so waht ya doin today?

[Ole_270]

Gee I've only got 170k on the 06 Silverado. Guess I'd better get busy and break it in.

 

[RBHarter]

I've decided that they will live decidedly longer with a manual transmission than an automatic with the wear parts being less than $200 to replace and Joe Average can do it .

 

[popper]

Goop in the plug cap that causes arcing that burns the porcelain.
Did another batch for the 40sw much cooler in the morning.
Nope, no low fat, had burger last nite. She's testing me on everything!

 

[Glaciers]

This week been working on getting the solar system installed. Will be doing the wiring starting tomorrow. Do need to rent a Ditchwitch to do the burial to the shop.

 

[358156 hp]

At work we have a customers Fedex E350 with a 5.4L (!) that is around 320,000 on the original engine & transmission. The owner is big on maintenance, and the truck gets weekly inspections by us. Anything that starts getting weak or breaks is repaired immediately. Oil changes are every 5,000 miles, Transmission services at around 50,000 miles. Our biggie at the moment for the smaller stuff is an '05 Isuzu NPR with a 5.2L 4 cylinder at 430,000 miles. It has had a lot more fuel system work than the E350, particularly injectors (yup, Isuzu), but the heads have never been off. It is basically on the same maintenance schedule. Most of out other high-milers are still below 300,000 miles. Maintenance is King.

 

[358156 hp]

I've decided that they will live decidedly longer with a manual transmission than an automatic with the wear parts being less than $200 to replace and Joe Average can do it .

The real problem lies in finding people who can still drive manual transmissions. I commonly see OTR truck drivers who can't drive a stick.

It's too hard!

 

[Gary]

I guess I'll have to post a couple photos of the red core wood.

It's definitely not Northern Red Oak....I've cut cords of that and know it well.

It's not the "common to my area" Black Walnut, I've cut plenty of that, Black Walnut is a fairly soft wood compared to Ash and whatever this red stuff is? also I'm not sure if any other walnut tree grows in MN?...but maybe?

I don't think I've ever seen/cut a Red bud tree. I googled Red Bud Bark images. The first 10 or so images vary greatly, one or two of those 10 do look similar to my red core wood.

My first thought on Lilac ..."bushes", very common here, but I've never seen wood this large on them.
my second though, I've never cut a Japanese Lilac tree, which get more than large enough and I do know they are grown here, there are a few in my neighborhood. I'll have to check out the bark on those. I googled the bark, doesn't look like it at all.

I'll post photos later...

Red Bud ISN'T red.

 

[RBHarter]

Different world I guess , I learned on a 4 speed and no power brakes , steering , or windows . I made my kids all drive a 74 beetle 100 miles in the desert . I made them stop in a soft place and rock it out when it dug in . If you can drive one of those smoothly you're pretty much set to drive about anything .

I once attempted to get a traction control , ABS , etc , etc , SVX Subaru sideways and unhooked ........it can be done but I doubt it could be done without ice/slush/snow , loose gravel or a race track without being a complete no sense whatever idiot . Maybe slick clay or grass . It just takes away the fun .

 

[Ian]

Hope you changed the coil boot on that plug and put dielectric grease on it or it will happen again. The super-annoying carbon tracks happen on the positive electrode porcelain, where you can't see them. Basically the plug will fire in open air, but with compression in the cylinder has a dead short to the head. One day I'm going to annoy some of you in AR in person, maybe lunch then.

 

[RBHarter]

I didn't have the resources available but will yank the cable and see if it's salvageable now that it's home .

I've seen sparkplugs do some strange things but this is new .

 

[L Ross]

My friend of 40 years and his wife, and I and my wife, drove from opposite sides of the State to meet for lunch at a new brew pub. We even brought along our own 25 year old balsamic vinegar for the chicken alfredo, bacon, spinach pizza.

 

[fiver]

hey John.
how are you going to raise those panels up so they ain't half buried in the snow come winter?

many of the new tractor units are coming out with automatic transmissions now.
IMO it's just another step towards having driverless trucks in the future.
the trucking industry is burning itself down slowly but surely from both ends of the spectrum.

 

[Rick]

Half buried? Where he is he probably wouldn't even be able to find them in the winter.

 

[fiver]

they hardly get any snow up there.
maybe enough to cover the bottom panel in a wet year, it's the wind drift that'll cause the build up.
the real problem is the loss of the sunlight on the panels that are covered up, it'll cut the juice off by 30% or more.

 

[obssd1958]

L Ross,
Is that a pair of '57 Oldsmobiles?

 

[JonB]

Red Elm.

...and that is what it is.
After I seen your post, the day you posted it, I did a google image search...yep it's red elm. I've never cut any red elm that was recently alive, the one I cut was lying in the woods half buried in the mud, and someone else told me it was red elm, but there was no red to it, it was all grey/black. I seen on a WI wood cutters forum that fresh red elm smells like cinnamon when cut and split. I can confirm that claim, yep smells just like cinnamon.


Red Elm sure doesn't have Bark like other Elms. The sunshine kind of washed
out the core color, but trust me, it's dark red. It isn't not nearly as stringy as
splitting American Elm.



So, after I split these few logs, I went back out to the City compost site, because
I knew there were more of these logs, but they weren't easy picking like the first
ones. The trailer load below were half buried at the edge of the giant 10 foot tall
brush/log pile. I used a log chain and truck to pull them out. It took about 90 minutes
to pull and load these. It might not have been worth doing that in the heat and humidity,
but it was good exercise, and I brought along plenty of water. There was also some
Ash logs in there too. Nothing very large, but all nice sized to cut and split.

 

[Gary]

Red Elm makes pretty good fire wood and splits TONS better than American Elm. Also, if you ever find Red Elm Burls, you can make $$$ selling to Bowl Turners. I sold to a woodturning club and made over $1000 for my efforts. (several Burls)

 

[JonB]

Burls, huh.
Do these Turner friends of yours like Burr oak burls? From my pruning experiments on one Burr Oak in my yard, I have seemingly created some burls over the last 2 decades...or are burls that are human created, worth less than naturally occurring burls?

I plan to do some cabbage slicing for Kraut later today, if I can get motivated? I'll take photos of those Burr Oak Burls at that time.

 

[Gary]

Mostly the true Burls, the ones that have "birdseye" patterns. Similar to this bad boy:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Growth_on_tree_trunk_-_geograph.org.uk_-_724687.jpg

 

[JonB]

I suppose I should not use the word Burl, for my man-made bulbous growths on my Burr Oak tree.