TireSmoke.org

OK I bought my '47 Ford Truck a number of years back. To recapp - it was "built" in the mid 60's. Anyways while the origional builder installed a BRAND NEW set of SW guages - he never got around to hooking up the speedo. The truck was later (80's) sold to a buddy of mine who also never got around to the speedo fix. So fast forward to me - here I am driving this around for years ALSO doing nothing about "fixing" the speedo. Well after towing the dragster out to Thompson and catching guff from my buddy saying I was driving inconsistently it suddenly (?) dawned on me - "Hey why don't you just FIX the speedo?"

So it took all of 15 minutes to determine what speedo cable length was needed and another 15 minutes of searching Ebay to find the appropriate length cable. It would have only taken a few minutes but I was insistent on getting a factory cable and not an aftermarket replacement - anyways a couple days later the cable arrives and in another 15 minutes it's installed and working near perfectly!!! I say "near" because it reads a little fast according to my GPS.

So I gotta wonder - WHY do we put off such simple stuff???? I mean REALLY - what was I thinking all these years!!! DUH!!!


So does anyone know just how close you can get these things to read? I mean - I understand the mechanics of it all - just wondering how close one can expect to fine tune this type of system - I'm reading about 4-5 mph FAST at 55mph. Pretty close considering the hodge podge of parts I threw together.

Anyways - I hope that maybe I won't be so lame in the future putting off such easy fixes, but ya never know!!!

Racin'Jacin

On my 87 Camaro the electric fan would stay on. Eventually the motor went and the fan quit. It worked OK except when you got stuck in traffic you had to turn on the heat to keep the engine from overheating - not fun in the summer with a non A/C car.

So after owning the car for about four years I set out to figure out the problem. Turns out there was a connector to the A/C compressor in the wiring harness. When that circuit is open, the fan stays on. I cut off the plug and attached the wires and the fan stopped continuous run. It would only run when the temp got up. It cost me $0. To this day I'll never know why a non A/C car had the A/C wiring harness and why I put up with that for four years.

How many of you guys have lived with a problem in your car until you were getting ready to sell it, then fix the problem in 5 - 10 minutes. It has happened to me a million times... fix it for someone else, not for yourself.

The hood safety latch on my latest car was siezed. The previous owner said that it was extremely difficult to operate so it was better off this way.

Four months or so of ownership later, you can guess what happened.

10 seconds with Kimball-Midwest penetrating oil (makes PB Blaster seem like WD-40) and the safety is functioning. And it's perfectly easy to use, a heck of a lot easier than, say, a Jeep Cherokee.

Wish I would've fixed the latch before it mangled the hood. And the irreplacable windshield. (The car is technically an Audi chassis. Audi parts houses won't sell VW parts, and VW parts houses are not allowed to sell Audi parts. And it's JUST DIFFERENT ENOUGH that Audi parts don't fit.)