Gasoline Alley

This is my newest acquisition, over at Mike's. He needed money and wanted me to loan him money so I ax'd him what he had for collateral. This '07 XJ6 with 120k miles on it. I know the original owner; he drives a lot and routinely puts 350k on these. This was his wife's car. Only a few simple mechanical things wrong on it and he had the parts to fix it. I drove it and confirmed. $3000 including the parts and repairs.

The big problem with it was the paint. Looks like she's been driving (rubbing) past a holly bush for years on the driver's side. So I hired him to repaint it. Here it is all primed, block sanded and ready for a shoot. Color, clear and reactants were $1200. Labor $1900, so far.
 

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I passed this lovely old gal on the way to an invite-only cruise in at the local air strip, held during an air show. Thousands from the public there. My car was a big hit. The owner of the Jag lives in my town.
 

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Same show, a one owner '70 Mustang. All original, including the paint which was nearly immaculate.
 

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Last time I drove back from Florida I murdered thousands of innocent bugs with the front of my Porsche.
 

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I took my classic on a ride in the county one spring morning on the way to a remote project. The fields were so lovely I had to stop and take a photo.
 

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Big 'ol Caddy that someone with more money than brains is having Mike restore. A large tree had fallen on the car and crushed the roof into the interior. Mike had to locate a donor and weld in a new roof. Would have been easier just to swap the VIN, but the owner insisted...
 

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When I swapped a modern transmission into the 'Bird the old driveshaft was too short, so brought it to a local shop to have it re-tubed. Looks like someone made a mistake; they gave me this work of art instead.

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Found a pic of my daughter's car. I bought this for her when she was 16 and that was 9 years ago. It's a five speed manual gearbox and a SOHC V6 made in Cologne, Germany. It had 100k miles on it and the poor bastard that owned it couldn't make his last loan payment. It had a long list of issues which we systematically discovered and fixed. I found inexpensive "take off" parts from new GTs and installed new springs, roll bars, bushings, and exhaust. When she graduated college my gift to her was to pay 1/2 of a new paint job. Mike did the job and it cost $4000. The stripes are paint and you can't feel a ridge. The clear coat cost over $400/ gallon. That was four years ago and it still looks great.

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Notice the headlights? She was complaining that she couldn't see at night so I custom fitted HID projector lamps in new aftermarket housings. The illuminate down-road as well as my '12 Jeep and since they are xenon arc, have a precise beam so there is no glare to oncoming traffic.
 

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This is what a xenon arc bulb looks like. There is no filament. The light source is an electric arc, or plasma, arcing between the two electrodes within a nobel (inert) gas contained inside the tiny glass bulb. Variations in light color are achieved by small amounts of impurities in the gas.

HID-Xenon-Bulb.jpg
 
Here's how a reflector bulb operates. The light source is positioned at the focal point of an ellipsoid reflector that reflects it to a projector lens. The projector is similar to a movie theater projector, to "project" the light far away. This lights up down-road much father than a reflector alone can achieve. The cutoff is an aluminum plate shaped precisely for low beam, and is swung out of the way by a solenoid for high beam.

projectors-1.png
 
Here is an HID projector lamp in its entirety. The reflector is in the rear and the glass projector lens pointing towards the viewer. The cutoff plate is between. Note that the top of the plate is not flat. one side if higher than the other, and this forces the light to be low directly ahead and at oncoming traffic, and allows the light to be slightly higher on the passenger side to illuminate signs on the shoulder.

FACTORY-OEM-BMW-AUDI-PORSCHE-25-XENON-HID-PROJECTOR-LIGHT-LENS-RH-PASSENGER-322333092341.jpg
 
This is what a xenon arc bulb looks like. There is no filament. The light source is an electric arc, or plasma, arcing between the two electrodes within a nobel (inert) gas contained inside the tiny glass bulb. Variations in light color are achieved by small amounts of impurities in the gas.

HID-Xenon-Bulb.jpg

Xenon lamps are also environmentally friendly form of incandescent lamps with long life times, minimum heat generation, less energy consumption and no mercury. If you hate lighting your home with CFL's you might want to pay the higher cost for xenon lamps. In the long run they actually cost less due to longer life and lower energy cost.
 
Xenon lamps are also environmentally friendly form of incandescent lamps with long life times, minimum heat generation, less energy consumption and no mercury. If you hate lighting your home with CFL's you might want to pay the higher cost for xenon lamps. In the long run they actually cost less due to longer life and lower energy cost.

An incandescent light bulb has a filament glowing inside a bulb containing some sort of gas to keep the filament from oxidizing or burning. Typically they are fairly simple and run on the line voltage.

These bulbs have no filament. The light is generated by the current jumping between the electrodes. An electronic ballast generates a high voltage to jump the gap and then varies the voltage to keep it stable. Since there is no filament the service life is much longer, and because the light source is plasma the intensity is so much higher. Thus the name, high intensity discharge, or HID.

Xenon bulbs can be incandescent (filament in xenon gas) or HID.
 
I been to a few nice car shows this season too. I haven't taken any pics tho. One guy with a sweet '66 Fairlane wanted to swap for my Cobra. I told him his car and $25k. He said he'd think about it.
There are shows this evening, tomorrow (usually a big one) and Sat. We're supposed to have thunder showers every day through Sun. Grrr!
 
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