The Cars, The Cars!

I Had To Duplicate And Punctuate

Also use the indefinite article, as otherwise folks might mistake this title as being to do with that execrable Disney animated slop that I already hate without seeing it.  Don't tell me about prejudice; I know being punched in the face hurts without needing to experience it.

     Nor are we talking about the seminal South Canadian band, whom I think I have a DVD of lurking in the Sekrit Layr.  Art!

     I mentioned them so I can use a related image.

     What this Intro, and perhaps the whole blog, will be about is an unbelievable tale from Youtube and 'r/slash's channel there.  It concerns two brothers, whom are both petrolheads when it comes to cars.  What adds extra spice to the tale is the manchild Zeppelin-ego of the elder brother, Chad Wannabe, CW hereafter.  He hated hated hated being upstaged by his younger brother, 'No-Chrysler-4-Me' hereafter NC4M, in anything.  Anything.

     What I propose is to explicate about what NC4M narrates, as a lot of it was a complete mystery to me.  I mean, to me God created mechanics so I don't have to know anything about cars.  Recall the blog I did about building swimming pools?  Like that.  Art!

     This is a Toyota Tundra, with a 4.8 litre engine, the vehicle that NC4M drove, which cost him all of $6,000, with 250,000 PROUD IMPERIAL MILES on the clock.  He uses the term 'Odometer' which is derived from the Greek 'Hodos' meaning 'Road', a phrase you probably never expected to hear today.

     NC4M rendered his brother's background, including an ex and a five year-old daughter, whom turned out surprisingly well considering her bottomhole father.  The key factor is the vehicle CW was driving, a Subaru Baja, yet another car I don't know anything about.  Art!

     He considered himself upstaged by the Tundra and sold the Baja, settling for buying a third car I've never heard of: a 01 Black Dodge Ram 1500 4x4.  Art!

     Except the one that CW bought had 200,000 miles on the odometer and was worn out.  NC4M warned repeatedly about NOT buying this lemon, but was ignored and CW shelled out $3,000 for it.  The list of Lemon Factors included: a winch on the front that was so badly rusted it had to be cut free; shock-absorbers that had totally lost the ability to absorb shocks; a transmission that shifted only sluggishly, and 'rockers' that were gone.

     Say what?  Art!

On a car, "rockers" (short for rocker panels) are the metal structural beams that run horizontally along the sides of the vehicle directly beneath the doors, between the front and rear wheel wells

     Now I know.  Don't we all feel richer for that knowledge?

     CW was, despite all this, hap-hap-happy, since he was now driving a 'man's truck' - excuse me MAN'S TRUCK.

     NC4M in the next sentence proclaims that they are not a mechanic, and then proceed to do the veriest mechanicy mechanicing it's possible to do in aid of his brother.  He installed new, home-made rockers.  Art!

Totally rockering it

     Then they used 'Rust-Oleum' paint, a car accessory Your Humble Scribe had been ignorant of his entire life.  Art!

 

Rust-Oleum is a popular brand of protective paints and coatings designed to stop and prevent rust on metal surfaces. [1, 2]

What It Is and How It Works

• Origin: A sea captain named Robert Fergusson invented it in 1921 after noticing that fish oil stopped rust from spreading on his ship's metal deck.

     Well now.  NC4M described using a 'Harbour Freight' spray gun.  I know what a spray gun is, so what does the HF version look like?  Art!

      AND AT THIS POINT I MANAGED TO DELETE THE REST OF THE INTRO

     I only have the above because I saved it to Word in order to count the total.

     Bah!

     Art!

      O I see.  'Harbor Freight' is a retail organisation, not a model of spray gun.  Useful to know.  

     Next up, CW installed a pair of 'OEM-style headlights', which once again baffled Your Humble Scribe, despite NC4M warning him that they were cheap, nasty and wouldn't last long.  I also discovered that 'OEM' means 'Original Equipment Manufacturer', meaning that CW dug up a pair of cheap Dodge headlights.

      Then came the 'Cold air intake', yet again a car mystery.  One presumes that it permits the intake of - you may be ahead of me here - cold air.  Art!

     That, gentle reader, is a cold air intake sitting in a Dodge Ram 1500 engine.  What are they for?  As the name says, they intake cold air from outside the car, since said air contains a lot more oxygen than the hot air inside the engine.  More oxygen gives better engine performance, as the oxygen helps improve combustion inside the pistons, and yes I looked that up on teh Interwebz.  CW clearly wanted his MAN TRUCK to be as manly as possible.  10,000 years ago he would have been beating his chest, waving a club and dragging his fiancée around by the hair.  

     Back to up-manning the MAN TRUCK.  NC4M added 'Lucas Stop Slip' which to my ears sounds like industrial safety matting.  Let me be proven wrong.  Art!

Conrad schooled again

     Either the product of sinister dark magic or highly-advanced science*, LSS is intended to succour worn transmissions by preventing slip, hesitation and rough shifting, which to my ears all sound like mountaineering errors.

     Moving swiftly along -

     He then 'ran two cans of Sea Foam through the gasoline', of which I understand the 'cans' part.  We can forgive him calling 'petrol' by another name.  He capitalised 'Sea Foam' which implies it is more than the froth upon the briny deeps.  Allow me - Art!

     According to the blurb, this is a petrol-based liquid additive that cleans engines by dissolving gum, varnish and carbon deposits inside engines, and also lubr

     BY GRABTHAR'S HAMMER!  Let me add in what the AI blurb explained.

"Stabilizes Fuel: It keeps gas or diesel fuel fresh in the tank for up to two years"

     Here is the answer, at least partially, to all the weeping and wailing we have done of late about using date-expired petrol in the Zombie Apocalypse.  Methinks NC4M would be one of those survivors who gimmick up Mad Max vehicles that are both cool and zombie-proof and w

     ANYWAY we got off-topic a tad there.  Sorry**.  Our Non-Mechanic Who Can Out-Mechanic Professional Mechanics then flushed the radiator, a process I think I understand; you empty the fluid currently sitting in the radiator, which may be years old and congested with unspeakably vile substances, then run some inert or mildly abrasive fluid to remove any clots of glop, then refill it again.  Art!

A radiator untouched for 40 years.  Perhaps.

     The radiator is intended to maintain the engine at a constant, optimal temperature by - you may be ahead of me here - radiating away excess heat, and if it's full of rusty sewage and iron filings, engine performance will suffer.

     Finally, NC4M cautioned his older brother against stressing the Ram's engine, since, at least in his opinion and it's an opinion definitely worth paying attention to, Dodge engines on high mileage figures were not to be trusted for tolerance to excess stress and strain.  Note that NC4M's own Tundra had over 200,000 on the odometer, implying that it had been treated with care and attendance to get that far.

     You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it swim.  What do you think CW did?  Listen carefully to the advice of a person with long, intimate knowledge of engines and cars, or -

     Just without the 'RuPaul'.

     I shall stop recounting the Secret Life Of Car Engines, because we're not even half-way through Part 1 and yes, there's a Part 2.  This family are entertaining to read about but exhausting to be part of.

     

 

 

* Arthur C. Clarke reference for you there.

**  Not really.