Last Indian

It is disturbing! Yes I have always said hydrogen is the answer, but it needs to be something inert per say! Example: a type of nozzle that some how cracks water, I.E. separates the oxygen molecules from the hydrogen molecules as the water is pushed through a type of orifice! This way there can be no risk factor for an explosion because all you carry is water! Yet instead we spend tens of trillions on green energy & the destruction of the fossil fuel industry with not a single feasible or tangible idea that can really work!

Fitzy, you have really posted some amazing pictures. We all thank you! It’s almost like taking the trip with you. Very Cool. Just consider me a snarly old man, as you are a young buck! Since you didn’t build the car & I presume you may not know of all the past history of cars on this planet & neither do I, please don’t take offense. No the Prius doesn’t impress me! Part of that comes from the fact that I had projects I worked on with Toyota, so I know the car up close & personal. There have been cars built long long ago that didn’t need a 600 lb. battery to get that kind of mileage. The Crosley for instance! Built from “39”-“52” got 60 mpg @ 50 mph even better around town! Needed, literally 1 tenth the parts that the Prius has. Needed no fuel pump for instance. In the mean time all these tree huggers really aren’t tree huggers. They’re just pushing the populous little by little in incremental steps into something that they won’t be able to change once they get you where they want you. In the mean time they’ll fly their private jets, their big gas power cars & live in their mansions that consume tons of fossil energy all while you struggle to pay for your green energy.

Life is tough! Especially if you believe the big big lies & as the above picture says, “But it’s tougher when you are stupid!” This piece is not intended to insult anyone, far from it! it’s just an observation & while there is great accuracy of fact, it is meant to be in some degree tongue-in-cheek. Have you ever thought about something & then just passed over it? You didn’t take the time or make the effort to become educated! For instance, didn’t you ever wonder how could a 5000 lb. + SUV get a 5 star crash rating & also a Smart car gets the same rating? Well if you did, but didn’t go any further than refer to the above picture, which I borrowed from another post! The IIHS testing methodology is as illogical as any there is. Setup a wall, drive a car into it, rate the results! Really!? So that means that a feather propelled into that same wall should receive a, what 10 star rating! Because that feather is not going to receive any damage. Put another way, I’ll drive the 5000 lb. SUV at you sitting in the Smart car! Do you fell good about that? If you do, see above picture! Of course only after you proudly show your 5 star rating from your coffin. Do you believe you can burn a gallon of gas to charge a battery & that charged battery will give you more energy than the gallon of gas? Enough energy to take the same vehicle more than 3 times farther then just burning that gallon of gas directly in the engine to propel the car down the road? If so, see above picture! Because that defies physics! With each release of energy is work. A portion of work is calculated as heat or friction loss, which consumes a portion of energy. For instance, have you ever used an electrical plugin item or even a battery operated item & noticed that the cord or battery are warm or even hot when done? That’s energy lose or physics at work. It also is a fact that, this heat you feel means that not all the power you used went to the electrical item, but was lost due to friction. So if you think you can consume an energy to make another form of energy & have it not only be cheaper, but more of it, as well as less of what they call “less polluting”, see above picture! Here is another fact to consider with regard to EV’s & battery operated products. Did you know that lithium is a metal? Did you know it’s not a renewable element? What was here at the formation of the Earth is all there is. Did you know that once processed into a battery it can’t be renewed? I.E. it’s done, dead, no good! So what are the brilliant morons plans for when the lithium is gone? Which ball park figures estimates place at 50 to 300 years, but considering the size & needs of car batteries, which is actually in its infancy stage, will substantially reduce at a much greater rate due to shear volume need! If you didn’t think this was worth contemplating, see above picture. Did you know that crude oil has been used for at least 6000 years. Did you know that virtually everything you have, wear, use & see is tied to crude oil? If not see above picture. All of these thing have been said over & over again, but most people just seem to be the proverbial bull with the ring in his nose being lead to slaughter! None of these things benefit you! They aren’t cheaper, they aren’t more efficient, they aren’t better for the ecology & in almost every case they use up precious resources that can never be replenished! Ever! If you don’t know that, see above picture!!

So the locals were making Fitzy soup! I bet it had the essence of roasted something!

Safe trip Pete! Godspeed!

No, but to some degree yes. No, but a coating of a type may be applied, not sure yet. Bingo & possibly the later that you mentioned! Haven’t worked out the details yet! And yes you did & again thank you. New hardware is being designed & hopefully will be built this winter, but not sure yet how it will evolve. To give this some perspective, this piece is 26” long 11 1/4 “ tall.

So some may remember the trunk cover for the spare tire/battery. And while I originally thought it was ok, as time moved on I knew I wanted to do something else, but I couldn’t exactly see what that was to be. Now I have. so I needed to remove all the old hardware & start sanding & sanding. Any guesses as to what’s next?

Now there’s a handsome pair! Oh you thought I meant Kiwi & Fitzy! No, no the caddy & Plymouth, what else! Great to see you guys together. I suspect there may be a few more pot holes in Taupo before that trip is over.

Paul as you step through this & weight what you want to do here are a few things that might help. For instance if you want to push the wheel out & ultimately make the rim wider you can build a cheap wheel spacer to place between the rim & brake this will allow you a visual of what it would look like, plus it allows you to visually see how wide you can make the rim. Also if you want to keep the original wheels, but can’t find them in the width you want you can have the original ones widened! I have done this for a couple guys over the years. You just split the original, cut the two halves apart at the drop in groove, roll a piece of flat hot roll stock, weld it all back together.

JustA mazing Fitzy! Been following all your travels really beautiful county! As far as the Prius; come to the US & drive one on the freeway here! When you finally stop & get out you will kiss the ground! Also save all the money you can because they break a lot & cost a ton to fix! Kiwi! When you take Fitzy for that ride two things! Put a $20 on the dash & tell Fitzy he can have it if he can get to it before you hit 4th gear! Also take some ear plugs the screaming & crying might be a little intense!

Sorry! You poor - - - - ! Oh wait you love every minute under, in or draped over a body part!

Well as all of us northern folks start getting ready for our crap weather, it’s that time when we start planning our winter projects. Of which I hope to have several for the Indian. So stay tuned for some updates!

I understand why you would want to do it that way. And there is nothing wrong in doing that if you so chose, but, and this is nothing but a question. How are you going to know what to chose for rims & tires for a change you haven’t made? The link that I provided allows you to play with rim & tire size as well as alter suspension parameters to see where there could be interference. You indicated that you would like to lower the car. That being said, suspension restrictions always become more limiting when lowered, due to downward travel, not upward & the greatest movement is downward. So my only reason to mention this method for choosing rims & tires is, unless you have a way & knowledge of how to look at the triangle axis of suspension movement that you intend to make you won’t know what it will be. Even if you make it with your current wheels! I may be saying this wrong so please pardon me if I am.

First of all welcome to our obsession Bonne61! The very first thing you will need to do is make very accurate measurements of fender clearances, wheelwell clearances, offsets, suspension clearances, etc… if you are going to make changes to the suspension as you indicate that will effect those clearances, make them first! Unless you are really good and know how they will change the geometry of the car, don’t guess! After that start figuring your wheel & tire change. That said in general most tire & rim combos usually end up pretty close to the same overall diameter, irrespective of rim size. What affects clearance issues more often than not is way to wide of a rim, like 10” or the offset being to much the wrong way. So make good measurements & plug them into the attached link in the appropriate places & you will see what you can & can’t do! https://www.wheel-size.com/calc/ An example of my statement is this, my factory rims were P225 16” x 6 with a 43 offset! I had custom rims built. 18” x 8 with a 10 offset for the rears & 23 offset for the fronts. The tires for all 4 rims are P245 45 18”. Yet the over all diameter of the rim & tire combo is exactly the same outside diameter as the 16x6 with P225 tires. All I did was fill as much of the wasted space between the outside fender lip & the inside suspension/inner fender as I could with out making contact with any thing! these are the original rims/tires these are the new

Do you have Sta-Bil in NZ? Their 360 product is new & quite good. It also has PEA in it as well, but also removes ethanol. Think about this for just a moment. Drill a hole in the ground pump out oil & gas out. Use energy (natural gas) to distill it & get all the products out of it that come from crude oil, which includes those necessary to make wind turbines & solar panels. Now ethanol! Use a gas powered tractor to plow a field, plant corn. Use fertilizer to make it grow, which takes carbon based fuels to make. Water it which takes carbon based fuels to deliver it. Harvest it which take a gas or diesel tractor to do so. Process the corn which take energy! Cook the mash to make the ethanol! Finally distill the finished product to get the ethanol!! DOES this really sound like good way to reduce carbon emissions? Especially when in fact ethanol actually produces more than twice as much CO2 per energy output as compared to gas or diesel. Tell me these people aren’t pure evil!

Oh I guess I should clarify that statement a little better! Unleaded fuel of itself really has little impact on old cylinder heads or engines for that matter! Once the change to unleaded really gained ground the OEMs, through extensive testing, found it became evident the valve recession could occur under the right conditions. So the switch to hardened valve seats came to pass. The real problem though was & is alcohol! Before unleaded it was rare to have alcohol in fuel & if it did happen, it was usually short lived. As leaded fuel disappeared & the ill informed tree huggers grew so did alcohol in the fuel. So it goes like this, alcohol in the fuel in a non computer controlled car typically causes a lean mixture, which cause combustion & heat issues! Also alcohol absorbs water, which along with the fact that it has zero volatility it also is incompressible! This raises cylinder pressures & can cause detonation due to an unstable fuel mixture. This is what Spikes engine saw & what caused the damage. Computer controlled engines due things to control these issues, but old school engines can’t. For me alcohol in the fuel is a no no! First, & I’m not a tree hugger, it bad for the in environment for several reasons! Two it’s bad for combustion engines! And three it’s not cheaper! This is why I use the additives that I do! One removes the alcohol from the fuel. The other replaces some of the needed chemistry that helps the combustion system. So nearly all old lead burning engines can burn unleaded fuel without issue, but alcohol in the fuel not so much! Sad! The last of the true craftsman are almost gone!

Hey! He’s been very busy! Broke truck, a broke car, oh make that two broke cars , ok make that two broke cars & a son in law broke car! A well pump broke! A tree fell on my garage, I can’t find the right parts, Geessss!

Again, even that is fixable! But you are correct to take the best path that fits your budget. I’m JustA saying, (that’s a term we use here because of our buddy JustA6), those parts in a world of ever depleting & limited parts of their kind have value because they can be fixed!

That’s from running non leaded fuel & not using an additive to resolve the lack of no lead in the fuel!

Ok, for instance, that’s the water jacket side. So you will, presuming it’s not something you do, find a shop that knows how to weld cast iron, it take a special welding rod. The expansion plug will need to be removed. The crack will need to be grooved the entire length & even into the plug area. Than the plug area will need to be rebored to the proper size so a expansion plug can be re installed. Additionally before doing this the block will need to be clean thoroughly to remove any contamination of oil & antifreeze that might effect the adhesion of the welding.

Spike, even the head that had damage from the bolt can be fixed if need be! There are several ways in which it can be restored, so don’t scrap it unless you really don’t need it. Backup parts are always a plus.

Welcome to the Pow Wow Spike! If you can’t find other heads you should be able to salvage the 401’s, but that will take machine work which cost money. So if you can find another set of heads that would be the ticket. Always loved the “69”! Big American iron! Like riding on air!

Or!

All of the GM line from “67” through the end of the Nova, Ventura & Omega (“78”) had the same subframe. I.E. “67-69” Camaro/Firebird, “67-78” Nova, Ventura & Omega plus the Buick Apollo, which ended in “75”! The other good thing is most of the suspension was interchangeable! Up to and including for example; front spindles could be use for both drum or disc brakes. You just needed the caliper bracket that took the place of the drum brake backing plate.