Here’s a fantastic rundown of information about rebuilding Thermoquad caruretors from the Binder Planet, with part numbers. The important stuff:
1. Rebuild Kit. I use a GP Sorensen part number 96-246C kit, costs approx. $37.
2. Floats. I use two GP Sorensen part number 779-1726. These are nitrophyl floats. I have found that the brass floats sold for the T-Q will fit the fuel bowl, but are not the correct shape to work properly and could not be adjusted to work properly. The Nitrophyl floats work quite well. Good ones weigh 7.5 to 8.0 grams.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Peer Pressure hit the road today for the first time in weeks. It’s been raining, snowing, or I’ve been too occupied to get her out on the road. This afternoon I jumped the battery and ran her up in the driveway for a while, then decided to make a quick dump run. She ran really well for having sat so long. Stay tuned for an update here, though– I think I’ve got a line on a hardtop for sale.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I did some surgery on my Powerbook 160 last night. Apple, in its wisdom 20 years ago, soldered the clock battery to a daughtercard, and from all I’ve read the machine won’t boot if the batteries are dead. So I busted out the iron and got the original battery off (with some difficulty), then put a new one in. Unfortunately it still didn’t come on. No bong, no whine, nothing. I have a working G3 Pismo in the basement for any OS 9 needs, but it would be fun to have an working monochrome Mac in the house, for old time’s sake.
Rooting through the basement a few weeks ago, I stumbled across a tupperware full of unused black and white film. Never one to waste money or pass up a challenge, I dusted off my Minolta X-700 and found it, too had dead batteries. With the clock battery order I got two new cells for the camera, and dropped them in. It fired right up and I started shooting pictures again. Having practiced about 10,000 digital shutter actuations on the D70, I knew exactly how to use it, and I’m hoping the film is still good so that I can develop some film. I have a scanner at work with a negative attachment, so I’m going to plug that in tomorrow and try it out. If I get good results, I’ll start scanning boxes of negs we have sitting around the house.
This Minolta is actually my second. My father has always been a camera nut, and he bought me the first when I left for college. I used it through most of my freshman year, until my asshat second-semester roommate invited a homeless thief to stay in our apartment for a few days. Predictably, it went missing. My dad replaced it that summer with a new one, and it served me well through four years of college and afterward as my primary camera until I bought my first digital. It’s a shame I didn’t learn to master it then as much as I wanted to, but I hope I can now use my digital experience to improve my film skills.
I like Safari’s Reader feature for decontenting web pages and making things easier to digest; however I use Firefox exclusively. Readability is a plugin for Firefox that adds Reader’s functionality plus adds an Instapaper read-it-later-on-your-phone feature. I skipped the registration step (I don’t need another app on my phone right now) and it works beautifully.
Here’s a real nice salute to an old friend: Flickr Is Back, Letting Us Go Home Again.
This is a great resource (although it’s legally skewed towards people who live in Washington State): Get Your Shit Together. The author’s husband died suddenly and she learned the hard way just how unprepared they both were.
I love the Internet. Wikipedia has an entry for the Yeah! Woo! sample (think: It Takes Two, Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock).
So we can only have five computers authorized for Home Sharing and visible to the AppleTV, which makes using my work computers and home computers difficult. I’m trying to bridge the gap, and this thread might help.