Here is a photo of the 71 Ventura II as I got it home
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Thursday August 9, 2007
Gas: 2.67. It has been dropping slowly, a penny every few days, for the last week. What I think is bad is that diesel is at 3.04.
Went "dumpster diving" for cars this last weekend, picked up a few vehicles that were free for the hauling. Place really looks like an "illegal junk yard" now. Picked up an 86 Buick Park Avenue, it "ran good when we parked it 3 years ago", it was "an extra car and we don't need it". Turns out it has a blown tranny. Salvaged a few parts off of it and hauled it to the crusher. Also picked up an 89 and a 91 Plymouth Acclaim. Both have been robbed of many drivetrain parts, but I think that between the two plus a few more parts that I already have I may be able to get the 91 running again. Neither has been licensed for the last 6-8 years. Also picked up a 77 Pontiac Catalina that hasn't been licensed since 1988. It is also missing a few parts, but the body is surprisingly sound except for the hood which is really bad, there is surface rust on the entire vehicle but the hood actually has some serious rust-thru on it. And, when we opened the hood the hinges were very stiff, and then when we tried to close it the hood bent, which I seem to recall was a problem on those anyways. I think we can build it into a decent vehicle with parts that we have, my only concern is the hood. It would be good to find a solid hood for it. I have been shopping for a new one but cannot find one, so I may need to repair this one which may be difficult.
The last car we picked up is a 1971 Pontiac Ventura II. The body is severely rusted, both rear fenders and most of the trunk is missing, the rear spring mounts are just floating in air under the trunk lid. The bottom of the drivers door is gone, and there is rust-thru on the rocker just behind the right front wheel. The rest of the body is pretty sound. It has a broken engine (307) and a tranny that need to go back to the previous owner. I hope that it will be the future home of my 455 HO. I'm playing with various ideas for it, first thing I need to do is yank the engine and tranny and return them, then start tearing it down. I intend to strip it to pieces and then slowly rebuild it my way, so it will probably take a year or three. The Ventura is part of what is known as the NOVA family; the Chevy Nova, Olds Omega, Pontiac Ventura, and Buick Apollo were (I think) the first GM Corporate Car. The four cars share many many parts, and from a quick look around it appears that almost every part I need is available aftermarket at a reasonable price.
From what little I know about the Ventura it appears that it was never built with a real Pontiac engine except maybe in the 74 GTO, although there are hints that it almost got the 455 as an option in 72. Quite a few Ventura's (and Nova's) have had Big Engines installed over the years, and I understand that there are a few with 455's installed, but it will still be a very unique car compared to the Camaro's and Mustang's that show up at shows. I just hope that I can do it justice.
I've added some photos.
The 92 Voyager has turned out pretty good. It still has what appears to be a few bad electrical connections, but on the whole it is becoming more reliable. Here's what we had to do: New fuel pump ($180), Front springs (salvage), light bulbs ($4), oil change ($20), alignment and flat repair ($100). It still has the oil light coming on at idle. I bought a new pressure switch ($12), but haven't installed it yet because I do not have the proper tool. I also do not think it will help, because after talking to the engine rebuilder I think that it is either an oil pump problem or a bearing tolerance problem. At this point I'm not going to worry about it a lot; the engine was rebuilt almost 8 years and 80,000 miles ago and has had the light on at idle ever since day one. The person who rebuilt the engine doesn't recall replacing the oil pump at that time and does recall that not every bearing in the engine was replaced. So, I suspect that I will wait until the engine dies before that problem gets fixed.
This weekend is the "tractor show", technically the "23rd Annual Threshing & Antique Show" put on by the Northern Minnesota Farm and Antique Association (somehow, I think that I don't have the name quite correct). That will keep us busy this weekend. Then, starting next Wednesday (actually, a day earlier for entries) is the 115th Itasca County Fair, so we will be very busy for the next week or so.
I'm finally going to give in to peer pressure and convert my work network over to all Cisco. We have a pair of 6509's, a pair of 4510's, and a slew of 3750's ordered and on the way. This will give me a fully redundant network, no single point of failure, 10gig backbone, with gig and POE to the desktop. This should put us in good position for the coming EHR, and should finally give me some backup if I get sick again. I think the final straw was my illness in April; although nothing happened, if something had then I would not have been able to help, and the nearest Extreme support is in the Twin Cities. Once we are duplicated we should be much more fault tolerant, and if anything does happen there are several Cisco gurus here in GR plus many more scattered all over the Northland. I really like the Extreme switches, I think they are probably the best bang for the buck, they have been extremely reliable, no bottlenecks, but I need the backup. If we had a bigger IS department and could afford to have 2 people dedicated to the network it would be different, but as it is I have to rely on the user network for my backup, and the Cisco user network is probably its greatest asset.
Now, I just need to fix my server problems. Looks like we may move away from the many individual small servers that we currently use (some of which are 8+ years old!) to a pair of small but scalable SAN's, one in each building, a server cluster attached to each SAN and using virtual servers. This should provide us with some fault tolerance, disaster recovery, and the ability to maintain and upgrade the systems with little or no end-user downtime.
Time to get busy now!!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Wednesday August 1, 2007
Gas: Everyone is at 2.71 since last Saturday. Was in Bemidji Sat PM and gas there was at 2.99. Very unusual to see that big of a difference in favor of GR.
Got the 92 Voyager running like a top. Oil lite comes on at idle when warm, need to figure out whether to install a HV oil pump or rebuild the freshly rebuilt engine. Tranny was shifting erratically for a while but it seems to have fixed itself. May need to find new linkage bushings.
Had a blast at the Car Shows and swap meet over last weekend. Some pretty nice cars. Got some steel Chevy wheels and some carb parts for the F100. I think I have decided to get the Ventura and let the Catalina go, still need to find a place to tear down the engine and body to rebuild both.
Still don't know what the problem with VGer is, have decided to put it on the back burner for a while, maybe inspiration will strike while working on other projects.
Got the 92 Voyager running like a top. Oil lite comes on at idle when warm, need to figure out whether to install a HV oil pump or rebuild the freshly rebuilt engine. Tranny was shifting erratically for a while but it seems to have fixed itself. May need to find new linkage bushings.
Had a blast at the Car Shows and swap meet over last weekend. Some pretty nice cars. Got some steel Chevy wheels and some carb parts for the F100. I think I have decided to get the Ventura and let the Catalina go, still need to find a place to tear down the engine and body to rebuild both.
Still don't know what the problem with VGer is, have decided to put it on the back burner for a while, maybe inspiration will strike while working on other projects.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Thursday July 19, 2007
Gas is still weird. I couldn't believe it last night and thought it would settle out by this morning, but NOT. Prices are all over ranging from 2.79 to 3.02. Part of the problem is that I need to fill up and the station I'd like to use is still at 2.99, I'm hoping it will come down by the time I head home this afternoon. Otherwise, I shall have to go elsewhere.
Attended 5S/Lean Health training today. Interesting stuff. I'm supposed to be developing my own 5S project with a report due 8/2 with all the details and results start to finish. Maybe I will 5S a bookshelf. That's about my speed today.
I have an appt with my surgeon tomorrow Friday. Last week I had a terrible amount of stomach pain, but it is down to a dull roar now. We suspect that I may have an "incisional hernia"; in other words, that I may have torn out some of the stitches that were supposed to hold my stomach muscles together. It is better this week after spending a good part of last week on pain killers and lying down, but the surgeon may need to go in and stitch a patch over the area to reinforce it.
Vger is still not running correctly. Gladiator runs great but I still haven't installed the solenoid and it still says "Check Engine". I haven't mentioned it, but the 69 Catalina is actually running again. Replaced the original points type distributor that has worn bushings with an HEI distributor which has solved one of the reasons I parked it many years ago. Also changed the oil and filter, and got the drivers door so it will open again. Back window is still down and I don't know if I can fix that, part of the problem is that the rear bumper is mushed up into the tailgate. Also, when we pulled the Catalina out of the hole it had sunk into I bent a frame cross-member that part of the front suspension bolts onto, which makes the front wheels severely toed-in. Don't know how hard it will be to fix that. The front part of the frame and body aren't too bad, the rear lower half of the car is pretty rough. No brakes, no exhaust, the rims don't hold air (replaced the tires but the rims are severely rusted) but it does move under its own power. I'd kinda like to find a '73 Firebird (the engine came out of a '73 Trans Am) or a 68 or 69 Catalina two-door. I do have available the possibility of a 74 Ventura coupe that a friend is looking to get rid of. I can get an 84 Trans Am for $1000 that I think I can shoe-horn the engine into, I know where I may be able to get a '68 Catalina Convertible, I know where there is a 69 LeMans that may be for sale, but...
The biggest problem with the cars is the lack of a place to work on them. I need to tear down the 7.5L and rebuild it. Whatever body it goes back into should be stripped to the frame and rebuilt. The Gladiator has severe rust which can still be repaired, but I need to remove doors and windows to do it and I can't leave it sitting outside while it is stripped. The Turbo Caravan needs to have the engine rebuilt, but I can't exactly do that properly under the shade tree. I have most of the tools and quite a bit of the knowlegde and experience to do the job. I just don't have the space and money for the parts and supplies.
Another thing I'd like a shop for. Ran across the "MultiMachine", you can find the official page at Yahoo Groups. Someone had a brilliant idea: all those engine blocks lying around could be put to good use. The hardest part of a diy metal lathe and most of the expense are due to the fact that everything must be true, and an engine block is that. So, take a four cylinder block and stand it on end on top of a six cylinder block. Use a piston bore in the four cylinder block as the guide for the spindle, it is exactly at right angles to the head surface. Perfect for building a third-world machine shop. Combine that with some of the ideas from old Popular Mechanics magazines and the work done by David Gingery, and you have equipment capable of very good work for a very low price. In fact, it may be possible to build a lathe that is pretty darn good for almost no cash but lots of sweat equity. Wish I could build the garage that way, but it's against the law nowadays.
I may have found my new cell phone, the UT Starcom PPC6700. The worst thing about it is that it runs on Windows, but it has a decent keyboard, a fair-sized screen, uses a mini usb port to sync, and it really can do everything that my Palm TX and Blackberry 7100 can do. I can have 5 email accounts, I can open documnets in either landscape or portrait mode, it has a camera that takes decent photos, it plays music and video. The 1xRTT Internet is quite a bit slower that the GPRS Internet, that is really the worst complaint I have. The other problem is that I would have to switch carriers, and the new carrier charges extra for several of the features that are included in my current plan. Can you believe that a carrier would charge extra for voicemail and text messaging? My current plan includes unlimited data, text messaging, voicemail, and 1,000 minutes airtime for $65 including taxes for my Blackberry. The plan that covers the PPC6700 comes to about $70 for the same features. What the heck, my employer is paying for it, they want me to be able to respond 24/7.
Well, better get to work on my 5S project ;).
Attended 5S/Lean Health training today. Interesting stuff. I'm supposed to be developing my own 5S project with a report due 8/2 with all the details and results start to finish. Maybe I will 5S a bookshelf. That's about my speed today.
I have an appt with my surgeon tomorrow Friday. Last week I had a terrible amount of stomach pain, but it is down to a dull roar now. We suspect that I may have an "incisional hernia"; in other words, that I may have torn out some of the stitches that were supposed to hold my stomach muscles together. It is better this week after spending a good part of last week on pain killers and lying down, but the surgeon may need to go in and stitch a patch over the area to reinforce it.
Vger is still not running correctly. Gladiator runs great but I still haven't installed the solenoid and it still says "Check Engine". I haven't mentioned it, but the 69 Catalina is actually running again. Replaced the original points type distributor that has worn bushings with an HEI distributor which has solved one of the reasons I parked it many years ago. Also changed the oil and filter, and got the drivers door so it will open again. Back window is still down and I don't know if I can fix that, part of the problem is that the rear bumper is mushed up into the tailgate. Also, when we pulled the Catalina out of the hole it had sunk into I bent a frame cross-member that part of the front suspension bolts onto, which makes the front wheels severely toed-in. Don't know how hard it will be to fix that. The front part of the frame and body aren't too bad, the rear lower half of the car is pretty rough. No brakes, no exhaust, the rims don't hold air (replaced the tires but the rims are severely rusted) but it does move under its own power. I'd kinda like to find a '73 Firebird (the engine came out of a '73 Trans Am) or a 68 or 69 Catalina two-door. I do have available the possibility of a 74 Ventura coupe that a friend is looking to get rid of. I can get an 84 Trans Am for $1000 that I think I can shoe-horn the engine into, I know where I may be able to get a '68 Catalina Convertible, I know where there is a 69 LeMans that may be for sale, but...
The biggest problem with the cars is the lack of a place to work on them. I need to tear down the 7.5L and rebuild it. Whatever body it goes back into should be stripped to the frame and rebuilt. The Gladiator has severe rust which can still be repaired, but I need to remove doors and windows to do it and I can't leave it sitting outside while it is stripped. The Turbo Caravan needs to have the engine rebuilt, but I can't exactly do that properly under the shade tree. I have most of the tools and quite a bit of the knowlegde and experience to do the job. I just don't have the space and money for the parts and supplies.
Another thing I'd like a shop for. Ran across the "MultiMachine", you can find the official page at Yahoo Groups. Someone had a brilliant idea: all those engine blocks lying around could be put to good use. The hardest part of a diy metal lathe and most of the expense are due to the fact that everything must be true, and an engine block is that. So, take a four cylinder block and stand it on end on top of a six cylinder block. Use a piston bore in the four cylinder block as the guide for the spindle, it is exactly at right angles to the head surface. Perfect for building a third-world machine shop. Combine that with some of the ideas from old Popular Mechanics magazines and the work done by David Gingery, and you have equipment capable of very good work for a very low price. In fact, it may be possible to build a lathe that is pretty darn good for almost no cash but lots of sweat equity. Wish I could build the garage that way, but it's against the law nowadays.
I may have found my new cell phone, the UT Starcom PPC6700. The worst thing about it is that it runs on Windows, but it has a decent keyboard, a fair-sized screen, uses a mini usb port to sync, and it really can do everything that my Palm TX and Blackberry 7100 can do. I can have 5 email accounts, I can open documnets in either landscape or portrait mode, it has a camera that takes decent photos, it plays music and video. The 1xRTT Internet is quite a bit slower that the GPRS Internet, that is really the worst complaint I have. The other problem is that I would have to switch carriers, and the new carrier charges extra for several of the features that are included in my current plan. Can you believe that a carrier would charge extra for voicemail and text messaging? My current plan includes unlimited data, text messaging, voicemail, and 1,000 minutes airtime for $65 including taxes for my Blackberry. The plan that covers the PPC6700 comes to about $70 for the same features. What the heck, my employer is paying for it, they want me to be able to respond 24/7.
Well, better get to work on my 5S project ;).
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Wednesday July 18, 2007
I don't get it. 5 stations, all of which are the usually the same price. One is at 2.99, one at 2.91, the rest at 2.88. The station that is usually the cheapest is at 3.02.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Monday July 16, 2007
Gas is at 3.04. Was up to 3.12 then dropped back.
Gladiator still running good, although the "Check Engine" light still comes on. Vger still has a problem. Matt got the window in the pickup. Put HEI on the Catalina.
Gladiator still running good, although the "Check Engine" light still comes on. Vger still has a problem. Matt got the window in the pickup. Put HEI on the Catalina.
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