Leaderboard

As I had previously posted I put the Red in storage and got out the Black [the '88 that replaced the '89 Black that 2seater's son now has] and decided that now is the time to start taking it out on appointments. Kendall had replaced the timing chain and gaskets so I knew the engine was up to the task, but there are still other things that can go wrong, but nothing ventured nothing gained. So away we went leaving at 7:00 am and returning a bit after 5:00 pm running 4 appointments and about 200 miles. The car did great. There are a couple of issues, the biggest one the Camaro muffler. It is a bit loud for my taste so it needs to go. Some time ago I was out to Gibson's looking at the exhausts on the Reattas that are out there and wouldn't you know it there was one with a real nice exhaust. So I cut it off about 2' in front of the axle and took it home. Maybe this weekend I will get it installed. Also want to check the front tie rods and ball joints. I'm going to have to get 2seater to come over and eyeball this car. The interior [other then a bit of carpet fading] is about an 8-9. The body also an 8. The engine with the work Kendall did makes me feel real good about it. Has 184,000 miles but miles never bothered me. Hope I can get 7-8 years out of it before 2seater gets it. lol!

Not often do I get excited about buying a new tool but this one is worth telling someone about. For years I have wanted a battery powered, 1/2" drive impact wrench but they were just too expensive for me to justify the cost when it's primary duty will be removing lugnuts. But prices have been coming down I had recently looked at this impact wrench online at Lowes website and it was $119 with no battery and no charger. My local Lowes had it yesterday for $99 and they threw in a free lithium battery so I pulled the trigger and bought it. I already had a charger for my 24v battery powered Kobalt string trimmer that would work so I didn't have to buy a new charger$$$. The box says this wrench is rated at a maximum of 200 ft-lbs but they say online it is 150. I was only looking for 150 so it suits my needs. I think it might go to 200 because it can loosen and tighten the lugs on my truck that I tightened to 140 with my torque wrench with ease. It could do that on it's lowest setting. It has three settings for speed and torque. (see photo) Power isn't what I find impressive about this wrench. I haven't tried it for maximum torque yet. It is the control you have with it the I find impressive. It has three speed/torque settings but it also has a variable speed motor. You have so much control over the speed that I could remove the plastic screw-on lugnut covers from my wheels and screw them back on without over tightening them and breaking them. Apparently as you squeeze the trigger the torque is reduced with the speed. With the same low setting I can squeeze the trigger all the way down and remove lug nuts on my truck that have been tightened to 140 ft-lbs, and tighten them again to near 140 without hammering a lot. I don't think it has the power to remove a harmonic balancer bolt but I didn't expect it to. When I took this thing out of the box I thought I had been given the wrong tool. I worked for the railroad so I'm use to really big and heavy impact wrenches. It's really small considering it's power. Not much bigger than my battery powered drill. I like that because it is light and easy to use. After checking the Lowes website I found that I had received the correct wrench. After testing it for a while it seems to get the job done without straining. I guess only time will tell if it will last but with me primarily using it to remove lug nuts when rotating tires I expect it will last longer than me. ? I put a soda can in the photo to show you how small this thing is. The bottom two photos show the switch that changes the speed and the button you can push to check the battery level.

Thanks Ronnie - will do!