Well it seems the my 2003 Ford Excursion Aka the Jolly Green Giant has clicked past the magical 100,000 mile mark. While I don’t want to jinx my luck the TUV (Truck Utility Vehicle) has been a great truck. The old school 7.3L PSD has had one problem with a leaking injector pump/housing, but other then that nothing. I have put brakes, tires, coolant supplement , etc and regular maintenance and that’s pretty much it. I will say that I’m glad this is not one of the later problematic (IMO) Navistar engines that ended up in the Excursion or Superduty’s. So at 100k I’m hoping that the engine is just getting broken in . Is 100k anything special? No not really, and I expect a lot more out of this truck before I start to worry.

Sandy aka the Professor

Well on my way to work this morning another delay… Fire trucks blocking the street, and general high traffic. Seems a Prius may have lost control. No idea who’s fault it is, and hopefully no one got hurt. But still I had the feeling of satisfaction seeing another smashed up Prius. I guess I’m still bitter

Note the picture above is not the one that I saw this morning, but the car looked worse then the flipped over turtle as above…

Well it’s finally here, Adam is going to take a car out! The Adam and the CarCast crew are going to be heading down to Fleetweek in Coronado. This coming weekend September 26-27, 2009.

Check it out here Fleet Week / Speed Festival

Adam will be running in his Bob Sharp 610 Datsun. Les Cannaday and the Rest of the Classic Datsun Crew will also be at the race.

You can check out the car at Adam’s site www.adamcarolla.com/CarCastBlog

Look in ‘Adam’s Cars’ Section from the top menu…

Adam Carolla, Sandy Ganz, and the rest of the CarCast Crew have returned and put up the latest show. Check it out at www.adamcarolla.com/CarCastBlog

Adam and Jay

The 3rd CarCast episode is now up. I the site is still slow due to hosting issues but it will be better once the site is finally moved. Adam and Jay chat about his C6RS Corvette and other fun subjects.

Adam and Chris Titus

The second CarCast show is now up. Featuring Chris Titus as the Guest as well as the Regular Crew. Check it out at www.adamcarolla.com/CarCastBlog

It’s finally here. Adam Carolla’s CarCast is coming online starting Saturday July 18, 2009. You might here about ‘The Ripper’ and be able to chat with Ace, Ganz, and the Weez. The first guest is going to be Alonzo Bodden. Featured cars include Adam’s DB9, Alonzo’s BMW X6, and the ass of Vida Guerra. Don’t miss the premier CarCast.

www.adamcarolla.com

Well, you might think I’m done with brakes on the Ttiger, sadly no. After starting to look at what I could fit in a 15″ rim the choices were pretty limited. Toss in that I really did want an E-brake it makes it more difficult to find something. The Tiger has a Dana 44 rear axle that has some old world parts and time also to think about that. The plan is to remove the housing ends of the Dana 44 and replace with Ford 9″ flang ends. This is a common swap for the Jeep and 4×4 folks seeking better axles and brakes. So after looking at 9″ rear brake packages it is still a problem to find something that looks track worthy and will fit 15″ rims. Most of the Wilwood stuff uses big (too big for the tiger) rotors, most of the hot rod 9″ brakes that are E-Brake capable have a brake pad that is HUGE and really not right for the rear of a car. Then I remembered a fellow I met who worked on the RCR GT40. Rob ant Vintage Venum (www.vintagevenom.com) makes some nice parts for early mustangs and some will fit within 15″ wheels. This is what they have – You use their special billet axle bracket, a set of 1994-2000 Mustang Cobra Rear calipers with Ebrake, and same car rotors (11.66″ vented) and all done. I just got the billet bracket as I didn’t want the rotors and lines (read on).  Well,  still need to yank out the rear and do the 9″ flang conversion and get special 9″ axles with Dana 44 splines.  The Calipers come with pads and are a Ford Motorsports product so easily available from Summit for about $220. The don’t look as good as you might like but they should do fine. Picked up E-Brake Cables from Lokar and related braided lines and hardware for them as well. But guess what, more fun. While looking for slotted rotors it ends up that Wilwood makes a Cobra rear kit for stock size brakes, and basically it is the 2 piece rotors and some ok pads. You know I like Wilwood stuff, and 2 piece rotors, well that is just cool stuff so will be using that kit. More as it unfolds!

Wilwood Superlite 6 on Tiger Front Suspension

Well after a long mess of brake FAILS, I finally got something worth posting about.The second set of brackets are good and are going to work. I ended up still have some spacer problems and on one side will have a couple of shims between the caliper and bracket, but good enough. More at www.gtsparkplugs.com look at ‘The Cars’ button and navigate to the Tiger.

“Despite the budget fix enacted in February, the state is on track to come up $23 billion short of what it needs to get through the year, the Legislature’s chief budget analyst says.”

They should choose Capitol One Visa! I think I have proposed this before, they should just pay all these bills on a cash back card and all done, it’s unsecured credit right? How good of a credit rating does the State of California have anyway? It would be easy you just ask for a $23 Billion credit cap on your Visa car and good to go. I’m sure you could do it right from the automated phone system.

But Seriously folks, $23 Billion? And Los Angeles, the will loose a ton of bread too I’m guessing.

I hope they can afford to have more grates put over the storm drains to keep things out of the ocean. What how much did that $hit cost? I’m sure millions of dollars.

If California was a company it surely would be due a Federal Government Bail out due to idiotic operations. We (Not I) voted on the bullet train, and other odd spending things. Stem Cell research? I guess you can still spend money that you don’t have it the voters approve it?

Oh well raise my taxes I’ll help out… wait they just did…