Above 1200 Sq/FT The Warthog Hidey Hole

[jbmatth]

He has been a constant companion of mine for years. Yes I'll take all I can use and sell it for parts again to the next person, or if it doesn't sell I'll scrap it, either way it has parts that are worth more than the $800 I paid for it. I'm starting to get too many vehicle at the house and really need to get some done and sold.

JB

 

[jbrentd]

I see I'm not the only one that enjoys a few Sneaky Snakes.

 

[Grizz1963]

Busy weekend JB?

Trust all is good your side.

 

[jbmatth]

Busy weekend JB?

Trust all is good your side.

I was out of town with my daughters visiting my parents at their cabin in Arkansas (5.5 hour drive each way). While there I unloaded an engine I had been storing for my brother and in the process slipped a disc in my back, I'm pretty well out of commission for the time being. The temps here have been beyond hot in the afternoons, I've just been tinkering and staying inside being lazy. In my shop the temps easily get to 120°F (49°C), no amount of wind makes that bearable.

JB

 

[Grizz1963]

I was out of town with my daughters visiting my parents at their cabin in Arkansas (5.5 hour drive each way). While there I unloaded an engine I had been storing for my brother and in the process slipped a disc in my back, I'm pretty well out of commission for the time being. The temps here have been beyond hot in the afternoons, I've just been tinkering and staying inside being lazy. In my shop the temps easily get to 120°F (49°C), no amount of wind makes that bearable.

JB

Poooop !

Sorry to hear that.

Backs are so vital, fragile and unpredictability is part of the show.

Hope you get better sooner than later.

 

[Finallygotit]

Oh **** JB, I hope you feel better soon. Back issues are no fun whatsoever.

 

[mybigwarwagon]

I wouldn't wish back pain on my worst enemy. Ok, maybe ex wife, but no one else.

Hope you feel better soon. If not will the Warthog to Heath.

 

[bowtiguy]

I feel your pain. Did my back fall of 19, Lifting a caddy rear end out of a truck. Didn’t make it to good guys ( Colorado ) that weekend. Time will help, hopefully.

 

[don long]

JB
When I was 21 I went to the Dodge dealer and ordered a new Super Bee but I never went to pick it up I don't remember why

Sorry to hear that you have back problems. When you get old like me you will just ignore all those pains and just work smarter or less like I'm doing nowadays. It is a good reason to stay in the house during this heat wave

 

[jbmatth]

Poooop !

Sorry to hear that.

Backs are so vital, fragile and unpredictability is part of the show.

Hope you get better sooner than later.

I'm much better now than I was on Saturday after it happened. It is just a reminder I'm still not invincible, getting back on my stretching and exercise routine from the last time this happened.

Oh **** JB, I hope you feel better soon. Back issues are no fun whatsoever.

I agree, luckily this is only the 3rd time it has happened in my 36 years and now I know how to make it heal faster than the first two times.

I wouldn't wish back pain on my worst enemy. Ok, maybe ex wife, but no one else.

Hope you feel better soon. If not will the Warthog to Heath.

I wouldn't either and don't know how those of you that deal with it constantly deal with it.

I'm sure Heath would love it, but suspect I have family closer that would lay claim to it first. If I'm dead I don't really care where it ends up, not my problem then.

I feel your pain. Did my back fall of 19, Lifting a caddy rear end out of a truck. Didn’t make it to good guys ( Colorado ) that weekend. Time will help, hopefully.

The first time I hurt it this bad was changing the spark plugs in the cobra about 10 years ago then again about 6 years ago, it was a good run though.

JB
When I was 21 I went to the Dodge dealer and ordered a new Super Bee but I never went to pick it up I don't remember why

Sorry to hear that you have back problems. When you get old like me you will just ignore all those pains and just work smarter or less like I'm doing nowadays. It is a good reason to stay in the house during this heat wave

It would have been really cool to see these cars in their prime, sadly I doubt this one will ever make it back to that as long as I own it, may have to send it to someone who will want to restore it.

I'm happy to use this as an excuse to stay out of the shop, supposed to be 109°F (43°C) here today.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

I've been taking it pretty easy letting the back recover as best I can doing some physical theropy and I'd say at times I almost feel 95%, then 5 minutes later after doing nothing I'm back down to 75%. I have been a little stir crazy though so I made it out to the shop this past weekend and built a shooting bench out of some left over 2x4's, turned out great and looks like this set of plans I used to build it:


Once again no photos to share though, but I'll try to remember to take some when I try it out. Also I've struggled at home with poor internet since we moved in, I haven't been able to find anything that seemed to have better reviews, service, or speed until recently. Starlink is now "available" in my area so I placed an order a few weeks back. It arrived right after I hurt my back so I put off the install for a while but decided to tackle it yesterday.

The worst part was the penetration into the house, I had to drill the existing 7/16" hole out to 3/4" to get the cable end through. Other than that it was a pretty simple setup even if there is next to no installation instructions included. The part that upset me the most is that the mount it comes with is to be used on a flat surface with a clear view of the North. I had none of those on my house but picked the best spot and went for it, all done and does work really well. My old satellite internet was at best 13 Mbps, Starlink was 48 Mbps even though I'm currently listed on their map as just outside of their coverage area. It is so nice to be able to actually stream video on internet rather than having to use cell data which I only have 1 to 2 bars of service at my house. Happy camper.

JB

 

[RickP]

Nice looking bench.

Hopefully you can get some use out of it while your back recovers.

 

[jbmatth]

Nice looking bench.

Hopefully you can get some use out of it while your back recovers.

Rick,
I plan to, but always seem to find things that keep me busy when the weather is nice enough out to shoot for a while. This weekend looks promising though, it has been a while since I've gotten to just relax and get some trigger therapy.

JB

 

[Gizmosity]

I know back injury and bad internet all too well. Hope you heal quick and permanent. Mine took surgery but it was worth it.

I was able to get on Starlink as a beta tester early on. We paid about $180 a month for our two 2MB connections through a line of site transmitter about 7 miles away and through two land masses but it was our only real option. Starlink for us was a total game changer. I was able to teach from home and take my 2 year mastery program online because of it. We're seeing pretty consistent 100MB download speeds, which I've split and broadcast my own wireless bridge to the house (the satellite is just outside my shop, about 100 yards from the house). I bought a post to put in the ground to mount it on, but it's still just sitting in the middle of a field. You can tell where it is because I haven't mowed a 5 foot wide area from the shop to the satellite in over a year........I need to do something about that before it freezes.

 

[jbmatth]

I know back injury and bad internet all too well. Hope you heal quick and permanent. Mine took surgery but it was worth it.

I was able to get on Starlink as a beta tester early on. We paid about $180 a month for our two 2MB connections through a line of site transmitter about 7 miles away and through two land masses but it was our only real option. Starlink for us was a total game changer. I was able to teach from home and take my 2 year mastery program online because of it. We're seeing pretty consistent 100MB download speeds, which I've split and broadcast my own wireless bridge to the house (the satellite is just outside my shop, about 100 yards from the house). I bought a post to put in the ground to mount it on, but it's still just sitting in the middle of a field. You can tell where it is because I haven't mowed a 5 foot wide area from the shop to the satellite in over a year........I need to do something about that before it freezes.

It really is a pain at times, I've had to deal with back issues a couple other times so luckily I've learned what works and what doesn't to hopefully heal faster this time. I want to avoid surgery at all costs, but if the pain stayed as it was after I first hurt it I'd have been happy to have it done.

I'm really not great with computer equipment but was at least able to set this up, I'd like to get it to where I can have Wifi in my shop but haven't really tried too hard to figure that out yet, in time though. There were more times than not with the old internet I couldn't really do anything, even a speed test would fail. lol I do most of my online work at work but didn't have much option before, it'll be nice to even have what I do have, I suspect it'll get better when the service area expands to us but am pleased with it as it is now.

JB

 

[mybigwarwagon]

I avoided back surgery for about 16 years. When I was crawling around the house on my hands and knees I finally gave in.

 

[jbmatth]

I avoided back surgery for about 16 years. When I was crawling around the house on my hands and knees I finally gave in.

I really hope to never get to that point, but if it needs to be done I'll give in, I've just heard too many stories on both sides of the isle, and don't want to continue to have trouble either though. It is feeling better so fingers crossed I'll continue down that path of recovery.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

I managed to take it easy...ish this weekend, changed the engine and trans oil in the cobra now that I've been through the break-in miles. I was asked to take it to a friends wedding about an hour south so they could use it for "drive away" photos, while it was staged out front by a water feature I snagged this photo:

I also mowed the yard after the rain we had the previous weekend, we ended up getting 1.7" (43mm) of much needed rain and now everything is very green again. I also worked on the tractor a little bit, the seat adjuster wasn't working great and was stuck in the highest position so I pulled it off and fixed that, re-connected a signal wire going to the starter so I don't have to hot wire it each time I start it, and replaced one of the 3 point links on the 6' (2m) Brush Hog mower. All in all a relaxing and productive weekend.

JB

 

[Gizmosity]

Wow, that photo brings back a lot of memories.
I worked at my uncles body/paint/resto shop for a couple years while I was working on my undergrad. A Cobra body got delivered to the shop and I spent the better part of the summer blocking and re-blocking what had to be the worst gel-coat in the history of fiberglass in the direct sun of Spokane, Washington. Sunflower seeds and Miller High Life were my diet.

 

[jbmatth]

Wow, that photo brings back a lot of memories.
I worked at my uncles body/paint/resto shop for a couple years while I was working on my undergrad. A Cobra body got delivered to the shop and I spent the better part of the summer blocking and re-blocking what had to be the worst gel-coat in the history of fiberglass in the direct sun of Spokane, Washington. Sunflower seeds and Miller High Life were my diet.

I've never had to block an entire care, but don't really want to ever have to do that, sadly I'll get to experience it on the Pink Jeep soon enough, it will need a good amount of work. I know at some point I'll re-paint this car and it does have a lot of small waves in the paint now that I want to get removed, that will be many years down the road though, perhaps when I retire.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

Well I have once again not been very productive, I did manage to get the yard mowed, trimmed, and trimmed a few dozen limbs that were interfering with me while mowing so that is good I guess. I did finely sit down and work on removing the final lug on the gold RX-7, if you recall on this car all of the tires were flat and none would hold air:


The rear tires each had security key studs in them that prevented easy removal. On the drivers side I was able to remove it with one of those fancy extractors but for whatever reason on the passenger side it just twisted and actually ruined the extractor. I'd started off then trying to drill it out and that got me to around 3/8" hole but when using the 7/16" drill bit it wouldn't do anything as I suspect it was hardened more toward the OD. I ended up using a die grinder to open up the hole until I finely succeeded, what a pain and took close to another hour to accomplish:


As you can see the remaining part of the threads screwed right out by hand. I then pulled the brake drum and cleaned it up so I could get the car to roll around the shop easy enough. Lastly I pulled the hood before calling it a day on that project.

Saturday I took the cobra out to a Cars and Coffee event south of Oklahoma City and got to park with this beautiful '99 Viper, excelant car that just so happens to be for sale:


He took me for a spin around the block and man what a fun car, pretty cool having two snakes next to each other.

Lastly I took some photos of the JD 4010 and listed it for sale, I'm supposed to have someone coming to pick it up today, perhaps I didn't list it for enough, but will be nice to have it out of the way since it has been sitting for a year now and I've not been able to get it to run any better even after checking over everything and even having another mechanic look it over:


I'm going to miss the bucket with the teeth, that was a big project but made it very useful.

JB

 

[RickP]

Too bad about sending the 4010 down the road, but sometimes you just need to make the choice to quit throwing time/money at it. If the buyer gets it running right, he'll probably get a lot of good use out of it. I made the same choice with a riding mower, after I'd replaced the engine in it -- should have quit sooner!

 

[jbmatth]

Too bad about sending the 4010 down the road, but sometimes you just need to make the choice to quit throwing time/money at it. If the buyer gets it running right, he'll probably get a lot of good use out of it. I made the same choice with a riding mower, after I'd replaced the engine in it -- should have quit sooner!

That is exactly where I'm at, I have the 3020 still and it works great, I'll just be glad to get this one moved out of the way at this point, it was a major pain but hopefully it will be a simple fix for them.

JB

 

[RADcustom]

Did I miss what happened to the jeep? OUCH!

 

[jbmatth]

Did I miss what happened to the jeep? OUCH!

I thought I'd shared already but can't recall exactly. The Jeep was in a little fender bender (and frame, grill, bumber...bender) while I was away in May. Luckily my daughters were not in riding with my wife and she is fine now. I made the offer and they accepted that I would use the extra money from my work in Montana to pay for the parts for her Jeep then fix it at home.







In this last photo the camera is directly in line with where the frame should be which is where the tire is right now.

JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Glad your wife is doing ok! That looks like a pretty good hit.

 

[RADcustom]

Dang that *****. I'm glad she wasn't hurt badly.

I know it is not the way but, it might be easier/cheaper to replace than repair.

 

[jbmatth]

Glad your wife is doing ok! That looks like a pretty good hit.

It was a pretty hard hit, from what I can tell the other car only hit the front bumper/fender, no damage to the wheel or tire, and the remainder was from the metal moving after the initial impact. Her knees both hit the dash and hone broke one of the pull switches off so was pretty sore for a while from that.

Dang that *****. I'm glad she wasn't hurt badly.

I know it is not the way but, it might be easier/cheaper to replace than repair.

It would be easier and cheaper to just buy another CJ than to fix this one but it MUST be pink so I'd have to paint it either way. The tub on this one doesn't appear to have any damage, I'll see what I can find for sale as a donor and go from there.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

Well some good news, I'm kind of a nerd and like seeing milestone patterns in mileage on vehicles, my old Saturn the Green Dragon went to the moon shortly before I scrapped it, no photo but I remember when I hit 238,900 miles which is the average distance from the earth to the moon. Funny story about that, a few months later we were doing a work training and my team was tied with another at the end of the day, the random trivia question given as the tie breaker, you guessed it. The teacher was gob smacked we got the right answer, he thought we cheated but I told him why I knew the answer and spit out some other random facts and he gave us the win, yeah nerd.

Well Lever Action hit one earlier this year when it was at 314,159 miles with 265.3 on the trip those combined is Pi to 9 decimal places. A few weeks ago when I went to my parents cabin my truck Bandito hit this:


I didn't time the trip meter well so I set the cruise to 78. Then this morning on the way to work I hit another in the Lemon:


234,567 miles, it is almost to the moon and should hit a 1/4 million next year.

JB

 

[Grizz1963]

I see the Jeep looks worse-now that it did in May, photos and angles can change perceptions.

 

[isonic]

I'm kind of a nerd , yeah nerd.

Well Lever Action hit one earlier this year when it was at 314,159 miles with 265.3 on the trip those combined is Pi to 9 decimal places.

Getting Pi to 9 decimal places is an achievement...had to be planned to get the trip odometer in on it as well right?

 

[jbmatth]

I see the Jeep looks worse-now that it did in May, photos and angles can change perceptions.

Yes, the first photos she sent me didn't look terrible, but seeing it in person made me realize just how much damage there was going to be to deal with. I considered trying to straighten the frame but don't think that is feasible without taking it to a shop which will likely be more than buying another frame.

Getting Pi to 9 decimal places is an achievement...had to be planned to get the trip odometer in on it as well right?

I'm a Pi nerd and at one time had it memorized to 50 decimal places, but can only easily remember 25 now, thus it was high on my to do list to make it happen and planned well in advance.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

Last weekend I had an offer to pick up some extra wheels with bad tires, some of the wheels were in pretty rough shape but will make cool coffee tables or hose racks so why not, many they are wide:


I also got this hood/roof scoop for free, sadly it doesn't fit the profile of the Fauxrari very well:


I took my three diesel jugs to town to fill up so I could fill the tractor before the hay is bailed this weekend (fingers crossed) and one of the caps went missing, I thought it would be cool to try to make my own, started off with some 3/4" pipe, turned down on the lathe and slightly bored out to fit on the jug nozzle then welded a cap on:


Cleaned up slightly on the lathe again and installed, later I painted it red to make it easier to find if lost:


The reason for the extra chamfer is my parting tool didn't fit in the tool holders so I used what I had and ended up with a large chamfer, looking back I should have filled it in with weld but it is functional so off it goes, well I guess on it goes.

@Grizz1963 is on his US tour and stopped by for a visit yesterday, he seemed to be very excited to get a ride in the cobra, I had it pulled out of the garage in preparation for his arrival:


It is very dirty from taking it out after dark for the wedding a few weeks ago but it still runs great.

JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

So uh...you bought the Viper!?

 

[jbmatth]

So uh...you bought the Viper!?

@OutlawDrifter What Viper? That is just the cobra's spare parts hiding back there.

JB

 

[Cdubu52]

Those look like Viper wheels in the back of the truck? New Post incoming?

 

[jbmatth]

@Cdubu52 Look really close at the last photo I posted. I'll update more later when I have a few more minutes.

JB

 

[Cdubu52]

@Cdubu52 Look really close at the last photo I posted. I'll update more later when I have a few more minutes.

JB

I see Outlaw's comment now. I replied, before I got to the last post. Hard to sneak things past this group.

 

[jbmatth]

Well my hints finely worked out well enough, to start off with when I originally purchased the cobra in 2010 I was really interested in buying a Viper GTS but couldn't justify the $10,000 price premium over the cobra so I passed and have really enjoyed the cobra for the last 12 years now. Fast forward and I recently paid our house off and am essentially debt free with decent savings and a great start on retirement savings accounts. I wouldn't have done this if I still owed on our house or if I had a vehicle loan for any of my other vehicles.

I saw this was listed for sale about 2 hours from me just south of OKC and commented that I really liked it and good luck with the sale. I thought about it on my drive into work and realized if I were ever going to pull the trigger now was the time. We decided to meet at a cars and coffee event, earlier posted photo, and I'd made the decision if it was anything less than "perfect" I wasn't going to buy it. Here is one of the photos from the add:


Newish paint from the collision shop the previous owner manages and they did a fantastic job, he'd done a lot of cleaning and all necessary maintenance on the engine bay:


That 8.0L (488 CID) V10 is a site to behold, interior was also just shy of showroom fresh:


The only things I could see it needed was the stereo installation finished, but all components present, and it needed new tires. It did have "high" miles for a 1999 Viper at just shy of 70,000 but the price reflected that but it didn't show the miles at all. A deal was struck and financing arranged, here it was when I went down to pick it up:


Pulled outside as I put some of my stuff in before heading home:


Title in hand and ready to hit the road, one happy camper:


Photo from my buddy through a dirty windshield on my truck but still cool, at least in my opinion:


I got it registered this week and am having the tires replaced tomorrow. I'm having a blast with it and still have to pinch myself because it doesn't seem real that I was able to get one of the poster cars from my childhood.

Happy happy happy,
JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Very happy for you JB!

I had the original Viper with a flag background on my wall.