I dropped satellite about a year ago. Online streaming and over the air is the way to go for me. If you have broadband ya might try justin.tv Also delicast.com and justtvnuts.com is good for news. If your ISP has capped ur Gig/month use networx to monitor ur bandwidth use. Ya know it isn't that hard to connect a computer to the TV now days and with a remote keyboard and mouse you can watch a lot of streaming on the big screen... I use 4 to 10 gigs bandwidth a day. Mostly market stuff, but also news and entertainment. One thing I would not do is install any software from any site for online streaming and no need to ever pay for software or monthly fee to watch streaming. There are plenty of free sites that work just fine.
Excellent point. They can crumble pretty easily if they have an internal flaw and you've positioned the block precisely the wrong way. I'd never put a car up on cinder blocks, especially *stacked* blocks.
I've had sheet metal stands buckle on me, leaving me pinned under a 2 ton Jaguar Mark X. My mother, who noticed I was no longer making noise, came out to the garage, saw me pinned under the car and lifted it off me. She was 4'10" and under 100 pounds. Amazing what adrenaline can do. (Of course, the full weight of the car wasn't on me since only one of the 4 stands had failed, but it was enough weight across my chest that I couldn't free myself). Working on cars was never quite the same for me after that even though I went out and bought a hydraulic jack and expensive, well-made jack stands. Two minutes of thinking "I am going to DIE here under this lousy car" while struggling to breathe seems like an eternity.
The tripod screw jacks with fit-to-bumper hook up were the best bumper jacks I've used. But they're big. Scissors jacks are way too flexible. Used them because they make a small package. The old Bugs had a ratcheting jack that plugged into a square hole on the side, so you lifted the entire left or right side. But the steel that made that hole rusted out after not too many years. Used a scissors jack on it after that. I think the 2 car I have now have scissors jacks in the trunk. Can't remember the last time I had a flat. That's why I don't bother to keep a small floor jack in the trunk like I used to. Think those little 2 1/2 ton floor jacks became available for less than a hundred in the late '70's. I trust the heavy duty jack stands, but nothing gives me more comfort under a car than levelly stacked 18" 6x6's. They are foolproof, but bulky and hard to place so they don't get in the way..
Corosion wasn't the problem - thermal cycling was - and they NEVER made the vehicle quit - as it was the "start" prtion that failed. I had quite a few sealed or "monolithic" resistors fail too - not just the open-backed ones. Not just on my own Mopars - but on a lot of customer's cars. There WERE brands that lasted longer than others - can't remember what the good ones or bad ones were, but I Think Neihoff was one of the good ones, and Blue Streak (standard) one of the poor ones.
The good ones carried the heat away better than the poor ones, and supported the resistor better so they didn't fracture.
I had a '74 Dart (Swinger) with the slant 6. Drove it about 3 years, then my FIL drove it for another 3. Think I bought it in '79. Never had the problem mentioned here. Maybe it had the Neihoff. Rings a bell. Bought a control module once. Unnecessarily. Recall it was only about 20 bucks, which surprised me.
When I used CMU blocks to hold up the car, I had a wood or plywood plank on top of the block to protect it from metal digging into it and causing it to break. CMU block will hold up an incredible amount of weight if used properly, just like anything else. I once had a substitute teacher who was an architect who filled in for my vocational agriculture teacher on a regular basis and he told the class that a pair of 2x4's strapped together could hold up just about anything. He taught us a lot about building materials and structures. ^_^
Yeah, Britannia may have ruled the waves, but her cars can't navigate a puddle without the engine dying. Learned all the Lucas jokes, too. "Why do Brits like warm beer? Because Lucas makes refrigerators."
Jags are fun if you do your own work and like to do it, but as a primary car, not so reliable. I hear they've gotten better but I can't see it. I rented one the last time I was in CA and it had water in the headlight lens assembly. Enough to put goldfish in. Didn't matter much after I hit a deer on the Coast highway near Big Sur. Cops said I was lucky - deer crashes send some cars off the road and into the ocean. Fortunately, it was one of the few times I bought extra collision insurance. Signed two pieces of paper and that was that.
I wouldn't mine having an XKE in the garage, though. One of the sweetest looking cars ever made.
In my case it was the computer module of my 1980 Mustang. I went through 3 of them in about 2 years and they did indeed make the vehicle quit.
I'd be driving down the highway at 65 MPH and the car would just shut off. I'd be sailing along and suddenly all of the gauges would drop to zero and I'd just be coasting down the highway.
I'd slip her into neutral, start her back up, and continue on down the road.
My 89 B100 van with a 318 V8 would just quit running. After fiddling around with it for a while it would run again. I thought is was the computer but no, the computer indicated a loss of timing signal and it turned out to be a narrow range thermal intermittent malfunction of the Hall Effect sensor in the distributor. I've seen the same sort of problem with solid state components in communication and control equipment before so I wasn't surprised.
It's part of the fun. I learned about JC Whitney and ordering direct from England long before anyone even dreamed of the Internet. Then I learned about Whitworth, metric and US threads. Very educational and fun for the whole family. Aside from pulling me out from under it, Mom helped with the walnut refinishing. Back then, before Nannystate, you could choose to have an all wood dashboard. Real door handles and hood ornaments, too. Having a Jag early in life taught me the value of solid, reliable transportation. I've driven Hondas ever since then. (-"
Not at all true. I recall standing next to a new V-12. I couldn't figure out why my leg was warm. Then I realized the engine was idling, but there wasn't any noise or even perceptible vibration. I ran my Mark X over 120mph on several occasions without catastrophe. Had giant disc brakes when most American cars were still drum-bound. When it ran, it was remarkable. But it was not a mass-produced item like the Chevy Nova so it suffered from the smaller production volume on a number of fronts. It's worst aspect, as you suggest, is that every few months it could just die for no apparent reason and recover just as mysteriously. Or after the infusion of cash, parts, labor and prayer.
Eventually sold it to a pediatrician specializing in mostly terminal cancer cases because he wanted something that time and money could fix. Bought it for $750, sold it for $5K, bought a new Honda. A twenty year old Jag was just what the doctor ordered to keep his mind off his very grim work. Everything has a place in the world.
As a Brit, I grew up with British cars (obviously ;) and never found them *that* bad - the Lucas stuff wasn't any worse than anything that anybody else was making. The big problem was rust - poor quality steel and little thought to where water would end up and how it would get out again once it had.
Yeah, nice looks for sure... but then I think that most Jags were until the most recent models of the last decade or so. In terms of curvy goodness, I wouldn't mind an XJ13, but they only ever built one of those and then wrecked it ;-)
My Triumphs had those cartridges, too. It was a right PITA to get to the cartridge bolt (this was on their V8s) and forget about getting it to seal well afterwards (not that it really mattered, because they leaked oil from pretty much everywhere, even when new ;-)
I normally used a floor jack and axle stands, but I seem to remember borrowing ramps from a friend to try once - there was too much overhang in front of the front wheels and the car sat too low to the ground for them to really work, though.
"Jules Richardson" wrote in message news:irgcub$tlh$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me...
My big problems were when water got under the hood, when the transmission (Borg-Warnet) blew up, when the power steering pump blew up spraying the hot exhaust manifold with enough PS fluid to create a small cumulo-nimbus cloud outside the gates of the Naval Academy during June Week (now I would be shot as a terrorist bomber), the sudden loss of spark to three of the six cylinders (it did managed to limp thirty miles home in that condition) a failed A/C compressor, which apparently was held in mid-air while the rest of the car was built around it (it was SO hard to remove), a fender full of tree-nuts that apparently only grow in Spain, plenty of the body rust you allude to, an engine that ran hot enough to alligator the paint on the hood, a failed "anti-creep" system that kept pressure on the brakes during idling until the vacuum gave out, releasing the car to roll into the one ahead of it or downhill if you were in an unfortunate spot when it occurred, a horn ring made of white metal with so little support that the first time you hit it hard, it broke off (and no spares existed in any Jaguar junk yard I knew of), a rear brake assembly that was half disk, half drum and all trouble, a push button starter that meant anyone who didn't know Jags who serviced it routinely broke the key off in the switch assuming that it must start that way rather than the big "START" button on the dash and last but not least, three Solex carbs that had to be tuned by a combination of praying, cursing and magic.
The Mark X was the four door predecessor to the XJ series. Walnut fold-down picnic tables behind the front seats, all walnut dash, twin 13 gallon fuel tanks with separate electric pumps, gauges for everything (no idiot lights), leather power seats, power windows, a big boot, a well-fitted tool kit and a top speed of 160 mph. I liked it an awful lot until I decided I really needed to get from point A to point B more than I needed to drive a fancy car. Saved me from making a $80K mistake later in life, I think.
What's Lucas Electrics motto? "Get home before dark!"
Ha ha! I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that. It all sounds familiar - I've had the tree-nut problem, and exhaust manifold bolts that require a team of trained squirrels to reach, and loss of spark (passing folk at 90mph or so on a country road when the supply to the coil gave out) and, of course, engine heat - Triumph were famous for poor QC and their V8s left the factory with a small beach of casting sand still inside, which of course just loved to block engine cooling passages.
Ahh yeah, I remember a friend had a Mark X... very sleek car. The XJs were nice, too, and I think they sold quite a few of those in the US - I keep thinking I should try and get one someday. My uncle had a Mark IX at one point - I'm not sure if those ever made it to the US market, did they?
The XJ13 was Jaguar's Le Mans racer attempt -
formatting link
- very nice lines, I think. Shame they never made it a production body like they did with the E type.
Ha :) I've been in so many European cars of the same era though, and they really weren't any better when it came to electrics. Quite why they couldn't figure it out, I don't know. I've got a '60s Ford F100 these days though and that's really not any different - maybe the US climate (and roads) were just generally kinder on vehicles, so they didn't get the same bad rep?
Paris Rhone and Ducellier were every bit as bad, electrically, as Lucas - and 2 or 3 times as expensive to fix.
Euro electrics do not seam to stand up well over here in the Americas. The "Euro style" connectors used in the American built "Mondeo clones"
- Mercury Mystique/Ford Contour are the largest cause of problems on those cars. Other than the encroaching body rust, virtually every problem I've had on my wife's '96 has been an electrical connector.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.