Dave's News, Drag Racing, Technical

Shop Goin’ Ons For December 2019

Petty Tribute

I aged some 15″X8″ Wheel Vintiques wheels to look Rusty, and mounted 245/60-15 Goodrich TAs on the rear. I still need to do the same for the fronts.

I repaired the old steering wheel, primed and painted to match the interior.

I tried three different shifter handles and all hit the seat, dash, or both. I finally made a 6″ adaptor to raise a pistol grip shifter 6″, which was enough to clear the bench seat and stay under the boot.

I bought all of the pipes needed to get the block hugger collectors to 2.5″ side exiting exhaust. This is all that is required to finish the car. These are the pipes needed to do the right side.

Magnum GT

If you’ve been following along on the Magnum GT, You’ll know it was recently treated to a new poly-urethene paint job, and the leather dyed before that. This week, everything was taken out of the trunk, the Surface flash removed, it was then masked, primed and painted. Since the car is pure black, it was an easy rattle can project. I’ll give the a paint a week to get hard, and then clean and replace the carpet.

The Screamin’ Woody

The engine was reassembled with a new crank, rod, and set of lifters; and stabbed into the car. It will be started and tuned next week.

Outfitting the Stacker

I spent a day getting the Stacker trailer mostly outfitted. On the door I installed a door cabinet fire bottle holder, tire gauge holder, rack of screw drivers and a pair of clamps that hold the weather station in travel mode, and the telescopic pole it goes on (to raise 5′ over the stacker’s roof) when in the pits. Another set of clamps were installed inside the door to hold the pole in travel mode.

On the front wall of the trailer, I mounted a stainless coat rack with 4 stainless steel hangers for my safety suits. Above the coat rack I mounted a pair of stainless steel baskets for racing shoes and gloves. On the ceiling I mounted a swiveling hook to hold my helmet.

Next to the overhead cabinets I mounted an Oil Rack and used Industrial Grey Velcro to hold the lift’s remote control in place. To the rear of the trailer is a strap holder, jack pouch, a blower holder and a couple cord holders.

I also put the hand tools in the appropriate drawers, but I’ll need to go back to clean and oil them before the first race.

In the attic I mounted a holder for four 5gallon fuel jugs.

I still have a day left to finish organizing myself into a 2′ shorter trailer.

Other

  • Installed an electric gate
  • Replaced all bulbs in Magnum XE with LED
  • Replaced AC blower motor on Magnum XE
  • Removed the Grill to the Magnum GT to paint when it gets warmer
  • Figured out I had the wrong parts to install an overdrive in the Magnum XE, and ordered the correct ones
  • Did a little cleaning and organizing in the shop
Dave's News, Technical

Detailing the Trunk of my Magnum GT

Started to Detail the trunk of my GT today. While there was no leak or rust through, the last 40 years has seen a little surface rust from wet items thrown in the trunk over the years. Pulled everything out, Cleaned the flash to bare metal, scuffed, prepped, masked and hit with coats of Grey primer.


A day later I hit with Black paint.

I’ll give the paint a week to dry hard, as I have other stuff to do anyway, before putting the carpet back in.

Dave's News, Family, National News, Technical

What I’ve Learned About CBD

Slightly after midnight on December 19, 1974, I was in the backseat of a Mazda RX2 that took a curve in the Everglades at over 100mph, rolled – throwing me from the car. I was Life Flighted to James Archer Smith Hospital in Homestead, Fl. I had many broken bones, a head injury and took 177 stitches in my face and head. To this day, 45 years later, I still have a chunk of windshield in my head.

In the ensuing years, I developed the same type of arthritis that plagued Evil Knievel, which was caused by too many broken bones. By 1980, I would stop by the VA Hospital each morning at 6am, on my way to work, for treatments. I was prescribed Indocin – which made my hair fall out; Napersin – which caused stomach problems; Zomax – which was taken off the market for liver problems; Viox – which was taken of the market for causing heart issues; and finally high dosages of Celebrex – which I quit taking because of concerns. I just muscle through the chronic pain with 800mg of ibuprofen twice day. I’ve lost 80 pounds, which has helped some – but much.

I’ve had about a dozen orthopedic surgeries, including three on my shoulder. After the last one (about 15 years ago) I was told I’d need a shoulder joint replacement, which I’ve yet to do. I can no longer throw overhand, reach above my head or in back of my neck. All of the discs in my back have degenerated, and after my last MRI, the surgeon told me that the arthritis surrounds the nerves and I’m too far past surgery. He suggested shots into the spine and burning the nerve ends to help the pain, but I have a brother-in-law who having that treatment who scared me away from that because of side effects.

So family, friends, former athletes on tv and others have been preaching CBD. To me, it sounds like snake oil. For kicks my wife bought a month’s supply of 750mg CBD at the pharmacy – for $89.95. I’ve been taking one each morning for the last week. I’m told it takes at least a month for it to help.

The last few weeks my right shoulder has given me unbearable pain. Again at our Pharmacy, my wife buys 3ozs of 500mg CBD topical lotion, again for $89.95. I scoffed at it. She put some on her back, which was aching. A couple hours later she said it felt a lot better. So I tried a squirt on my shoulder before going to bed, as my shoulder makes it hard to sleep. I actually slept through the night and had less pain in the morning. I’ve used it twice since then and feel like it is giving me some relief.

So because I’m such a cheap Bastard, I decided that I needed to find it cheaper on-line. I go to Amazon at find stuff claiming to be ten times stronger and ten times cheaper littered all over the site. I’m the type that believes that if its too good to be true (the strength and price) then its not true.

I spent the next five hours researching. What I found was the following:

  • Amazon doesn’t sell real CBD, but only sells Hemp Oil claiming to be CBD
  • Hemp Oil is pressed from hemp seed, and not true CBD chemically
  • Hemp Oil has no anti-inflammation or pain reducing qualities
  • True CBD is extracted from the mamajuana flower with an expensive process using CO2
  • The expensive stuff that the pharmacy sells is Green Roads, and it is legit.
  • The other well respected legit CBD product is CBDMD. It uses the same process, a 3rd party lab analyzing every batch, and is same price as Green Roads.
  • The difference for me is that CBDMD will give Military/Veterans a 30% discount, and Service Connected Disabled 40%. You need a military id, DD214 to prove military or veteran status; and a statement from the VA on your disability status.

https://www.cbdmd.com/military-disability?rfsn=2915221.841272&subid=xyyCCxyy211348090

So for me, I’m not 100% convinced. However, I’ll give it a month or two to see if I get some long term relief. More importantly, I’ve learned that:

  • Real CBD ain’t cheap
  • There’ currently no real regulations to protect the end user that they’re getting legit CBD, and not Hemp Oil being called CBD
  • Less 1% of the CBD bought is real CBD
  • I’ll save 40%

I hope this helps others from getting suckered into Hemp Oil claiming to be CBD. I’ll post a follow up a month or so down the road. I’m a skeptic, and feel like I’m hard to fool. If anything, I’ll most likely error in feeling that I didn’t get relief when I might have received minor relief.

Business, Dave's News, Family, Internet, Technical

My surface Pro X Nightmare

I violated my rule of “Bleeding Edge”

I’ve been into computers since the late 70s — when you had to assemble them yourself. I was a business computer salesman in 1982 when the IBM-PC came out with 16KB of RAM and a pair of single side floppies. I automated a collection agency I had ownership in back in 1983, sold that software to many other agencies. Was behind rewriting that system again to run on PCs, and started over again in 1990 with a clean slate – with the system know as WinDebt. I’ve owned a couple of computer software companies — and consider myself pretty savvy computer guy for an old man.

Every couple of years I treat myself to a new computer — always the top of the line as I do lot on it. I use to have a desk top in my bedroom, home office, main office and shop — but a few years ago I bought my first Surface Pro (a 2) and I have a hub, keyboard and monitor in many locations and just bring the tablet from place to place. About three years ago I upgraded the Surface Pro2 to a 2017.

For the last few months my 2017 has been showing signs of age. I have to have it plugged in all of the time as battery has expired — and the tablet mode (which I use most) has had the touch screen acting flakey. I knew the new Surface Pro X was coming out in December — so I hung in there and waited.

I received my X last week and immediately regretted it. It started with McAfee antivirus failing to install. The only message was call tech support. I did, and then hung up after 45 minutes on hold. I completely factory reset the computer and started over again — same deal. I uninstalled Windows 10, reinstalled and no soap. After wasting 3 hours I started doing Internet searches. There was nothing on the Internet about this problem — so I started looking for reviews on the Surface Pro X.

That’s when I started to find out that that while the hardware is Top Shelf with the fastest ARM microprocessor and 16GB Ram — on a 64-bit operating system — it changed a 25 year-old school method of how it uses DLLs. That rendered applications that didn’t get it together and rewrite their application to the faster standard inoperable – Just about all of them.

After finding out that I had to use Microsoft’s Firewall and Anti-Virus because none of the others yet work, I found most everything else I use is also useless. Fortunately Quickbooks Desktop and Quickbooks online both work. However, I use a virtual printer called Chax — which prints checks on blank check paper. I called their Tech support — and was lectured by their techie who knew nothing from what he speaks about Surface Pro being like an iPad — and not a computer. I explained to him that I had the most powerful personal computer on the market and it is nothing like an iPad. I tried to explain to him that its a new type of Microprocessor (ARM) and that I’ve read that there was going to be compatibility issues with older software. He told me that their software wasn’t older and that he could get it working. I gave him control of the computer with Gotomeeting — and he jacked around for an hour. I finally convince him to go to my Settings and About to see what I was running. When he did, he said “oh, your got a very powerful computer that is too advanced for this application” — I’ll have to tell management that we need to get to work on this.

Yeah Great! I spent the next hour ordering check printing on line for Quickbooks.

Next I tried to install and older version of Photoshop and it won’t install. I knew better that to waste my time — as the only option would be use the on-line per month charge version.
Next up was a VPN — Express VPN — the biggest, best, and most expensive. I tried twice to install and then got with Abi from their tech support. I explained that I had a new Surface Pro X and the ARM version of Windows X. He told me that won’t make any difference as Windows 10 is Windows 10. So an hour into this I have to reboot and he tells me that he’ll email me the steps to finish. An hour later and still no email — so I get ahold of Keajy and explain the deal. He puts me through the whole deal again — not listening to me explain about the ARM version of Windows 10. 90 minutes into it and I finally convince him to look at my about. I get the “Oh I’ll need to look into this.” After looking into it he says the only VPN I can do Spoofs my IP but adds no security. I don’t need to Spoof — I need security.

Next up is Microsoft, after my Brother laser printer driver won’t install and the Windows driver make white black and black white — to where documents look like negatives. At least when I explained to the Microsoft tech guy — he was prepared for a nightmare. I gave him control to the computer and watched him and someone else try like Hell to fix. The end result was that they were going to have to get with Brother to fix the driver and will get back to me in 24-48 hours.

So I write this to warn others — as this computer is so new that there’s nothing on the Internet about these problems. The surface Pro X is a great computer — but if you need a Surface Pro right now — get a 7 as it might be a year before all of this Windows 10 ARM app incompatibility is fixed.

Dave's News, Drag Racing, Technical

Petty Update

Shop today:
Detroit locker waiting for the carrier bearings and chunk gasket.
Took the rear wheels I painted along with the rear wheels to the Magnum XE to my bud at Discount. He took the 245s off the Magnum wheels and put on the Petty wheels, and put 255s on the Magnum.
Painted up the shifter handle extender and bought some Stainless Steels bolts, nuts and split washers.
Remounted the door cabinet 1/2″ to left as it interfered with other door.

Welcome to my world….