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ksdaddy

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Everything posted by ksdaddy

  1. I'm still riving my 1988 S-10 Blazer, which looks like it's gone through about four wars. I really haven't put anything into it for repairs for a couple years now. However lately I've repaired the leaking transmission cooling lines, replaced a bunch of rotted vacuum lines, and the most frustrating of all, trying to nail down and fix a stammer/stutter that occurs at very light throttle, maintaining a steady speed, be it 35 or 50. It's done it for a couple three years but lately has driven me insane and I want to fix it. I've replaced the MAP sensor, plugs, wires, cleaned the cap's terminals and the rotor too. I had also unplugged the EGR valve and plugged the vacuum line. At that point I had the stammer down to negligible, But yesterday I replaced the EGR valve, hooked it up and the stammer is worse. Violent actually. "Am I going to make it home" violent. If cause/effect is to be believed, I will unhook the EGR but also make a plate to go under it so it's effectively 'gone'. It may send a code for EGR but I'm used to seeing the check engine light go on and off 15 times on 10 mile trip. Most of the time it throws 44 lean exhaust. It's rolling junk. I drive it out of spite. But maybe we're done. If I can't figure it out..... So I've been shopping. I drove a 2016 Ram crew cab at work for 5-1/2 years before I retired. Nice truck. I threatened to seek out a new 2023 in regular cab/8 ft box but the thought of depreciation and the huge excise tax spooks me. There are used Rams out there but not a lot on the dealer's lots. It's like people are keeping them. And anything on the lots still have COVID prices. There seem to be many used Fords available. I asked my mechanic what I should get and he said 'either Ford or Toyota'. I bang my head and knees getting in and out of a Tacoma so that's out. I don't have Tundra money. Well, I do, but I won't spend it. Trucks today are so fancy. They look beautiful on the lot but I picture myself a year from now with Endust and a Q tip trying to clean the dashboard. Meanwhile the Blazer would get an 'oops' spray from the pressure washer, followed by the air hose. I have a 1990 Ford F150 that I use to plow snow. It's not been on the road since 2005. I would love to drop about 10k into that and put it on the road but I think I would be better off bringing a rust-free or rust minimal truck up from down south for about the same money. I absolutely love that truck. Any 80s F150 would suit me. Aside from it rotting away or hitting a moose, they will run forever. I would be tempted to just buy one in Augusta Georgia and have it shipped up here. But I'll change my mind 14 times before breakfast. The Blazer has been in my family for 33 years, it was stolen in 2014 and also survived an engine compartment fire that same year. I also drove it an undetermined number of miles with the driver's side outer tie rod disconnected. I discovered it when I made a sharp turn into a parking spot. That was not my day to die apparently. It probably should be let go, but I like the old POS.
  2. Same for regular cab with 8’ bed. I asked a local dealer about ordering one and he said they were restricted on what they could order (a lie, likely) and “not that we would have one on the lot anyway”, with a sneer. Meanwhile they had a 2018 GMC like that, and the dealer across the street had a 2018 F150 like that. Both were gone in the next 48 hours…. Because nobody wants them.
  3. My daily is a 2011 Impala. I had some crazy hot s___ Kenwood thing installed. I've never figured it out. You can do stuff like change the timing of the tweeters based on the placement in the car, adjust the display based on the angle from which you view it, it has more EQ crap than I need, and many MANY EQ settings I have no idea what they're talking about. I seriously do well to turn it on and up. It does have a nice feature for when my Impala throws codes, which is all the time, because it's a GM product, and it wouldn't be a GM product unless the dash was lit up like a Christmas tree. The radio allows me to access the codes and clear them, most of the time when I'm driving down the road. I'm truck shopping and hopefully the stock radio will suit me. As long as it has Bluetooth and XM, we're good. It's rare I bring CDs with me anymore.
  4. I almost never change them. Unless I am in the mood for a different gauge. The Tele and the L-5 get changed a lot for that reason. Conversely, I have a 1958 Gretsch Anniversary that I bought in 2017, put 12-52 round D’Addarios on and they’re still there. My main classical has had the same strings since 2014. I have my father’s 1985 J-100 tucked away with the 1998 D’Addario PB still on it.
  5. Drinking and smoking are long gone. I have a very hard time being under cars now. I get queasy and sometimes it gets bad enough where I have to go take a short nap with the fan on. It’s only when I’m under a car. The only thing that stands out as far as activities is that I will no longer ride my motorcycle on the main roads. The thought of meeting 18 wheelers at 60 mph bothers me. I almost never take the Gold Wing out. It’s a monster. My big mouth 883 Sportster at 40 mph on the back roads is pleasant.
  6. Nah, if I saw that, I’d be scheduling a colonoscopy.
  7. God’s honest truth, I haven’t eaten any hot dogs other than red dogs in so long, I can’t comment on the difference in flavor between types. I know “non red” skinless franks n such are less than palatable because of the texture. It’s like eating a Vienna sausage or rolling up a piece of bologna. Red dogs have got a good snap when you bite into them. I generally boil them just enough to heat them through when I eat them with beans. As to the grill, I burn them and let them split. It’s like burning your marshmallows, you either like them that way or not. And yes, that red dye stains everything it touches.
  8. I’m in Maine so it’s gotta be red dogs.
  9. Ima say 1967 was “the year”. On our drive yesterday I mentioned if I ever started a group it would be called Hot Dog Water. Any press is good press.
  10. The Animals, The Beatles, The Clovers, The Del Vikings, The Eagles, The Four Aces, and so on. Band names came up in conversation today and I pondered when might be the first instance of a group using a name other than THE Belmonts or THE Rolling Stones. I’m speaking about Chicago, Free, Led Zeppelin, Bread, Cream, etc. Who was the trailblazer? The earliest I can think of is Cream but I’m sure there are others. Setting aside the possibility that a garage band in 1954 Puyallup Washington called themselves Dog Dish, what was the first famous or at least recognizable example?
  11. Like in 'Ring my Bell'? That came on the radio while my wife and I were driving around car shopping. I cranked it because I know she hates it.
  12. As many of you know, I once collected US made Applause guitars, made in Moosup, CT from 1976-1983. I had 66 of them in one room. Underdog stuff. Some of it was rescue. Some of it was pity. They’re all gone now. I also sold off all my “real” Ovations but a couple years ago I tracked down and bought back one of my favorites, a prototype of the 1983 Collectors Edition, super shallow bowl cutaway. And a couple months ago I picked up a rough 1968 Deluxe Balladeer shiny bowl with an excellent neck set and 4 massive top cracks. It’s hydrating in its case for an extended period until the cracks close up so I can cleat them. Ovations falling off your lap is definitely a thing. They make little non-slip adhesive things cheap, and they work. Of course there are straps too…
  13. Here's mine. Or ex-mine. As to tone, I don't remember it being particularly unGibson. Not saying it would compete, but it wouldn't get beat up in the parking lot.
  14. Yes, they made them around 1983. Nashville I presume. I had a very early one, serial number 012. It’s in the UK now. Might have been a prototype or some type of pre-production build. Very nice sunburst, prettier than others I’ve seen since. They had a laminated top. They stopped making them in 1985 I think. Around 1990 they found about 200 of the bowls in storage and shipped them to Bozeman. The folks at Bozeman joked about the bowls and called them “oil pans”. They ultimately made guitars out of them and the model designation was OP-25 (oil pan). The Bozeman ones have solid tops as far as I know. They were available with or without pickups.
  15. I've built a few instruments. My first 'all acoustic' guitar build was a 17" archtop. I had no clue what I was doing, trying to carve the top. I did it but made some pretty bad mistakes. Obviously I used flatsawn wood for the top. It came from the frame of a 70s waterbed. I figured I'd practice on it before I spent $125 (at the time) on a spruce blank for the top. I spent so much time carving it that I decided to use it anyway. It's still thicker than it should be so it's lacking in much tone. The back vibrates more than the top I think. If I hold it close to my belly, I can choke a lot of sound out of it. My biggest screwups were the shallow neck angle and not enough taper on the neck width. Kinda hard to fix either. From 2005 to 2009 I built a thin body electric, this arch top, two mandolins, and a long neck banjo. I haven't built anything since 2009. I started building a violin from scratch but got discouraged. The pieces are in a box somewhere. I keep saying I will build another "something" someday. No idea what. I know nothing I could ever build would re-invent the wheel, so I shy away from another build, knowing that my best effort won't be on par with the average Chinese $200 guitar. Putting that aside, one huge block for me is lack of access to a thickness sander. The sides on my thin body electric and this archtop were put through a thickness sander at a custom woodworking place, trying to get 1/8" down to 0.100" or less. They weren't really set up for tolerances that close but they did it for me anyway. If they were willing to do that for me again, I would be more inclined to start one. I would be very happy making a straight ahead classical, nothing weird, totally respectful of the traditional designs.
  16. She’s right on both the $90 shipping and the fact that eBay holds the funds, typically for the first 20-25 transactions. They would pay it out eventually but leaving positive feedback will expedite. If this works out, you got the steal of the year.
  17. But then we get to beat the snot out of Scut Farkus…. a most cathartic scene.
  18. I can’t say if that has merit but there are people in this world who make it their life goal to buy up thousands upon thousands of acres of woodland and close it off to any and all human contact. I guess they figure Mother Nature is infallible. Not smart. A forest is a resource and should be managed as such. Crop tree release, pre-commercial thinning, selective planting, maintaining a mixed stand , both in age and species, even prescribed burning are all management practices that are much better for the health of the forest than just posting signs. And I didn’t even mention fire breaks! There is a lot of duff and dead stuff that would just LOVE a spark or lightning strike. As to the current situation, I’m in northern Maine and aside from a strange red hazy morning sun a couple weeks ago, I’ve not noticed anything. In previous years I have smelled fires in Quebec but nothing this year (yet). And as to the world being a better place if nature just took over unabated, I have only to look out my kitchen window and look at the piles of excavated ditch material that the Highway department dumped in an empty lot across the road. It’s nothing but goldenrod and burdock. I don’t see any red pine or MacIntosh apple trees popping up as invasive species.
  19. Me too. Paid as much for the tires as I did for the car.
  20. That’s it! The name escapes me.
  21. Gibson made an Americana Ranger for a while around 2005-6 ish. I think it was a solid body with electronics. Looked like a small acoustic at first glance. They also made some weird small acoustic around that time. I don't remember the name. They had one on display at Music Villa in 2007. It was a raffle or giveaway of some sort. Strange little beast. It's very fuzzy in my brain, like I dreamed it, but it was real. Seems like it didn't have a regular sound hole. Actually Gibson did offer the LG-3/4 back in the 50s, and also a C-1S classical, which was more of a parlor size.
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