet back up at Piazza Navona at 2 for the bus to the Vatican City). We fought our way through to the fountain, where I took an adorable video of Natasha throwing a second coin into the fountain, and then we took forever in the Trevi Bar (a place the nice couple from Indiana had recommended) for some gelato. There was a tour there of Asian tourists getting their gelato, and when one of them asked for pineapple and apple, the guy behind the counter started singing the Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen song, so it's been stuck in my head ever since. Which is mega annoying. I got a small with raspberry and lemon (my favorite), and then I navigated us back toward the art. There was one guy with larger works that both of us really liked, but they were going to be 50 a piece, so we went over to a second artist who had smaller pieces for a lot less money. Natasha ended up getting a medium-sized piece and I got three wider-rectangle pieces (15 euro total!) that were of different historical sights in the city that I think will look awesome together in a collage. We got to the Piazza Navona just in time to meet up with the group, and then we walked a few blocks in the sun over to the public bus stop where we hopped onto a bus to the Vatican City. Do you know how amusing it is to watch a group of 44 people scrambling to pack into a bus? Or how subsequently amusing it is to watch the expression on other people's faces as they realize they're either trapped in their seats or won't actually be able to get on without sardining with us? Quite funny. Quite funny indeed. (Less funny for my aching feet, though, since we barely ever manage to get actual seats.) We took a small break on the steps directly across from the entrance to the Vatican--during which most people seemed to struggle against falling asleep--as we waited for Alexandra to meet up with our tour guide for the afternoon. Once we did, we started the process of going inside, walking through metal detectors and having our bags scanned. We made our way up onto the second floor where we picked up the Vatican-approved lime green and blue radios (the earbud was super big and my radio was extremely temperamental. The channel would change itself every 15 seconds and I kept having to fiddle with it the entire time just to hear our tour guide talk about the history of the city and its buildings). Then, we walked out into a courtyard area and sat down while she explained about different parts of the city we would be seeing. She explained a lot about the Pope and how even though the Pope is a lifetime gig, the current Pope was elected after the previous one resigned, which hasn't happened since the 12th century. She explained that since the only way a Pope is supposed to exit his position is through death, they still held a funeral ceremony for him and he was flown out of the city, and subsequently brought back in where he now lives on the grounds near the gardens in a private home that they renovated for him. She also said that on a tour two weeks ago, she actually saw the Pope himself walking around! In the Sistine Chapel, there aren't supposed to be photos (because it's copyrighted) and you're not allowed to talk. But she also explained that the Chapel is open to the people who live in the Palace. Michelangelo, the famous painter of the Sistine Chapel, originally wanted to be a sculptor, but while his first piece--of the Virgin Mary holding her dead child for the last time, a piece in St Peter's Basilica--was the piece that got him noticed for the first time, it was his painting that made him famous. He lived until he was 90 (whereas Raphael only lived until age 30). The Chapel itself was built in the 1400's, with Michelangelo decorating it with his masterpiece from 1508-1512, and the wall frescos were added in the 1530's (frescos are made when you have to transfer your design onto fresh plaster and then paint it to make the heat seal in the color, while is why the Chapel's art is so well preserved). The ceiling itself isn't very deep, but since painters have to lay on their backs on super tall scaffolds to paint it, Michelangelo complained a lot in his letters that it hurt his back a lot to paint the Chapel ceiling (which I totally get!). While Michelangelo was originally from Florence, he vowed he never wanted to "go back to the city that disappointed him." Unfortunately, his body was stolen from Rome and is now housed in Florence, which would have been his biggest nightmare. After all of that, and a ton more information, we walked through the Vatican's museum. A lot of it was statues and sculptures, with a pair of coffins, a giant marble bathtub, and plenty of vases. They also had painted maps, more fresco walls and ceilings, and giant tapestries. The entire thing was really interesting and fun to go through (more fun if my feet hadn't been screaming), but, of course, it was the Sistine Chapel everyone was waiting for. By the time we wound our way through the museum, and down the stairs to the chapel, there were a ton of people inside. The Chapel was smaller than I expected--especially after seeing Saint Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace in Venice--but every inch of it was covered in Michelangelo's masterpiece. Each of the people were shadowed in a way I'm not sure I'd ever be able to figure out, and they were massively impressive. Weirdly enough, my first thought was "Ooooh, this is so cool! It's even got the gated off section near the back that they had in the Da Vinci Code!" ...Yup. After our ten minutes in the Chapel, we headed out and over to Saint Peter's Basilica. Saint Peter's is the largest Catholic Church in the world. According to our tour guide, all other Catholic Churches actually have an agreement with the Vatican that they can't construct a church bigger than that of Saint Peter's. It was massively impressive. And, thankfully, we were allowed to take pictures here. They were even starting the evening rosary because services started at 6 and we were there just before it at like 5:45pm, which I'm sure my grandma would have loved. Afterward, we headed outside and our guide pointed out where the Pope lived, and that the guards who stand by the gate to his house have intricate uniforms that cost about 1,500 euro (where as the ornate Pope shoes are 5,000!). Then we walked a million miles down the street toward the store where we could purchase Vatican souvenirs which would have the opportunity to be blessed by the Pope's priests. I picked out a beautiful pearl-y looking one that has a bit of Vatican holy water in it, and had them bless it, and then our group split into two for the night. One group went off to the hotel and the rest of us took a bus back near Piazza Navona to have our 35 euro (originally 55) 5-course, 6-wine Italian dinner. It was held at a place called Buddy's and it was delish! We had a veggie plate, bruschetta, a meats and cheeses plate with the best bread I've had in Italy, then they brought out a traditional tomato pasta, pork slices, and then a dessert of these little shortbread sticks. I ate until I was full and drank a bit too much, so I was a little giggly and introduced myself to one of the guys on the trip, Gus, who I hadn't talked to until that day. He told me about how he's nicknamed "Vanilla Gorilla" and I talked about how I needed a cool nickname like that (yeah, I know. I was quite tipsy though, so it's fine). We walked a while to get to our tour bus and then our tour guide spent the entire drive back drunkenly talking on the mic about how we all needed to get together at the hotel and keep drinking. Then she started passing around the mic to the other girls of whom she actually knows the names of, joking and laughing with them. Then they used a girl's phone and put it up to the mic to play music. Our. Poor. Bus. Driver. Not only were we 40 minutes late from the time he thought he was picking us all up, but then he had to deal with a bunch of drunken college kids and an even more far gone tour director. That man deserves a raise. So we got back to the hotel and she told us to meet back in the lobby in 10 minutes and that she would buy wine and treat us all to a last drink in Italy. Natasha and I decided since we'd pretty much opted out of all of the longer nights that we'd join and get to know people. So I changed into a PJ top and touched up my make-up (though it didn't really help) and then we headed back down, where they had already broken into the wine. Alexandra finally noticed we were there, told us to get a glass of wine, and then told Natasha she loved her ancient Grecian dress and that she loved how put-together and pretty I looked with my winged eyeliner. She said "I love you guys," and then held my hand for a bit and then promptly forgot we were there. So we got kicked out of the lobby for being too loud, so we went outside and set up there. Here we drank some more wine and Alexandra had us go around the group and say what we thought would happen on the trip and what actually has happened. A lot of the girls talked about how they thought they wouldn't get along with anyone (bull) and how it hadn't been the case at all and how much they loved "literally everyone here" and that they got "along with everyone" (also bull). Natasha and I headed back up to the room around midnight and once we were back, we realized that we had both had the same thoughts. They didn't mean it. They didn't even know all of us. Barely any of them had tried to get to know us, let alone Carolina. The quieter, culture-driven girls were pushed off to the side. We weren't there for the wine and the partying or the boys (though it wouldn't hurt to get a guy along the way!). We were there for the architecture and the mythology, the culture and the experience. It was just a huge shift. And Alexandra said how we were our favorite group and she loved each and every one of us and how we were so wonderful, but she doesn't know Natasha or my name--only those of the girls who were loud and drank a lot. The entire thing was just a sort of shift in the trip. I drank too much wine (I'm sure any of you could have called that--those of you who know my minuscule drinking habits), so I spent the next hour propped up in bed thinking about how nauseous I was. I fell asleep and then from 1:30-2am, I sat in the bathroom hoping I would just puke and get it over with. But when that seemed like it wouldn't ever happen, I went back to bed and slept through the night. ...Or at least until my alarm went off at 5:50am and then it was time for GREECE! And, of course, the ESCAPE FROM THE INSECT ROOMS OF DOOM! FINALLY!!!! Ciao, Horrible "Club House Hotel" of Doom! I shall never return and absolutely never miss you!

[keywestlou]

UP, UP AND AWAY IN MYKONOS.....CAR HIT ME AND THREW ME OVER A STONE WALL

DAY 21…..Greece the First Time

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Key  West lou

Today could be the most significant day in history since the close of World War II. The Greek elections are being held.

The issue boils down to whether the Greeks want to continue operating with the euro as money or would they prefer a return to the drachma. I have talked with many since I arrived in Greece. I am getting divergent opinions.

Yes, I saw grown men and women spit on the ground when they heard Merkel’s name at a protest rally in Athens. That is not all of it however. I have found the bankers and very affluent support continuing with the euros. Why not. They are doing terrific under it. Making money!.

Then there are the small businessmen. They are struggling. They want a return to the drachma like yesterday. They also want out of the European Union.

Then come the people. The Jims and Janes on the streets. Those going to work every day to put food on the table. They feel the oppression of the euro. But I suspect they will not vote in large numbers. They claim it is too late. The Mafia is controlling everything.

I find it surprising that people still revert to the Italian wrongdoers of old to blame. I think they do not really mean Mafia per se. What I sense is that they believe that government has been bought by big business. Believing that, I suspect most will not vote. Simply because they believe their votes will mean nothing. The banks and big business will control in the end no matter who wins.

Sense a similarity with the USA?

Germany could ease the pressure. Germany is making money with the euro. Germany has become in effect the banker for the rest of the euro nations. Which includes Greece.

Germans as a people tend to be anal. Black and white. By the book. Greeks on the other hand go with the flow. They take everything in stride. Are not as serious about things as they probably should be. Like money.

Germany is in a position of power. The third time they have so been in less than 100 years. The Kaiser in 1914 and Hitler in 1939 were two instances. Germany felt it was omnipotent. Two world wars resulted.

This Germany/Greece thing is a war that is erupting. Except this time it is with money instead of bullets. Each can have a devastating effect. This euro thing can result in a world wide recession of a sort never before experienced.

I have a suspicion. It is based on what I have experienced and read over the past three weeks. I believe the euro people will win. Why? Because they will vote. They are doing well as indicated hereinbefore under the euro. The people on the street appear to have already given up. They will not turn out in the numbers necessary to throw out the euro and return to the drachma.

I cannot wait till later tonight to see if I have called this correctly.

The trip caught up with me yesterday. I have been at this three weeks. All of a sudden I was tired. Dead tired.

I walked into town and had lunch. Something I have not done since arriving. I then sat in the shade at the sidewalk cafe where I had lunched and watched the world walk by.

Eventually, I got back to my hotel. And my bed. I slept the afternoon away.

I was still tired when I woke. Opted to remain at my hotel and dine in its dining room. Glad I did. A great meal! The service unusually spectacular. I am staying at a small hotel. I have gotten to know everyone. This was the first time they had the opportunity to show me what they could do. They wanted to show me, to please me.

And please me they did! I won’t go through all the specifics, except to relate that the meal was heavy with tomatoes, olives, cheeses and oil. Dessert was a Greek chremboule. Two gins. Beefeater. One of the few places in Mykonos that stocks it. And a shot of something after dinner on the house.

I could not thank them enough.

I was up and out early this morning. Needed a manicure and pedicure desperately. The last ones were more than 3 weeks ago.

I had to walk away from town up the highway about a quarter of a mile. A beautiful salon for nails and massages in a small strip mall. I was their first customer. Everyone sitting around. Ergo, I had three ladies working on me at one time. One on the toes and the other two each had a hand a piece.

A good job! I was pleased.

I asked them if they had voted. They said no. I asked if they were going to vote. They said no. Why, I asked. Mafia!

Not a bright response, but that is the way it is. Again, I have heard that same response many times over the past three weeks.

Now for the fun part of this morning.

I got hit by a car.

There are no sidewalks. The driving lanes are narrow. Drivers speed constantly. The only place for pedestrian traffic is on the edges of the road.

I was in an area that had a three foot stone wall running on both sides of the highway. Between the road edge and the wall was two feet. No more.

I was casually walking down the road against traffic. Staying in my little two feet. All of a sudden this guy came around a curve. There was no oncoming traffic. He had a good fifty feet after the curve to see me. He never tried to avoid me. He clipped my right arm with his passenger door mirror. I went flying over the wall. I looked up to see the car speed away. The driver had to feel the impact and hear its sound. The thud was loud.

I was concerned. The last thing I want is to be sick in a foreign country. There was no one around who saw or could help me. I eventually got up. My right arm beneath the elbow was sore. As was the right side of my neck.

I walked back to my hotel with no difficulty. It has been about two hours since the event and all I am experiencing is pain in the two areas I complained about. I lucked out.

So far on this trip I have survived three earthquakes and one auto accident.

I still have three weeks to go.

A beach day again today. Paradise Beach. The one two days ago was Super Paradise Beach. Two separate beaches. One old, one new. I am going to the older one today.

Enjoy your day! And be careful as you walk.

—

Lindsey Graham was John McCain’s close friend for years. They were as two peas in a pod. Thought wise.

Then McCain died. Soon Graham had a new buddy. Donald Trump. How he could jump from McCain to Trump I find difficult to understand. The two men were as different as night and day.

Graham in recent years has been evidencing bully tactics. Increasingly tries to convey a tough guy image. Does not impress me. A Donald Trump he is not.

Key West is a community with a heart. Even back some 50 years ago.

It was announced on this day in 1973 that the military had accepted the offer from the City of Key West giving all returning Vietnam prisoners of war a one week vacation in Key West, their families included.

The weather has consistently gone from bad to worse in recent years. Sometimes a hurricane, or tsunami, or snow storm, etc.

To me it is a reflection of climate change/global warming.

The snow storms across the country have been significant. More than normal. Most bigger and longer lasting.

The past week’s snowstorm blanketing a third of the nation is an example. The storm is attributable to an arctic blast which is bringing with it historic winter weather.

I am confused. A few days ago I reported May Johnson’s diary would cease reporting in a few days. Shared with you some information regarding May and her future life which supposedly would never get reported.

Yesterday, no May diary. I assumed her diary reports had ended. Commented to that effect.

I was wrong. May’s diary entry for this day 1897 is in this morning’s Key West Citizen.

I was uncomfortable with reporting her diaries entries were going, gone and now have returned. It was back to the telephone with calls to people who should know.

May’s diary has a last day for publication. Two days hence. February 18.

The diary entry today consistent with previous ones. She reports her very busy day each day. The one thing  she never reports in any detail is her processional life.

May is a school teacher. She never provides details re her teaching. Her comments are generally limited to “went to school.”

Makes me wonder if she enjoyed her chosen work. I recall no entry were she talked about the kids she taught.

Whatever.

Enjoy your day!

UP, UP AND AWAY IN MYKONOS…..CAR HIT ME AND THREW ME OVER A STONE WALL was originally published on Key West Lou

[itsworn]

HOT ROD Rescue: Missing 25-cent Oil Plug Ruins Engine

The Combo

After Tevete “T” Usumalii gained title to a 1988 Ford Bronco 4×4 that had been sitting derelict in an old buddy’s driveway since 2008, he soon realized its tired 302 motor needed some major help. As T puts it, “I wanted a weekend fun truck, off-road-capable that I could take to the mountains, desert, or beach. It had to have good performance under load. When I put my foot to the floor, does it do what I want?”

“T” Usumalii wanted a fun yet powerful off-road truck, but the 6,000-pound 1988 Ford Bronco’s tired 302 was a snoozer.

What “T” wanted was a 349ci stroker (4.040-inch bore by 3.40-inch stroke), with a high-performance RV cam and free-flowing Air Flow Research (AFR) aluminum cylinder heads. “Two different guys had their hands in this project and they turned out to be real shady,” T says. When the engine was finally finished and installed, it was transported to Westech Performance in Mira Loma, California, to tune-in its aftermarket MegaSquirt EFI system.

Usumalii had a 349ci stroker Ford built by what he thought was a reputable shop, then had another shop install the motor in the Bronco.

The Initial Diagnosis

Running on Westech’s SuperFlow chassis dyno, right from the start (err—no start?) the Bronco had a crank/no-fire condition. Turns out, the engine wasn’t getting any spark because the motor’s new aftermarket coil had burned up. The bad coil was temporarily replaced with an OE coil, and the truck then started right up—but now the motor wouldn’t shut off. It turned out the ignition circuit was incorrectly wired. There was a feed-back to the ignition switch key, so the system never de-energized. The electronic control unit (ECU), relays, and coil received constant power all the time (at least until the battery died). This overheated the coil, causing the failure.

The Get-it-Running Fix

Nearby ace Ford tuner Mark Sanchez (Advanced Engineering West) was called in for a consultation. “I went to check the engine at Westech,” Sanchez says. “The lifters were making noise, so before looking at the wiring, I checked the oil. There was no dipstick tube in the motor. The dipstick tube hole had been sloppily filled with silicone. We drained the pan to find if there was any oil in the engine. There were 5 quarts in the pan. It was already dirty, so we threw it out and put in another 5 quarts of clean oil.

“I got the engine to shut down on its own without disconnecting the main battery ground by hooking up a late-1980s factory Mustang ECU using my Ford service 60-pin breakout box—think of an old-school switchboard deal—and bypassing all the crappy wiring. Once we knew the no-start had nothing to do with the motor, I partially reworked the butchered harness so it would start with the MegaSquirt. Westech then attempted to tune the ECU, but the engine had a constant miss. Every lifter on the driver side was noisy. Westech aborted the tune; they were worried about the noisy lifters.”

Westech Performance is a tuner shop and doesn’t usually get involved in long-term internal engine repair, so Sanchez and HOT ROD decided to ride to the “rescue.” The Bronco was transported to nearby AEW for hard-core diagnostics.

The Main Problem

Getting unplugged: The driver-side valvetrain was noisy. When adjusting the valves had no effect, Sanchez suspected a lifter problem and began tearing apart the top-end. Looking down the distributor hole in the block, he noticed a missing oil-galley plug (A). Later, after disassembly, the AWOL plug is clearly “invisible” (02 and 03).

AFR heads have a fully adjustable, stud-mounted valvetrain. When Sanchez received the car, he hooked up an external oil pressure gauge to the standard pressure-gauge port above the oil filter and removed the spark plugs, disconnected the ECU (which turns off the electric fuel pump), and cranked the engine over to fully pump up the lifters. “During cranking, the oil pressure gauge read 65 pounds,” Sanchez explains. “I tried to adjust the heads’ Scorpion roller rockers, starting at the No. 1 cylinder and working my way through the firing order. When I got over to the driver side, I noticed the rockers on cylinder Nos. 5 and 6 (the first two driver-side cylinders on a Ford) weren’t getting any oil out from the pushrods. At that point, I thought there must be something wrong in the lifter area.

“The Bronco had a two-piece Edelbrock EFI intake. To check the lifters, you must remove the upper plenum half, pull out the distributor, and then remove the lower half. After I removed the distributor, I saw it had a cast-iron distributor gear, typical for a 1988 that would have originally come with a non-roller cam. Looking more carefully down the distributor hole in the block with a flashlight, I observed the motor had a hydraulic-roller cam, which requires a different distributor gear. Suddenly, I saw there was no plug for the passenger-side oil galley (which is the only one you can see through the hole—I got lucky). Unfortunately, the motor had already run for about 15 minutes.”

“For want of a nail”: Left out during assembly, this little 25¢ part—the driver-side front oil galley plug—cost Usumalii his cylinder block.

The Main Diagnosis

D’oh! The engine now required a complete stem-to-stern damage inspection. Although the top half could be checked in the vehicle, the easiest way to check the condition of the cam and bottom-end bearings was, according to Sanchez, “To just go ahead and pull the motor. Only a lazy man works twice.”

With the motor on an engine stand, Sanchez noticed the oil pan’s rear lip seal had slipped into the oil pan when it was being assembled: “It was leaking big time. Some idiot had put silicone sealant through the top, bottom, and edges of everything.”

Deep scratches were also observed on the main (shown), rod, and cam bearings. Fortunately, the crank, rods, and cam themselves were basically intact and reusable.

Sanchez removed the pan, then the No. 3 main cap. “That’s the thrust bearing on a Ford, so it usually receives the most abuse. The thrust end turned out to be OK, but the bearing’s crank-journal surface had serious scratches and wear for an engine that had almost no running time on it.” Further teardown revealed additional cam, rod, and main-bearing damage; scuffed piston skirts; and deep vertical cylinder-wall scratches.

Corresponding scratches marred the piston skirts, but L&R was able to save them by careful sanding using a green Scotch-Brite pad.

Nevertheless, the pistons and crank journals appeared salvageable, while the cam was fortunately undamaged.

Not even 15 minutes of running time: Lack of oil and perhaps failure to thoroughly clean the block before final assembly deeply gouged the cylinder walls beyond the point the block could be saved.

The Fix: Short- Block

A 1985-and-later roller-cam block was needed to support the Bronco’s OE-style hydraulic roller lifters retained by a spider and dogbones. Roller-cam blocks have taller lifter bores and spider retention-bolt bosses in the lifter valley (A). Some, but not all, are embossed “XXX” or “YYY” (B).

Already 0.040-over, the bores were as big as one dares go on a small-block Ford. “If you go 0.060-over, it’ll run hot on the street,” Sanchez explains. “Luckily, I had plenty of blocks lying around, including some 1985-and-later roller-cam versions. A good used block is cheaper than buying a new set of forged pistons.” A&A Midwest is one major nationwide source of pristine rebuildable cylinder-block cores for most engine makes.

Externally, ID a roller-cam block by its casting numbers at the rear near the starter pad on the passenger side or near the bellhousing flange on the driver side.

FORD 5.0L ROLLER-CAM BLOCK CASTING NOS. Year Casting No. Main Webs 1985 E5AE-HA Standard 1985-1993 E6SE-DC Heavier 1986-1995 E7TE-CA or -PA Heavier 1991-2001 F1SE-BB Heavier

L&R Engines, owned by three generations of Ranneys, built a replacement short-block. From left, Derek Jr., Grandpa Larkin, and Derek Sr.

L&R micropolished the aftermarket crank’s minimally hurt, standard-size journals and avoided the need to turn them under-size. The rods didn’t need rebuilding, but L&R did discover and correct a slight unbalance in the rotating assembly.

To clear the 3.40-inch stroker crank, the block must be clearance-ground at the bottom of each cylinder (arrows).

Machining and short-block assembly using Mahle, Clevite, and ARP parts was handled by L&R Engine—a Santa Fe Springs, California–based, third-generation, family-owned business that builds everything from Mom’s grocery-getter to full-race mills. The replacement block was first cleaned, magnetic-particle-inspected, and sonic-checked. The latter is a critical qualifier before boring a thin-wall casting like the small-block Ford more than 0.030-inch oversize. The sonic checker uses sound waves to measure cylinder-wall thickness. For reasonable strength and adequate heat transfer on street-driven engines, L&R says 0.187 inch is the minimum safe wall thickness post-overbore. In this case, there was plenty of material left after subtracting half the projected 0.040-inch overbore:

0.740 – (0.040 ÷ 2) = 0.720

Block deck-surfacing achieves several goals: restoring a smooth surface, squaring the block so all four corners are parallel and at the same height relative to the main bearing journals’ centerline, and developing the desired piston deck clearance.

In this motor’s case, the desired piston deck height was “zero.” With a zero piston deck height, a typical 0.039-inch-thick head gasket, Probe’s flat-top forged pistons, and the AFR heads’ 72cc chambers, static compression came in around 9.3:1.

The team at L&R fully machined a used block, boring it 0.040-over so they could salvage and reuse the old pistons.

Going 0.040-over permitted reusing the existing pistons. L&R was able to salvage both the pistons (saving at least $600), as well as the crank with only minimal polishing on their scratched surfaces. L&R also align-honed the main journals, squared and zero-decked the head mounting surfaces, and tapped the oil-galley holes for screw-in plugs.

Establishing crank bearing bore diameter and bearing clearance: No two micrometers are exactly the same, so to minimize tolerance drift, experienced engine machinists use a common baseline. After measuring the crank journal with an outside mike, that dimension is transferred to an inside dial-bore gauge.

This allows the bore gauge to be “zeroed” based on that value obtained with the outside mic.

Using the bore gauge, the main bore’s inside diameter is measured with bearings installed and main caps torqued. The difference off zero is the bearing clearance: 0.0025 inch on this build.

Mahle’s Clevite division supplied NASCAR-level trimetal H-Series bearings. H-series shells feature medium eccentricity, a high crush factor, and hardened steel backs with thin overlays. Forty percent of bearing wear is caused by poor lubrication; Lucas assembly lube on the bearings offers first dry-start protection until oil starts flowing.

Clevite Type HN rod bearings (right, compared to standard replacement, left) have all the attributes of the H-series main bearings, plus they’re narrower with a larger chamfer on one edge to clear the bigger fillet radii used by many custom cranks. In this case, the holes aren’t for doweled aluminum rods but provide added cylinder wall lubrication, as per some factory Ford con-rods.

ARP supplied its High-Performance Series main cap bolts and just about every other fastener. Going from OE to high-strength main cap bolts changes the clamping force and tolerances. Ensure the bearing bores are round and properly sized after bolt installation. Align-hone if necessary with the same fasteners, lubricant, and preload that will be used on final assembly.

A premium Mahle Original (formerly Perfect Circle) plasma-moly cast-iron replacement piston ring set (PN 40564CP.040) was used. Its ⁵⁄₁₆-⁵⁄₁₆-³⁄₁₆-inch-od ring grooves match the existing Probe forged pistons’ grooves. The compression rings are gapped at 0.016 inch. Note that many 1985-and-later 5.0L-H.O. Ford OE pistons from require metric rings.

After lightly polishing out the skirt scratches, L&R reinstalled the piston/rod assemblies in the motor using the new Mahle piston rings compressed by ARP’s trick billet ring compressor.

The Results (So Far)

L&R did what the original two engine builders failed to do: meticulous machining, inspection, and attention to detail during assembly. It was able to save everything but the original block, bearings, and piston rings, which keeps costs under control. Short-block assembly complete, L&R turned it back over to Sanchez for upper-half assembly and reinstallation into the Bronco. Unfortunately, additional problems would pop up during that phase, to include both engine top-end assembly component miscues and slipshod chassis integration. Next month we’ll deal with these pesky issues and hopefully put the Bronco back on the Westech chassis dyno for a final test-and-tune session.

The short-block went back to AEW for top-end assembly and installation. Stay with us next time as we expose more sloppy workmanship.

Lessons Learned

“25 cents cost him a whole engine!” — Mark Sanchez, AEW

Just because there’s good oil pressure at the standard pressure checking point doesn’t necessarily mean all areas of the engine are getting oil. Pre-prime a new motor before installing the intake. That way you can see that oil is going where it should go, not where it shouldn’t. Over-looking one small thing could cost you an entire motor, so don’t rush through an engine build—check everything! If farming out the build, choose a reputable, legitimate shop with a quality reputation. You may pay a little more up front, but end up saving a bundle in the long run.

  The post HOT ROD Rescue: Missing 25-cent Oil Plug Ruins Engine appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/hot-rod-rescue-missing-25-cent-oil-plug-ruins-engine/ via IFTTT

[originaldetectivesheep]

A Life of Riley Part 4: The Dumptrucks of the Gods ch 6

Chapter 5

VI

For a space that'd had a metal bucket taped to a thermonuclear explosion drive itself up through the roof, then down again through the mangled beams and rebar, the Applied Physics lab wasn't in half bad shape.  Most of the machine tools hadn't been hit hard enough by anything to be crushed, the gas tanks and the other welding supplies had miraculously gotten saved when an I-beam smashed only most of the way through the isolation fridge, and though nearly all of the capacitors had ruptured at some point, they hadn't melted down, so the lab was only ankle-deep in motor oil when we got back, not on fire and poisoned with burning copper.  It was a big job cleaning up and it would be a long time before we could replace all our equipment – predictably, everything electronic not inside the Raging Potato had shorted itself out when we fired all the capacitors at once to start the engine – but even putting the roof back together was something to do as a project, and there's always interesting physics you can do just on a workbench.

And that's what we were left with: the Potato's subsystems worked, and we scavenged them out to refit the lab as soon as we got all the oil off the floor, but the engine was completely dysfunctional, having given its last to get us all the way back down – or sometime after that, when we shut it down and crossed our fingers that it wouldn't explosively lose containment.  Of course, it was a miracle that it had worked at all: a crazy experimental design left in the jungle for sixty years, it had every right to stop working after its one trial.  Well, that's what we thought at first – when we found out that Riley had refilled the fuel reservoirs by hand to replace the decayed tritium and lithium deuteride with newer stocks gathered from…we were afraid to ask, we all considered it a miracle that it hadn't just blown up the entire campus instead.  Either way, there was no spare power to kick on with the graviton-detection test that Riley was still dreaming about, and there weren't enough reliably-functioning parts for the quantum dislocator even if we could put enough energy through it to shift state.  It was enough.  It was coming down to the end of the term, and I had enough to do with finishing my labs, finals, and non-Riley research work.  One big, excessively dangerous, near-impossible physics project per semester was just about enough.

"Jeez, was it even though," Riley said reflectively, tapping a wrench on the side of the Ceiba housing, essentially all that remained of the Potato, then pulling down to lift the bucket full of extra leads and flux up to where Leo was welding the ceiling back into place.  "I mean, even for this lab, that shit was wild.  Did we really do that? Did we really go to space and beat the crap out of a bunch of aliens, then bust on their game and half blow their ship in pieces?  It seems so friggin mental and even if we did it, I was half out of my gourd on Melanie's fish tequila and I've got huge chunks of just blackout in what I can remember."

"Oh, we did it," Sajitha said from over at her workbench, tweaking something connected to one of the microwave dishes.  "We got the hole in the roof from it, for one, and Remy got a scalp infection from that blood gunk that he had to shave off all of his hair for – I'm still mad about that.  And then there was the part where Yuping lost his shirt and his coveralls in the fish flood, and Carolína got stopped driving us home because some rentacop saw him shirtless and thought he was a teenage prostitute that had gotten trafficked in as part of a fake Korean boy-band.  We definitely went to orbit and beat the shit out of a bunch of aliens, because there is no other possible explanation for all this crap that is somehow less weird."  She shook her head and leaned over to fiddle with something on her laptop.

Riley nodded, backing away and looking carefully down at the floor as Leo lit his torch and started to spray sparks down from where he was attaching one of our former containment panels to the roof beams. "Yeah, I get it; it just seems so friggin out there, though – like something out of one of those bullshit wannabe novels all those weepy arts students are killing themselves to write this time of year.  You know about that?  I was on the bus minding my own business, like you do, and one of them is reading her shit out to another sad-sack buddy, for serious like a sex scene where one of the dudes was doing one of the other dudes with actions that were like 'assiduously' or 'adroitly' and I'm sitting there like are those even words?  And she to her credit was having like an existential panic attack about how bad it was, but the guy with her was like no, no, write through, keep going, finish it, it'll all get fixed in edit.  Edit.  You're shitting me.  What editor on earth isn't just going to throw that out the window?  Friggin kids."  I didn't know, and I didn't have much of a response to that, and it seemed like Riley was just venting rhetorically anyway, so I took an earbud off the top of my ear and put the right side of my brain, at least, back out to sea with Primordial, keeping the other one open in case something important happened here in the lab.

"At least the grinckles are gone," Riley said, slumping down in a chair by the parts bin to pick through for the start of another jigsaw-puzzle roof-panel replacement assembly.  "At least I have Wilson off my back, and you guys aren't getting stopped by weirdo paramilitaries doing fish genocide, and the dining halls almost don't stink like rutabagas baked on a trash fire any more.  At least there's that."

"Yeah, there's that, and you can definitely tell who came here straight from China now, because they've all lost ten pounds in three weeks and stand nine deep at the back of any talk there's a rumor there might be food at," Sajitha said, her fingers flying over her keyboard. "It's not all good news; I'm not crazy about the grinckles either, but if I knew that it was going to be that they were completely wiped out, I might have said something on the ship – tried to do something different."

"It is not our goddamned job," Riley said back, idly waving a wrench through the air, "to manage a sustainable fishery for an invasive species from another friggin planet, nor to fund an allegedly public university to the point that students do not need to go around dragging said invasive ET fish out of puddles to keep from starving to death.  We are a physics lab – we have a lot of other skills, and maybe because of that we do keep getting dragged into solving everyone else's godawful stupid problems, but sometimes, it's okay to at least try to stay in our lane and make literally everything our deal."  Riley looked up, and back over in my direction.

"Oh, yeah, on skills; Yuping, that punch you threw on that punk there was sick.  I thought you never learned, but that looked like legit XiaoLin from where I was standing.  What school did you do?  Wu xia?  Wing chung?"

"Kǎo yā," I said, shifting the plotter paper I was drawing out the circuit on so that I could hold it on the workbench with one hand.  "School is Kǎo Yā Bù Huì Zuò Gōng Fū." I put up my right hand to give Riley the finger, not looking up from the circuit plot.

"'Roast duck', right," Riley said, properly ashamed at least.  "I got it – the official martial arts school of the lab, where the only technique is 'hit'em hard while they're not looking'.  I'm sorry; that was over the line, and I shouldn't've gone there.  My bad."  I nodded and pulled my hand back.  On the other hand, that the lab was short on big challenging projects meant that Riley got more bored more easily and asked more dumb too-personal questions.  If this was how it was going to be, maybe I did want something else to happen sooner rather than later.

"Afternoon!" Carolína said, coming through the door, knocking on the side of the frame mostly out of habit; there weren't enough high-energy power supplies around the lab right now to make the drop bars worth paying attention to.  "How is everybody doing?  Leo, are you okay up there?  It looks like you got that last open square covered, so can I have my tarp back?" She set her bag down on her bench across from Sajitha and pulled out her laptop, not really expecting an immediate reply.

"Actually, that reminds me," Sajitha said, looking up from her work.  "Do you know what happened to the camp chair I had in the front closet? I was thinking of bringing it in here so that I don't have to sit on this bucket stool any more, but I couldn't find it.  Did you already bring it up?  I don't mind, but I just want to know where it is."

"No," Carolína said, shaking her head as her screen booted.  "I don' like my stool either, so I was thinking of ordering one of those, but I was waiting for my next check to clear.  I didn't know you had one in the closet – did you ask the guys?"

"I did," Sajitha said, her forehead wrinkling.  "I asked Remy, and he texted Leo about it because I wasn't sure if it'd get weird like I was accusing him of stealing my chair when he's always hung off his strap to the ceiling in here, but he hadn't heard of it, and Remy totally forgot that I even had that chair.  I wonder what happened ��� it's not like a camp chair's just going to disappear."

"You're still in your place, right?" Riley asked, strangely deadpan, cutting into the conversation.

"Yes, but I don't know what – oh no."  Sajitha realized the meaning and covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide.  "That's right – the demon – now that the grinckles are gone –"

"Our contract is bust, and it's back to eating your furniture," Riley continued, standing up. "Save your work, call your boyfriend, pile up all our functioning electronics.  Leo, get the hell off the ceiling and start cutting up the Ceiba to see what we can cannibalize out of it for parts.  Carolína, if you don't have your machete and your grappling hook, go the hell home and get them before they get eaten.  And Yuping, get over here and bust out all our old paper circuit diagrams, then start downloading the drawing repository into whatever spare PC we've gotten working yet.  I'll do something about power supplies, and see if I can't work up another dozen cannon rounds or actually find someone who knows how to wreck this guy's shit.  You all, you all start building – we've got to get a new dislocator built, up, running, and rated for GeV-range throughputs before the end of the week, or half the lab is going to be in the shit with their realtor again.  Move!"

I unplugged the bud from my right ear and left the headphones down next to my phone with a sigh.  Sajitha was on the phone to Remy and Carolína was on the way out the door and Leo was rappelling down off the ceiling at the Ceiba, welding torch strapped across his chest, and Riley was tearing a desk like in half, spewing parts and pencils all over the floor, and we'd just gotten committed in an instant to something unfathomably strange, but in a way this felt more like the Applied Physics lab than it had felt like in here in a while.  One way or another, no matter what the problem was or how little sense it made, this was Riley; this was our lab.  It was always something.  There was always something.  I rolled up my half-done drawing and grabbed for my pliers and a soldering iron: time to get back to work.

go back and get the ebook if you want the bonus story

[13walls]

Joel Gion, best known for his work with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, is setting up to release his sophomore solo record later this year. Following up his sunny 2014 album  Apple Bonkers, Gion speaks with A Love That’s Sound about recording new music with his BJM buddies, politics, psych festivals and spaghetti westerns.

David Lacroix: How are things going right now in San Francisco? Joel Gion: Things are fine, it’s freezing with a capital “F.” It’s been freezing rain which is not normal.  It’s been keeping me off of my scouter, which I don’t dig but yeah, it’s cool man. Like in a lot of places, we’ve had the big march, a lot of stuff has been going on.

Joel Gion @ Levitation Vancouver, 2015. Photo: David Lacroix.

You have started the new year off with a new single called “Tomorrow,” which bears some political sentiment. Can you tell us a bit about that song?

Joel Gion: I feel like I’ve been on the planet long enough that you see certain patterns over and over again and one of them is never get either of our political parties in office more than two terms in a row. There’s a lot of different types of people in the country but there’s two specific big groups that can be lobbed into. The political parties, it seems like have to give it up and over to the other side after at least every 8 years or that side will end up going ballistic at what they don’t like. In order to actually keep the peace and keep people from getting together and  from really making the moves to make actually change, they placate everyone by passing the baton back and forth before things get too hot and heavy for one side or the other. That’s been going on a long time.

I just wrote the song in the fall, at least I recorded the song in January, and for whatever reason there’s some red tape where I kind of expected my record to be out right now but it isn’t and I just thought “I kind of wrote this song with this event in mind so I thought “Im just going to put this out myself,” which I did. I don’t want to be Mr. Message, I don’t want to say “hey, I know what’s going on, let me tell you what’s up, kids” or anything like that. I’m just a dude living on the planet, I’m not looking for these things but they present themselves to me so often and it’s so in your face obvious that when I go to write about something, these sorts of topics present themselves. It was also “yeah, it’s complete horse-shit, but you still gotta have fun,” ya, know? It’s sort of a party song at the same time.

Matt Hollywood & Joel Gion w/ BJM, 2012. Photo: Bev Davies.

DL: Some of your friends were very politically active this past election. Did you watch your friend Zia McCabe (of the Dandy Warhols) speak in support of Bernie Sanders?

Joel Gion: I sure did. It was wonderful. That was the event when the bird came, flew in and landed on the podium. You can’t ask for a bigger sign to have then the bird of peace come down and want to hang out with this guy. We were all so optimistic. At the time that I wrote this song, it was during the Democratic National Convention when to me in my mind, the real villain was Clinton. She was for the corporations; she represented big money and the huge class divide that’s getting more and more insane. So yeah, I was a Bernie Sanders guy; at the time she was kind of the villain. Nobody thought that it would come down to this where Donald Dude-Bro is in there…. so that was the big concern back then. Now it’s nothing.

Joel Gion @ Levitation Vancouver 2015. Photo: David Lacroix.

DL: This last fall, you released a song titled “Divide” that has a strong Tropicalia influence. Can you tell us a bit about that song?

Joel Gion: Yeah, that’s kind of a leak to some of the direction that the new record will be representing. There’s things that I enjoy in pretty much every genre of music, although I’m not a heavy metal guy. But I can find something that I love in almost everything. Brazilian music, jazz, soul and then of course my roots of shoe-gaze, psych, blues and classic rock stuff. I’m trying to incorporate different things into the mix. That’s definitely the most overt Brazilian song but there’s more of that type of energy on the way as well. We recorded the majority of the album in at Revolver Studios in Portland which is run by  Colin Hegna, the bass player for the BJM. His band Federale has got some pretty heavy-duty spaghetti moves.

The Committee To Keep Music Evil.

DL: The Last album was mostly recorded with Rob Campanella, was it not?

Joel Gion: Yeah the last one was leaning more heavily to his studio, the Committee to Keep Music Evil and I also did some at Colin’s studio in Portland. This new one is kind of flipped where it’s the other way around. We did most of that album down there in LA. I had Dan Allaire from the BJM come and play drums on the majority of it; Plucky played on three songs.  We got Rob and whoever else we could drag in there – Miranda Lee Richards who is a great soul singer and used to be in BJM way back in the day. You had the whole L.A. wrecking crew coming in. It was neat.

DL: What’s the title of your upcoming record?

Joel Gion: It’s going to be self-titled. I was the biggest influence on myself this time around. It represents more of where I am coming from. The first album was me staking my claim in the songwriting ring and really showing my colours on the music that got me here and probably the music I should have been making a long time ago. I think I just needed to get that “never happened” first album out of me. This one is much more influenced by the things that I listen to now. I’m making my own thing out of it, before I was just joining the parade as it were.

Joel Gion @ Levitation Vancouver 2015. Photo: David Lacroix.

DL: What was it like playing with the Primary Colours?

Joel Gion: that was my crew, my local San Francisco crew. Because of the gentrification and the tech industry, there’s lots of factors where most of my friends no longer live here. These were my DJ friends that I made. I asked them if they wanted to play these songs with me and they were into it because the BJM who play on the record are all so spread out, there was no way to have a local band. You can’t have these guys come to San Francisco to play some 200 seater, ya know? We had a lot of fun.

DL: You played an excellent set at Levitation Vancouver festival in 2015. Will you be seeking Raymundo Calderon, Yvonne Hernandez and Christof Certik to be touring again?

Joel Gion: Absolutely! We kind of morphed into the lineup we had at Levitation Vancouver because some of the BJM guys became more available and got integrated in but I still have some of those primary colours people in my band., it’ll be the same group the next time around that you had there. But we have to get a flute player! Flute, congas, it’s expanding… it’s kind of blowing up.

DL: You have a few friends and bandmates in cowboy bands, are you a fan of spaghetti westerns and cowboy music music in general?

Joel Gion: Well, my favourite composer of all time is Ennio Morricone. I have a huge music collection and I have an entire shelf that’s just movies where Morricone scores the soundtrack. A lot of the movies aren’t that good but the scores are great. Primarily from the mid ‘60s to the late ‘70s is kind of the zone but yeah, spaghetti westerns and Morricone, I certainly do love that stuff.

On my new album there will be a little bit of that style well, more of his psych-lounge mode, not so much western. There will be a tiny hint of western on there but nothing like your Spindrift or Federale.

BJM @ Desert Daze 2016. Photo: David Lacroix.

DL: What was your experience like at this year’s Desert Daze Festival? What did you think of the oil projections with the BJM set?

Joel Gion: I think it’s a great festival. We go to psych fest usually, either to play or just hang out in Austin. This had a very similar vibe but it was scaled down. But you know….. the whole place was built by Frank Lloyd Wright so that in of itself made it amazing for me. It was a really neat vibe, it was really similar to your Austin Psych Fest/Levitation kind of vibe. We had a great time. I couldn’t really see the light show. It was on me. [Laughs]. But I heard it was really good. I guess I saw some youtube clips, yeah. Somebody threw a bottle or a shoe or something. We were playing and I saw it rocketing straight for my head and I got out of the way just in time. There’s video if it on youtube… but yeah… enthusiastic crowd!

DL: Speaking about BJM history, your first involvement on a BJM recording was with Take it From the Man , which was the first record to go revisit ‘60s garage guitar instead of the louder shoe-gaze style present on Spacegirl and Methodrone. Given the recent resurgence in ‘60s music, do you feel that that record helped revive that style back in 1996?

Joel Gion: Yeah, I would have to and Matt Hollywood or Dean Taylor, Brian Glaze and anyone else who was around at the time would say the same thing. I certainly didn’t introduce that kind of music to Anton in any kind of way but when I came around I was a huge cheerleader for embracing that and turning people onto bands like the Small Faces and really pushing to embrace the Rolling Stones – Brian Jones kind of imagery.

I guess that you could say it all naturally happened at once, at least I better say that, but I was definitely pushing for things to go in that direction. I fell into a period where I basically fell off the face of the earth for a couple of months and when I came back Anton had At Her Satanic Majesty’s Second Request finished and he had just taken it to such a whole other level at that point. I was completely blown away by that record; it’s still my favourite; it’s a complete psychedelic piece. Also, I hadn’t heard any of  it. When you are making albums, you hear tracks over and over again to the point where they lose some of their sparkle but I hadn’t heard any of it. Also, because of that, it might be my favourite album by the band. I was just blown away when Anton played me that.

DL: Do you recall the first time you heard or saw “Anemone” performed?

Joel Gion: Unfortunately, because of the same reason, I wasn’t around. Mara Keagle, who sings that song, joined the band right after I left on keyboard and played some tambourine and filled that part. I never got to play with the band when she was doing it. When I rejoined the band, that song wasn’t played for quite some time. It wasn’t really the standard and crowd favourite that it has become. I don’t even remember playing it until I rejoined the band after Dig! came out.

Mara Keagle w/ the BJM @ Desert Daze 2016. Photo: David Lacroix.

DL: 2017 marks half a century since the summer of love. What are your thoughts on music 50 years after 1967?

Joel Gion: Well, I dunno man, I don’t listen to a lot of new bands these days. Most of the music I listen to comes from the ‘60s and ‘70s, I think for a lot of people that is the case. There’s a huge vinyl resurgence going right now but its primary old vinyl. I like new music but for me, I dunno… I like the old stuff so I guess it is the summer of love for me; I guess the summer of love never ended.

Photos: Bev Davies,  David Lacroix. Artwork: Marie Ingouf. Interview: David Lacroix.

  BJM @ Austin Psych Fest 2014. Photo: David Lacroix.

A Love That's Sound speaks with Joel Gion of the BJM about his forthcoming 2017 record. Joel Gion, best known for his work with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, is setting up to release his sophomore solo record later this year.