It jumped up and bit me!

Gentle reader,

Yes, it has been a long time since I have written. Much has happened. I will not go into that now. Suffice to say, I wanted to get these photos and the story uploaded so that my insurance agent and Virginia DOT can take a look.

This morning at about 5:00 AM, I was traveling to work on the inner loop of the I-495 Washington beltway. I'd just crossed over Route 50 and was in the second lane from the right.

All of a sudden, SOMETHING flew up in front of my car and hit it. I briefly saw ORANGE. It scared the heck out of me! I saw to my right a Honda rapidly slowing
and heading for the right side of the road. There isn't much shoulder there.

I wasn't going to join him since I was five minutes from work and the car was driving fine. My heartbeat? That's another story.

Once at work, I got out the flashlight and looked for damage. Whatever it was hit the right edge of the front bumper and traveled across to the left, denting the metal next to the turn signal/parking lamp, breaking it and destroying the left headlight. The lamp is going to be very hard to find.

At first, the headlight wouldn't close, then it started working. I called my State Farm Agent's and reported the incident, but have not yet filed a claim.

I asked all my co-workers, many of whom travel same route if they saw anything. One, who arrived right behind me, saw what he thought was a large cable or hose ten to fifteen feet long on the road and had to swerve around it as other drivers were.

Another reported seeing a VDOT truck with all it's lights going at the location, but no other cars stopped. My thoughts are the VDOT employee picked up whatever it was and VDOT has it.

Once I got home today, I took these photos and then replaced the left headlight and tried to repair the turn signal/parking lamp.

There is orange and white transfer on my car from whatever it was. The beltway is being widened there and chances are it belongs to the company that is doing the work. VDOT will be able to tell me if that is the case. At least I hope so.

I think the metal piece above the bumper needs to be replaced, or a skilled body man can repair it and it plus the bumper repainted. Also the headlight "bucket" is cracked and pieces have fallen off.

NOW, if my car had not had pop-up headlights, which deflected whatever is was, that thing may very well have smashed through the windshield and killed me!

The problem with the car going to a body shop is finding parts. It's 21-years-old and was made in Australia.

I have bid on a lens on eBay ($25.00), but the lamp, I have to wait and watch for. As for the other parts, a parts car? I don't have money or room for such a thing.

The photos:

OK,

Now you've seen the photos, you may be thinking, "That's not so bad." You are right, it's not. However, I love this car and want to keep it forever. I take very good care of it. Today, I made it safe, in that all the lights work and hopefully, the rain will stay out of that lamp until I can get a new lens.

That's it for now!

Scott

Our latest rides!

Gentle reader,

It's been a while since I posted. So, having recently acquired a pair of sporty little runabouts, I thought I'd share them with you.

We have four active grandsons, between almost two and six. ALL of them love CARS.
Being the doting grandpa, I encourage that. As you know, I've been a car nut all my life.

I'd planned to build a gravity or push-powered go-kart or two for them like I did for our kids, but to my delight, found a red Radio Flyer pedal car at our favorite thrift store and snatched it up.
We would have LOVED this thing when we were kids! That was during the Winter and it wasn't until a few weeks ago that they all descended upon us and the weather was cooperating. So, out in the street in the red "flyer" a big-wheel, and a push car.
Even I drove the flyer by pedaling with my hands and steering with my knees! Good thing there were no video cameras going!
Then, last week, I'd made my weekly stop at "The Village Thrift Shop" and lo and behold, there was another one! This one is black and was made in West Germany.
I haven't checked, but I suspect the flyer, like most things is Chinese.

As you can see, I added a "push bar" to the red one. This allows a parental unit to assist the not-not-quite-getting-the-pedaling-thing g-son until they do get it.

I added the central metal piece today which greatly strengthens the handle-to-car
structure.
Can't wait until they come again!

Thanks for looking!

Scott

The SMALL Cars collections

Gentle Reader,

Below are many photos of the re-organized small car collections. Since I sold so many cameras, I had room to move the larger-than-hot-wheels cars into the wood cabinet.
Here is close-ups of them, top to bottom:
Next row:
Bottom shelf:
Next is the cabinet that sits to the left of the camera/cars cabinet. It was built by Colonel Bill Arps to house his complete collection of Kodak 126 Instamatic film cameras:
And a break down top to bottom:
Note, the bottom row above and top row below are the same. Oops! Last is the small "HO" cars. Although perhaps only one is truly 1/87th scale which is HO. Note, that I've added a stretch of track to display the "HO" slot cars as well in the back:
The only ones not visible in the picture directly above are the few slot cars that are actually under the camera/cars cabinet of which there are nine plus the yellow KODAK film van.

Soon, I will add descriptions to some of the photos as they have cars that represent real ones that I owned.

Thanks for looking!

Scott

Testarossa XR2?

Gentle Reader,

This weekend the weather finally cooperated. Gorgeous, sunny, mid-70's and low humidity. Well, today, it's nearing 90 with some humidity. Nonetheless, I got so much
done Friday, Saturday and today, never mind the extra warmth. Oh great, I just looked
outside and it's raining. KT and the Boys are coming over, we were gonna grill out.

BACK to the title of this post: Testarossa XR2?

Testarossa is Italian for Red Head. Ferrari named their sports car in the late 1950's Testarossa because the cam cover was painted red.

The Capri XR2 came with the cam cover crinkle-painted black. However most of it had chipped off over the years. "DOHC" and "16 VALVE" were painted red on the cover.

Yesterday, I removed all the accoutrement above and attached to the cover, and the cover itself. The rubber gasket had been seeping oil, so it was time to replace it. Plus,
I wanted to paint the cover red. See below:
Once the paint is good and hard, like next weekend, I will remove what is in the way and carefully sand the flat surface the surrounds the lettering. I may leave them red, or paint them black. Depends on how it will look.

"So," you may be thinking, "what's with the aluminum foil?"

While it may look like foil and it is aluminum, or it may be stainless steel, it is the outer coating of insulation tape.

"Why?"

That pipe comes from the intercooler. The intercooler cools the intake air that has been compressed by the turbocharger. One day, I'd opened the hood after just getting home from work. That pipe was too hot to touch.

Think about it. The intercooler is supposed to cool the air. From it, the air travels up that rubber hose over the hot exhaust and engine to the intake. So, I insulated the pipe first with really good foam tape, then covered it with the very sticky aluminum tape to help reflect the heat away from the pipe.

The cooler the "charged" air is, the better for the engine to use and it makes more power, too.

I also crawled under the car and replaced the non-existent shift rod bushings. I could move the shifter in any gear at least eight inches side-to-side. Plus, it buzzed at constant speed. Thanks to Mid-County Mustangs, I bought new bushings. Unfortunately, Ford/Mazda only made two of the three bushed pieces replaceable. That didn't stop me, no sir/mam!

I simply brought the whole assembly in the house, found suitable pieces in my parts bins, ground off the riveted end of the pin and replaced it with a bolt, washers and lock nut.

Good as new! WOW! What a difference. Nice firm and it goes where it's supposed to go
and not all over the place.

Check a couple more things off the vehicle to-do list. That's it for now.

Thanks for looking,

Scott

A 12mm Experiment

Gentle Reader,

I have a 12mm Sigma very wide angle lens in "T" mount. Largest aperture is f8. It stops down to f16. I have been thinking of mounting it on my M39mount Bessa R 35mm rangefinder camera, shown below with a Soviet 35mm lens:
Then mounting it on a sturdy tripod, vertically, and moving it at 30 degree increments taking a shot each time. Since it is a rangefinder and thus has no mirror to slap up and down, plus being mounted on said tripod, a flash will not be needed. That, plus I have some Kodak Max 800 speed film.

I tested fitted the lens on my Nikon N90S film SLR. Very wide view, of course. Then on my Nikon D70S digital SLR. The view is equal to 18mm on a 35mm film camera. NOTE: The "18mm" on a standard 18-55mm lens for a digital SLR is equal to 27mm to 82.5mm on a film camera.

So, the view with this 12mm lens is a true 18mm field of view. I was trying to get the camera to fire with a flash, it would not do so. Experimenting, I tried sans-flash with various shutter speeds and found 1/4 second doable. Below, see the results, hand-held at 1/4 second shooting in a rough circle.
Now, imagine if you will, these pictures with 25% more visible on each side, with the walls and ceiling showing even more curvature. That is what this lens shows on 35mm film.

I'm hoping, but haven't checked yet, that my version of Photoshop Elements has a stitching program so that I can create a 360 degree image.

Thanks for looking!

Scott