Quantum Leaps

KARNUT · February 21, 2019

No you can't. So much meaning in so few words. I'm envious.

Once upon a time a long time ago in a land far-far away a younger me was deeply into "making it my own". Custom paint and murals on the sheet metal of my bikes. Engraving and plating. Fabricating things I wanted that were not available. Spit and polish.

A bit later I went head long into performance enhancement going straight for the throat. A motor is a black hole for money, time and energy. And I could build them to break everything past the flywheel...and did. That isn't much fun and quite expensive.

I learned to start at the ground and work backward as every project was on the installment plan. That a power train is a system of systems. Doesn't do much good to build a bullet proof 9 inch nodular Ford and leave stock axles in it to grenade it all. Lesson learned. Driveshaft next then the gear box, clutch/converter and so on removing the limitations of the design to cope with the excess I would put upon it. Back in the day it was easy pickings. Meaning, for example, there is more room for improvement in a point/condenser ignition that there is in todays coil over plug ECU systems. Truth be told todays system is hard to improve upon.

Then something unexpected happened. Seriously I didn't see it coming. People in mass just quite caring to learn as systems became ever more complicated and more importantly HIDDEN. Complication can be handled but hidden?...well what will one do with that?

Back in the day, my day, a manufacture built a motor platform. The transmissions were designed to handle the most powerful factory combination in that platform and with some cushion for future developments. Today?...today they design a motor with an out put of 400 pound feet of torque put a transmission behind it that can handle 375 of it and torque manage the motor to remove the shock energy aware that you rarely use that much of the package potential. Shorten the warranty, double the price and hope for the best.

Today I don't modify so much to make it distinctive or my own but to make the most of what is there or to completely reengineer fatally flawed systems I just refuse to live with. Suspension a case in point. Transmission cooling designs that kill transmissions.

I modify for survival now and just can't afford individuality anymore. Just make it last well past the manufactures wishes.

Well...and I can't find Fuzzy Dice at K-Mart anymore. Come to think of it. I can't find a K-Mart!! [emoji14]

Back in my building days I left the weak link the tires. That’s probably why my 92 still lives. I feel pretty foolish smoking the tires, something that hard to do these days with the nannies.

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Grumpy Bear · February 23, 2019

On ‎2‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 9:51 AM, KARNUT said:

Back in my building days I left the weak link the tires. That’s probably why my 92 still lives. I feel pretty foolish smoking the tires, something that hard to do these days with the nannies.

I expect your right.

CadillacLuke24 · February 24, 2019

On 2/21/2019 at 8:43 AM, Grumpy Bear said:

Come to think of it. I can't find a K-Mart!!

Funny you say that, there's only one left in Wyoming (naturally in the one place you'd expect, but that's another story).

Thought I would be a lot older when I could say my former employer was defunct. Then again there's a wide assortment of things that have occured in my 28 years that at some point I would have laughed off as impossible. Clyde is even one of those. Again, another story.

I agree with the decrease in quality of today's manufacturing. It's evident in many areas.

Along with that the complexity willingly tolerated by the operator. Union Pacific is restoring 4014, a Big Boy steam locomotive, for the 150th of the Golden Spike, and then for excursion use. In my excitement I've been watching videos of all of UP's steam team, both 844 and 3985. I cannot imagine the skills needed to operate a steam locomotive. Now imagine finding 2 (!!!) people to run one in today's world. The good ol' days indeed.

KARNUT · February 24, 2019

I remember 1 one of the first earth moving equipment I learned to run. It was only because it was so uncomfortable and hot no one else was willing to. It was a drag line. No air over hydraulic anything, all mechanical. No one would do it today.

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Grumpy Bear · March 14, 2019

Needed headlamp assemblies for my Honda and long story short prices varies between $103 each and just short of $300 each. Do I need to repeat that? Found pricing on the front bumper cover from about $45 as part of a headlamp kit to …. get this....$1,000 from Honda. This isn't uncommon anymore. MOOG end link kits for Pepper range $7 to 45 vendor dependent. Same MOOG part!!

Do I need to explain how that is even possible? Are you surprised? Don't take my word for it. Grab a part number and vendor and have a look yourself.

Looks like "Supply and Demand" has been replaced by "Greed and Grab". Even salvage prices exceed 'new' from the right vendors. WT*.

Wife buys her 2015 Terrain two years ago for $23K. Program SUV with 20K on the clock. She decides over the winter that she would like the have the same model with the 3.6 V6 instead. We find clean 2016 with 36K on the clock for $25K form the same seller who is willing too give $8,000 for the one she just bought from them two years ago. Yes it has 86K on the clock but has lost almost 2/3 of it's value? Kicker? New one sells for under $28K. Granted the 3.6 is no longer an option but the trim level is......This is no longer about an items VALUE. There is a reason I've only bought two new cars in my 65 year life. Only one was actually a good deal and fairly priced.

Maintenance logs for Pepper and the Terrain plus Quantum. I dumped everything else.

KARNUT · March 14, 2019

Needed headlamp assemblies for my Honda and long story short prices varies between $103 each and just short of $300 each. Do I need to repeat that? Found pricing on the front bumper cover from about $45 as part of a headlamp kit to …. get this....$1,000 from Honda. This isn't uncommon anymore. MOOG end link kits for Pepper range $7 to 45 vendor dependent. Same MOOG part!!

Do I need to explain how that is even possible? Are you surprised? Don't take my word for it. Grab a part number and vendor and have a look yourself.

Looks like "Supply and Demand" has been replaced by "Greed and Grab". Even salvage prices exceed 'new' from the right vendors. WT*.

Wife buys her 2015 Terrain two years ago for $23K. Program SUV with 20K on the clock. She decides over the winter that she would like the have the same model with the 3.6 V6 instead. We find clean 2016 with 36K on the clock for $25K form the same seller who is willing too give $8,000 for the one she just bought from them two years ago. Yes it has 86K on the clock but has lost almost 2/3 of it's value? Kicker? New one sells for under $28K. Granted the 3.6 is no longer an option but the trim level is......This is no longer about an items VALUE. There is a reason I've only bought two new cars in my 65 year life. Only one was actually a good deal and fairly priced.

Maintenance logs for Pepper and the Terrain plus Quantum. I dumped everything else.

They don’t seem concerned about repeat buyers either. Since 2001 I’ve used the same GMC dealer. I’ve bought 3 GMCs from them and 4 Hyundai’s. I went through a Uber phase for two years and put a lot miles on a Santa Fe. I wanted to buy a car for our trips so I went shopping. I went to my GMC dealer first. I always check the values in the usual places so I have idea what I’m going to be offered trading in. My ex dealer was way low and it’s their brand. I even gave them several chances to get it right, reminding them of my loyalty. They let me walk. Camry driver instead of a Sonata, oh what a feeling.

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Grumpy Bear · March 21, 2019

Headed south on Illinois 26 at a leisurely pace. Weekday between lunch and the afternoon rush and there is no rush on this road, ever. It’s the kind of road you see another car ever twenty minutes in either direction. North of Princeton where the landscape is flat enough to shoot billiards and line of sight is measured in miles.

In my rearview I take note of a vehicle approaching like he is running from Armageddon and closing fast. In front of me is a slight swale in the road. The kind that will hide oncoming car for a few seconds. This ain’t good folks.

As the over taker approaches I can see it’s a Ram and he’s lifting seeming to take gauge of my speed but not lifting enough. He pulls out in the left lane to pass just as I see the shadow of a hood peering above the crest of the swale. In the Honda kicking it in the butt is not going to be helpful. If I hit the brakes I force him to make a pass he can’t complete so….I do what I ought. Lift and head for the shoulder.

What he should have done is hit the brakes, tuck in behind and take the space I was offering. What he saw was an opportunity to finish what could not be finished and buy the time he realized this was impossible it is too late to get on the brakes and he hasn’t the power nor the space to finish the deed. What he does instead is move sharply to the right neither braking nor accelerating into the space occupied by my Honda forcing me to put two wheels in the gravel.

He still doesn’t have enough room and the oncoming car is on the binders hard and squirrelly . Superlatives at volume but calmly I put all four wheels in the gravel, quickly sashay around a driveway culvert and feather into the ditch and back on to the road neither braking nor lifting off the gas.

What he attempted to do was give me a Dale Earnhardt. Put a fender into my quarter and spin me to the ditch. Then he proceeds to motor down the road at a pace that took him ten minutes to put a hundred yards between us.

He never honked. Never flashed his lights. Never signaled his intent. Never flipped me off nor asked a by your leave. He never even looked into his mirror. Just bullied me off the road.

Keeping his initial pace he would have cleared with a week to spare. Or he could have waited for the oncoming to pass and had twenty minute to the next car. Instead, and with the best view possible he turns it into something deadly for the occupants of three vehicles.

This is so common that it didn’t even raise my pulse. I just assume the cars around me will do the stupidest most self-serving thing possible.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Grumpy Bear

Grumpy Bear · March 24, 2019

CadillacLuke24 · March 25, 2019

People like the guy in the Ram should be turned by a guy in a Kenworth...that ought to get his attention.

Boy howdy George nailed it on the head. Even worse with teh snowflakes this day and age. Buncha whiners, can't say ANYTHING without hurting their feely bads.

Grumpy Bear · April 11, 2019

Just tell the truth!

Nothing I love more than learning a new thought. Strange hobby for one accused of being a "know it all". People make me laugh.

My red flags fly when I hear something that doesn't 'ring' true. Even more so when the one regurgitating the information fails to inform the readership of exactly what they accuse said offender from omitting. Which brings me todays example.

Oil filters. Web abounds with test sequence information and explanation. It lacks DATA. At least the data that matters. Those that do provide do so in unique ways counter to common practice either, I assume, to confuse or to seem more special than they really are.

Every paper I've read on this topic assures me that the "Absolute' rating is many times more valuable than the 'nominal' rating and yet the nominal number is the one they provide. Thus my previous statement about not including the information one condemns another for omitting. Then there are those that will give you the number but omit the test reference point, again making the information useless. You would think there is but one absolute value, right? Not strictly speaking.

https://www.lenntech.com/library/fine/absolute/absolute-nominal-filters.htm

At the end of my day? The effectiveness of a filter is elusive. Lenntech offers convincing argument that 'lab conditions' for a standardized test have no real bearing on effectiveness under 'process' conditions. Seems there is a 'hand shake' agreement between those that do publish some form of absolute that the reference micron size is based on a Beta ratio of 75 or 98.7% of particles the stated size or larger will be trapped. What? That's not absolute!

Lets say, because it's published, that the filters rating is 21 micron absolute. That is 1.3% of the particles that pass are indeed larger than 21 micron and that number is only true under lab conditions. As the link implies that is at fairly low pressure and multi pass. It also maintains that size in the lab is spherical while in the 'real world' it is anything but. Your gut starting to twist?

Paper, cellulose, polymer fiber...yes even synthetic fibers under pressure will change. The pores distort. Like pulling and twisting on a six pack ring retainer. To their defense they are three dimensional so get multiple bites at the apple. So how large a spherical particle will a 21 micron absolute filter pass? Sources I've found vary greatly as one would expect but numbers between 60 and 90 micron seem pretty commonly quoted. 0.001 inches is 25.4 micron.

.0035 is roughly 90 micron. Greater than your bearing clearances. Piston wall clearances. IF that particle is harder than the material it is rubbed between it scars it....wear.

So this crazy thing that happens to 'soft' filters basically means that the more pressure differential there is across the media the more distortion there is and the larger the particle it will pass. Of course there is the also the cold start where relatively high differentials are most likely to happen; open the bypass so no filtration is even possible. Can also happen at high rpm where pump volume is at it's peak. Tis the reason GM re-specified the bypass spring pressure from 12-15 psi to 22 psi. There is a HUGE hint. Evidently it was happing enough to cause warranty issues with critical parts. Hum. Okay that keeps the door closed but it also increases the pressure drop and that results...full circle.

That's allot of IF's. What we do know is that ANY filtration is pretty effective overall. Whew!!!!

So the finer the filtration the higher the pressure drop and the less effective it becomes. Check. Well....how fine it fine enough? Somebody is going to site the studies done for hydraulic system stating that particles of 5 micron are damaging. That study while true is also specific in application. Damaging to what? To soft seals whose purpose is sealing high pressure hydraulics. The seals.

If there is some internal application GM seems very comfortable with the current filtration levels. At least comfortable enough to get it past warranty.

I don't actually have a number in mind but, and it's a big BUT, I would be more comfortable with an 'absolute' number that is truly absolute AND smaller than the 1.8% that does get by soft media. It seems I have but one choice.

35 um 304 surgical stainless steel woven cloth. I'm going to give it a try.

The pressure drops over this sort of media is so low distortion is not an issue and it's rigid. So 35 um absolute is actually a 35 micron door stop. Is that fine enough? I guess I'll find out.

Grumpy Bear · April 30, 2019

Just tell the truth! 2

I've spent some time thinking about the way the English language is butchered. The way information is twisted, withheld, presented with out frame nor reference to suit a profitable end. Heavy on the word profitable.

They smile and say, "Precision in speech is not an exact science"! Tongue in cheek with fingers crossed behind their backs and it is everywhere. It is so rampant that they have 'truth in advertising' laws and teams of lawyers successfully searching the exact wording to find the 'loopholes'. They have perjury laws for witnesses and police who legally lie to elicit a confession from a defendant. They, by law, place the responsibility for getting what one pays for on the buyer. Caveat Emptor. Truth in lending laws and predatory lenders. Priest taking a vow of celibacy refraining from the married part and ignoring the sex part. Imagining themselves unaccountable to Biblical Law, only concerned with mans law and laughing at it. Teachers that leave out the uncomfortable segments of human history. Teaching tradition and theory as fact and obligation. Playing to Nationality. Parents lying to children "for their own good'. Oddly and unbelievably surprised when that child turns on them for a lifetime of well meant lies. Judges that exact the 'letter of law' and miss 'Justice and Mercy'. Twisting if need be for personal gain or political end. Poly-ticks has morphed from a person being an arbitrator of compromise to the very essence of deceit.

When they find an individual who is forthright and honest they say, "He's honest to a flaw". Honesty is a flaw? Then they go on a take advantage of that perception and hold him accountable to his flaw so that they may gain.

They seem to be unaware that there is more advantage in the honest than in the liar.

They seem to be unaware that 'they' are 'we'.

Quick thought. Professor stands in front of lecture group of a hundred and says statistically speaking only one person in a hundred will be honest. Every person in the room when they leave, will they not believe they are that 'one person'?

2 Peter 2:3

Edited April 30, 2019 by Grumpy Bear

diyer2 · April 30, 2019

Find the article in the National Geographic about "Why We Lie The Science Behind Our Deceptive Ways"

Grumpy Bear · April 30, 2019

3 hours ago, diyer2 said:

Find the article in the National Geographic about "Why We Lie The Science Behind Our Deceptive Ways"

I skimmed this article. Took special notice of a few items. Like the 'bending the truth' graph. It doesn't matter 'why' or 'how often' statistically we do so. In the end the choice to lie is just that, a choice. We, as the article points out, are hardwired to trust and lies undermine trust. It does make us gullible and as long as were are unaware of the lie, we trust. Sort of the definition of gullibility, right? When we become aware we feel betrayed, humiliated, embarrassed and angry. Eventually this will make a person cynical. Am I a good enough example of a cynical person? Feeling like your being lied to isn't a feeling if you are, it's a fact. But you want to see someone really go 'off the hook'? Catch them in a lie using the truth!

KARNUT · May 1, 2019

One of my favorite shows is Judge Judy. It’s quite amazing when people are on there complaining about a 5K car they bought and are suing because it’s not like new. But they said it was like new they complain. They lied. The judge laughs, that’s puffing, you should know better. Case dismissed. With cars it’s not lying it’s puffing.

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Grumpy Bear · May 1, 2019

3 minutes ago, KARNUT said:

One of my favorite shows is Judge Judy. It’s quite amazing when people are on there complaining about a 5K car they bought and are suing because it’s not like new. But they said it was like new they complain. They lied. The judge laughs, that’s puffing, you should know better. Case dismissed. With cars it’s not lying it’s puffing.

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And legal is seems. She's funny.