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Tony D

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Posts posted by Tony D

  1. Like 280Zone says, will U-Haul even LET you tow their auto-transport behind your Cherokee? Every time I went in there, it was like I needed to have a 3/4 or 1-Ton pickup to tow a vehicle. Like you said, they get a bit litigation crazy on the "safety factor". And their contract now states the plate numbers of the vehicles towing and towed, they will viod their contract and hang your a** out if anyting happens outside the terms of their stated towed and towing vehicles.

     

    The question is what kind of quote are you getting from them? Does the 280 you are towing have plates, and a good set of tires? I have personally towed cross country using the Valley Tow-Bar. It's small enough to fit under the cross box tool carrier in my truck, so I have it, and the mickey mouse lights with me wherever I go---in case I run across a good find and have to take it home with me! LOL Even without plates, towing INTO California without plates is not a problem as long as you say you will be plating it as you are delivering it into the state. Leaving is another story, but then a "one trip permit" is cheap in that case, and easily had at any DMV.

     

    The towbar only costs around $125 at a Pep Boys, and the fasteners they have fit right in the bumper strut holes of the 260/280/280ZX... That towbar has paid itself back in fees I can't say how many times over. I have lent it out to people two times to tow vehicles back from CA to wherever they were (Kentucky and Maryland, actually) and the thing is small enough to be UPS'ed back to me when they are done. You can UPS it ahead to someplace to pick up a vehicle with it.

     

    Consider the costs... $125 for the Towbar, $40 for a set of lights and some safety chains...maybe a set of $99 Pep-Boys Skins for the 280 if you are suspect on the tires making the trip. If U-Haul suggests the cost to be near that total of around $280...you may find it's cheaper to BUY than RENT! And you KNOW you will use that towbar in the future!!!

     

    Just another area of consideration. I have actually towed my 240 with my Fairlady Z using this towbar!!! NO WAY would U-Haul condone that, but you know the FMVSS requires a braking capability of 2.5X, so as long as you are flat-towing like or lighter, there should be no problems.

     

    My only caveat is that towing an S30 without an engine in it may cause some undue tire wear. We went through a tire (though this is also a bit due to the alignment being off, and we just moved the tie rod to 'stop the squealing tire' )when we towed it from El Paso to Phoenix. Towing them light in the front end may not be advisable. But for a full, together car, I'd not hesitate to flat-tow it. Get a set of cheap skins or used tires (if needed), and tow away!

     

    Good Luck!

  2. Just a note on the above diagram, which I had PM'd him before realizing this was posted.

    Keep the PRESSURE SWITCH on the same tank as the compressor. You do not want hose/piping loss coming into the equation with this small of a unit (or any unit for that matter!)

     

    Also, valve your tanks. Put a valve on the outlet of the main tank, and on the inlet of any downstream tank. Use a Female Quick-Coupler on all Discharge Openings, and a Male Quick Coupler on all Inlets. This includes your Regulator Assembly.

     

    This will allow you to run your aux tank as far away from the compressor as you have hoses. Putting the aux tank where you are working, and putting the damnable loud compressor as far away as possible is nice... The valves allow you to close them during break times so the only air you might leak out is contained in the hoses. It also allows you to store the air for future useage---that aux tank will work 1000% better than the store-bought 'spare air' tanks you get for filling tires. With 30 gallons of 125psi air, you can actually fill more than one tank at a time. And filling the tank is as easy as hooking up your air hose---no need to hold the chuck on the tank forever as it dribbles air into the thing to charge it!

     

    Technically, you should have a pressure relief valve on any vessel...than includes the aux tank. If you leave it in the hot SoCal Sun you would be suprised how much pressure you can build in a tank starting with 125 filled on a 40 degree night.....

     

    Anyway, having the quick couplers on everything helps configure the system in many different ways, you can put yor dryer wherever you want or remove it completely if you don't need dry air---and having valves on it keeps ambient humidity from contaminating the desiccant inside while you're not using it.

     

    Adding valves and QD's adds versatility. And in a home compressor you will need it for everything, so versatility is a big plus.

     

    Harbor Freight sells Air hoses cheap---like $9 a piece. Same for QD's. The QD's will keep you from having to screw and unscrew things every time you make a change. Also, off that aux tank, consider turning it into what my old German Friend used to call a "Luftzow"---"AirPig". I think he called it that because the ones I had him make looked like little pigs, but basically it's a multiple adapter---like a cross or string of "T" fittings that you have many Female QD's on. This allows you to run several air tools on several hoses without swapping. Some of us a re impatient, and just like to pick it up and go with the flow. Having a multiple adapter on the outlet connection of the Aux Tank will make hooking up several lines nice and easy.

  3. A perusing of the 1972 Fairlady Z parts book will open your eyes to those "invisible" changes. All through there the annotations "All Exc PZR" are found. You will find "L20-S20 All" and the occasional "PZR", but the items Alan is referring to that confound most people would be the "L20-S20 All Exc. PZR" annotations. Meaning a "pedestrian" 432 would have the same part as any other Fairlady, but that the PZR, even though technically an S-20 Specification, would have something different again.

     

    Which still leads me to the question where my "100 Liter Special Vehicle" came from (S30-110661, "The Car that should never have been.") LOL

     

    And yes, as others mentioned I did indeed mean S31. It's a subgroup. While the Export RHD vehicles were RS30's during those final years, the JDM vehicles were S31, to distinguish the EFI Equipped bodyshell from the Non-EFI Equipped Export S30's going everywhere in the RHD world... Only the USA got those HLS30's (EFI Equipped!) in the 280Z...

  4. i bet my car puts out less then arnolds 5 hummers

     

    Actually, probably not. One of them is H2 Powered (as in Hydrogen).

    And modern EFI controlled and catalyzed vehicles are VERY clean. In some cases down here in SoCal, the exhaust coming out of some vehicles is actually CLEANER than the air it's taking in! This was the impetus behind Ford and Englehardt doing a joint venture to turn the Radiator of the Crown Vic into a CATALYST BED! The low-temperature technology of the Englehardt catalyst laid on the radiator cleaned the air enough that the tailpipe emissions were again compliant.

     

    Ford had reached a point where the excess hydrocarbons in the INCOMING AMBIENT AIR were enough of a problem that it was affecting their tailpie numbers!!!

     

    I am actually FOR smog testing of ALL vehicles, but NOT under the regulations we have now. It should be a TAILPIPE test ONLY, and the resultant numbers should be a SET TARGET based on YEAR OF MANUFACTURE for the CHASSIS. But this is a digression I am getting into...

     

    Unless you are running a very well-controlled EFI system slightly lean at cruise (or Three-Way Catalyzed), chances are all five of Arnold's hummers runnning combined will put out less pollutants per mile driven than your vehicle...

     

    New cars ARE VERY CLEAN. But there is no reason common sense legislation can't be passed to make it EASIER for older vehicles to be EASILY retrofitted so long as they PASS AT THE TAILPIPE (REGARDLESS OF ENGINE CONFIGURATION)... Don't worry, 2010 your car will fall under the new 35 year rule for tailpipe only testing.... But will you be ready with the proper documents to take advantage of that law???

  5. Nope, L28ET were available in Japan....they were just very rare and many were Auto.

     

    Where is your documentation for that statement?

    They got the L20ET as the tax class break, and that was the Fairlady Z(T).

    The Fairlady 280Z did not have a Turbo Option as far as I know, nor have I ever seen anything other than "Japanese Engine Brokers" stating there were L28ET's available.

     

    Living in Japan from 1984 to 1989 while these cars were still readily available, I never heard of the option being available, either.

     

    And this would also carry over to the Cedric, Gloria, Skyline, Leopard, etc...

    If it was available in the Z, it would have been available in these driveline compatible vehicles as well, and in the JDM I am unaware of that engine option ever being offered.

     

    Matter of fact, I can probably dig up some stuff in print from Nissan Japan stating that it wasn't, as well.

  6. Tony D - I wasn't aware I could use my carbs as throttle bodies. I'll do some research on that. If I can sell my 510, I plan on rolling the $2000 into my Z. EFI is getting cheaper so it is now a possibility. I was thinking TWM ITBs and MegaSquirt - not sure on the ignition side as I already have MSD with built in boost retard. I know there is a lot of info on this - I just haven't looked yet.

     

    Glyn

     

    There is an old issue of CCC from the UK where a guy took old Weber 40DCOE's and cut them all up, and epoxied injector bungs into them and used them as the ITB's. I think that is a bit counterproductive. On Mikuinis (hell, any of these carbs) you can remove all the internal restrictions with a couple of Screws. Lock those screws in place with the facory Jam Nuts and maybe pull the cover to remove the floats, just for insurance, and run em that way. No need to screw up the things. Install the Injectors using a fuel rail and either screw-in bungs or Weld-In bungs on the Triple Manifold, and you are set! You can run the TPS off the cross bar linkage by adding another lever, and using a device sold by Kinsler Fuel Injecton to mount the TPS on the manifold, and connecting it with the additional lever. (It's a Universal TPS mount, I believe---it was used by Kinsler when they change their Mechanical Fuel Injection Units over to Electric---mounts on the return valve plate, and the linkage is already there, soooo.... Uses a standard GM TPS, and you can specify RH or LH rotation of the device so it's pretty configurable.)

     

    Using that Kinsler TPS thing, you could use just about anywhere on the throttle linkage of any Z-Car to mount (hide) your TPS---like on the firewall, on the balance tube of a set of SU's, etc.

     

    And the big advantage of this is you don't hack up your carbs, they can always be restored to their former glory and sold... LOL!

  7. Got some time to return to the Megasquirt invalid in the back yard after the Wife suggested "come hell or high water it needs to get moving" I started reading up on all the travails of Mr. Webb's issues and went out to check some stuff on mine. I'd recalled something about Taylor Wires, but couldn't remember what.... Oh yeah, they were crap, and after he changed his the odd resets and stuff went away. Well, I had Taylor wires on the car. I went back through my notes, and anecdotally at least looked like there was a correlation between the troubles and their installation. When I had first run up the engine it was on some old stockers, and somewhere along the line, after it initially was running thought the car needed some color-matched wires.... It is supposed to be for the wife, you know...

    So the Taylors go installed. And reading the old web posts apparently they are not recomended with the MS unit. I don't know if this is in the Sticky (been a long time since reading it) but the "suggested" wires should be called out for people reading it before initial install.

     

    Anyway, went and got some good supression wires (Take your pick, MSD 8.5mm Superconductor Supression Wires with Bosch Resistor Plugs...or Bosch Resistor Wires with Bosch Resistor Plugs, and Autolite Resistor Plugs...Or MSD wires and Autolite Resistor Plugs, or any combination of the several aforementioned components...) You know where this is going, right????

     

    I start the car, run the car and get to the point where the alternator field flashes, and now the engine will shut down and stumble after 13 seconds (instead of the former 45 seconds). By shut down, I mean the LED on the MS closest to the DB9Pin literally shuts off 13 seconds after the field flashes, and takes a pause before coming back on again. Engine won't completely stop, but the Tach immediately drops to Zero, and then jumps back up to wherever it would normally be on a coast-down from say 3500rpms (where the screwdriver wedged in the throttle assembly could keep the car running)... Now, moving the power pickup point of the Radioshack 20A Line Filter from the starter to the front terminal of the dual-terminal battery didn't make much of a difference, nor did adding new 2-Gauge Battery Cables + and - to the mix...

     

    Getting frustrated at this point, and looking at my old MS Box that suddenly stopped working just after I resolved the old "XP COM" problem (archives, that was something like three years ago) I see that the good old reset pin was plucked out of the socket. So, thinking "WTF" I unseated the chip, and plucked this reset pin out of the mix.

     

    Now, when the car is started, and the field on the alternator flashes, there is no lag of 13 seconds before the problems start. As soon as that baby flashes, the thing starts doing it's thing: tach drops to zero, then starts backfiring, popping, generally running like Sh*t...

     

    Keep it so the alternator (Nissan Remanufactured Unit, not crap Autozone junk) doesn't flash, and it seems to run fine, as long as the battery voltage is up.

     

    What's next, besides trashing it all and going back to Carburetion? This is Bullsh*t. I'm looking at the V2.2 Board Copyright Date, and can't offhand remember when the group buy was on those boards (the last group buy offered) but whatever it was, 1 year after the stuff was here, at the outside, was when it was put together and this project got underway. Is someone going to say put a different alternator into the car? I got a GM conversion unit from JeffP's cast-offs. Nice externally regulated unit... Is someone going to suggest it's alternator noise, even through the line filter.

     

    Or is someone going to suggest using a test instrument that costs more than the car to probe stuff and see what is going on?

     

    Last time I probed anything, I couldn't see any significant power issues on feed power. If I'm going to be told to scope it, I need to know what to look for and where to set the dials....

     

    I can see inductive kick from the injectors at different places, but not after coming out of board filtration (as I recall...this has been some time ago).

     

    In either case, I'm out another $200+ and the thing STILL isn't working.

     

    And the kicker is this is the basic, Magnus MS-n-S code of looooooong ago. I will not upgrade to the new stuff with another entire set of bugs to figure out and mess with till this basic setup is running.

     

    Right now, I would KILL to have a Eurospec Pneumatically retarded Distributor to stick on this thing and just run fuel-only. Being this is an 81ZXT engine, I still have the Electronic Distributor Option... But for that, I will end up tearing out the whole MS Harness and redoing it just for principal.

     

    I really am glad Webbie got his running. His success and Taylor Wire connection got me going and enthusiastic to try it on one of the few free days I have available... but this crash-and-burn is fully discouraging and makes me want to torch the SOB.

     

    And like Frank280ZX says: "And this is the only shiny car you have, Tony, why aren't you running it?"

     

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

  8. Hey John, what size hose do you recommend for air tools? I have this huge compressor (i cant remember the specifics), and i find it funny that it wont power my air tools. Its not that it runs out of air, it seems as if its not providing enough air. Maybe the hose i am using is too small for air tools?

     

     

    Any of the Harbor Freight 3/8" hoses should be fine for probably 95% of the stuff you will ever use.

     

    Some of the larger impact guns and impact tools will need a larger hose for flow, but if you have either a 1/4 or 3/8" I.D. on the hose, you should be fine for up to a 3/4" impact wrench spinning 1500 ft-lbs.

     

    Come to think about it, I have an old "Cheap" Quincy sitting in a bucket out back... I'm waiting for the POS Oil-Free Devilbiss to crap out so I can do exactly like John said: Mount it using a new Baldor Motor and use the tank and regulation system... Then again I have two brand new Atlas Copco Heads as well, a 3HP LE3, and a 7HP LE5. Man, I should mount those before the Quincy, they are one step up from the Oil Free Crap Recips they sell all over nowadays.

     

    I digress...

  9. I'll repeat myself again...

     

    Find an independent compressor repair shop and see if the they have a rebuilt 1950s or 1960s Ingersoll-Rand, Kellog-American, Thomas, or other cast iron low rpm compressor for sale. Add a Baldor electric motor and a 80 gallon tank and you're set for anything for the next 50 years.

     

    I have said that in the past, but everybody wants "new" stuff.

     

    OH CRAP!

     

    Hey, You're in Corona, RIGHT?

     

    GO TO COLE-CO COMPRESSOR off Smith & Commerce Street. Ask for "Red". Tell him Tony Dighera sent you over.

     

    I am SURE he will have something laying around the shop that he can work you a deal on. I will be going to his company christmas party tomorrow, I'll ask him if he has something along the lines of what JohnC was suggesting.

     

    BIG D'OH! I completely spaced on the fact you were in Corona. Red is a good guy, he should be able to find something for you if you can wait.

     

    He formerly worked for the Quincy Distributor, and even though I work for I-R, I would have to say the Quincy QRD series compressors are probably one of the best small reciprocating units ever made. They are about the only ones still constructed with a FORCE FED oil system that incorporates a FILTER!

  10. Ask Norm about that clutch disc that came through his floor one day!

    Matter of fact, I have seen 510's with stock 1600's frag a clutch, though in that case the bellhousing held it in.

     

    We had to make one for Bonneville. The easiest way to do it is heat and bend some 1/4" plate that has been sheared 4 to 6" wide.

    Weld some tabs on it so you can

    1) either mount it with the engine to tranny bolts (means you have to pull the engine tranny as a set---this is what we have, and it's a PITA)

    2) drill and tap some holes on the bellhousing to mount the bent plate to the top of the tranny (you know that flat spot?) and another tab for one of the starter bolts, and then underneath for some of the holes on the bottom of the tranny.

     

    I think #2 is the best choice. This is of course for the L-Engine. It works, and has gone through tech inspection. There is no SFI stamp on our shield, but 1/4" plate is what the hydroformed scattershields are normally made from, penetrating 1/4" plate will be very difficult.

     

    Driveshaft hoops are also a good idea (and required for our Bonneville car as well) and there are plenty of Universal kits out there for that.

  11. Ohhh, more tasty bits from the "Alan Archives"! Coooool!

     

    I have to agree, the "Factory" ZG flares fit very tightly over the body lines, it becomes obvious where they go when held up to the body. Unfortunately like any other FRP part, the generational loss from molds and "improvements" done throught the intervening 30+ years have made for (IMO) some pretty poor fitting parts.

     

    I have been on this rant before, and maybe Alan will chime in as well, but IMO, the FRP parts produced in Japan were head and shoulders above anything done here in the USA. I was once offered a US-Knockoff G-Nose, and when I saw it basically wasn't interested. My 450Yen junkyard one-piece Japanese Knockoff was better! (I will note that John Coffee's stuff I DO have on my vehicles-a CF Hood, but his is a step apart from the masses of junk most people use. There may be individuals making high quality parts, but they are few and far between, and almost always are knocking off a knocked off part, and not an OEM Nissan Piece.)

     

    And when you start playing around with OEM Nissan Stuff....

     

    The saddest part is that there are so many good Aerospace Composite Manufacturing Facilities in SoCal, someone with some OEM Nissan stuff could make some REAL quality pieces. The problem is the costs involved will be beyond most people who are willing to put this stuff on their car. So many people will settle for an inferior part, selling a real quality part for a reasonable (meaning costs covered + reasonable profit) price becmoes almost impossible.

     

    But isn't that always the way?

     

    Now I'm thinking about looking at that Service Manual I have and seeing if that ZG Flare was in there, I know the S20 engine overhaul is covered in mine, but I really haven't looked at it in years.

  12. GT-240, have you considered removing the venturis from your existing carbs, and using them as throttle bodies? Install the Injectors in your intake manifold with some screw-in bungs, and you got something that definately looks old-school, but has EFI! Megasquirt would be ideal for this setup, basically you replumb for EFI just like any other MS Conversion.

     

    Me, I got some tasty Old-School HKS ITB's and that HKS Surge Tank waiting to supplant my Mikuinis... Whenever I get the time. My Blowthrough turbo has been slated to be EFI upgraded for many years...in the interim it's "been resting" LOL!

  13. It wasn't Arnold that did it, it was the air quality orginization.

     

    Mountjoy from Arcadia (ran against Feinstein this round of elections for her senate seat) tried to get the old BAR90 put into the State Constitution, it passed all Federal Mandates, but one, and that was a simple fix. The reason he wanted it into the constitution was that to change the smog system, you would need a 2/3 vote of THE PEOPLE, instead of some unaccountable, appointed board.

     

    People, instead of whinging about this kind of stuff, GET INVOLVED! If it wasn't for SEMA doing HEAVY lobbying on automotive aftermarket manufacturers' behalf, the 30 year exemption would have been eliminated PERIOD! There is now a 35 year rolling exemption of the VISUAL testing criteria, but only for specific vehicles---read the laws and find out what those are, I'm not spooning this out. The more people that READ the laws, the more people who will realize when BS is being dished out.

     

    Want to REALLY change the SMOG system, call your local repressentative, and cry holy hell to get them to STOP THE MNUNICIPAL AND STATE EXEMPTION for those vehicles. Cop Cars, Busses, those ratty 1951 Water District Stepsides.... They all are EXEMPT from being tested. Do you realize how many state and local municipal vehicles there are?

     

    Want to know the logic behind 'exempting' them from the smog system?

     

    "It puts an undue financial burden upon municipalities operating large fleets of vehicles to comply with the states SMOG law."

     

    Excuse me, but if it's required for the PEOPLE, it should be required of EVERYONE! If they can't comply with the SMOG system requirements, and their fleets of vehicles start getting red-tagged and Joe Detective can't drive his cruiser home every night....how long do you tink the laws will remain as insane as they have been?

     

    I digress...

  14. I understand all the "HybridZ" reasons, but you are talking about an RX7, not a Z. The RX7 is similar to the Z in many ways, so if you are hell bent on fixing up your RX7, save yourself some time and energy and put a rotary in it. The HP potential is huge with a rotary, and it is much lighter than an L6. If you want max power and don't care about weight, put a V8 in it. It will probably fit better, and there may be people making motor mounts for this conversion...

     

     

    An aluminum V8 like from a Q45 or Titan....Muahahahahaha!

  15. Webcams is about 5 minutes from my house... he he he!

    You can swap cam towers, you just have to take measures to get them lined up without a bind. There are various methods from simple to complex, but most commonly it involves snugging them incrementally and nudging them with a mallet one way or the other till the cam in unbound, and then continuing while rotating the cam to determine how it's going.

     

    Paeco in Birmingham would take any set of cam towers, and put them on any head. They also would bush the towers if there was a lube failure to the top end, and with the bushings they were done undersize, and then line-bored same as you would do like a crankshaft.

     

    I have occasionally done the "Odd man out" cam tower swap from parts in a bucket.... If it didn't work (started binding) went and got another one and tried it till I found one that worked. People put a bit too much emphasis on stuff sometimes. If it works, it works. That's the end of the discussion in my book.

     

    Sure, you can weld every cam tower undersize and line bore them on the head, that would be what a "machinst" would recommend, but in my experience, machinists make very poor mechanics---they tend to overwork items that have nothing wrong with them, and make very simple problems have exceedingly complex solutions.

     

    People have been switching cam towers on L-Engines since their introduction in the 60's. Usually it happens as a set. If someone thinks L-Heads never have the cam towers removed, think about a proper head resurfacing entails: EQUAL amounts of material taken off the gasket AND the Top Surface of the head (warpage on the bottom will transfer to the top, and if you DON'T remove the top metal, you run the risk of the cam towers going out of alignment and putting the cam in a bind once up to operating temperature!

     

    Then there were those Iron-Headed L-4's, and the Iron Cam Towers with Bushings... But that story is for another day.

     

    I am in agreement with the "go bigger"---the ONLY reason the L26 Cam (hell, really if you want the "best" stock cam, check out the early carbbed L20A!) is so popular is that the aforementioned L20A Dual Carbbed Cam is NLA, and people running ITS or other restricted "Stock" Racing Classes need every advantage they can get, and that little bit, added with another little bit, added to another little bit, makes the competitive edge they want.

     

    Bigger cam is easier.

  16. Big Stretch, but if you want, I can will call them, or you can have them sent to my place, and I can forward them. McMaster's L.A. warehouse is only about 35 miles from my house, and I go by there on a regular basis whilst in town. Maybe pisk up another set just in case I bid on that one on e-bay currently (forewarned is forearmed!)

    I have forwarded stuff for people in the past before, how much can it be to ship some Bellville washers to NZ?

    I lost track of this thread, here it is! LOL

  17. That is only a partial reading of the smog laws regarding vehicles and what kind of exemptions they are entailed to. A more thorough reading the the laws will uncover some 35 year rolling exemptions from VISUAL checks. You still have to pass the sniffer, but that's easy enough for a one-eyed retard on mescaline. The VISUAL component is the killer, and there will be vehicles that are specifically exempted from visual inspections on a 35 year rolling exemption. Right now it covers 1973-older, in 2007 it will cover 74-older. In time, yes the 76 can be exempted from the visual inspection, but it's up to you to figure out which hoops you will have to jump through...

  18. here is the best value: go on a diet and lose 30 LBS off your belly...Why do you never see 300Lb F1 drivers?

     

    Yes, I'm good for three seconds in most any car when riding at an Auto X...

     

    So I could probably cut 160# off the car by going on a real Jared Style Subway Regimen.

     

    Or I could simply turn up the boost 5 pounds and make up for it in about 15 seconds.

     

    Decisions decisions, which course will I take. Mmmmm, Coffee Crisp, my decision is made! LOL

     

    F1 drivers come from europe and third world countries, remember those childhood admonitions: people in Brazil are starving, clean your plate.

     

    Case closed, they simply are picking them up in a state of emaciation.

     

    BTW, it's not Fat in my case, it's Bloat from Malnutrition...

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