SAmadei

...and honestly, I believe a good part of the great asbestos panic is lawyer-created paranoia. My grandfather was awash in asbestos all his professional life as an electrician in the shipyards. He helped build the USS New Jersey. Lived to be 96 or 97. The doctors on his deathbed even admitted he still had asbestos in his lungs, which was making it hard for him to breathe in his reduced state of health.

Get it checked for DNA and send him a bill for clean up.

Due to personal liability issues, I don't go to Pep Boys. Whats broken with them that a plug or two and a T-handle can't fix? I'm sure there were no lawyers involved beyond "Hey, we need a good excuse to not provide this piddling service, when it takes a tech away from fleecing unknowing tire customers. Go Delfinity!"

NJ State Police has a similar clause, so I imagine they'll need to go Taurus, as well. Or more trucks. I forgot the Charger was Canadian. The NJSP have so many bizarre "undercover" cars, I wonder if all of them are "Made in the USA". I always laugh when I see a person pulled over my a champagne minivan.

Smart vs. Crown Vic is not a real good comparison, as the Crown Vic's crash protection is about 20 years obsolete...but... You're not taking into account the most basic bits of physics. That Smart car will result in less damage to the Smart, but much more damage to the occupants, as the act of "bouncing off" will generate an obscene amount of G forces. Due to its light weight, the G forces applied to the other occupants is relatively low. The Crown Vic will not live to drive again, but the force applied to "digging in" is that much less force that is applied to the occupants of either car. And assuming the car hitting the Crown Vic is of similar size, both sets of occupants will experience roughly the same G forces. The infamous video of the Smart being run into the crash barrier at 70 is amazing, but as well as the car held up, even the professionals in the video mention the chances of survivability of passengers would be very low. Engineering and high strength steel have not trumped F=ma.

I don't necessarily fault that logic, but one thing I've seen is that the newer stuff tends to break permanently faster. The Frankenstein weedwacker made from 4 victims that uses older, stronger parts may outlast the $300 Echo 5-fold. For me, I had 4-5 half-dead weedwackers, but even late '90s/early-00s wackers where made like garbage. I normally would have Frankenstiened them forever, but I was at wit's end and, uncharacteristically, I finally gave up and bought a new Craftsman one and its been good to me. Now I have to figure out what to do with 4-5 perfectly good weedwacker motors. Motorized inline skates? ;-) I wonder if one of them would run a water pump... Hmmm... I still believe in the ol' Frankenstein, though.

In NJ, I've been told its closer to $250-300 a ton, IF you skip the middleman. In general, nobody will sell you a car/truck for less than $600, as that is the "scrap value", and they sit firm there. Its debatable to me if these people would actually get those prices. Its hard to believe that I've bought many a running car off eBay for $200~$300 as recently as 5-6 years ago.

I'd rather see GM build a W-8 before a 60 degree V-8. I've felt a shorter 8 cylinder would help GM in the packaging department more than a narrow one.

It must have never actually went into use, because I can recall 5 spoke Pontiac wheels being available for every year between '96 and '06. I can't completely dislike GM's design rules... there have always been minor consistencies even between radically different designs and these consistencies give new GM designs a certain familiarity even if they are new. Obviously, GM took to to the extreme... but now seems to have thrown too much out... as I find a lot of new GM designs very alienating. Pontiac mostly did 3 or 5. Between '99 and '06, 3 spoke was on the way out, it seemed. Its funny, but I consider the GTP wheels to be 5 hollow spokes, not 10. To me, 10 spoked wheels would need to be laid out equally spaced to be 10 spokes. but I can see what you are seeing, as well.

My current lawnmower project turned out to be short one bolt... a reverse threaded oddball one. Outrageously expensive and because I ordered it solo, the shipping is costing the same as the bolt... so I have a $18 bolt coming to my house before I can cut grass again.

When was this? I seem to recall a lot of non-Chevies having 5 spoke wheels. Actually, the chrome band BS is what has really driven me away from Chevy in the last decade.

Using youtu.be instead of youtube.com is likely throwing off the widgetry.

I wouldn't say homely, but awkward. I think the wheelbase needed a bit more stretching to get the proportions better in tune.

I know someone wants this posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apC44_0RNDE Shame the copyright lawyers have made it so we have to watch TV thats recorded a second time on a hand held camera.

Except cotton, all of these are grown heavily in South Jersey, as well... and none really like it above 85. Onions, IIRC, can't be grown in the NJ summer heat, they are generally a spring/fall crop. Their may be cultivars of each that as heat tolerant, but likely still thrive best below 85. I can't find my temperature range guidelines for crops, but I do have this snippet from HERE.

In some recent researching of hydroponics, I was surprised how many plants top out at about 80~85... above this and yield suffers. Some plants, like oranges, tobacco and cotton thrive in the south because they need long periods of frost free days or sunlight, not necessarily very hot weather. Most crop plants I could grow in NJ in a greenhouse would require cooling systems in the summer. Stuff that likes really hot weather tends to be grown closer to the equator, not in the US. Growing crops is all about maximizing yield... if a particular plant requires very hot weather, it can only be grown in an area that gets very hot weather consistently. Otherwise, yield is low and the farmers are throwing money out the window.

Its hard for me to believe, but this time last year, I had a temporary 6 acre lake in the backyard of the other house.

They're making some really nice Buicks now. And even with the slightly higher brand equity, they are unable to make money on the balance sheet.

Not wanting to participant in a match, either, RJ. I think we can all agree its getting HOT. Yesterday and today have been the most comfortable days in like 3 weeks. Yeah, its criminal. I just like the shore town atmosphere, I guess. Its always 10 degrees cooler in the summer and 10 degrees warmer in the winter. Still gets hot, though. We wish you luck in your quest for leaving AZ... Who knows, I have family trying to talk me into moving to CA/NV/AZ... I can't imagine it. This summer is going to be rough, as we have the A/C off to save money. I get carried away with the A/C on... I enter the house in spring, and won't leave until fall... and will have it 60 degrees the whole time. Its a habit I have to give up cold turkey. :-(

So its a 4 degree difference between "105 don't notice" and "109 notice"? When it hits 104 in NJ... in Spring... thats 24 degrees over normal. In any case, you forget... we have humidity. 104.4 here rates a "feels like" 119 on the heat index. Our heat index has been flirting with 90 for quite some time.

BFD, we've already been to 104.4 in South Jersey... about 10 days ago. AZ is supposed to be hot. If its going to be like this, I'm going to need to get a kiddie pool... or *gasp* walk to the ocean. (For the record, I have lived 800 ft from the ocean for 12 years... and had the time to visit it once.)

Unless one is an electrician, one is probably not going to know the name...like with any profession, there are brands and arcane terms that aren't generally known by the GP. I'm not an electrician. I agree that there are a number of brands and arcane terms that aren't known by the general public, but Romex has transcended that. One does not have to be an office worker to know what Xerox is. Nor does one need to be a Pharmacist to know what Oxycontin is. We just got through the biggest flipping/renovation era in US history. If you had any electrical work done or you watched HGTV/DIY networks, you'd hear the term. My GF knows what it is and her condo is all BX. Getting back to the subject at hand... Romex is not the same wire your car uses. Cars typically use several feet of thicker, stranded cables for battery cables, but most automotive wiring is considerably smaller. Of course, there is more of it. The typical hyperbole ranges from 2 miles of wiring to 50 miles of wiring to (no way) 200 miles of wiring in a single car. All I know is I have some OLD car complete wiring harnesses in a box and due to the sheath, connectors, clips, protectors, etc., even the wiring in a '70 fullsize gets pretty darn heavy... 70-80lbs. To include all the lights, sensors, motors, speakers and the extra mileage of copper, sheath, connectors, clips and protectors, I can see there being beyond 500 pounds of "electrical" in a car easily.

Geez... spent another afternoon fixing and adjusting the window in the Sunfire convertible. I was able to glue the remaining broken unobtainium clips and was able to pull the from track and install the up limiter and put it back in. Got the window pretty well adjusted... but now I realize the rear window is not clocked properly and needs to come out slightly. So I pull the rear seat out and the rear interior panel. The rear windows go down automatically as part of the top operation, so its a real Rube Goldberg device to adjust. I got some adjustment dialed in... and even clocked the window slightly... but its a bear to adjust the linkage... I think I might need an extra set of hands to adjust it right. Everything tightened, but no interior panels on the driver's side, I was shocked how quiet the car is. Turns out there was a lot of rattles hiding in that door. Not much whistle, either. Guess the next test is to see how must leakage happens in the rain. In any case, its been leaking a lot less since I fixed the window motor and also fixed the convertible strap. If I can settle for the current adjustment, I can start patching and reforming the missing bits of weatherstripping. Convertibles are a real PITA.

Thats going to confuse the civillians... Romex has changed over the years, but modern Romex is the thickish, plastic sheathed power cable you'll find in Lowes or Home Depot. Romex for in-wall installation is labelled NM. If the cable has a metallic sheath, thats BX... which is used for other purposes. Just looking at a post-WWII house, you will likely be also looking at Romex, but earlier form of Romex that has a fabric-like weave. My '59 vintage house has that. Sometime between '59 and '78 the modern Romex become the standard... I'm not sure when. I can't believe some of you guys didn't know what Romex was.

How many people here have even watched Soylent Green?