My Little White Truck

I've had this little Lego truck for a very, very long time. It has travelled decades and continents, and still bears red dirt from Brazil. I'm sure I added lasers and stuff at some point, but I removed them pretty quickly. Even at a young age, I thought it was perfect as-is. The only modification that remained is the backrest I added for the driver.

That driver is the pilot from an airplane I used to have, but upgraded with a helmet and air tank from one of my later space sets after the pilot hat got lost—probably in a heat vent somewhere.

I keep this guy in my office. It's my favorite thing ever.

Cheap, easy guitar hangers from a hardware store

I didn't want to spend $30 on guitar hangers for my three guitars, so I sought a solution on a recent trip to Lowe's to buy miscellaneous home improvement junk with my fiancee. I figured I'd find something suitable among the bike hooks, and I did. I got these hooks for $10/ pair. I'm sure you could find cheaper ones if you look a bit. They install as easily as a dedicated guitar hook: just two screws and you're done. If you don't like how long these are, you can get ambitious and pull off the rubber sleeve, cut down the arms with a hacksaw to the length you want, bend them into shape with pliers and a vise, and reinstall the sleeves.

I installed these guys with 1-inch drywall screws, which fit correctly into the holes and match the hook's color. For my headless Hohner (essentially a Steinberger with different pickups), I hung the hook lower on the wall. Finding a stud shouldn't really be necessary unless your guitar is exceptionally heavy.

Parts-Bin Aston Martins

Not only is the 1989-2000 Aston Martin Virage an ugly car, but apparently they also stole the steering wheel from my parents' 1992 Ford Aerostar. 

Aston Martin Virage interior

Standard Ford steering wheel from the '90s (Crown Vic pictured)

Notice the placement of the horn buttons, and the Aston logo in the exact location of the Ford logo. The Aston's interior wouldn't be so hideous were it not for that glaring black contrast of a steering wheel and its cheap, plastic turn signal stalk.

The Virage hit the market not long after Ford took a stake in the brand. This was the time when they started picking up premium brands like Land Rover, Volvo, and, as you can see, Aston Martin. I don't know their exact business strategy in doing that, but we can clearly see it involved some parts-bin cost reduction strategies. 

I can understand sharing components that are out of sight like, say, a steering rack, wheel hubs, differentials. But a steering wheel? That so clearly diminishes the driving experience, and its poor quality is apparent the moment the customer plops into the seat. Not what you want when you're considering shelling out 200 grand. Maybe that's why they didn't sell many of these. Hey, that makes them rare and valuable! 

Today, Ford doesn't own as much of the brand, and Virages are worth about $35,000. Which means you can still buy a nicer Ford Fusion—with a better steering wheel—for less money.

Off Topic: Repairing Champion juicers

My fiancee manages a health food store, and they have for a long time been using Champion brand juicers. These things are basically 1/3-horsepower electric motors with a proprietary attachment. Recently the store upgraded to a crazy twin-screw type (it reminds me of a supercharger) because their Champions were having problems. One would hum, but not spin up. The other vibrated like an unbalanced clothes dryer. I suspected that these residential-grade units couldn't stand up to the heavy use of the store's cafe (Champion does sell a commercial-grade model), and that they had worn bearings. So I took them apart in our kitchen. Electric motors are simple.

By removing the four screws on the back cover, the front cover also comes off. The bearings lightly press into the front and rear covers, so removing them means the rotor (the middle part that spins) easily slides out of the stator coils. Once out, I could test the bearings. They wiggled a little when I tested them, so I decided to replace them. Thankfully, bearing part numbers are universal. I punched it into McMaster-Carr. They're less than six bucks apiece. I ordered a handful of these #6203 bearings.

On the model that wouldn't spin up, the bearings were worn enough that the rotor was rubbing against the stator. You can see the contact marks here.

The bearings are pressed to the rotor shaft, though, which meant a trip to the nearby Harbor Freight store for a cheap set of gear pullers.

Once they're off, the new bearings can be hammered into place. The bearings bottom onto a clip on the shaft.

It's easy to reassemble, but you must remember the orientation of the front and rear covers. They're marked on the back side. Putting it all back together meant our kitchen was no longer a horrible disaster. Zoe is very patient with my silly projects, and this one, thankfully, ended with two like-new juicers.

Top Gear: 50 Shades of Green

If you are a real racer you will probably say that British Racing Green (BRG) brings you bad luck. (Because it really does, but that's for another post.) I personally wouldn't mind racing a BRG car even if it meant I would quite probably die a horrible fiery death, but do so while looking simply fa-bu-lous.

When I was a kid my dad gave me a BRG 1:18 McLaren F1 and I LOVED the damn thing. It was so beautiful, such a classy color that caught all the right lines and reflected light on all the right curves. My silly friends that knew nothing about what's good had silver, black, and orange little McLaren F1s, but those cars just didn't look as pretty. It was such a potent shade of green that it made the McLaren F1 into one of my favorite cars of all time. And as a result, BRG remains as my favorite color ever, for anything. Yes, even spoons.

See, if I could paint my house Brunswick Green outside and British Racing Green inside (with some white walls here and there to contrast) I would die a happy man. But very dead, because I am sure my fiancee would chop off my head as an offering to the gods of common sense. 

Senna Series

Autobahn Country Club recently started a new competitive racing championship called Senna Series. The series just finished its first full year. What really attracts spectators and drivers to the growing lineups of rotary-powered formula racers is that drivers are required to race cars painted to resemble F1 machines from the 1980s and 1990s, like this "Lotus" painted to resemble the John Player Special, F1, followed on the grid by a Benneton B190 lookalike.

This one resembles a Williams FW-12.

Guess what this one is supposed to be?

The damn things seem to be a blast to drive, too! Enjoy a rather moist race in the cockpit of a McLaren MP4/4 quasi-replica.

A fast turnaround

Sometimes a project is a bad decision. In this particular case, I was convinced by a friend that this car was one helluva deal, and that I'd be stupid not to buy it. It's a rare 1979 Volvo 242. The last of the flat-nose coupes! I didn't know what that meant, but it sure sounded like he thought it was important! And R-Sport gauges, don't forget. Very trick.

I'm not exactly a guy who's owned a zillion cars, but I have had a good number. Most of them have been some sort of basic transportation that I've managed to spend some time on, but I've had the occasional fun toy and nightmare project, too. This is more along the lines of the latter. 

Short story: I bought, for $1000, this Volvo with a small-block Ford engine in it. And then I realized that this weaksauce, 165-horsepower 302 was a bad answer to any of my car questions. I could swap the drivetrain into a good wagon shell, but the engine's mated to an AOD automatic trans. A five-speed makes more sense, especially compared to this epitome of slushboxes. So this car had to go.

Problem is—and that was an especially infuriating problem, souring me on the whole car—the sucker wouldn't start. The foil-hat wearing survivalist loonie decided that a points ignition was better than an electronic one because, duh, EMPs. If the car gets hit by one, it can keep right on running! Well, if it runs. Also, points ignitions suck. They produce shitty spark and require regular maintenance. They're so shitty, in fact, that no one makes them for automotive use anymore. The guy used a Mallory dual-points setup for marine applications. And it worked like shit. Oh, and did I mention this guy's wiring job was a complete, unfused clusterfuck? Connections were awful and grounds were barely adequate. What a mess.

Pertronix and other companies make high-energy retrofits for lots of applications, but those cost a couple hundred bucks. I wanted to get this thing running for as cheap as possible so I could sell it. They sell these cheap ones on eBay for right around $50. They're imitations of the General Motors HEI design, so it's a coil and distributor all in one. Shit, a replacement coil at the local parts store is $35 bones alone, so this sounded like a screamin' deal. 

I ordered one up, and waited until my dad came to visit on Thanksgiving. We lined up all the important bits, took out the old unit, swapped in the new one, and fired it up. Boom, right on the first crank. Immediately. No hesitation, no sputtering, a good, solid runner. We couldn't find a timing mark on the crank pulley, so my dad adjusted the timing a bit by ear. That was good enough for me.

It sure did sound nice, though. Made me reconsider keeping the car. Briefly.

I posted a video on the internet of it running (to accompany my craigslist ad), and sold the car two days later. The new owner is going to yank the drivetrain and stick it in his 1970 Mercury Cougar. His Cougar has a bad cylinder head, and he's always wanted to put an AOD in it anyway. Perfect.

All in all, I lost about a hundred bucks, a bit of driveway space, and a bit of time with this car. Not too shabby a price to pay, in the end. And now I know what I really want: an XJ Jeep Cherokee. They make more power and similar torque to that 302, there's more aftermarket than I could possibly imagine, they're practical, durable, and available in a five-speed. Also: Have I mentioned I love that two-box shape? 

When I sold my old Mercedes 240D, I told myself I wouldn't buy another car that's older than I am. This Volvo only served to reinforce that notion.