Today I Learned (TIL)

In reply to Knurled:

I complained when changing the drive belt using the correct tool kit on my Gen 8 Accord. She's tight in that area.

Today i learned that riding through the carwash in a miata doubles as a shower for the driver.

Today I learned that the Bentley Bentayga has a 'Falconry by Mulliner' edition for those of you so inclined with birds of prey as your field weapon of choice.

Today I learned that there is an unpublished dark side to ventilated seats .

It was bad, real bad.

XLR99 wrote: Today I learned that there is an unpublished dark side to ventilated seats . It was bad, real bad.

oh hell

now ya gotta tell the rest of that story

TIL that if you have a shop vac and the hose is clogged with stuff, you can just put the hose in the vac's exhaust and blow the obstruction out.

TIL that you should not blow the hose obstruction out into the footwell of the car you were trying to vacuum out in the first place, especially if you're sitting the car. There's going to be a lot of dust on the inlet side of that obstruction.

fasted58 wrote:

XLR99 wrote: Today I learned that there is an unpublished dark side to ventilated seats . It was bad, real bad.

oh hell now ya gotta tell the rest of that story

I bet it involves farting. Any story that doesn't go into very much detail and involves ventilated seats has got to have farting as one of its main plot points.

In reply to Knurled: Pharting ..........Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Knurled wrote:

fasted58 wrote:

XLR99 wrote: Today I learned that there is an unpublished dark side to ventilated seats . It was bad, real bad.

oh hell now ya gotta tell the rest of that story

I bet it involves farting. Any story that doesn't go into very much detail and involves ventilated seats has got to have farting as one of its main plot points.

Farting preceded by cheep beer and chili is my guess...

TIL that people in Florida call Kudzu something like air potato vine...

In reply to Knurled:

Yup, it was discovered quite by accident that you can turn the inside of the car into a gas chamber. Some family members then took it to an extreme, which resulted in the mama bear getting mad and almost killing everybody. Good times on family road trips...

Today I learned I've only put 500 miles on the miata since last September.

Guess I can't complain too much about it needing gas now.

TIL why I could never be a professional mechanic. For one, I am slow as hell. The Internet told me a clutch job on a 1st gen Mazda 3 should be anywhere from 5-9 hours, while I spent a solid 8 and don't even have the transmission out yet. I also learned what I assumed to be the original clutch is probably not original, because one of the bellhousing bolts came conveniently pre-buggered. Of course it had to be the least accessible of all the bolts and I am at a bit of a loss as to what I am going to do about it. Pretty much anytime i am working on some sort of a self imposed deadline there is guaranteed to be a calamity of one kind or another. And finally, I simply find no joy in working on someone else's car.

TIL I'm part of a secret squad. I'd hope they'd have given us cool code names too. I guess one man's thorough accident investigation is another man's cover up conspiracy.

http://nypost.com/2017/07/15/mta-allegedly-uses-secret-clean-up-crews-to-cover-up-accidents/

Today i learned that you can move a not wanting to run duster uphill with the starter in first.

In reply to Dusterbd13:

It just takes more voltage, hook some batteries in series

Hooked it to the charger about halfway. Worked like a champ!

Pneumonia has some good points. My abs have never looked so good!

In reply to mad_machine:

Constant exercise from barfing up a lung, dieting enforced by having no appetite, or a little bit of both?

Pneumonia helped me quit smoking a while back. So I can't say it's all bad, either.

TIL that when you buy an "Exact Fit" cat back exhaust from Advance Auto and have it shipped to your house, "Exact Fit" means you will also need a tubing cutter, an extra clamp, about three feet of your old exhaust pipe and an extra hour or so to get the job done.

Knurled wrote: In reply to mad_machine: Constant exercise from barfing up a lung, dieting enforced by having no appetite, or a little bit of both? Pneumonia helped me quit smoking a while back. So I can't say it's all bad, either.

yes

I learned a lot of things this weekend.

Well, slightly before this weekend, my computer at work died, with a pathetic little error code beep on turn-on. A Google search said this particular beep code ("What's wrong, Artoo?" "sad-sounding beep beep") was memory error. Further search offered diagnostic procedures (thanks, Dell). Played juggle-the-SIMMs to see what was bad and waitaminute... waaaaitaminute! There's a 1 gig stick and a 2 gig stick in here. The last time I bothered to look at system specs, which was about three-four months ago, it said I had 1 gig of memory. So I shortcutted the diag and removed the 2 gig stick and put the 1 gig stick in the primary slot. Computer boots up. Shut off, remove the 1 gig stick and replace it with the 2 gig stick. " beep beep "

So the 2 gig stixck previously died or something, but not dead enough to keep the computer from booting. NO WONDER THE THING WAS SO FREAKIN' SLOW AND WAS ALWAYS AT 50-60% MEMORY ALLOCATION.

The moral of the story is my boss's brother upgraded my computer to 4 gigs during the Big Move to the new facility. Actually it wasn't just me, it was an Oprah-like EVERYONE GETS FOUR GIGS but all the same, I feel good.

The next thing that I remember that I learned this weekend is... okay. Let's back up. We're using an electric forklift, which uses a GIGANTIC 12-volt wet-cell battery, to remove some 250-300 gallon liquid containers from the shelf racks. The containers are plastic, but they have metal grates surrounding them as reinforcement, and we had welded some angle iron to the bottoms for better support on the racks, and since we also welded feet to the angle iron to meet up with a second set of racks to spread the load (no kill like overkill) we had to cut the angle iron off before we could put the "totes" in the moving van. So, while they were on the forklift, Da Boss got his friend Mr. Angle Grinder and got busy cutting the welds. First tote went just fine. Second tote was a bit far away from the outlet, but ever observant Knurled had already unwound an extension cord after seeing the tension on the angle grinder's cord, and walked the extension around the far side of the forklift so that it wouldn't get driven over. Handed extension to Da Boss, who immediately was able to change position and start grinding almost before tired, sweaty Knurled started to walk away and

KABOOM

...

WTF?

The battery in the forklift exploded.

Well, it didn't explode as such, it only blew one (1) of the maintenance caps off. But the forklift was given a good solid top-up charge before it was pressed into tote-moving duty, and the new angle of cut allowed by not being tethered to the wall outlet projected sparks right at the battery.

It was the first time ANY of us had actually experienced a battery-precipitated hydrogen explosion.

Huh, I guess those warnings were actually kinda important after all...

I learned that the Brits do more than just car shows. in a similar vein to "wheeler dealers" I offer you Getting afloat with Nick Gates

If you enjoy woodworking, wooden boats, or his funky pickup, check it out

Today I learned my GTA apparently has the same axle you'd find under an R31 Skyline.