Remix Review

I've been using the photos remix tool quite a bit. The younger says I'm a Facebook mom with it, that's fair. I figured I'd do another “instant” post with some of the pictures from the past year re imagined.

To start off, I took the picture of the Simian Button Man from the cover artwork of Down at Flathead, from the literary stack post. Looks like it changed 'em into a rodent Button Man!!! I enjoyed the read, but it felt like it lost the thread and found other threads. When we were on Catalina, I asked a few of the locals if they knew the author, I wanted to ask him what happened to the moon buggy!!!

I'd made mention of having gifted a stuffed Alan to a friend, who now has it on her shelf next to a plastic Perry the Platypus. Since platypuses are already a strange mix, remixing the picture made him into a duck!!! And Alan looks a bit like a dinosaur.

On the same post, I'd shared the X-ray of my broken metatarsal. It got the break fairly accurate, but I'm missing my second toe!!! It's hard to believe that it's been a year since I broke it, it's mostly fine now!!!

I'd made a post from a couple of events, the belated Valentine's Day dinner, and our trip to a Kings game. From the first, I took the picture of my wife with her chocolate malt, and it changed her into a Disney mom!!!

I took the picture my wife took of me doing the re creation of the burrito and quesadilla attacking pictures, and... well, it took it from a side view to a front view, and less of an attack on the food!!! Also, now that I think about it, kind of made me into a Disney dad!!!

And, the selfie of us in the stands at the Kings arena...

And Bailey waving the Kings flag!!! I'd done it as a claymation look, too, and it changed him into a human!!!

I did a lot of car stuff this year. Most of it was on the Studebaker and Kutcher. The main thing that I accomplished with Zonker is to get her to pass smog!!! At some point in there, I'd decided that I didn't have nearly enough pictures of Zonker with the top down, so I took some time on a sunny afternoon and drove over to a local park and took a few shots. As always, the drawing look of remixing the picture yielded a nice result!!!

Another shot, it made it into a hard top!!! As far as I've been able to tell, only the Pontiac sibling came as a hard top. There have been a couple of companies that have done hard top conversions, but you know what??? I don't think I'd want it as a hard top!!!

Had the engine rebuild and swap done on Scruffy, as well as replacing the battery and getting some junkyard parts (including that very cool instrument panel!!!) for her. More on the engine swap to follow...

Another thing that I did a good amount of this year was going to the beach!!! I had been thinking of going there today, for New Years, but it was drizzly most of the morning. Anyway, I did another line drawing of the composite picture I'd done of the younger and friend at Horny Corner, and it came out pretty good!!!

Did a second of the same picture in the claymation style, and it came out funny!!! Looks like they're buried in the sand!!! To be fair, the original was only from the waist up.

Did the picture I took at Grill 'em All of Surrogate giving his sister the side eye. Not bad. Funny, it put a boat in the background with an umbrella instead of a sail!!!

And a shot of the sunset at Santa Monica beach as a painting!!!

And the inheritance of the Studebaker... has ended up taking up a good amount of my time!!! I have yet to finish the intended upgrades to the fuel system, and once I do hopefully it will be fairly roadworthy!!! Remix made it into a cartoon!!!

And in the drawing style, it came out great!!! Also got the Falcon in the picture!!!

The Gaslight Anthem and Counting Crows concert was a great show!!! The drawing of Adam came out great...

The claymation look rendering of the same picture, not so much!!!

I love the way this picture of the Casino from Descanso beach came out in something of an art deco style!!! This is actually an older picture, because we never made it over to Descanso beach this year. I had done a drawing style of a picture I took from the ocean side, and it came out pretty good. Then I did the same picture in the claymation style, and it came out looking not the same... it showed the front side, with a sign on the top, “Avalon Casino”.

I love the way the picture I took of Surrogate making breakfast came out!!!

Not shared, but one of the pictures I took while we were on the Casino Tour was of one of the restrooms. It looked very period correct, and upscale from what you see today. If I ever do manage to do a full post on that, it may be included, but for now, here's a selfie of us in the mirror, remixed as a drawing!!!

And the picture from when we bought our hats in 16-bit!!!

And from the ridge tour we went on...

And Sid!!! Can't forget the world's greatest cat!!! Here's how he'd look in his tube in 16-bit!!!

The picture I took of the guys in their Halloween costumes came out looking great, they look considerably more menacing in the remix!!!

When I had the engine swapped, I'd asked the guy to hold onto the engine he took out (which, if you're keeping track, was the one that originally was in 3). I'd not followed up with him afterwards, and had figured he'd probably recycled it by now, but he called me about a week ago about it. I asked him if he could break it down and give it a cleaning, and I'd pick it up. This Monday I picked it up, and it's much easier to move around when it's in pieces!!! As predicted, the crankshaft is scored, but he says it'll clean up no problem. Anyway, I stored the block, head, and crankshaft in a basement corner and took a picture before I put the box of covers and internals on the top, and remix came up with an interesting take!!!

And that time that Sidney was curled up in the trash can!!!

From our trip to the fondue place on our anniversary, I actually had AI modify the picture. I asked it to change the pot to a cauldron full of a questionable green liquid, and put a hooded cloak on me!!!

Keeping in the same theme, I took another picture from years ago, our crow friend on the iron chair, and it remixed it to be quite Halloween-ey!!

Clearing Up

Another in the continuing saga of getting stuff done on my cars!!! I had the fiasco of the engine mount replacement, and not long after, Scruffy got a flat in spectacular fashion!!!

I was letting surrogate son drive her, and he took some kind of steel bar to the back tire!!! As you can see, they were really needing to be replaced soon anyway. I'd just bought a set for Kutcher, and would have preferred to have a bit more of an interval between buying the next set.

He called AAA and they changed to the space saver spare. I had one of the old old ones that was mostly slick that's a little better than the space saver, so we put it on until we were able to get to the tire shop.

And that's how it looked from the inside!!! The guy at the tire shop tried to pull out the bar. It didn't come out.

Very shortly after the tires were replaced, the battery went out, so I bought a new one. Back when I had three S Series Saturns, I'd replaced all the batteries with Die Hards. Most car batteries, it seems like you're lucky to get three years out of them, I remember them going for 5 to 7 years or more back when I started driving. Not long after I had met my now wife, her grandmother bought two new batteries for her Oldsmobile diesel, and had the presence of mind to save the old ones for her granddaughter's new guy, and those were some of the best batteries I ever had!!! Of course, they have a very high amperage, well above what my Maverick required, so that probably helped. Anyway, all that to say, back around 7 or 8 years back I had it in my head that the Die Hard batteries that you used to be able to get from Sears had always been more reliable than the ones from the parts stores these days. When I yanked the engine out of 3, I saved the battery, and when we sent Jade away, I saved the battery. I picked up a trickle charger, and kept them maintained, and when the first one gave up, swapped to one of the others, and it went for another several months, then with the next one as well. It seems like my impression of the Die Hard brand was correct. Unfortunately, it seems nearly impossible to locate any of them anymore, so I've got a parts store 3 year battery in there now. Anyway, none of that was particularly difficult, just expensive, around $600. Oh yea, there was one issue getting the battery, the system wasn't working, so I had to go back the next day, and they returned it and re sold it to me with the warranty activated, and for the inconvenience, they discounted it by 10%, so that was nice.

Sometime in there, a friend of mine pointed out his headlights, which had been hazy, and he'd cleared up. He tells me that he just used Mother's mag polish on them, two passes, and they came out real nice!!!

The headlights on Kutcher were very hazy. I'd actually purchased a 3M kit a while back, and have been intending to pull the headlights out to polish them, but they're not easy to get out!!! I was thinking I'd do as some direct, and mask off the surrounding body and use it, but this sounded considerably easier, so I went ahead and bought a jar. It didn't take much doing at all, and they look way better!!!

Since I've done before and after GIFs of cleared up headlights before a couple of times, I went ahead and did it again!!! Not perfect, but gets the idea across!!! Both of the previous ones, I actually replaced the lights. I've polished plastic headlights before, notably on Baby, and possibly also on Jade, but apparently didn't get pictures. I was going to do an instant post with just the headlights, but decided to add the tires and battery as well.

While I'm at it, I'll make mention of the Studebaker stuff. I've picked up the stuff to update the fuel system on the Hawk, but haven't gotten it installed yet. Since I'm putting an electric fuel pump, I decided that adding a fuel pressure regulator would probably be wise, as well. Since I'm not sure what kind of pressure I'm running, I decided to add a pressure gauge as well, and I picked up a couple of pipe nipples and a tee to plumb them together, probably with the clear fuel filter right before them both. To establish a baseline, I put the tee and gauge in the line to the carb, and went to start it to see where the pressure would be. It cranked a couple of times, then just clicked.

I was a little irked that the deep cycle AGM battery I'd put in had already died, and put the charger on it the next day. It still just clicked after I'd charged it a while. Huh. Pulled out the starter, and it seems to have given up. I figured my dad had bought it from either Auto Zone or Reilly's with a lifetime warranty (I wouldn't buy one without a lifetime warranty) but it appears to not be the case. Of course, back when he was putting it together, Pep Boys was another store that sold lifetime parts. Seems they've become just a tire store now, but I got in touch with them about it. I'm also thinking of buying a mini high torque starter instead, but I don't know if I can get one with a lifetime warranty.

Oh, and just last week, we fired up the Maverick for the first time in a while!!! Did like I'd done with the Studebaker, primed the carb, and a little quick start, and it started and ran until the carb ran dry!!! I'd added an electric fuel pump years ago, and I disconnected both ends to see if it was pumping, and it wasn't. Next, we'll prime the mechanical fuel pump and put a short hose into a gas can, and see if it'll suction off that, and if so, we can probably just add several gallons to the tank, and it'll be running!!! Of course, it'll need tires, too!!!

More Car Stuff

Mostly because of my newly acquired inheritance, I've been getting in a good amount of car work in these days. As always, there's more to do!!!

Not chronological, but to start with, I bought a new deep cycle battery to use in the Hawk, and put the one I'd borrowed from the Falcon back in. I'll also mention since I don't have a picture to go with it, one of Kutcher's tires had a nail in it that I removed and plugged the hole. I'd bought a tire plug kit from my previous job, and this is the first time I used it. I've seen them installed before, but have never done it myself. Either I should have gone at the tire more and oversized the hole more, or it's harder to get in than I thought, I had to fight it to get it in!!! It's holding fine, though. The tires are all getting worn, and I'm thinking I'll do something I've been meaning to do, take it for an alignment, and buy a new set of tires. The oil change light just came on, and it will be the first one I've done without being able to buy employee price oil. One of the driving lights burned out, but I bought a pair of yellow ones to replace the factory white ones with not long after we bought it, and this may be the perfect time to install them!!! Oh, and I bought myself a pair of ramps to make some of these maintenance tasks a bit easier.

I'm also planning on doing a repair on the bottom of Zonker's front bumper like I did on Scruffy, it has a little portion in the middle that's hanging down now. That was a big part of the reason I bought the ramps!!!

On to the things I've done to the Hawk, I got all the window tint removed from the front windows. It wasn't as difficult as I'd thought it was going to be.

Also got a reflection of Zonker and of an unmentioned cat with coffee T-shirt my wife got me in the window picture!!!

One of the first things I did to try to get it to run cooler was to flush to cooling system and install a high flow thermostat. After I drained it, I removed the thermostat and added the flush, ran it for a while, and drained it again. As I did this, I got a better look at the sketchy looking routing of the upper radiator hose. The water pump and air conditioning compressor run off one belt, and the alternator drives from the A/C, and the hose was running between the two.

While I had the hose off, I got a look at the groove it had cut in the hose, and did not like the look of it at all!!! On my first run to the local auto parts store, they were good enough to let me go behind the counter and see if I could find a molded hose that might work better. A portion of part number D72224 turned out to work quite nicely!!!

My other thought was that the upper radiator hose appeared to be higher than the radiator filler, which could possibly cause a bubble in the system. I found a filler neck tee that I planned to put in place of the splice junction. I made the first purchase from my former work for a U-bolt to use as a solid mount for it, and added a bracket to hold it between the belt. I also tensioned the belt a little more.

After I'd done all the cooling system work, I was thinking I should have got some T-bolt hose clamps from my previous work while I was there (I'm not paying their shipping costs!!!) While I was looking around for something else, I located a couple I'd previously bought!!! Makes for a cleaner looking installation!!! I'd run it a couple of times in the driveway for around half an hour at a time, and the temperature didn't get all the way up, but the first time I noticed the electric fan wasn't coming on all the time. I cleaned the terminals and it seems to be working fine ever since.

I had ordered pizza a couple of nights later, and the younger and I took the Hawk to pick it up, as well as try it out and see how it did. It made it without and cooling issues, but it would surge while driving. Steady throttle, and it sounded like I was on and off the pedal. On the way back, I thought I'd take the less steep but longer back way up the hill. Around half way, it starts acting like it wants to cut out. I throw it in neutral and rev a few times (still acting like it's running rough and not really wanting to run) then try going again. It stalls out. I re start it, and it wants to die again, then does. I re start it again, and there's a road going off the side that I'm pretty sure goes down to the next street over. I head down it, and it's doing a little better not climbing, but the road is super sketchy, it goes down to one lane, and rutted dirt!!! I had the idea of taking it down to our street and parking it there, but it made it halfway down the street between, and stalls. I roll it to the side, and try re starting it again. It starts, but it's running really rough. It had gotten warm, but not like when I'd brought it home. I was thinking the heat was causing an issue, so I'd let it sit and cool for a while and try again. Oh yea, where it was, they now have no overnight 2 AM to 6 AM parking now.

We walked up, ate our pizza, and I walked back down a couple hours later. It re started, but was still running rough. I drove it over to the bottom of my street, and it stalled as I was rounding the corner. I was able to re start it, and drove it to the same back way street I'd last attempted, and it stalled out going around that corner, too!!! I called it for the night, rolled it back to the side of the street (no overnight restrictions there!!!) and once again walked up the hill.

The next day I headed down to see if I could figure it out. I was suspecting a fuel delivery issue. I recalled from when my dad had it, it came with a cork float for the fuel level sender, and after 40+ years it just kind of came apart!!! Probably, ideally, I should probably drop the tank and get it cleaned. He had installed an inline canister style fuel filter before the fuel pump, a clear filter with replaceable elements just before the carburetor, and the carb has a built in filter. I took out the clear one to get a look at it, and it was caked solid, and the gas in it looked like dirty brown water!!! Thinking I might be onto something, I headed over to the auto parts store again, and got a replacement for the carburetor filter and the inline filter. I just removed the clear one, planning to get a replacement element at a later time, and put the new carburetor filter in. It seemed to run much better with just that!!! That night, I drove it straight up the front way, and it pulled all the way!!!

You may have heard the old cliché, the old cars, if they break down you can fix it on the side of the road with a screwdriver, crescent wrench, and a pair of pliers. That was exactly what I did!!! Oh, and one of my neighbors driving by told me it's a beautiful car!!!

I cut open the old carburetor filter, and it looked pretty gunked up.

I had ordered replacement elements for the clear filter, but then noticed that the glass was cracked, too, so I ordered a new one of those.

The next day, I pulled it up on the ramps and replaced the canister filter. I noticed it is concerningly close to the exhaust, and decided that I would fashion a heat shield before I wrapped up the work in that area. I used a Monster Energy Drink can, it has to be better than the nothing that was there before!!!

I've also vacuumed it out, and used some carpet powder on the interior carpet, and re vacuumed it. My surrogate son gave me a black ice air freshener. Neither of these has completely gotten rid of the rodent smell, and I laid down another layer of carpet powder and will vacuum it again tomorrow. Should see about getting the five years of dust washed off the car cover, and clean out the trunk. Should also see if the spare holds air, and pick up a replacement tire if it doesn't.

I've figured out some of the operation for the radio, it was a nice HD radio Pioneer unit back in the day, but the antenna doesn't seem to be working. I'm thinking of swapping in the one that was in the Homecoming Saturn, it's got nearly the same function as the ones in Scruffy and Kutcher, and having Bluetooth is always better than off a thumb drive.

One other concerning thing, the voltage gauge... always seems to show on the low side!!! If you rev it up, it'll come up, but cruising or at idle it's well under 12 volts. I'd mentioned the underdrive crank pulley, and had had the thought that the slow spinning was possibly the issue with the cooling. Having read up on the water pump, it seems like they are more than is necessary to keep things cool, even at lower speed, but the alternator could possibly not be spinning fast enough at lower speeds. I had thought of buying a couple of V-belt pulleys and different size cogged drive pulleys and a belt, and making a belt overdrive. Since the aren't that expensive or hard to install, though, I'm thinking of getting a one wire conversion to try out before I go that route. Years ago I installed a GM alternator on the Falcon with a one wire conversion, and it is awesome!!! If you just start it and it's only idling, the headlights and dash lights would be dim, as though it's not getting a charge, but rev it just a bit, and you can see it turn on, and it stays charging strong. No gauge on the Falcon, but from the lights, you can see it working!!!

Oh, and speaking of Scruffy, it developed a freakin' rod knock!!! Right around the time I was having to retrieve the Hawk, and I got the old transmission and engine that had been down at my mom's house. Drove it straight to a shop, and had them do a full rebuild, and swap it in since I no longer have access to a nice big flat driveway to do these things. Set me back probably more than it's worth, but you know. I form an emotional bond with my machines.

Machine Work

My dad got his Studebaker back in 1993. A bit of the back story on it is as follows: He had found an old basket case Ford, a '50 I think, for a good price, I think it was $500 but might have been $1,000, that he had wanted to buy. Naturally, it wasn't in running condition. He ran it past my mom, and I think it would be an understatement to say that she was less than enthusiastic. He'd probably mentioned it to me, but I don't recall. My mom talked to my older sister about it, and she had a different point of view. I don't think she was especially crazy about it, either, but she told my mom, “He's a good guy, always works, doesn't drink or do drugs, doesn't gamble away his paycheck, doesn't chase tail, you should let him have something for a little fun!!!” So she had convinced my mom, who reluctantly agreed, but in the interim, my dad had talked himself out of it, thinking it could become a constant bone of contention. He said he wasn't going to get an old project car, “Unless a Studebaker Hawk comes up for sale”!!!

I didn't know that part at all. I was working as a machinist at the time, making tooling for sheet thermoforming, and the other machinist would often look through the classified looking for any interesting classics. He reads one day right around then that there's a '62 Studebaker Hawk, 289” (no, not a Ford motor if you didn't know) and automatic transmission, runs and drives, $1,400. Wow, that sounds like a decent price for just about any running and driving classic to me!!! I knew nothing of Studebaker for the most part, other than that some of them had come with factory centrifugal superchargers, but gave my dad a call anyway to let him know, since I knew he was kind of looking for something. It must have sounded just like what he was thinking. It was up at or near the Van Nuys airport, and I don't remember how much longer it was after that, but he had me come along with him one evening, and it was in pretty good original condition. The passenger side fender had been crunched so bad it had torn the metal, and welded back together and roughed out back to close to the original shape, and there was a big scrape on the passenger side quarter panel ahead of the back wheel. Worth the asking price to him, and he drove it home that night.

Since I was employed as a machinist during a lot of the time that my dad was doing various things on the Studebaker, I ended up making a lot of custom machined items for it!!! I feel like I don't have a lot of items (other than my two 512 keychains) that I machined, but there are several on the Stude!!! Since I recently did a post about license plate frames, I'll start off with this!!! This was one of the few frames I made up with my CNC program. I think I did two 512 frames, a Chicago Cubs frame for Sammy, and this one for my dad that I gave him for Christmas in 2005 (incidentally mentioned on my 100th post!!!). One of my neighbors thought it was a great idea to have it on there, since most people have no idea what it is!!!

Around that same time, I think my dad must have asked me about making caps for the lakes pipes. I wrote a program for the outside profile, then made a couple of designs. On the drivers' side, I did the Studebaker “Lazy S” logo.

On the passengers' side, I did the Hawk logo. They are fairly quick to make, and I think my thought was to see which he liked, or if he'd like to come up with something different. Also, the cap I had been measuring off to make the outside profile apparently is just a bit smaller top to bottom that the actual flange, so these have a bit of the pipe flange showing. I would have corrected this and whipped out a pair of matching ones, but they axed me before I was able to get to that point.

His original vision for the Stude was to keep it fairly factory original, with the original engine and transmission, and have his custom body touches “bolt on”, so the body could be easily returned to stock. He designed custom tail light housings, and custom headlight bezels, and a custom grille shell. Then, while they were heading out to some far flung event, the 2-speed automatic transmission went out. He called me up to see if I'd get my mom's Cadillac drive out to get them, and he'd have it towed back, which we did. He found out it was going to be over $2,000 to get the transmission rebuilt, and around the same time, he had a guy who owed him that totaled his Chevy truck with a V8 and TH700R4 overdrive transmission. The overdrive it a huge plus for something you're going to be driving any distance, and Chevy small block engines are a hot rod classic. He decided he would be better off updating the drivetrain. He wasn't the first to put a small block in the Hawk body, but a lot of people end up mounting them high in the engine bay to clear the crossmember. He thought, since he knew a machinist, he could get a reduced size crank pulley to clear it, and put it in the original's position. This was well before I was running a CNC, and this was just done on a lathe. I don't remember exactly how it worked out, but the bolt circle to the balancer was wide enough that I wouldn't be able to make it as small as he wanted and have deep enough grooves, so I made it as a 2-piece unit, with the pulley portion bolting onto the balancer mounting portion.

Not long after, he was having issues with the accessory mounting, and had me make up this bracket for the power steering pump. This was done on a vertical mill. It's seen better days, but it may just clean up nicely.

This isn't anything I did, but I discovered or re discovered that he'd added a Moon Equipment temperature gauge to the intake manifold. Wouldn't be a hot rod if it wasn't running hot!!!

As a tooling designer, we also did pattern work, and would send them out to be sand cast in aluminum. The aforementioned custom tail light housings needed an end piece for the trim that runs the length of the car. My dad made up the pattern, and we sent them out for casting. I cleaned up and polished the castings. He also made up the pattern for the custom headlight bezels. They actually have a portion with negative draft, which most casting shops can't do as loose patterns, but the place we worked with is pretty good. They came out with a lot of casting flash that I had to machine off, and cleaned them up. In the original configuration, they were both just bolted on, but for the current final iteration, they both (as well as the custom grille shell) were all molded in.