I done some construction inspection for TARGET stores. You would love them. They have had it with plans that have too many dimensions on them---when they make a change, there are too many places where they have to change that dimension, and all the others that would now conflict. So they dimension everything only ONCE in the drawing set. You may have to search for it, bit the dimension you need is somewhere in the 30-40 sheet set of drawings. But when they revise the location of a wall by 6 inches, they only change the dimension; not the drawing.

Very intelligent on their part, IMO.

__________________
1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

in high school I had the wires wrong on a chevrolet starter, I cranked it and the starter did not disengage. my mom didnt bat and eye and said "you turned the key to hard"

__________________

1982 300CD Turbo (Otis, "ups & downs") parts for sale
2003 TJ with Hemi (to go anywhere, quickly) sold
2001 Excursion Powerstroke (to go dependably)
1970 Mustang 428SCJ (to go fast)
1962 Corvette LS1 (to go in style)
2001 Schwinn Grape Krate 10spd (if all else fails)

My wintertime favorites:

1. The guy who starts his car in 20 degree weather and immediately revs it to 4,000 RPM to hasten the performance of the windshield deicer. Only the most anal of weaklings carry a windshield scraper in their car.

2. Stuck in a snow rut in your unshoveled driveway? Here's the solution:

A. Place transmission in Drive and press that pedal down! A cold drivetrain is essential for best performance. The speedometer should be indicating at least 65 during this procedure.

B. Grind little rubber bits off of those Chinese WalMart all-season tires as you spin them through the snow and down to the pavement. Love seeing those black flecks on the snow.

C. As quickly as your cat-like reflexes allow, flick the shift lever from Drive to Reverse, letting the drivetrain feel the shock of a forward rotating tire against a now rearward-rotating transmission.

Bonus points for the above if the car has a ton of well-packed snow under the frame, neatly immobilizing it until spring thaw...

Had friends with teenage boys visit recently.

With the added company, the hot water was probably limited by the time the boys got to the shower.

Apparently in an effort to extract more hot water. one of them twisted the faucet lever beyond the limits of the housing, effectively wrenching it 180-degrees from the normal orientation!

Fortunately, I am in the middle of doing a repair on the same faucet, so I didn't tighten the set screw, otherwise, the valve would have been snapped off!

__________________
2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

Boy, does THAT bring back memories!!!
I worked in a transmission repair shop back in the '80s. Good shop--good reputation--lots of word-of-mouth referrals. We also honored our warranty.
After one large snow fall the towing service dropped off a customer's car for repair. he had just had the transmission repaired, and now, for no reason, it wouldn't work. He categorically denied even having tried to drive in the recent snow until we got it up on the lift and saw that the treads on the snow tires were MELTED.

__________________
1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Generally the bloke who pushes everyone else out the way to have a look at the problem - and then gets his fingers caught in the cooling fan...

__________________
1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

My neighbor, changing a light bulb is pushing his technical abilities.

Normal maintenance, whats that ???

Lost one mower no oil, I need to check the oil ??

Current one (bought new) went 4 years before he had it serviced.

His cars suffer the same basic schedule, when it breaks get it fixed.

__________________
KLK, MCSE

1990 500SL

I was always taught to respect my elders.
I don't have to respect too many people anymore.

My brother is driving my mother's car down a portion of an interstate which threads through an urban area and features at least one exit ramp per mile. Engine stops running. Car rolls to a stop on a narrow shoulder and Bro calls the very low-priced version of AAA, which is...me.

Bro: "Can you pick me up at XXXXX? The Celebrity stalled on Interstate XX and it won't start."

Born to be used: "(sigh) Yea, I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Pick bro up and drive to the scene of the crime. On the way, I ask a few questions - Did it run out of gas, did you notice any strange noises or behavior, etc. I receive negative responses to all queries. It's a puzzlement.

Now we're at the car. Interstate traffic is picking up nicely, and getting out of my car and behind the wheel of the Chevy is akin to running the bulls in Pamploma. I turn the ignition key to the "run" position, showing about a half-tank of fuel. I twist the key to "start" and am treated to a single click and a high-pitched whine - the engine is not turning over. I pop the hood and tell Einstein to get behind the wheel and hit the starter. Same noise, and zero rotation of any of the accessory pulleys. Battery seems strong, and I'm stumped. Bro gets out of the car and joins me underhood. Again, I ask if he noticed anything odd.

Bro: "Well, the oil light came on a few minutes before the engine stalled..."

Rapidly Becoming Pissed: "Did the light stay on?"

Bro: "Yup."

I place my hands up in the surrender position, which allows the hood to slam shut, and play Toro with a Kenworth on my way back to my car. Now the real AAA is called and the carcass is dragged to our mechanic. The car is shoved onto a lift, an inspection plate is pulled from the transaxle area, and the mechanic pushes the end of a crowbar against the teeth of the flywheel to try to rotate the crank. No mas. An autopsy indicated that the oil pump failed, and one long block later, the Chevy was back on the road. My brother further divulged that the engine started to get very loud and ticky after the oil light came on but that he was sure that he was going to be able to drive it the remaining ten miles to the family driveway...

You got an 800 number?

__________________
Jim

Forget it - I've wised up and now overcharge...

That reminds me of a technician I had working for me a few years ago. The job he was on was wrapping up, and I needed him to go to cover another site. He said he couldn't go because his car was out of oil. I asked how he knew that, and he responded, " It was making the same noise it always does whenever I run it out of oil"!!

__________________
1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

For clarity purposes, I'll explain it as such...I'm an old school tool and die maker. I use manual machines to produce parts as needed for my projects, mainly because my employer is too cheap to buy newer machines. Our machines were state of the art in 1980...LOL

Anyway, when running holes spreads, I work off of one X,Y datum, or "0", if you will. The prints we are given, quite often have holes dimensioned from different surfaces. Holes on the left side of the part are dimensioned from the left edge, and the right side from the right edge, instead of having a corner as the datum. To produce it as dimensioned would add to the time to produce the part, because you would have to zero your read out a multitude of times.

Dimensioning it from one edge means you have one starting point, and all numbers come from that one point.

This is why I request part prints and such to come to me on a disk...I'll take a few minutes to re-dimension it in such a way that it's faster to produce. Other people don't care to think that far ahead in advance to find an easier way, and IMHO, take too long on the part.

Perhaps it's due to my years of experience in management and design that I try to find the easiest and best way to draw and dimension the part, because I know the information that the tool maker needs to produce the part.

I just call it common sense...do your job in such a way that the next guy down the line in the process can't make a mistake.

__________________
1987 560SL
85,000 miles

well, there was my rock star wannabe co-worker, who told me that the shop-vac was "broken", because it was blowing out air?

and then said we had to turn the "water main" off, to change out a toilet. (how can you be 40 years old and not know what a shutoff is?)

and my israeli friend, who believes that copper pipe and galvanized pipe are easily connected - dielectric unions are a big scam - yet wondered why all his water pipes were corroded and leaking?

__________________
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

My father is a highly educated, well spoken gentleman; unfortunatly mechanically declined. I once drove 60 miles round trip to repair his mower........Yes it was out of gas.

I have a friend who should have his meager tool selection confiscated. He "gears up" for his automotive repairs with a pint of Johnny Walker. I cant begin to enumerate the amount of **** he has utterly destroyed.

How about the folks who get in the cold car during wintertime and immediately crank the fan to "high" (assuming that will somehow make the air hotter faster)? Yeah...

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)