Digger914

How long before the Rapier comes home?

I knew about the WW1 origin, but it's not the only way to earn the Digger name. It's also a name for people in the mortuary service and because I know the secret of the shovel, a bad shoulder doesn't stop me from digging with a shovel, but swinging a pick hurts. I didn't know about the tar brush. My grandpa had a small farm and when I was little he had a small flock of sheep. Every year a man come to do the sheering and I was too small to be in the shed, so I could almost see the big wooly's flipped off their feet and a minute later they were clean.

I didn't know this.

I have a laptop in a docking station so I do have a larger display, but not as big as your engine compartment so I'm guess that the brass colored bolt behind the forward dash pot brass colored nut is the tap for the oil pressure gauge. Not guessing at the fuel shut off valve, just remembering when those things were made to last and wondering if your electric fan was factory?

Done this myself more than once and I've also used 5min epoxy, it's a good fix for cracks on smooth wheels. When texture is important, I make a wax mold from a good section of wheel and pour in fiberglass resin. The guy that showed me how to do this had such a good eye for color he could mix it in the resin and make a virtually invisible repair. He did it for a living, I do it to save money and I always end up painting the whole wheel.

The time to do that was 40 years ago when the people who said come and visit were still alive, but time and money were against me. Today I have time and money, but without the extended family to introduce me to the extended family of my generation, I'd be a stranger knocking on doors. My brother gave that a try, when he was stationed in Japan. He took a hop to Sydney and started looking up old addresses. He didn't find any family, but he did find a nice pub.

Bernie, I follow your postings because I enjoy them, sometimes I'm inspired by what you do and truly appreciate them. I had two really great, Great Aunts, one from Tasmania, the other from New Zealand and when that family visited it was an event. I have a life size picture of a Kuala hanging on my office wall and sometimes I just like looking at the pictures and remembering.

Not everyone includes physical location in their profile, so it's hard to tell how many Aussies and Kiwis are active here, but I do know from his tech help question about Buick wiring, that there is a new Aussie in the last couple of months. His profile didn't say he was from down under, but his question about wiring was for converting red to amber turn signals to comply with Australia law.

Beaters are better, but: Do you respect a guy that so enjoys the challenges of winter driving that he will take on snow drifts and slippery winter rush hour traffic with a rear wheel drive and drum brakes? Or, do you yank him out of winter traffic and give him a nice warm 72 hour psych hold?

If you weren't a half a world away I would be glad to swing by and give you a hand. Volt meters are a great tool, but I have found that they can lead you down the rabbit hole when chasing thing on old cars, so my first tool is the simple light bulb tester. The strands of stranded wire can be 99% broken and volt meter will tell you that you have proper voltage, but it won't tell you if your wire can carry enough current to work a single light bulb and stranded wires eventually break where they flex. Best help I can give you from here is tell you how many problems can be spotted by a good visual inspection of wire termination points and pinching either side of a wire near its flex point and giving it a gentle tug. If the wire pulls free from its connector, or the insulation stretches, the wire is broken you've found your problem. Hope this helps.

Depending on how it shudders, it could just be some carbon build up.

There but for the grace of God. A tree branch falling into an open car while driving is a rare and totally unexpected occurrence. Also sorry to to hear that your car had trouble and was damaged. On the bright side if the Rapier had been running properly it could have been your car and glad to hear that you and Helen are home safely.

There was a time when every American service man that took his US made car to Japan faced this same problem. The easy way to do this is get the https://www.curtmfg.com/towing-electrical/taillight-converters/3-to-2-wire-taillight-converter a variable timing digital flasher and put amber bulbs in your clear reverse light locations. You can use small LED projector lights in the lower section of the of the rear bumper for reverse lighting. You will need to cut a couple of wires and add some wire, but the premade circuit is so much easier that reinventing the entire wheel. Don't connect the stop wire to the converter and do bring the third light stop down to the rear tail lights.

Good to hear that you, the Rapier and your wife!!!, are out and about. Stay healthy and don't forget that the car isn't the only thing that needs a pint every now and then.

My idea of basket case is a car that comes with almost all the parts and needs a considerable amount or reassembly. Your idea of basket case is more on the line of resurrection than restoration.

I don't know about all the states, but here in the land of 10,000 lakes and because two stroke outboards don't like ethanol, there are at least 10,000 gas stations that sell ethanol free premium for less than a dollar more than the treated premium. You don't see it as often at the freeway stations, but if you can plan your gas stops to lake/resort exits, ethanol free is easy to find and a lot less than $24 a gallon.

After you get past the language barrier where the hood is the bonnet, the top is the hood and you discover that the bent ring spanner that you can't special order from Snap-On is just an offset box end wrench, working on the MGB is almost easy. Maybe not as easy as it was before Radio Shack went away, but the internet still makes finding electrical parts easier than rebuilding melted switches. For years MGB's came with twin SU's which were good and sporty, but meeting US emissions forced the change to the single Zenith which tended to get sticky inside. The simplest, almost too simple first step to fixing MGB single bucket side draft carb problems is pull the top and clean the sticky off the innards. 25 years ago replacement Zeniths were hard to find and this car is almost 50 years old. Replacing a flaky side draft with a working down draft was a non EPA authorized repair and before an old MG racer showed me how to rebuild a Zenith, I was considering the intake manifold and carb replacement option. Buick35 sees a single down draft Weber when he's looking under the hood / bonnet of his MGB and that negates most of my MGB experience, but I can suggest fresh gas with some Seafoam in the tank and down the carb followed by a good drive before taking things apart looking for bigger problems.

It's amazing how much better you can feel after taking your roadster out for a fun run. Last year I didn't drive my little white roadster often enough, or far enough to run through a full tank of gas. Yesterday I took my roadster out for only the second time this year and it was rejuvenating. There is something about driving an open car on the open road that feels so good that it has to be good for the heart.

I've driven a hearse and this doesn't look like a hearse to me.

Just about anyone who really wants to can learn how to do passable auto upholstery work, but the odds of being borne with the knowledge and skills to do even a passable full restoration job are beyond astronomical. I have seen this work done by people who know how to do it and I've even been taught a few tricks of the trade which have saved me a ton of money over the years. I have a sewing machine and scissors, I can cut from a pattern and replace a bad panel, but my sewing machine has plastic gears so any leather seat seam I repair is hand sewn and for years I have purchased "kits" when available or taken my big work to the pros. A couple of weeks ago I had to buy supplies from amazon and do some hand work that I would rather have had machine sewn. The shop that I had used for years is gone, finding a new trimmer isn't easy, the old pros are a dying breed, both figuratively and literally. Good upholstery repair has always been pricey and that's why grandma made slip covers for worn chairs. Grandmas been gone for years and slipcovers are such a lost art that people under 40 might need to Google the word, but sewing is still sewing, fitting is still fitting and perseverance is the most important part of getting any job done.

Nothing made by man is perfect and things can happen when stretching upholstery, before you go spending a couple of grand for new skins find out if repair materials are available. Seams can split, fabric can tear and you can always slice your hand on a sharp edge and matching dye can be important because cleaning blood can pull color from your nice new covers. I've gotten a couple of pre-made cover sets with varied degrees of satisfaction and no matter how good it looks, you don't know what you got until you've had it for a while. Spending 10 to 20% more than the lowest price for the identical product from a supplier that takes care of problems could prevent the kind of problem that I had with a company named auto seat replacement. Asking about potential suppliers here is better than reading online reviews. Also learning a bit about auto upholstery will help you overcome most of the small problems that always seem to come with the job.

Happy Easter Bernie, You're not the only one struggling to make a start after breakfast. Today I can finally open the big barn doors and see my two seat roadster. Up here on the north end of Earth it was about the same morning temp here as it was down there, of course as the sun came up it got about 15 degrees warmer and as the snow melts I see all the branches that came down during the April 1st ice storm and blizzard. By Wednesday the predicted high temp is supposed another 20 degrees warmer and that should finish melting the 5 foot high snow drift that is keeping my car in the barn. It might not sound like an Easter thing to do, but not needing to find a place to toss the snow that's blocking the doors I can get to my chainsaw and splitting maul. Before I do any chores I'm putting the new license (number) plates on the car, giving it a good looking over and starting the engine. Some things are more important than chores.

Everybody eventually talks to themselves about something, doing it where you could easily be seen and herd by others was the sign. That was up until a few years ago when the Bluetooth earbud started connecting people to their cell phones. Before the Bluetooth connection, people walking down the street yelling obscenities into the air were obviously over the edge, today they are just crass and inconsiderate.

Was expecting to hear that the Rapier came home today. Good thing you still have good weather down under and another couple of weeks shouldn't keep you from getting some good driving in this season.