flagmanruss

So much has changed... I sold the table top Napoleon barrel... scale cannon wheels are beyond my expertise & cost more than the barrel to have built. My previous bronze cannon sold almost instantly... because I upgraded to a bigger bronze cannon... with 1.75" bore (golf ball) http://s122.photobucket.com/user/fleeting_cat/media/MVI_1949.mp4.html 600 grains of cannon black powder... proved to be just a starting load. I'm firing much more now. This is going to be more costly!! I'm keeping the 3/4" bore half scale replica of the Crown Point (NY) breech loader... It's cheap & fun to shoot by comparison. Just 100 grain charges! but am in the process of purchasing the full scale gun in 1.5" bore. The (SOLD) swivel cannon (REAR) with another project cannon... a steel breach loader... later period... in 1.75"

I don't know anything about the 53 blocks beyond what I've read. However, all engines must go through hot/cold cycles. It just makes sense to me to gradually heart & cool the motors. I start my 55 block / 24 valve and busy myself with other things like seatbelts until I see the oil pressure stop climbing. Depending on the outside temperature... like extreme cold... I might wait another minute. Most of the time, I'm running empty. I treat the Cummins as I did gas engines in recent years, after I read that prolonged idling was bad for the engine. So what I do is drive easy until operating temp is reached. On shut down, I give a few minutes of idling for the turbo to wind down before shut down...Unless I'm towing. In that case I do warm up & cool down more. There is no way to escape hot/cold cycles except to park the truck & what fun is that?

Best of Luck!!

Where's the stacks? Staright pipe off each cylinder like radial aircraft engines?

I'm still running mine... I think they are chrome on plastic. Ought to be lots out there.

I've still got the OEM (yes, 12 year old) Michelin on mine. They say 'AT' but look more like highway, not aggressive at all. Yes the sticker charged for the upgrade larger tires. They run nice on the highway with the quad cab, long bed... I'm thinking of getting steel wheels & winter tires, something taller & narrower so I'm not pushing so much snow in front of the tires... go back to the Michelins for summer if there's enough rubber on them. I think they'll still be legal. Years ago, I pulled the Cooper ATs off my Ranger (2.2 natural, such a dog it woofed) when the tranny bit the dust... put them on the wife's Caravan (same size) where they wore like iron. I think well of the Coopers but don't know if the new are up to the old.

how did you turn off the heater core? Did you disconnect the hoses? I'm not familiar with the control... does it block coolant flow?

My Dad lost his as a young man. I never knew him with hair. The picts shortly after college show about 50% on top. I wonder if playing with microwaves fried the hair follicles. NONE of the men in the radar lab had live children during that period, so you know for sure what they did fry. They had no idea how dangerous that radiation was.

Your 01 should have the later computer. The story is that HEAT is what causes VP44 computer failure & the latest versions like ours has a larger heat sink inside. I've always wondered why there isn't a finned cover or the same for the case to aid cooling. Like you, I have very low miles.

My meter / service entrance is more than the 10 feet allowed by code from my main panel so I had to get a shut off below the meter. Long ago, I installed a Main Panel surge protector on the main buss with the outside switch off. It looks like a epoxie sealed Bell Box with LEDs in the cover. I have the main panel surge protector backed up with individual protectors for appliances & computers. This was after we fried a computer power supply, answering machine, phones. I found that it was coming in on the phone line, not power.

One of our friends survived a camp lightning strike with prompt medical attention... he was asleep in his tepee when it was hit. His camp nick name had been "Snap" (the term for a flint musket which fails to fire). Post lightning, his name was "Snap, Crackle & Pop!" His compadres performed CPR, he had a host of symptoms but only hearing damage has persisted. One Lucky dude (or unlucky depending on your point of view). My Uncle (current owner of the family dairy farm, my Grandfather bought this property in 1899) was concerned when the heifers did not come to the fence for feeding. He found all 7 of them dead under a lightning struck tree. It was a sizeable loss for the farm.

Hi Justin,I'm just down the road. I'm in Cov about daily.Russ

It's a dirty job but someone needs to do it. Mike, You may feel that you are not doing much but sitting & waiting but you doing that job frees someone else to be on the front lines. And you know your truck... I think you under estimate your contribution.I'm glad you are home. Job well done.

Agree IDIOTS!! Should have been ramp trucked to service. Drained water, fluids changed & at least the truck could be salvaged or parted out. Well, you don't want it now.Sorry the replacement is a piece of CRAP!

The solar is just a cheap dashboard maintainer... but irregardless of the engine or batteries, the TRUCK's draw ought to be similar (If who ever drives the truck last, remembers to plug it in.) It's worked fine for extended periods in the past. I really should drive the truck more but it's the effort of moving my stuff and the fact the AC is still out on the truck in this heat.

I had to replace my resistors & found them blocked my mouse nest materials more on the cirrus than the truck after I used SS pot scrubber (just SS steel wool) to keep mice out of the cowel drains & thus out of the heater. I thought the air intake screen must be damaged on the Cirrus... but stopped when I had the heater core replaced. The shop would not tell me what they found but must be around a hose or drain hose was damaged.

McInternet for a few days, cable man came out & replaced the box. All is right with the world. All of my surge protectors survived, the whole house panel protector, the cheap appliance protectors, (cable box, wireless router, all computers, TVs, Microwave, Refridge) (The MicroWave survived a hit when it was brand new but you have to remember how many seconds you punch in because a lot of the display is fried.) I lost a lot of phones & computer adaptors when we were on dial up... it would come in on the phone lines.

OK with lightning... just not in camp. Had one that was too close. Hit next tent to us. We've had poles & trees on our street hit. Hit our friend's well a couple of years ago... followed the water line back to their colonial farm house... opened the trench back up for them. i'm not going to tempt fate...

Resistor block sticks up into blower duct over passenger's foot well... wire to blower motor. Check for mouse debris which causes resistor to over heat by blocking cooling air flow to it. Resistors do 'just wear out' eventually, however.

I arrived home yesterday to a darkening cloud... I rushed into our entry. The thunder started... a dozen booms over 15 minutes. There was a loud & distinct snap, and a half second later a loud boom. All the GFI outlets in the house popped. And the cable box is dead. No phone or internet. I still have TV (and a back up antenna system). So I am typing this from Mc-Internet... Appointment Monday to get a new cable box.Russ

I'm packing water bottles in the car now... I always used to. I'm very susceptible because of the MS & many meds. back when I used to ride my horse in warm weather, I'd soak my T shirt in cold water & wring out & put on (GASP!!) but it kept me pretty cool. My female companions didn't dare to do that... I'd use my canteen to re-wet the shirt as it dried. I seem to have a bad rash beyond what I could see & some lumps which I don't understand. I am treating them & now seem to be improving. Any set back will be an instant dr visit. I'm home alone for a few days... so I can use fans to air dry & no one the wiser.

With my MS, this heat is just trashing me. Wednesday, I was so wiped out... guess it wore me down. I already have trouble walking but could barely get 1 foot in front of the other. Even though the Cirrus has AC, it heated up at each stop. I only have AC down stairs so I retreated down to the (walkout) basement. Soon after I started shivering (temp was 72). I was too weak to get the supper Sheila had left. I called her & she was nearly home. My temp was 102 at that point... so only "Heat Exhaustion' since heat stroke begins at 105. To tell the truth, if my waking was the indicator, I was in trouble before I went out. I vegged out yesterday. Took it easy most of today. When I went to go out, my car was scorching in the full Sun. I reached in & started it up. Then I took my garden hose, & started hosing down the sheet metal, finally getting to the glass after it had cooled down. It worked as the car was pretty bearable & the AC was able to catch up quickly.So I have some heat / pressure sores going on... nasty, painful... I don't see them going away so planning a doctor's visit for Monday...

In the aftermath of the acquittal of George Zimmerman, Eric Holder, Al Sharpton and Ben Jealous of the NAACP are calling on the black community to rise up in national protest. Yet they know — and Barack Obama, whose silence speaks volumes, knows — nothing is going to happen. "Stand-Your-Ground" laws in Florida and other states are not going to be repealed. George Zimmerman is not going to be prosecuted for a federal "hate crime" in the death of Trayvon Martin. The result of all this ginned-up rage that has produced vandalism and violence is simply going to be an ever-deepening racial divide. Consider the matter of crime and fear of crime. From listening to cable channels and hearing Holder, Sharpton, Jealous and others, one would think the great threat to black children today emanates from white vigilantes and white cops. Hence, every black father must have a "conversation" with his son, warning him not to resist or run if pulled over or hassled by a cop. Make the wrong move, son, and you may be dead is the implication. But is this the reality in Black America? When Holder delivered his 2009 "nation-of-cowards" speech blaming racism for racial separation, Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald suggested that our attorney general study his crime statistics. In New York from January to June 2008, 83 percent of all gun assailants were black, according to witnesses and victims, though blacks were only 24 percent of the population. Blacks and Hispanics together accounted for 98 percent of all gun assailants. Forty-nine of every 50 muggings and murders in the Big Apple were the work of black or Hispanic criminals. New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly confirms Mac Donald's facts. Blacks and Hispanics commit 96 percent of all crimes in the city, he says, but only 85 percent of the stop-and-frisks are of blacks and Hispanics. And these may involve the kind of pat-downs all of us have had at the airport. Is stop-and-frisk the work of racist cops in New York, where the crime rate has been driven down to levels unseen in decades? According to Kelly, a majority of his police force, which he has been able to cut from 41,000 officers to 35,000, is now made up of minorities. But blacks are also, per capita, the principal victims of crime. Would black fathers prefer their sons to grow up in Chicago, rather than low-crime New York City, with its stop-and-frisk policy? Fernando Mateo, head of the New York taxicab union, urges his drivers to profile blacks and Hispanics for their own safety: "The God's honest truth is that 99 percent of the people that are robbing, stealing, killing these drivers are blacks and Hispanics." Mateo is what The New York Times would describe as "a black Hispanic" Yet he may be closer to the 'hood than Holder, who says he was stopped by police when running to a movie — in Georgetown. Which raises a relevant question. Georgetown is an elitist enclave of a national capital that has been ruled by black mayors for half a century. It's never had a white mayor. Is Holder saying we've got racist cops in the district where Obama carried 86 percent of the white vote and 97 percent of the black vote? And his son should fear the white cops in Washington, D.C.? What about interracial crime, white-on-black attacks and the reverse? After researching the FBI numbers for "Suicide of a Superpower," this writer concluded: "An analysis of 'single offender victimization figures' from the FBI for 2007 finds blacks committed 433,934 crimes against whites, eight times the 55,685 whites committed against blacks. Interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white — with 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans in 2007. Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study." Though blacks are outnumbered 5-to-1 in the population by whites, they commit eight times as many crimes against whites as the reverse. By those 2007 numbers, a black male was 40 times as likely to assault a white person as the reverse. If interracial crime is the ugliest manifestation of racism, what does this tell us about where racism really resides — in America? And if the FBI stats for 2007 represent an average year since the Tawana Brawley rape-hoax of 1987, over one-third of a million white women have been sexually assaulted by black males since 1987 — with no visible protest from the civil rights leadership. Today, 73 percent of all black kids are born out of wedlock. Growing up, these kids drop out, use drugs, are unemployed, commit crimes and are incarcerated at many times the rate of Asians and whites — or Hispanics, who are taking the jobs that used to go to young black Americans. Are white vigilantes or white cops really Black America's problem? Obama seems not to think so. The Rev. Sharpton notwithstanding, he is touting Ray Kelly as a possible chief of homeland security. Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?" To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM - - - Updated - - - I need to separate my own opinion here. The real problem is Gangs, Drugs & a black culture which promotes & glorifies wanna-be gangstas. When the self appointed black leaders push for blacks to get an education, go to work, earn their pay... I believe the problem will solve itself. Part of the problem... as the witness Jeantel could barely make herself understood... is a culture of ghetto speak which blocks any person from a good job. My opinion is the African American culture (and my black African s-i-l shares nothing besides skin color with African Americans) is the biggest obstacle to a multi-cultural America.

Years ago, I had my gooseneck horse trailer in tow. I came on a scale and a sign that said >> ALL TRUCKS >> So I dutifully pulled in. They quickly told me to "Get Lost". Since then, I have presumed they only apply to commercial trucks. I've gone past a few where there was an officer directing trucks in. I am prepared to pull in if so directed but it hasn't happened yet. I'm supposing it depends on the state in question.Even with crazy tongue weight, I'm not on the overloads. Maybe it's the WD hitch.

Absolutely. Her husband is a very hard working gentleman.