Good morning!!!!

[txdon]

Fuddy, condolences to you and your family. Great pic. Did your mom do any professional flying or was that just her hobby?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

31F cloudy.
Good day at work enough so left early.
Dump run stop for critter food before noon,afternoon putter outside.
Mrs. said it's been couple months since I ask you about trading the pickup,that kinda put damper on the rest of the afternoon gotta do some research on todays no trill pickups before spring.
Plans for the evening share bowl ice cream and numb it to pillow time.

Enjoy your evening all.

What’s wrong with the pickup that she thinks you should trade it?

 

[WinterDeere]

for the resident motorheads:
Jeep just announced the recall of over a 100 thousand Cherokees and XJs with their hybrid system over last two years.

No worries… the motorheads only drive the 6.2L and 6.4T’s.

really remarkable how many bad new engines are being built today.

I’d be surprised if manufacturing quality issues have really increased, in fact I think we know it’s the opposite. But I suspect new designs pushing an average 100 hp/liter and much better efficiency to boot, have really increased the sensitivity to minor manufacturing and materials issues, versus the classic standards of 30 - 40 hp/liter.

Things like shorter piston skirts aimed at reducing cyclical mass drive a requirement for much tighter tolerances, and increased operating temperature ranges force designs that must hold those super-tight tolerances against thermal expansion to almost impossible levels.

If this latest one is an issue of casting sand left in the crankcase, that might be squarely on the shoulders of “manufacturing” and not “engineering”. But I might not be so quick to lump that in with the many other cases you remember, which are more related to chasing better efficiency and horsepower.

Wasn’t the famous old “piston slap” issue Chevy owners were complaining about 15 years ago chased down to a metal alloy quality problem? I seem to remember that some vendor supplied GM with pistons cast from an alloy that was just a bit off from the specified formula, and this resulted in a different than planned coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). The uncontrolled CTE would cause the pistons to become looser in their bores at some temperatures, and given the short piston skirts on that design (efficiency!), this caused them to rock on their wrist pins, making that slapping noise and associated wear.

If they’d only made the piston skirts longer, like the old days, they wouldn’t need to maintain such tight tolerances on the piston and bore over the whole temperature range. If they weren’t forced to run those engines up over 200F, the temperature range and relative expansions would be lower and less critical. Etc, etc, etc… but then they’d fail on mileage and emissions requirements!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Hello all. My Mother passed at home Friday 14th at 4:42. My Dad passed 10 years ago almost to the day. My wife, I & Mom's caregivers were with her, she passed peacefully. She was 98. I'll make funeral arrangements Monday, ironically our wedding anniversary, together 53 years.View attachment 4416944

Condolences

 

[daugen]

What’s wrong with the pickup that she thinks you should trade it?

sounds like a dream scenario to me...

if it means a very cold winter to keep the fire ants from crawling this far North,
bring on the cold.
fire ants are the pits, nasty bites from ferocious chompers

 

[Engineer42]

Hello all. My Mother passed at home Friday 14th at 4:42. My Dad passed 10 years ago almost to the day. My wife, I & Mom's caregivers were with her, she passed peacefully. She was 98. I'll make funeral arrangements Monday, ironically our wedding anniversary, together 53 years.View attachment 4416944

Sorry for your loss, Fuddy.

 

[Engineer42]

are all torx or star drives the same?
do they have different numbers of teeth and is their some standard?
I think six teeth is standard but?
you need a combo of both grip and strength

don't think they quote steel quality or hardness on the box
predrilling carefully here will reduce the problems

learned a new word, hexalobular socket
aka Torx being the brand name

I've had good luck with the GRK Brand.

 

[WinterDeere]

are all torx or star drives the same?

No. All Torx drivers are the same geometry, but there are many other "star" drive types.

do they have different numbers of teeth and is their some standard?

"Torx" is a standard, with 6 teeth. But there are many other standards, some pretty common, which look a lot like torx but aren't.

I think six teeth is standard but?

Yes, six teeth is standard for Torx, as well as a few of the other common variants. But I also have several with 5 teeth, and others (e.g. Timberlok) with higher tooth counts. Here's a TimberLok driver bit with 8 teeth, which is very common in framing:

learned a new word, hexalobular socket

That one's new to me, as well! But it makes perfect sense, I like it!

 

[nforktractor]

Square drive screws lost favor many years ago. Nonetheless, I sure like torx better, and they tend to not get chewed up.

Back in the day, the square drive screws were the cat's meow, compared to the Phillips or Flathead screws.

 

[newbury]

Drew I'm pretty good I can strip them all out!!

does Torx/star strip out less than square?

Yup!
Depends on the metal and the torque