Leaderboard

There are a lot of disk brake conversion kits these days for older cars, but that's a modern development. It probably wasn't available when your dad bought it new unless it could be optioned that way from the factory. In my case, it wasn't that I knew they were glazed over, it's that it felt like the rear brakes weren't doing anything at all. My stopping distances were getting scary. When I pulled the shoes, the edges of the brake material looked melted over and the surface was very shiny. With brakes, only the surface receiving the stopping pressure should look shiny, so the inside of the drum and the surface of the rotors. The pad or shoe materal that touches the drum or rotor should be pretty matte. Any indication of melting of that material (virtually impossible with ceramic brakes unless you're in Indy) tells you that the brakes have overheated and must be replaced. I don't mess around with brakes and I just replace rotors/drums along with pads every time I do the brakes on a vehicle. So I have new drums, shoes, pads, and rotors for once the rest of the parts come in. Later years of the Toronado could be optioned with disk brakes, so maybe someday in a few years I'll see if I can get all the hardware to convert it.

Today, I got the starter replaced in the 1999 BMW R1100RS, the starter has siezed up. I had concerns that the whole engine was locked up, so I took the breast plate off and put a breaker bar on the crankshaft and thankfully it spun freely. So, then pulled the starter which was just two bolts and one nut to hold the wire on. It was pretty greasy under all of that so while it was out, I used some ZEP 505 Degreaser all around the area and got 20 years of grime out. Once I got it all back together and threw the battery back in, it fired right up with no trouble. It was running a little lumpy, so I got out the throttle body balancer and adjusted the idle and balance of the engine to where it's operating really smoothly (as far as boxers operate smoothly). I removed the engine guards on each side that had been spraypainted yellow by the previous owner, I'll be ordering new replacements. The previous owner also clearly had an incident on the right side at some point because that cylinder head cover is all banged up. I have the left one, and I'm watching a right one on EBay right now. I already have the gaskets. Once I get the right side, I'm going to do a valve adjustment as I can hear a tick and that is just a regular 12k mile service item and I have no idea when it was done last. Waiting to get that done and then I'll change the oil. I don't want to be opening up the engine after I put new oil in. I still need to find the front fairing for around the headlight and a new windscreen. I already have a new headlight, front turn signals, and a few other items, but it's getting pretty close to road ready. One of the things I love about these BMW boxers is how easy they are to work on. Everything is very accessible, the valve adjustment job will take me less than 30 minutes to do both sides. Pulling each cylinder cover is two bolts. Changing the oil is super easy.

On this day 129 years ago, August 21st, 1897, Oldsmobile was founded by Ransom E. Olds. Oldsmobile was always a leader in technology, leading the way for features like the Automatic transmission, front-wheel drive in mass market cars, overhead valve V8s, GPS and more. Olds styling was typically subdued and handsome rather than brash and garish (except for 1958). Usually a best seller, the Oldsmobile Cutlass was often the top selling nameplate in the US in the 1970s and 1980s. And though a technology leading division for GM in the late 1990s, the public couldn't get around the name "Oldsmobile" and along with GM's financial troubles, GM decided to fold the marque after 107 years of production. You've all seen my 1981 Oldsmobile Toronado, but what are some of your favorite models of Olds from any year. A view through the decades:

I'd love one of these in black with the deep merlot leather interior

Yeah, but I think I want a consolidated page. Less of an article and more of a chart.

Fisker and Rivian plan to offer it in an OTA update.

Right now Tesla and GM seem to be the only ones that are offering home charging management, but others are talking about it too, so might be good to have a list of those companies offering home power management and if it allows V2H.

For me the 442 will always be a favorite. I also have a soft spot for for Delta 88 & 98 custom cruisers.

I need to make up a list of who has joined the NACS bandwagon. I'm thinking about building an EV resources page on here for stuff like that.

I saw a news item that Fisker is opening some “EV Lounges” in premium markets. I’m not sure what that’s going to entail. I’m following Fisker a lot closer recently because I think the Ocean might be our replacement for the 300C in a few years

Been Busy helping my son who bought a fixer upper house to move his growing family into. The best I have been able to do is run both the Escalade and SS through a new Touchfree auto wash system near my house and it did an outstanding job. $18 gets you an under-carriage wash, Power wash rims and then a multi-stage wash with two different soap soaks and then a tri-color wax, rainX application and one other thing I forget, but I felt for the money it was worth it as both autos are shinny and clean.

My Toronado hasn't been road worthy in a while due to some sketchy brakes. Today I started the rear drums and found that the shoes had been completely glazed over. I'm assuming something got stuck at some point and overheated the brakes. Drum brakes are such a mess to work on, I still do not understand why they are less costly to make than disks. I got the left side back together, but I didn't even start on the right. When I pulled them apart I found that the retainer springs and pins were being held there with not much more than caked on rust and a prayer. So over to rock auto where the complete hardware kit is less expensive than the price to ship it. Oh well, it will be here Wednesday. I also ordered some caliper pins for the front because I can feel those sticking. I could probably just grease them, but new ones are $6 a pair and the ones on there are probably 42 years old.

My car has a DIC (driver information center) with 7 buttons. All of them had lost illumination except for 1. They stopped making the part. I called a dealership and they told me of a couple of dealerships in the U.S. that had one. I contacted one and the parts guy gave me a really good price, probably to clear it, and kept it aside until receipt of a money order for the part and a minimal amount of postage. When having another service, I had the technician slim jim the panel away from the dash because I didn't want to break it. It was dangling there before I decided to finally insert the piece for which it was hard to remove the harness. Last night, before heading into a Brazilian steakhouse to pig out, I decided to finally install it and push the bezel back into the dash. After leaving the steakhouse, I cranked over the ignition and all 7 DIC lights were on, a sight that I hadn't seen in a few years.

Interesting to read the story on his death and it seems strange when you read about it, I think there was more to his death than anyone will every know. John Denver's Death And The Story Of His Tragic Plane Crash (allthatsinteresting.com)

Yes. Two 307s. Production was closer to each other than I thought. Chevy from 1968 to 1973. Olds from 1980 to 1990. That's a distance of 7 years! Because we shifted from thinking in cubic inches to thinking in liters, I always think of the former as the Chevy 307 V8 and the latter as the Olds 5.0 L V8. Both engines are derivatives - the 307 was hewn from the 327 (to use the same crankshaft) and the Olds 5.0 is an interpolation between the famed Rocket 350 and the 260 - the 260 was accomplished simply by a smaller bore diameter than that of the 350. - - - - - I liked listening to Jacques Cousteau speak. One time he was doing a show on manatees and mentioned that manatees eat water hyacinths in his great French accent. As for John Denver, I looked up his bio. I vaguely remember that something happened to him. Sadly, it did. His light went out after only 53 years. May he R.I.P.