Shop Rat

Whether you fell down or got pinched....OUCH!!!!!

Two stories from a friend of ours. He was the shop manager at a local Ford dealership. He walked out into the shop one day and tapped the guy on the shoulder that was using a cutting torch and asked him what he was doing cutting the drive shaft in half. OOPS!!! The guy was supposed to be cutting the old exhaust pipe off. Guess his welder's helmet glass was a bit TOO dark. Same friend, Doy, goes over to his best friend's house to help him with a welding project. Harry, who has since passed away from cancer, missed what he was welding and ran the welder across two of Doy's fingers. That took quite a while to heal.

That is the absolute truth. The people in that area of W. Va. sound just like the people from Pa. so they even sound like Yankees. I don't think that if you put someone from Wheeling and someone from Logan in a room they could understand each other.

That is the absolute truth. And they even talk like Yankees up there. They sound just like the folks from Pa. I don't think that people from Wheeling and people from Logan can even understand each other.

West, W. Va. really is a mixed state of north and south. We came into being in 1863 after asking ourselves (as the recognized "Virginia" by the Union) if we could be a state. We gave ourselves permission and there you have it. Like most states our people are very different in speech patterns and way of living depending on where you are in the state. People from the south of W. Va. sound nothing like the people in the northern panhandle.

P.S. I am so sorry that I accidentally shortened your name. I thought it said Wes not West. Please accept my appologies.

Just some friendly "ragging" going on here. My husband was born and raised in "Joysee" but does not have the accent at all. His mom and sister did because they were raised closer to "the City". He lived in Va. for a while and loved it. He has lived most of his life here in W. Va. after following his job here with what was Union Carbide. So he is a southerner in his heart. I was born and raised here. ....How can I say "is" without seeing a recent photo??? All I had to go on was the photo in the magazine.

I know that.

About once a year at Kil-Kare Speedway near Xenia, Ohio they bring vintage racecars in and run them around the track in a mock race. And kids love the Legends cars. They all think they can drive it because it is so small. Then we let them sit in the seat, which for Bill is flush to the floor for all the headroom he can get, and they are looking at the dash. He has raced with a kid named Jesse Smith that is about thirteen now but very tiny. They built a special aluminum box to put his seat up on and put in special pedals. Jesse was last year's "Young Lion" Champion. He competes with adults and wins.

It is expensive but not as much as some. Here is a photo of one bad wreck that he had. And yes, the payouts are small. Sometimes it only covers his pit pass. But like any hobby it is the friends we have made that keep us going back. Now you know why he has so many auto related tools. Between the antiques and the "toy antique"......

Here he is racing at Lonesome Pine Speedway in Coeburn, Va. No he is not leading but the photo makes it look like he is. One of the main attractions to us was that all of the cars are fashioned after antique cars that were among the first to become race cars. The guy that is the dealer for them in Bristol, TN also deals in restoring and selling antique cars of all kinds. His dealership is called Rumbles Auto Sales.

It worked. Thanks Steve for letting me know how to post photos.

This is a first attempt to post a photo. So it may or may not work. If it does then this is Bill with our Legends racecar. It is modeled after a 1937 Ford Flat-back Sedan.

Finally got to read the new magazine. I do like the new size. It is easier to hold and read. The oblong size was a pain in that regard. The color photos are very nice and sure beat the black and white ones. After folks spend what they do on their cars it is nice to see them "in living color". And folks that did not know "Bookreader" can see her in one of the photos about the library roof fund drive. As well as Librarian Kim Miller. Wes sure was a cutie when he was about five or six in the photo sitting on the running board of his dad's car. Good job to everyone that helped with the new format of the magazine.

Oh course I know that. I was twelve before I found out they were two words. I just thought I would behave and not put a bad word on here that the small fry might see.

Glad to hear there was no road-kill but sorry you still don't have your magazine. I bet those lousy yankees mail them out to the deep south Rebels last.

Way too funny.

Have you checked the roadside to make sure the 'possum that was bringing yours didn't become road-kill?

We did!! Just got a glance of it as Bill flipped through it. His comment was, "So this is the new magazine. Looks nice. Now we will see if it is better and makes people want to read it more." I will let you know what we each think of it. Nice photo of your ring?

My husband swears by a mix of old gasoline and oil mixed together. He says it works better than anything he has ever found. And he had to loosen every piston in a 1939 Dogdge engine after it had been "coked" and then sat for several years. He also found a straight tree limb the exact size of the piston and cleaned all the bark off of it. Then he sanded and smoothed it up and made sure that the end that would come in contact with the piston was level as well as smooth to avoid pressure points. He let the gas/oil mix sit in chamber for a few days. Then each piston got the wood put on it and gently tapped until there was even the smallest amount of movement. Then they sat a day or two more to let the mix crawl into the new area. He finally got all of them out with damage to only one. And that, by his own admission, was his fault. He should have let it sit another day and instead he gave it an extra "whack" and broke it. The wood idea came from a friend that works on Model T's and has for most of his life and knows lots of tricks on how to do stuff with cars.

Correct. They changed the number from 851 to 852 on the grill.

My step-son saw it trying to thumb a ride with him in his truck coming back from Mass. But he was hauling a trailer commercially and isn't allowed to pick up hitch hikers. So it may be awhile.

In jumping horses over fences we call something like this "raise it until they crash the bar", to find out how high they can jump. The AACA may just find out what the breaking point is of having people to show up to judge. I think they want to improve the quality of the judges, but by continuing to add to the requirements many who were on the fence anyway are going to drop out of the program. They can't continue to make it harder and harder on the ones that do show up. Sooner or later they will "crash the bar".

All you had to do was flip over the right rock. Hopefully "logic will be tolerated" and people at the top will see the need to help the younger and still working judges. I was lucky, by the time I got into this wonderful part of the hobby Bill and I both had enough vacation time for judges schools not to be a problem. And at first they were not required, but were limited to one per year that credit could be gotten for. I understand that we want well trained judges out there on the field. Bill and I go to the regular class and a CJE every year. Sometimes we even go to an extra CJE even though we don't get credit for it, just to gain extra information. But the younger judges just don't have that much vacation to spare.

Christopher is the one that I had read about. Thanks for the information on the others.