The FORD Lounge

[viven44]

Take care!! Necrotizing tissue doesn’t sound good to be in the system.

[ArdWrknTrk]

And now you can have more options in a vehicle that has the complexities and failure points of both....💡




https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/04/fords-q1-ev-sales-grew-86-but-its-shifting-focus-to-hybrids/

[viven44]

I'm never getting an hybrid again... Especially, the Toyota/Lexus only ones with the Toyota-only made "master cylinder/brake booster/abs" assembly. If and when those things fail, causing internal seal rupture of the pump which fills up the fluid with air.. the pedals go soft and its a safety risk. Toyota issued recalls that replaced the units a specific "VIN range" which is cover your *** BS. Cost of replacement is over $4000 and this happens quite often. Check carcomplaints.com, you will find too many cases. Sorry but i'm not going to attempt to save a few bucks in gas and drive an over-engineered and expensive piece of ****. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

So many of these old hybrids end up at the auction with a "mechanical" issue. I know exact which issue that is. Cost of repair exceeds cost of vehicle... i'll pass.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Prius electric steering *and brakes * is a highly valued aftermarket swap.

I think that plug-in hybrid is a whole new level.

But I'm not interested in any of them.

[85lebaront2]

Gee that brake assembly sounds like the system Chrysler used on some of their cars and minivans. We had a 1993 with the Bendix 10 ABS system, had a 2000 psi pump mounted on the top of the differential housing of the transaxle. Pump would fail and you had virtually no brakes. Accumulator would leak and the pump would cycle on and off continuously, or the check valve on the pump would fail, and same issue with the pump motor.

[viven44]

Interesting. I had thought all along that Toyota had come up with that on their own. Not surprised they copied one, and a flawed one at that. Yes that is exactly what happened, the pump would cycle on and off. Initially every minute or so, and then down to every 15 seconds as it got worse. New "unit" from Toyota was over $4k. The other option was a $700 used unit from a salvage yard which probably was going to fail anytime soon. They used this design on all their hybrids and continue to do it today. I learned today from my brother-in-law who drives a 2011 prius that he spent $5K at the dealer a few months ago!! I asked him, would you buy a Toyota hybrid again, and he said "Yes". I told myself there is no saving some people.

[ArdWrknTrk]

This is AFTER 3 days of antibiotic infusion.

[viven44]

Dang…. Would compression sleeves alleviate any of that edema ?

[ArdWrknTrk]

The plasma weeping out my pores had my socks glued to my shins.
The doctors tested for edema, it's all infection, not water ..

[Gary Lewis]

Yikes!  That looks awful, Jim!  Hope you get better quickly.  Will keep you in my prayers!

[ArdWrknTrk]

Thanks Gary!  🙏
I've had 3 (festering) days of sitting on my hands.
They don't call me Redline for nothing.
I get  done!

I need to get my hands on a DTI and a good set of feeler gauges.
Somehow... I think that I'll be ok.  

[BigBrother-84]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

The plasma weeping out my pores had my socks glued to my shins.
The doctors tested for edema, it's all infection, not water ..

Jim!  How is it going today?

[ArdWrknTrk]

My lower leg still has skin like a pomelo.

It's swollen, so I can't really bend my knee or get pants on or off.
I'm doing what I can in this condition.  🙂

[BigBrother-84]

Today, we had a full solar eclipse here.
I don’t have any telescope, so I tried couple of shots with my DSLR Nikon, equipped with a Zoom.
We had couple of eclipse glasses, I taped one + a piece of cardboard on the lens:


Here are some picts I took:



On this one, we can see some solar flares:



My wife took some picts during the darkest moments (around 3:28 PM local time).
I am at my Nikon on this one:


And we can see a star here, down right of the Sun. This isn’t a star, that’s Venus:

[ArdWrknTrk]

Beautiful photography, Jeff!  👍

Compliments to your wife, as well.

[Gary Lewis]

Well done, Jeff!  Those are great!

We had 95.3% coverage and used my auto-darkening welding helmet. But we had just a touch of clouds and the reduced light wasn’t quite enough to trip the helmet for the last 10 minutes.

[Nothing Special]

We went to Nashville for the 2017 eclipse.  I thought that was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen, but I couldn't talk Lesley into traveling for this one (in 2017 we stayed at her brother's and watch from his backyard, no such opportunity this time).

I think it was supposed to be about 70% coverage here yesterday, but we had overcast and rain.  Couldn't see the sun at all.  During the eclipse it just looked like the clouds were thickening a bit.

What I remember from last time was that even 99% coverage was only so-so.  But when it went to 100% it was like a switch was thrown.  The sky went dark except what sort of looked like a 360° sunset (like it shows in Jeff's wife's pictures) and the whole world went QUIET!  we were close enough to hear traffic noise from I40, and that stopped.  But also the breeze died and the suburban animal noises stopped.  That was really cool!

[Gary Lewis]

Even with "only" 95% coverage the animals were confused.  We saw a pair of rabbits that didn't know what to do, but knew something was different.  And the birds got quiet.

But, that last 5% probably would have made a huge difference as things here were odd, but not obviously strange.  We felt "out of it" but could easily still see and if we'd not known there was an eclipse it would have been possible to think the sky was just very cloudy.

[viven44]

We had 100% in Dallas and it felt like the work of an omnipotent entity. As quickly as it became dark-as-night, if one wasn’t aware of the eclipse it would have been a cause for panic.

[mat in tn]

when the eclipse in 2017 happened, I was also in Nashville working at the art store in green hills mall. glass roof in the concourse made it interesting.