Digger914

What a way to build a multi generational living link, I think this is a great idea and I bet your grandson will too. Was your son ready to act on the offer, or did he need to check with the wife?

Click on this link. Nobody on this site knows more about keeping a rapier running than Bernie does.

There is a single inline vacuum check between the engine and the reservoir that holds the vacuum for the ac eatc, 9 times out of 10 it's the cause. After that check for leaky vacuum valves, the diaphragms do go bad with time and the plastic vacuum tanks will also crack with time so now you're looking for a bad line, or tank, or solenoid.

Sounds like the vacuum check valve and I'm guessing that today it would be about an $8 part if you buy it with the Dorman part number and probably $50 if you buy it specifically for the car. . Passenger side of the engine near the firewall, there are a couple of these within a foot of each other so you have a 50 - 50 chance of grabbing the right one the first time. It's a 1/4" in and 1/4" out vacuum check valve if you're the first one working on this. The Dorman check valves that you find hanging in the help section are usually 1/4" 1/8" which can be made to work and if you find one of those you know which one you need to replace.

A few years ago I bought the quick jack and it's as sturdy as all get out, but you still need to be spot on with your lift points and don't trust everything that looks good, especially in rust country. I have my jack stands that I still place under the car for extra safety when I go underneath and I always give the car a good wiggle as soon as all tires are off the floor. The one thing that I can mention about using the quick jack that isn't mentioned in the operating instructions, is to place your car and especially your SUV in neutral before lifting. The quick jack isn't a straight up lift and your locked wheels can slide the jack and can also change your your support points while lifting. I've never dropped a car, but I was in the shop the day the hoist cable broke while lifting, before it passed the first safety catch. It made quite an impression, both literally and figuratively.

For me, having an old car is only fun if you can drive it and MG 2001 was the first and the only serious show I've entered a car in. Adding an electric fan must be a universal add for old cars and modern traffic. I did something similar for my MG, good for traffic, not good for competitive shows, but neither was painting the engine compartment of a red car black so the red engine stood out. I've also used the same angle iron on more than one old car, but I always paint it to color match or black. I like what you did with the exhaust and the coil and I'm wondering about how you balance the twin SU's, after all your years with this car, have you developed a quick and easy way to keep them in tune?

Bubble flaring kits aren't all that expensive and handy to have in the shop. If you have the original nut, cut the line to get your wrong fitting out of the way, and hand it over to anyone who has the tool to bubble and double flair. If you're not a thousand miles away swing by and I'll do it for you. I'm in Minneapolis MN.

A well done total rebuild should be as good, maybe even better than new. Guess you're going to have to stick around for another decade of mountain climbing cross country driving to make sure your re builder does quality work.

I got all my get the car and truck off the ground, put the tires back on practice on my dad's car lot.

It looks worse than it is and on the bright side you're not replacing all 4 tires and rims. With a little practice this becomes as easy as Joe's description and if you have big "vintage" steel drive on ramps handy, you can slide them in under the frame before you lower the side that now has tires and it should give you enough room to get your floor jack in under the car to lift the low side. As the car is sitting on concrete and not blacktop it will skid some when you lift to remove the jack stands and it could skid again, so don't even think about reaching under the car, use a long stick to push your ramps, or blocks in place.

Garage sale, flee market, or online, there has been a required reporting amount for as long as I can remember and with income there is usually some sort of deduction expense. Tax avoidance is your right, tax evasion is a felony. Claim every dollar you make and take every write off you can.

When you're lucky, your car will start, it will get you where you want to go and will it get you home?. New or old, in my half winter, half summer part of the world, it's a crap-shoot every time you turn the key in the car. My roadster sits in storage all winter and when spring comes there is always an unexpected repair, usually minor, but always something unexpected that needs to be done. At -28 Celsius a car can do all sorts of odd and unexpected things and we just had some of the worst winter weather here in years and though I make sure my daily driver is ready for winter, in first 3 days of harsh winter weather I had 3 different problems to repair. Happy New Year Bernie and for you and yours, may 2023 be a car lucky year.

To keep this posting car related while mentioning how Covid, China's claim to Taiwan and Russia going into Ukraine affect supply chain and world trade, I refer all to this link explaining why automakers are starting to dumb down new cars and using knobs and real push buttons. https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2021/05/analog-revenge-chip-shortage-forcing-automakers-to-ditch-tech/ But it's not just new cars that are getting dumber, smart kids are giving up their smartphones and buying dumb ones. And while sales figures are hard to come by, one report said that global purchases of dumbphones were due to hit one billion units last year, up from 400 million in 2019. This compares to worldwide sales of 1.4 billion smart phones last year, following a 12.5% decline in 2020. https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-04-13-dumbphone-sales-soar-dump-smartphones-social-media.html

Nothing proves that you are who you say you are better than that dollar store pay as you go disposable cell phone.

I like your new little welder, I have a gas, stick & flux core wire, each has its own best use and my favorite welding tool is my auto dimming hood. A two sparking box would be a nice space saver, but every few years I need to fix a busted aluminum trailer and these little buzz boxes are OK for tacking with aluminum stick, but they don't have the duty cycle to flow a bead.

A few years back I bought a Saab with the worlds most irritating infotainment system, I didn't really want that stupid super smart radio, but I knew I would need that glitz to sell it. Thought I could slip in a normal radio and put the factory unit back in when I was done with the car, but the car won't run without factory radio installed. Really irritating piece of technology, so I turned it off and didn't use it, but the screen was a perfect surface for post it notes.

No need to rush into these things,the wash can always wait, but for the sake of peace with the wife you should probably give it a good vacuum.

From self cleaning ovens to self adjusting brakes, self always means that yourself is eventually and always somehow involved.

Steam is amazing and it also burns fast and deep, so using steam does require a certain amount of common sense in how you dress when you clean. Especially important when using a commercial grade steamer. Home size units don't have the power to cook you while you clean, but even a home steamer can give you a nasty burn, so when you clean the belly of your car, don't lay under where you clean. The bigger the steamer the faster it will clean, steam will get ground in grease out of carpet, lift all the crud out hardwood floor and turn 30 years of baked on engine oil. or half inch thick rock hard chassis grease into a gooey puddle on the garage floor. Even the two cup steamer I use to shape leather will clean all the grease off a locomotive, but with three minutes of working pressure per fill it could take a couple of years.

As much as I like the space of my 2.5 car heated detached garage for keeping fumes out of the house, I do miss having a heated tuck under garage. My answer to the kind of smell you're looking to avoid was a small hand carry steamer and if you have the storage space, I would recommend getting the biggest water capacity hand carry canister steamer with a long hose and brass brush cleaning attachment that you can find. The warm grease smell does hang around for a couple of days and now that I'm in a detached garage the warm grease smell really matter, but in the house 3 tablespoons of vinegar added per gallon of water does help to kill most of the smell.

When it comes to working without the proper safety equipment I plead lucky, but I've also been lucky enough to have my safety glasses on when wire wheel spits wire and when the brake clean splashes back Testing or not, fooling around with federally required emissions equipment is still a federal offence and the number of people who stand in front of a camera to record and broadcast the event never ceases to amaze me. Not that what they do is done, but that nobody bothers to catch them.

Winter is already here this year with 3" of snow today, 3" more predicted for tomorrow with -12.8 c for Thursday night low and a Friday predicted high of -11.1 c, so enjoy your balmy weather.

You're still taking on new projects and working under cars, maybe not too big a deal for you, but I'm 68 and to me it's inspirational. Sort of like the way you used old tins on the wall to keep things handy. I had only been using mine to keep things clean when not in use, but with just a small touch of inspiration I now use them to keep things handy like bags for the dust bin and clean rags in several locations.

Happy Birthday Bernie !

Looks good now and going to look even better when the seats and carpet are in the car.