Philipthepale

This has been bothering me for a while, now...

I couple years ago I bought a new car and traded in the old one. It was a 5-speed with a crap ton of milage.

The dealership manager guy had to check the old car out to estimate its value, so he got in and turned it on; didn't drive it anywhere.

When he came back into the office, I overheard him say to another employee "This guy down-shifts a lot..." which is true.

But how could he tell that? Can you just feel it in the synchros or something?

Moreover, he said it with a tone like it was a bad thing. Is it bad for the car or something?

I've got a few of these growing in a mulch pile behind my house. The started from nothing this spring and some grew as tall as 12' already with a 1.5-2" think stalk and a reasonably hearty root system.

It seems like some kind of weed.

The link is to a photo of some of the seed pods I cut off yesterday.

Banana for scale...

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/n553/paramedic...

I have a '14 Impreza w/ 30K miles. Whenever I get the oil changed they're always trying to sell me front and rear differential flush service and saying it's recommended by Subaru.

I'm a home shop machinist, so mechanical things and metal properties make sense to me. I intuitively think that the diff fluid wouldn't reach a temperature high enough to cause oil breakdown nor should there be enough gear wear to cause particulate sufficient to cause any problems with the thing.

Is such a service really necessary or are they just trying to get a quick buck? What really is going to happen to the diffs if they don't get flushed?

How are the upper an lower swashplates in a helicopter held together and what kind of bearing surfaces and lubrication do they have? It seems like a high friction kind of thing that would be catastrophic if it were to fail, so what are they made of?

Internet seems to be devoid of info; just lost of explanation of how collective and cyclic control work...

I'm in the market for this specific style of bench vise and I don't know where I would be able to find one. They were made by the Emmert Manufacturing Company in the early 1900's, but I don't know when they went out of production.

Any info would be helpfull...

So here's a new one for me...

I've got a 2004 Civic [ex model]. I was out driving just now and the car wouldn't allow me to rev over 4000 RMP. It was limiting it the same way it does to prevent "redlining" but obviosly 4K on a civic is nowhere near tops.

I turned off the car and then restarted it and the problem was gone!

I'm thinking it was the computer doing something strange... Anybody know why this would happen and is it anything to be of concern?

Thanx,

Phil

I shot and killed a raccoon today that was displaying atypical behavior and ataxia. I suspect that it was rabid. I moved the carcass into the woods, away from the house. I took appropriate PPE precautions including use of a P100 rated air purifying respirator.

My concern is about the little blood trail from when the animal was killed to where I left him/her [I didn't care to check].

Does anybody know how long this particular virus can survive outside of the host? The current weather conditions are wet and cold [just above freezing] with snow and ice on the ground.

Also any knowledge as to what kind of chemical agents would be effective against the virus would be appreciated.

Thanks.

My cat keeps chewing on the house plants. We want her to stop and were thinking that we could spray them with "bitter apple" as a deterrent.

Before we do that, we'd like to know if it will would be harmful to the plants, though.

I've got a y/o RES, named Mortisha.

She wants to know if it's safe for her to eat some of my left over [uncooked] asparagus.

Is it OK to give her some?

Thanks a bunch!

Ughhhh... So much trouble with the beast lately.

So now it's overheating. The temp guage fluctuates from its usual position and has gone up to the red 4 times, so far today. The cabin heat works off and on. So, I checked the fluid level in the coolant reservoir and it's overflowing. I haven't added any coolant to the car, but did need to add oil a couple weeks back. So I stuck my finger into the reservoir to see if it was even warm, and no it's cold. But more importantly there's effing engine oil in the coolant!

I recently [March] had the water-pump replaced when they did the timing belt for PM. I'm pretty darn sure I don't have a blow head gasket, since the car's performing OK and the exhaust in unremarkable.

Any idea what the schmucks at the dealer did wrong and what it's gonna cost me to fix, since they're probably going to refuse to pay for it?

Thanx a bunch!

So, yeah. I brought the car into the dealer to change the timing belt [routine maintainance] and they changed out the water pump and put on new fan belts at the same time.

Afterward the car sounds a bit funny. The engine is louder and makes a sputtering noise in the lower RPMs, but seemed to perform fine, so whatever.

Fast foward a month or so and I found that the car was down a quart of oil. Just yesterday I noticed that the exhaust is smokey [not a whole lot, but enough that I could tell] and doesn't have the fruity smell that it's supposed to. Then today my engine light came on.

Anybody know WTF they screwed up and how much it's gonna cost me to get it fixed?

Howdy!

I've got an '04 Civic w/ 108K. It's a 2 door EX model if that matters.

The clutch doesn't seem to start grabbing until the pedal is 1/2 to 3/4 of the way out and then when it does it's a bit abrupt compared to what it used to be. It's been happening slowly over the last year or two.

This is the car I learned to drive stick on, I drive in the city a bunch, and I downshift to slow down like it's going out of style.

I'm rather sure that it's just the clutch plate worn down.

So here's the question.

Can the clutch just be adjusted and if so bout how much to you think I could expect to pay?