Month: December 2008 (Page 1 of 2)

Another Automotive Conundrum

December 30, 2008 / Greg / 0 Comments

carparts

I was watching some cars going by, and I started mentally checking all the parts that they were made of. Almost every single car that went by was made of huge number of parts, almost none of which are usable on any other brand or even another model of the same car.

This means there are huge warehouses holding huge numbers of discrete parts for every modern car on the road. And none of them are interchangable. Sure tires are, and some wheels, and water pumps and spark plugs will interchange for some engine families… but almost everything else is a custom made part for that car only.

Some dash parts like switchgear are common among car lines from a huge manufacturer, like GM, and some of the engines are shared out, but what isn’t shared out is a lot bigger pile.

In older cars, this is a huge problem, since most car manufacturers quit making parts for a car in as little as 10 years after they’re made. Then it gets tough to find stuff. The most popular cars will be accomodated by the aftermarket, but only the fast moving stuff.

If old cars are hot, like 1957 Chevy’s, some specialist maker will make almost every part. but your ’57 Nash is in trouble. To drive that thing you’re going to be good friends with a machinist.

It’s a shame too, because cars are a unique part of our heritage, and the world’s too. I get a kick out of driving old cars, and they can be a handfull sometimes, due to primitive suspensions, and no computer controls… but exhilarating. I guess keeping parts for every car ever made could get a bit overwhelming.

porsche

Except for Porsche, who still stocks parts for every model back to the 356 from the 50’s…. Now that’s my kind of car company.

greg

Longing for Home… Hue DaNang road.. 1971

December 28, 2008 / Greg / 0 Comments

nam520

Sometime around march of 1971, Sgt Spence (our 1st shirt) took me and another guy or two (can’t remember) to Da Nang to pick up some crypto stuff or other. So we loaded up in our 3/4 ton pickup truck and headed south.

It was quite a panaromic view of Vietnam. Highway one runs down the length of the Vietnamese coast with all the major cities along it. Hue and Da Nang were the 2 largest cities in northern South Vietnam. We did plenty of sightseeing along the way, had a pleasant time in Da nang, and even saw the Seventh Fleet in the harbour. We saw the fleet from the tops of the mountains coming into Da Nang, and the aircraft carrier dwarfed the numerous ships with it!

nam311

The trip back was another story. Spence was driving, and also drinking heavily. This seemed to be the curse of all top sergeants I have known. Spence was a special case tho, as he had been in the Army for 18 years, and curiously spent 17 of them in the orient. Supposedly, he had killed the wrong guy in his corner of Alabama, and his influential family shipped him off to the Army to save him from the authorities. I think he really liked it over there. So anyway, we were heading through the Hai Van Pass, the highest pass in Vietnam, with 2 of us in the bed of the truck, and Spence working furiously on his bottle of gin when the truck suddenly veered towards the small concrete abutment alongside the road. Sensing disaster, Whittley(?) had already jumped out, and I had just put my foot on the tailgate to join him when we hit the abutment. I fell back into the truck and knew this was it. Somehow the truck ran along the low concrete wall and jumped back onto the road. Whit was still laying in the road and it seemed hours before anybody could move. We were still alive!

We ambled up Higway One for hours, shooting at things and generally having a good time. Then our right front tire went flat. Spare was flat. We were in a pickle. We were hours away from home base and not in the friendliest part of Northern I Corps. So we drove up the road at 20 mph and the right rear tire went flat. Things were looking grim. Nobody was coming by, and we assessed our situation. We had 9 rounds left between us for our M-16s. Then we checked the M-79 we had with us and it didn’t work. The firing pin was broke. Yikes, it was getting dark so we drove on flat tires till we came to a Vietnamese strong point along the road. They were just setting up their claymores for the night, and we practically drove over them to get in.

nam509

There was one American advisor with these guys, and they put us up for the night. The American guy had some movie for his boys so we all watched Love Story. The Vietnamese troops would go wild everytime Ryan O’Neil would kiss Ali McGraw. They also had plenty of beer! The next morning they fixed up our tires and gave us some ammo, so in better spirits we headed for Hue. Some time later we were running along the coast and found a great beach. So we decided to take a break to go swimming.

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Spence decided to watch the truck so we shucked our clothes and swam out to some small island off the coast. The water was real shallow, and it was a long way out there. The passing sampans got a kick out of some naked GI’s sunning on the island. Then we noticed the truck was in the water! It took 20 minutes to get back, and we found the truck sunk in the water half way up the cab. Spence was asleep in the drivers seat. We woke him up to find out what had happened. He got homesick and decided to go home. He drove the truck straight towards Alabama till the water swamped the motor. We were in for it again.

A passing truck radioed our position to Phu Bai and they dispatched a wrecker to pull us out. Since we had a motor full of water they had to tow us back to Phu Bai. They couldn’t quit laughing when they found out what happened. The Radio Research station at Phu Bai was our parent headquarters, so when we got there, this Colonel chewed on Spence in a spectacular fashion.

nam476

We finally got another truck and finished our mission, but I don’t think any of us really learned our lessons.

greg

Cars and the fall of the Berlin Wall…

December 24, 2008 / Greg / 0 Comments

laptop_thieves

In case you haven’t noticed… cars have undergone a huge change lately. Security. Your key looks like something from Star Trek now, and is hooked by antennas and links to a brain lurking somewhere in the car ready to deny you access at the drop of a hat.

And it doesn’t stop there. Almost everything is an electronic control unit in car nowdays, the window switches (Drivers Door Module), the sunroof motor (Sun Roof Module) and even the turn signal switch. (the Column Integration Module) And worse than that, they’re all on a bus so they talk to each other (like your home network). They all have the car’s information programmed into them, so that when something is amiss, like someone replacing a module, alarms start to go off and the car shuts down.

To replace some module nowdays, you have to go through elaborate security precautions, some instances it is a hardware key attached to a computer and only available to authorized dealerships. And what started all this, you may ask?

The fall of the Soviet Union, that’s what. Car theives were always a problem of sorts, and the car companies did address that issue to make cars harder to steal. But it was a relatively stable problem. In 1989, when the Soviet Union went out of business, a lot of engineers and other smart guys from the eastern bloc were suddenly out of work. High end cars started disappearing all over Europe, and it was so bad that all the Euro companies got together and came up with draconian measures to stop the thieves.

I doubt that their measures will completely stop car thieves, but it does slow them down a bit. The other side of the coin is, your key module now costs a thousand bucks, and you have to get someones permission to replace a control unit in your own car. I personally like to empower the consumer, but I guess if everyones car gets stolen, thats not a good thing either.

greg

Moving into Camp Eagle… 1972

December 23, 2008 / Greg / 1 Comment

nam097

Sometime in March 1972, The 101st Airborne left Vietnam for home. This left a huge army base deserted and the 1st ARVN Division decided to call it home. A South Vietnamese division has lots of American advisors, including our intelligence team, so of we went to our new home.

The first thing you see when you enter a recently evacuated American army base in Vietnam is dogs. Lots of dogs. I think every GI over there had a dog. Our detachment had 10 guys and we had 2 dogs. Some army communications guy from TOC named Lt. Pappas was assigned the job of shooting all the dogs. He kind of liked it, and earned his moniker “Mad Dog Pappas.” Nobody liked him…

Traded a .38 S&W for a homemade go kart… I coulda just waited till the Airborne guy left… but it was cool. It was made out of a ‘mule’, a kind of mobile basket with a 3kw generator engine on it, and it was used originally to unload planes. It was welded up with a seat in the middle and the motor in the back, and a big 101 Airborne insignia on the tank… No suspension though, and it would beat you to death. General Phu told my CO that he wanted it for his kid… but it kinda got wrecked before I handed it over.

Freaked out one day, my hooch was close to the perimeter and the patrol found a spider hole just outside. How long has this guy been watching me. They found rice and rifle in the hole too. Gives you the shivers.

Trying to find a place to smoke dope. Our new CO was an airborne ranger… we weren’t used to these guys, and they didn’t like punk kids like me either. One night we crawled up our radio tower, enjoying the scenery when 122 rockets started coming in, in a straight line for our tower! They must have been sighting on the helicopter beacon, I smashed it with my rifle but and came down the tower in seconds. (I think it was pretty high too…)

Wandering around the base at night, we came on an ARVN tank crew sitting around their fire. We got to drinking with them, and they showed me how their tank worked. It was an American armored car with twin 40mm guns in the turret. These were usually used for convoy protection. Unlike their American counterparts, ARVN’s drilled a hole in the dash and put a key and tumblers in place of the American switch that anybody can turn on. They didn’t trust anybody, and they shouldn’t have trusted me, because I took off in it for a joyride.. They chased me for a while, but that thing was neat.. It could knock over trees and all sorts of big stuff. I finally gave it back…

Somebody gassed out Airborne Ranger CO. He had just gotten out of the shower and was all wet… gas will burn you when your wet. I think the real target was the mess sgt, who shared the hooch with him. I heard all the commotion out on the street and came out to see the CO dripping wet in a towel with his M-16 pointed right at me. “Pfeiffer” he says, “I know it was you…” It wasn’t me, and he didn’t shoot me, thank god, but it did steel my resolve to get even somehow. While down in Phu Bai I learned that they had 2 gas grenades for a M-79 in the company safe and traded the company clerk for them. That night we climbed up our tower again and pointed the M-79 towards the officers club (we learned he was in there) and let one go. Unfortunately the officers club was 400 yards away, and the gas round could go 200 at the most. But General Phu’s hooch was 200 yards away. Shame his whole family was in there.

The next morning, in my breifing to General Phu and our CO, I duly reported an incoming round of enemy gas during the night. General Phu’s eyes were still red. That night, with one round left, I was determined to fulfill my mission, and tucked the M-79 under my jacket and boldly walked past the Vietnamese guards to the compound and let her rip right through the officers clubs screen door…. mission accomplished. The next mornings breifing included the now regular round of enemy gas….

If I spent this much energy fighting the war, we might have won….

greg

Trip home… Leaving Vietnam.. 1972

December 21, 2008 / Greg / 2 Comments

nam656

I got orders for home some time in April 1972, and I was glad to get them. I ‘d had enough of Vietnam by then. I had recently been busted by the CO for stealing his jeep (I had just borrowed it for a while) and got an Article 15 for it. An Article 15 is one step away from a court martial. I left for the Hue/Phu Bai International Airport (!) to catch a ride south, I didn’t sign out or turn in my weapon. As far as I know, that M-16 is still leaning up against a wall in my hooch. I think I owe the Government 300 bucks for it.

I got to the airfield to find that all the available aircraft were ferrying troops north, as the Easter offensive was still going on. No hope for a fllight south, I took to the road. Some old wreck of a french truck picked me up. I sat in the back with a few black toothed papasans and barrels of what smelled like fish. We got along great till we got to this roadblock. There was a recent firefight there and you could still smell the fireworks. Those papasans were starting to look funny so I hopped off this truck and got on one full of ARVN’s as they were all armed. These guys took me to Danang, and one of them befriended me took me to his house for the night. His family was nice and they treated me to a Vietnamese meal but no one could speak english. The next morning I could see that my bag looked like it had been rifled thru, so I left in a huff. I still regret that, as they were really nice people. Nothing was missing and it was probably just the kids that had gotten into it.

I walked into the Danang airbase looking for a ride and the MP’s went crazy… I guess Danang proper was off limits to GI’s… They also relieved me of my AK 47… it was a nice Russian underfolder too… I think they were just looking for souvenirs… There was no way I could get it home anyway. Finally got a flight to Saigon… however, the C130 had more Vietnamese, pigs, goats and whatever riding along than GI’s… Then the engine quit… a couple of hours later and another airplane and we were on our way…

I spent a week in Saigon before I got a flight out. I hung out in this bar for a while, full of marines that were off duty. Then a bunch of Austrailian grunts wandered in. I could see things were getting tense so I left… It wasn’t 5 minutes before people were getting thrown out the windows and such…

To get on the plane, you and your stuff had to go into a little room with a marine in it. He decided whether to take you apart or not.. They didn’t want drugs or guns going home.. I made it thru… and off on the way home. The ride back was pretty subdued… wasn’t much chatter, compared to the ride there… about forever later we were above Oakland…. but couldn’t get down. They waved us off as some woman shot a GI getting off the plane ahead of us. Seems her husband got killed by friendly fire over in Nam. We finally did get down, though, and were greeted by a large group of hippie protestors. After the usual charge of babykilling… they went home and I was finally loose in the USA…

They had a welcome home meal for us at Oakland Army Replacement Station. It looked like a big pile of steaks so I loaded up and sat down for some chow. It was liver. Who were they kidding. So I headed for home. I don’t really remember why, whether I was short of cash, (The army had lost my records, so getting paid was sporadic) or still had some wanderlust left in me, I decided to hitchhike home. I got a ride in the back of some pickup truck that night, but the temperatures in the mountains were below freezing, and I had just came back from the tropics. Yikes.

Somehow I lived thru that and had a pretty uneventful trip home. I was picked up in Nebraska by the cops as they were always looking for AWOL’s. (They didn’t even look at the obvious criminal types hitchhiking along side me.) I found the truck drivers the best. They fed me along the way and even gave me money to complete my trip.

But I did make it home…. I had 6 months left to go at Fort Bragg… but that is another story…

greg

Car Safety… a look back

December 20, 2008 / Greg / 1 Comment

modeltwreck

As a Saab Technician, I really get a feeling of being indestructable as I test drive new cars. The brakes are good… the belts hold you in and there are airbags all over the place. (At least 6 bags in the 9-3’s.) This is a false feeling as there are other things on the road that are killers, like semi-trucks.

But cars are a lot safer. My grandpa, Art Specht, got involved in a wreck in a Model-T Ford when he was younger. From what he says, a huge spike of plate glass cut up his face. There is a lot to be said for safety glass.

Seat belt are another thing. My first car, a 1952 Ford, had no belts, and when they started putting them in, I thought they were a nuisance. I only started using belts because I had a bad habit of driving absolutely as fast as I could go. I’m over all that now, however I wouldn’t think of crossing the street now without seat belts…

Then there are dual master cylinders. Up until 1968 or so cars had a single hydraulic circuit to feed all the brakes. This is fine till something happens, like a blown wheel cylinder or a failed seal in the master cylinder or a rusted out line. Then you have no brakes. (Well, you did have an emergency brake, but did you ever try to stop a car with one? Not to good.) I lost a Corvair like that, in order to stop I had to run into a building. (It was a Police station at that, but that’s another story)

Now cars have all these safety items, including stiffer cages. Not long ago a Saab Convertible rolled over a couple of times, and the roof didn’t collapse. And you could still open the doors. That would have never happened to a convertible made up to the seventies.

However, human nature being what it is, you would think this would lower the accident rate and whatever. Insurance companies used to give a discount to people whose cars had this safety equipment but they no longer do. They found out that people think they’re safe so they just drive faster…

greg

Sail(plane)ing into oblivion….

December 17, 2008 / Greg / 0 Comments

Back in the eighties I went thru my flyboy period. I took sailplane lessons for awhile in an old Schweitzer WW2 trainer in Waynesville Ohio. There are a few sailplane places around Waynesville with pretty modern planes, but this was the best they had. Not to complain, it wouldn’t stay up all day but it was cool. Ken was my flight instructor, and I think he only did this so he could afford to go up all day.

Sailplanes are cool. As they kept reminding me, they didn’t burn when they crashed, as there was no engine. That was reassuring. They would get this old guy with a piper cub to drag you up a couple a thousand feet and let you go. (I can’t remember the old guy’s name, but when he was younger, his big thing was to fly low over a crowd, and crawl out of the backseat of his piper cub and shimmy up the wing root and climb into the front seat. This was neat as he was the only guy on board. What a guy!)

After he let you go, you looked around for some big fluffy clouds, for they marked the thermals. These were big warm columns of air that were rising. They were just a big sailplane elevator. Once you got in one you just circled around till you got high enough, then bailed out and sailed around for a while.

Once you ran out of thermals, it was time to come back down. This was dicey at this particular airfield as there were telephone wires close up to all edges of the field. To get a sailplane down you had to pass over the wires, then cross up the controls, in effect to drop the plane as fast as possible. Then just before you hit the ground, you staighten the controls up and make a controlled landing. Nothing to it. Except one day, my sister Lisa talked the old guy into giving her a ride in his piper cub, and he took off right in front of me on the way down. It was too late to go back up, so we turned into the plowed field next door and made an improptu landing. This is when you learn to land with the furrows, not against them.

Like they say, any landing you walk away from is a good landing. Especially if you don’t burn.

greg

Leasing cars is a bad thing…. for the cars

December 12, 2008 / Greg / 0 Comments

We live in an ownership society, and as such, we take care of things. Renters don’t take care of things… but owners do. If you lease a car, any maintenance it needs is just a pain in the ass. And it is also an expense you can do without… mainly because it’s not yours. It’s somebody else’s problem. Usually if you skip on maintenance, nothing will really happen to it while your driving it but the next guy is the guy that pays up.

Manufacturers are also guilty here. In order to make their cars look good in comparison to other cars they have lengthened the maintenance intervals. It’s like their cars don’t really need to have the oil changed much. However, yes they do. One reason is the EPA. In order to meet emission standards, car makers have had to go to great lengths to make a car run clean. They have emission controls that do this pretty good, but the EPA also wants a car to run clean while it’s warming up, something that emission controls can’t really do. So car makers try hard to get their cars warmed up quickly, one of the ways is to stuff the catalytic converter up against the engine. These things can run 1600 degrees at times, and warms the oil up quick. But it is always there. Your oil is getting baked every day in the interest in tailpipe emissions, coupled with lengthened oil change intervals and bingo. Now you got a crankcase full of sludge and hard things that plug up the oil pickup. Now you need an engine…

The best thing you can do for a car is change the oil… 3500 miles for regular oil, 5000 miles for semi-synthetic oil, and 10000 miles for synthetic. (somehow, even with synthetic, I still can’t let it go that long…) Your car will be grateful….

greg

Computerized Engine Controls.. a Modern Miracle

December 9, 2008 / Greg / 0 Comments

There once was a time not so long ago where if you had taken a car’s engine apart for some serious rebuilding, that half the work was getting it running good again. You had to massage the mixture, cajole the timing, and usually had to accept some irregularity or other. That stuff is all over.

As long as you put everything back together properly, and without adjusting anything, all you have to do is hook up the battery and turn the key. The engine comes to life immediately, with no hint of it’s latest major sugery… and not only just run, but run good. (disclaimer: the mechanic does have to put it back together properly…)

One interesting thing about computerized engine controls are the idle motors. Back in the 60’s and 70’s getting a car to idle approached something of an art. You had to balance all the factors involved to get what you wanted… did you want it to run clean, or run good? You usually couldn’t have both.. now you get it all. Idle motors work good, so good in fact that they rarely fail, and if you start your car and put it in gear and lay off the brakes, your car will idle itself at about 6mph to Los Angeles if you have enough gas.

Engine computers will also tell you whats wrong with themselves also. Engine failure codes were sparse and not very informative in the 80’s. For example, you would get a code like 42492.. which meant the mixture was incorrect on driving. This could mean anything that had anything to do with the motor could be at fault. It was like having someone tell you your cars running bad. You already knew it. And the fault code list was limited to about 20 generalized codes. Now the number of codes for an engine system runs into the hundreds and are much more detailed as to the fault.

The reason you need codes in modern engine systems is somewhat akin to the larger picture humans have to deal with in modern life. And that is, things are not intuitive anymore. A hundred years ago, the average mechanic could understand everything about the machines he worked on, because you could see the problems and relate to them in a physical way. Now you relate to the problems on a theoretical level, and you have to trust your machines to tell you what’s going on. But it is a miracle it works at all, much less works as good as it does.

We don’t even think about it, and we don’t need to, till it hiccups…

Vietnam R&R…

December 7, 2008 / Greg / 1 Comment

Some time around March 1971, the higher ups decided we needed a break. The U.S. Army had a beach set up just for this purpose. It technically was the 101st Airborne’s beach, but since we were all on the same side, they let us use it. In Country R&R usually lasted about 3 days and ours did but just barely. It was pretty cool, ocean front property. The only indications of the war was the constant buzz of helicopters whipping up the beach, and the vietnamese on the next beach over. They weren’t there for fun though, just fishing to get something to eat.

The first day started off badly. One of our guys broke his back body surfing. He wasn’t killed but his war was over and they hauled him off to Japan.

The next day was my turn. I was far out in the surf, when I noticed one of the helicopters that flew low along the beach was turning around. The gunship started wailing on the water just in front of me with all their machine guns at once. I couldn’t get out of the water fast enough. Then all the Vietnamese charged into the water and dragged the biggest white shark I’d ever seen onto the beach. There must have been 500 bullet holes in him. The Viets carved him up into steaks in no time. I had enough of swimming for awhile, and my hat was off to those chopper guys.

That night a typhoon blew in during the night and levelled most of the hooches we were staying in, including mine. There wasn’t anything to do but ride it out, and the next morning crawled out of the wreckage.

Thank God, this R&R only lasted 3 days…

greg

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