waddiejohn

Good input Derek, thank you. JD

I've got a Lincoln Square Wave 175 with the soft start feature and I'm thinking of buying an Amptroller to mount on the torch. Has anyone used one of these? If so, is it as easy to use as the foot control? Any thoughts or comments are appreciated. John

Mine is frozen too.

We're not crazy, well I don't think we're crazy. Are we????? We just like to have fun.

First to really drive was a 1954 Caddy. That one landed me in jail at age 14. Had permission, but no license. The adults wanted to be left alone for some reason. The first I owned was a 1959 Chevy Belair Convertable. Red with a white top. 283 Auto. Slow but fun cruzin.

I have two. The first one is an early 1974, 260 that I've owned since 1987. The body is straight and rust free. I parked it in 1993 with a stretched timing chain. It sat untouched until last year when I fired it up just to check it out. Guess what, the timing chain hasn't shrunk yet. It started right up and ran very well. I did order parts for the timing chain replacement and to rebuild the hydraulics. The second car is a 1971 daily driver that I've had just over a year. This car is a little rough but I drive it 123 miles a day, four days per week. The original engine came out last summer and I dropped a 280 engine into the car that I'd had laying around for about ten years or so. I've got a 1990 mustang GT doner sitting in the yard.

Hi Kiwi, As I remember, you are correct about P.O. Ackley and the Arisaka actions. After someone tried to blow one up though I'm not sure I'd want play with it much. On the other hand who really knows what any used gun may have been through. If I remember correctly ,Ackley used actions chambered for the 7.7 caliber. Wasn't the 6.5 believed to be weak? I also remember hearing that toward the end of the the rifles were more or less thrown together and that may have been a problem. I'm just unsure of the info on the Jap rifles. I've reblued a few 7.7's but they were never very popular here for sporterizing or doing much of anything. My point on the Springfield was that the rifle was made when metalurgy was not what it is today and the gun was known to have problems so why would a young man even want to take a risk. Isn't it better to error on the safe side? I didn't know that they had magnum actions when the P14 was made.

Age does not necessarily have anything to do with it, but it's a 100 years that has passed and God only knows what it has been through. My Dad brought one of the Jap rifles back from WWII. He'd heard they blow up sometime so he tied it to an old tire and poured syrup through the barrel and lit it off using a piece of string. He said it didn't blow. Well, maybe it didn't, but I wouldn't want to be shooting it after that. A latent failure waiting to happen????? Don't know. You are welcome to disregard anything I say.

I just had an opportunity to look at a new Blue Book and the value of a 100% gun went up to $925.00 with factory verification.

The real question here is how lucky you feel and is it worth the risk to shoot it. Do you like your eyes? Every time you pull the trigger it's going to be in the back of your mind that this could be the time it blows. Have you even had the headspace checked? Would you let your girlfriend or your mom shoot it? What is the SAFE thing to do? How SMART is it to take the risk. The rifle is about or near 100 years old and $200.00 is a cheap lesson.

Check out the link below. It makes an interesting read. Gunsmiths are rightfully very afraid of liability suits. When doing my apprinticeship I was told not to work on these guns and will not to this day, but I might shoot one. It would be nice to verify this guy's info. http://m1903.com/03rcvrfail/

Thanks John and Mark. My thinking is just to replace the hatch and side windows. I didn't know if I could just install the Lexan flat or if I needed to mold to the curve. John

When you guys replace the back hatch, or any of the other glass for that matter with Lexan do you try to match the curvature of the glass or just put it in as it comes? Of course the door windows would have to be curved I guess, but how close is close enough? If you try to match the stock glass, how do you go about it? Thanks for any replys, John

The 2006 blue book lists that weapon at; 100%= $825.00 98%= $700.00 95%= $600.00 80%= $225.00 This is the book the buyers use and I think the guns are generally under valued. There is another similar book out there, the name of which I can't remember just now, that generally runs higher values. In reality though you can get whatever the traffic will bear on an item such as this. I just figure out what the " offer I can't refuse " will be and price it accordingly.

That is a really nice find. The brass grip frames were not common. I was told they were undesirable because they would shoot loose so I didn't buy one back then. Wish I had now. I'm not even sure the info I receive was correct. I took a gunsmith apprinticeship a couple of years later,in "75" and checkered the Aluminum backstrap of my Blackhawk and did some custom grips. A customer saw it and offered me the grip frame from his Super Blackhawk along with the hammer and trigger in exchange for my set-up. Of course I made the trade and still have the O.M. Blackhawk. Your revolver looks like the blue is 100% in as much as I can tell in the photo. If it's as good as it looks and the grip frame is documented from Ruger I would think that revolver must be worth $1000.00 or more. There are several books available at the better book stores that will tell you more about it's value. The most popular is the " Blue Book of Gun Values ". As a matter of fact I just made a call to a friend of mine that has these books and as soon as he gets home from Phoenix he said he'd call me with info on this guns value. Waddie

I recently had issues with my headlights being very dim and my engine would shut down momentarily. It turned out to be the spade lug connectors on the ballast resistor and the headlight connection that run along the front of the car. They were badly corroded. I just cleaned them and gently squeezed the female connector to tighten them up and haven't had any problems for about a month now.

For what it's worth, I machined the bottom of my 260 carbs and made a couple of parts so that I could adjust the mixture then removed all the smog crap and doubled my fuel milage and the little car ran like a raped ape afterward. It wouldn't pass emission however. I used a friends shop to measure tail pipe emissions and "tweaked" things to get it through. I ended up with the carbs leaned out until it was hardly drivable. Timing at TDC and idle at 1500 RPMs. Every year I made these adjustments to get through emissions then reset it to run good. I finally found a set of carbs from a 240 for $100 and installed them. The 260 carbs didn't have a remote float bowl and could vapor lock when run hard on a hot day here in southern Arizona. Other than that it ran great. The first thing I did that was really interesting after failing emissions was remove my smog pump. My readings actually improved. Three hours elapsed between tests, so maybe atmospheric conditions may have come into play some, but not a lot I would think. Oh well, end of my little story.

I have a 71, 240 that I drive to and from work four days a week. That's 123 miles round trip. It's a ratty little car but it runs pretty good though it uses a little oil. The engine and tranny came from a "77" 280 with 100,000 miles on it. The engine combo sat in my yard for 10 or 12 years before I installed it after number 5 cylinder stared pumping oil real bad. I just enjoy driving the little car.

I'd like to be able to say something to make it all better for you but there aren't really any magic words. I'd like you to know that you are not alone in your fears as many of us have been there before and understand what you are going through. Hearing of your ordeal even revives some of those feelings from long ago for some of us. You are lucky in many ways. You are touching your mortality and so you can understand the true value of life. You have people around you that really love you. Don't deny them the opportunity to give to you. And you live in a time and place where medical technology is more advanced than ever before. One perspective could be that you are safer going through this procedure than you are driving to the grocery store. You can research that one, but I believe it's true based on information I just heard in a driving school I just went through. Like the other members, I'd like to wish you the best and will definitly say a prayer for you. If you feel the need to talk pm me. John

A lot of broken bolts are actually loose after they are broken. It depends on why they are broken. If they are bottomed out in the female thread I prefer to use a center drill and start a hole in the center of the bolt. One may center punch to start. Use a center drill that's a lot smaller than the bolt. I like a #1 with a 3/64" point. Use optivisors to visually check to be sure the hole is centered pretty good before going to deep. You can tilt the drill motor and drive the tip to center if need be. Get a good start then go to a standard twist drill of a diameter smaller than the tap drill you would use to make the thread that you are working with and drill all the way through the bolt. If the bolt is a 1/4-20 for instance, try an approxamate #23 or 24 drill size. I then will step up in size until it can be seen that only the threads are left. You can usually pick the material out with tweezers or small pliers or run a tap into the hole to clean out the treads. If the bolt is loose you can tell by using a scribe point and pushing the bolt around. If that is the case you may try to rotate the bolt with your scribe or some other tool or you may use a Dremel type tool with a cut-off wheel and grind a screwdriver slot to remove the bolt. I find myself removing a lot of broken screws and bolts for people and have done so for a long time. Some of them are very small and these techniques and a few others have worked very well. I've never liked "easy-out's". I hope this long winded post is helpful, good luck. John

I made a set about 15 years ago. I used the stock hub with the crank and knob cut off. I drilled a hole in the male fitting for the hub and tapped it for a machine screw, 8-32 if memory serves. I machined the hub into a "U" shape to accept a piece of Al. of about .090" then tapered it and put a joggle in it. Then I turned and knurled a knob for 6061-T6 and secured it with a shoulder bolt, I think. I'm pretty busy just now, but I'll try to get a photo sometime this weekend and try to get it posted. I'm not much for computer stuff so have patience on the photo if you want to see this thing.

Round lights just don't seem to fit the style of the front of that car unless they're in a rectangular housing of some sort. The KW lights look more like they were designed in from the begining. Just my opinion you understand.

I was lookin at the 280YZ kit and thought the headlights from the Kenworth tractor worth a look. Dual rectangular headlights in a chrome housing. Check them out at your nearest truck stop.

Hey, I think this is cool.

I bought the US general 4000 pound jack on sale at HF and it only lifted my Z once then died. She was a pretty thing to look at though. Hmmm, Like a girl or two I've known. Anyway, it was blue anodized and polished Al. . Very pretty. I took it back and the manager said they'd had a lot of returns on them ,but that the 3000 pounder hadn't given any problems. Both were the pretty Al. jacks. I bought a pretty 3000 pounder for a friend for christmas and it has given him good service on his Daytona coupe replica. I purchased a not so pretty 4000 pound Al. jack at Costco for myself for about $100 and have gotten good service from it as well. I would not go back to those heavy steel jacks after using mine.