Sunday Rant - 2514

[Date: June 22, 2014 at 11:58:13 PM PDT]

PN:

First Date

I took my motor home on a first trip out of town on the weekend. All the way to Lumby!!! Round trip approximately 65 kilometers. Didn’t break down. 60 mph is 1500 rpm. Drives smooth and steady. Fuel gauge didn’t move (it’s a big tank, not good mileage I reckon). Fridge works. Bed is comfy. I think I’m gonna like this one….. Here she is on the first day of summer, getting the mice poop vacuumed from the cargo bay –

Automotive Update – Engine Storage

I bought a 460 Ford engine from a friend recently. He said it was an excellent running engine when he stored it. Alas, when I tried to manually rotate the engine before I installed it in a boat, it wouldn’t turn 360°; there was a problem. The usual culprit for this problem is a bad cylinder, i.e. rust.

I’ve been there before. You remove a good running engine and store it, only to find it looses it’s “good” as the years advance. I pulled the cylinder heads off, passenger side first. As advertised – the engine looked great: clean, little wear, no obvious problem to be seen. This was a low time engine, probably a re-build. A picture of the passenger side cylinders –

Every cylinder looks excellent. Very little carbon build-up, clean piston tops.

When I removed the left cylinder head (driver’s side), there was a problem all right –

Number five cylinder ingested some water. Probably condensation due to being wrapped up in waterproof covering that didn’t let the engine “breathe” through the seasonal heating and cooling cycles. The water in the air has nowhere to go. A close up of the damage –

The rust has pitted the cylinder quite deeply. Some phosphoric acid and emery cloth couldn’t take out the damage. This cylinder will use oil and have compression degradation.

Number seven cylinder has a different problem. A small chunk of metal is stuck into the top of the piston –

The chunk is embedded in the piston. This is the “squish” area of the cylinder head – not much clearance.

The engine is otherwise excellent. Unfortunately, number five cylinder will need to be bored oversize (and fitted with a new piston), or sleeved with a cylinder the same diameter as the others. Also, the heads will need to be torn down to see if there is any rust on the valve seats or problems in cylinder seven.

There are two best ways to store a running engine. One is to leave it in the host vehicle and start it periodically (every couple of months at least). If you use this method, keep the fuel tank full and use a fuel “stabilizer” to keep the fuel viable. The other storage method is to “fog” it with light oil before you shut it down. Open the throttle to pick up the rpm’s and spray a fogging solution into the intake. If you can stall the engine this way, all the better. Keep the engine out of the weather, but don’t cover it tightly – that causes excessive condensation.

Number five cylinder in the above engine undoubtedly had it’s intake valve open.

It’s a shame. I won’t be using this motor any time soon because the cost of repairs will be prohibitive. It’s cheaper to find a running vehicle as a donor.

Summer Habits

The sun it shines. The grass is riz. No wonder where the Drover is. He’s outside playing in the sun with all his toys. Not much time for the “Intertoobs”. Lots of time for sunny days, cold beer, and projects, projects, projects.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Bill Whittle sums up the reign of B. Obambi in a short presentation aptly titled “Apres Obama, le deluge” by IOTW:

[youtube http://youtube.com/w/?v=DdaLIDaMuSo]

POLITICS, POLITICIANS, WACKJOBBERY, HUMOROUS, STUPID

That there looks like a red-skinned potato. Grin….. –

PHILOSOPHY, PHILOSOPHERS, SMART TALK

Pat Condell from last year reminding everyone of the value of free speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riKOivBEQ8A

GUNS, GUNNERS, GUNNERY

An insightful argument from Marko Kloos – Why the gun is civilization:

http://robcunninghamusa.com/2013/01/03/why-the-gun-is-civilization-a-timeless-classic/

This perspective is analogous to LaPlace Transform in electronics / physics in that it shifts the functional domain.

A primer on Liberal Logic –

THE RELIGION OF PEACE (ON ALL OF US)

Milos Zeman is my kind of politician. The Czech president recently made a statement about the nature of the “religion” called Islam which some want him to retract:

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/06/13/czech-president-zeman-refuses-to-apologize-for-quote-from-koran-calling-for-muslims-to-kill-jews/

His answer? It would be blasphemous of him to misquote the holy Koran, therefore there will be no retraction or apology. Excellent! Here is what he said –
“There are states with whom we share the same values, such as the political horizon of free elections or a free market economy. However, no one threatens these states with wiping them off the map. No one fires at their border towns; no one wishes that their citizens would leave their country. There is a term, political correctness. This term I consider to be a euphemism for political cowardice. Therefore, let me not be cowardly.
There are dozens of days of independence being celebrated every year in the Czech Republic. Some I may attend, others I cannot. There is one I can never miss, however: it’s the Israeli Independence Day.
There was a hideous assassination in the flower of Europe in the heart of European Union in a Jewish museum in Brussels. I will not let myself being calmed down by the declaration that there are only tiny fringe groups behind it. On the contrary, I am convinced that this xenophobia, and let’s call it racism or antisemitism, emerges from the very essence of the ideology these groups subscribe to.
So let me quote one of their sacred texts to support this statement: ‘A tree says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. A stone says, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’
I would criticize those calling for the killing of Arabs, but I do not know of any movement calling for mass murdering of Arabs. However, I know of one anti-civilization movement calling for the mass murder of Jews.
After all, one of the paragraphs of the statutes of Hamas says: ‘Kill every Jew you see.’ Do we really want to pretend that this is an extreme viewpoint? Do we really want to be politically correct and say that everyone is nice and only a small group of extremists and fundamentalists is committing such crimes?”

Joe and I agree with the author of “Gates of Vienna” website, who stated “As far as I am aware, Miloš Zeman is the first Western head of state ever to tell the OIC to go jump in a lake. So this is an historic occasion.”:

http://gatesofvienna.net/2014/06/czech-president-to-the-oic-no-apology/

SUNDAY SERMON

Daniel Dennett explains “How To Tell If You’re an Atheist”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iVCxx-GkMg