Ridgeline Nation

I'm not sure why, but I love going to the scrapyard.  My introduction to it goes back about 25 years when the shop I was a mechanic at was moving.  My boss had piles of classic car treasures - meaning troves of useless used parts from defunct scrapped cars containing enough valuable gems that everything was worth saving ... until the time came to move.  He couldn't bear to part with them, so a few of us did near-daily runs to the scrap yard for a bit of extra cash.  It was always fun to see what else was in the pile of metal at the scrapyard - everything from shards of tire shredding junk to nearly pristine automobile engines from an R&D facility a few miles away.
Ever since then, I've always tried to save metal for recycling, if for no other reason than an excuse to visit the metal scrapyard.

At times this leaves me feeling like a meth-head.  I had a moderate amount of aluminum I was selling when the fuel pump on my F-150 went belly up.  Standing in line with the people selling stolen water pipes and small bits of wire was an experience.  It was not fun, after getting my cash, waiting for the tow truck to show up as it got darker and darker.  They typically don't put scrap yards in the best neighborhoods.

When moving to my current house, I had piles of metal to be recycled, including the body of an MGB I had to cut up with a tiger saw.  This was no meth-head operation, but quite the undertaking fitting all that steel in the bed of my Toyota Tacoma.

So when I heard about the book Junkard Planet by Adam Minter, I knew I had to read it.  It is a fascinating look at the scrap and recycling industry, primarily the money and trade between the US and Western Europe to and from Asia.  This is a must-read for anybody who has ever marveled at the piles of metal at the scrap yard, or the idealistic neighborhood recycler.

My 2017 Honda Ridgeline was made in Lincoln, Alabama.  I have now had this truck for a year and about 13,000 miles.  I bought it new, but at the risk of anthropomorphizing something inanimate, Junkyard Planet made me think about its former life.  Exactly where did the metal, plastic, fabric, etc. of my Honda start out?  How much of the materials that make up the Ridgeline are reclaimed vs. made out of new material extracted from the ground?
My original plan was to write either a 10,000 mile review of the Ridgeline, or a 1-year review.  But 10,000 passed a while ago while driving through South Dakota.  And yes, I do use the awful "Eco" button when on the interstate for long trips.  It is OK on the interstate, but it makes the vehicle nearly intolerable to drive any other time.

When I reread my previous Original and Six-Month reviews, they still cover my experience with the Ridgeline extremely well.  In the year and 13,000 miles that I've had the vehicle, I have really gotten to like this vehicle.  There are a few quirks, but I've yet to see any vehicle that doesn't have them.  Vehicle design must be an exercise in trade-offs.  While initially I was somewhat neutral on the appearance of the truck, even that has grown on me.

There are, predictably, a lot of piddly complaints which can be read on sites like the Ridgeline Owners Club.  Like most of the message boards I read, I'm a chronic lurker there.  People love to complain online.  But with few exceptions - it is just noise and this happens with just about every vehicle made ... ever.  The two biggest complaints I've seen are a lack of radio knobs - but my trim level has radio knobs thank-you-very-much.  However I rarely use them since controlling it from the steering wheel is easier.  Having my dogs on the radio wallpaper is a great feature to have.

The other complaint is how far the back doors open.  To be fair, I don't think any person has ever sat in the back seat in my truck.  But the doors open wide enough to easily get a double rifle case in front of OR UNDER the back seat.  That last option is great as it frees up so much more storage space for other things when I go on road trips.
And my Ridgeline has been on a few road trips.  About 30% of the miles on my Ridgeline have been hunting road trips.  The amount of stuff I can fit in it is vastly superior to my former Tacoma.  In addition to interior room, the Ridgeline has a voluminous "trunk" under the bed that easily holds all the stuff I used to cram in the Tacoma's meager underseat storage (or in a cardboard box on the back seat in my former F-150).

The all wheel drive system on the truck has proven extremely effective - even while going through some nasty stuff while hunting.

Fuel economy has been adequate so far.  It is about the same as my 4-cylinder Tacoma, but the V6 in the Ridgeline is a rocket compared to the grossly underpowered Taco.  I still wish there was a smaller more fuel efficient truck available in the United States.  I also mourn the slow death of the manual transmission.  I have only a minuscule amount of hope that the someday Ford Ranger will fill that void.
The drop in fuel economy at the end of the graph below shows the very real dip that driving at a fairly high rate of speed en route to Wyoming will do - and both directions of the trip were fighting a significant headwind in cold temperatures.  It is surprising how much of an impact that makes, even with a vehicle that is fairly aerodynamic (for a truck).  The graph also shows actual calculated mileage; indicated is typically around 1MPG more optimistic.

The only maintenance the truck has needed so far has been a simple oil change.  I suspect I'll be due for rear differential fluid and maybe even transmission fluid early in 2018 - but I'll let the Maintenance Minder advise what is needed.  Thankfully, most of the routine maintenance looks brainlessly simple.

My RTS trim level is no longer offered by Honda which is sad as I really saw it as the sweet spot for what I wanted.  I'm not terribly interested in a lot of extra doodads and much prefer cloth interior over leather.  I do wonder how the seats will hold up over time as they seem to take stains a little more than I would have hoped.

In short, the Honda Ridgeline is a great vehicle for what it is and doesn't pretend to be anything it is not.

The other thing Junkyard Planet made me wonder was what has happened to all my previous vehicles.  Likely my Tacoma is still trucking around.  Given the troubles I had with 2003 F-150, I'm less sure about that one.  Thinking back, I'm sure many of the vehicles I used to own have been reclaimed and turned into new things - maybe even my current Ridgeline!  (highly unlikely)
If I have any criticism of Junkyard Planet, it was that it felt a little dated.  It came out in 2013, which was just after the global economic meltdown was getting into full recovery.  Additionally, China seems to be changing weekly.  I couldn't help but think that things had changed since it was originally written.
I also wish there was more information on Africa.  Adam Minter is a journalist based in Asia, so the focus makes sense.  But I suspect some of the environmental issues he writes about are much worse in Africa.  Although, as he points out, versus what alternative?
The sections on plastic recycling and electronic waste I found depressing.  I've experienced this before.  There are, frankly, no good solutions for many of us in the developed world.  Recycling may be messy in the developing world, but it also looks more complete.
Finishing the book, I couldn't help but wonder how long until we start mining landfills for the metals and plastics as raw materials for the next generation of "stuff" to saturate our lives.  More stuff doesn't improve life, it just clutters it.

While I don't know what my Honda Ridgeline was in a past life, I hope and expect its next life won't come for many years and many miles.

MGB Collision Repair

The plan was to put the MGB in storage that week.  Sometimes stuff happens.
Late in 2016, SO was rear ended in her 1972 MGB on the way home from work.  We were glad that nobody was hurt and that the damage was relatively minor.  The offending vehicle was owned by some kind of community-oriented company and thankfully was insured.

A bit of history on the car.  The MGB was made in 03/1972 and was originally "Aqua" in color.  When I acquired the car in the mid-1990's, this would probably not have been my preferred color, but I have to admit that in original form, aqua is a pretty nice color for a chrome-bumpered MGB.

The car thumped around for who knows how far and was eventually in a front end collision with a tractor-trailer (or so I was told).  The car was bought by some kid who had grand dreams of turning it into a Cal-Ace replica show car.  His ambition far surpassed his abilities and he put the car up for sale at a price that was tolerable on a college budget for what the car was.
I purchased the car.  It wasn't a looker by any means, but getting it running, driving and stopping was relatively straight forward.  The only major frustration I recall on the mechanical front was the fuel pump intermittently went out at the worst possible times.  I ended up hurling it into the ditch on the side of the road when I finally relented and purchased a new pump.

With most of the mechanics sorted out, I set out to do the body work.  I clipped the front end of the car and replaced much of the structural and cosmetic metal on the car.  Some of this was done with new body panels and some was not.  The repair/restoration was done on a college budget, so things like the floors were done with straight sheet metal instead of preformed MGB floors - these could probably use replacing at some time again, 20-something years later.
SO wanted the car dark blue, so we had PPG Concept paint custom tinted.  This was relatively early in the use of consumer/professional refinishing in 2-part urethanes; enamel was quite 1987.  After ensuring the car was structurally in good shape and straitening everything out, the car really looked good.  The car's lines all turned out really well given how it started.

Much of the ancillary MGB parts were scavenged, pilloried, salvaged and reused.  But again, this was done on a college budget.  I was happy with the final result; more importantly SO was happy with the final result.

SO drove the car, only in the summer, for a few years.  Eventually we moved south after college and the car made the trip down as well.
A few years after moving south, we were on our way to store the car for the winter at a friend's house, when the wheels lost traction on a bridge coated with black ice.  I was driving behind in my Dodge Dakota and watched in horror.  Two corners of the car struck the guard rail.  We were still far more fortunate than an SUV which ended up tumbling down the nearby hill.  One of the police on the scene, while walking across the deathly slick bridge, was almost taken out by another car that subsequently lost control on the bridge.

The damage to the MGB was considerable, but mostly cosmetic.  Mostly...

As winter weather swirled, the insurance company sent an adjuster out to estimate the damage.  I'm not sure what the adjuster was smoking, but the estimate was probably appropriate for a Red Flyer wagon.  He allowed a few hours for body repair, zero for any panel replacement, and used parts that would be as easy to find as the Lost Dutchman's Gold.
I spent a few days arguing with the insurance company before taking the car out of storage and driving to a body shop near where the car was stored.  They gave a much more reasonable estimate...

Insurance check in hand, I spent much of that winter working on the car.  There was enough damage and a few other spiggles with the car that I wanted to fix that repainting the entire car was the best action to take.  Crumpled body sections were replaced with a few parts sourced from the friend who originally taught me body work - his son had been in a similar, but mirror image, accident.  Also, the paint codes for the custom paint were long gone, so matching exactly would prove difficult when nearly half the car would end up being painted.
That next spring, the car was back on the road and looking as good as ever.  That was 20 years ago, and the last time I've done body work.

Over the past two decades, the car has had many trouble-free years, along with a few where major work was done.  A clutch was done in 2007.  Engine work done in 2015 included rod bearings, an alloy cylinder head, a radiator and oil cooler.  There have been smaller repairs and ongoing maintenance, but overall, it has been a good, fun summer car for SO.
Which brings us to late 2016.
Carruunch!

The collision pushed the bumper into the rear of the car, mashing the bumper and damaging the rear of the car.  SO worked with the insurance company after the accident, and they had us take the car to a local shop for a certified estimate.  Unlike the last accident, this estimate was extremely thorough.  I don't really pay attention to current MGB prices, and don't know what the car could actually sell for, but it seemed like the estimate approached the car's value.  Still, as a 40 year old car, I may be off on this.
We quickly got an initial check for the damage as the car was put into storage for the winter - now in my garage.  The insurance company entered subrogation with the other driver's company and a second check for our deductible followed a few months later.
Now it was decision time and I saw five options.
1.  Do nothing, the car is a 20 year old inexpensive restoration that is showing its age.  Just drive it and live with the damage.
2.  Do a quick fix up and drive the car.
3.  Sell it on Ebay with no reserve, use that money plus the insurance checks and buy a nicer MGB.
4.  Have the shop that gave the estimate do the repair - reviews suggest they do really good work.
5.  Do it myself and live with the consequences.

I chose option 5 (possibly a combination of option 2 and 5).  I really thought hard about option 3, but that could be opening up a new can of worms.  Additionally, SO has been driving the car for 25ish years, so it seemed treasonous to get rid of it due to a relatively minor accident.  I also hate to risk the car getting scrapped or turned into a Cal-Ace by some kid who didn't know what he was doing.
I also seriously considered option 4, but I was not enamored with the other shop doing the mechanical work, and I've seen it too many times where even good body shops treat aged cars the same (or worse) as new ones and they come back with wonked-out clutches or new electrical gremlins as wires are inappropriately cut and spliced.
As noted, the last time I did body work was 20 years ago and it was on the same car.  This was to be an adventure!

That winter proved difficult.  Every day I would see the car sitting there and eventually I couldn't stand it.  Even in the cold, I removed much of the rear ancillaries to assess the damage.

Nothing looked too bad, but one rear bumper bracket was very rusted to the car.  Likely this was the first time this had ever been removed since 03/1972.

The other rear bumper bracket had at some point had a different threaded portion welded on.  These had to go.  I wasn't able to find used bumper brackets, but I was surprisingly able to locate a used rear bumper on CraigsList.  It wasn't a pristine new unit, but was a factory bumper in decent shape with some pitting - meaning it matched much of the other chrome on  the car.  The price was right and the bumper was straight, so I bought it and set it aside.

I originally thought that cutting out the rear panel was going to be the best way to fix it, but after getting into the actual damage, I decided to try to push out the damage first.  I rented a portapower from a local rental shop and spent a cold afternoon pushing out the damage.  This was a good option as I was able to push out most of the damage, despite the poor condition of the rented portapower and lack of appropriate accessories.

With much of the damage mostly straightened out, I bought the cheapest heat gun that Harbor Freight had and removed most of the paint from the rear of the car.  As it was still winter and doing body work in the cold is not fun, I painted the rear of the car in a quick coat of primer to protect it.  It looked better already!

With spring bringing warmer weather, I moved the car into the pole barn to work on it.  I didn't want to have all the dust and solvents needed for body work in the garage attached to the house.  I really do enjoy body work, and just about anything is fixable since it is always possible to sand off everything and start over.  The protective coat of primer was sanded off to start the actual body work.

As I opened the can of Rage Body Filler, the scent of it instantly transported me back, not 20 years, but 25 years.  It is amazing how evocative scents can be, and I fondly thought back to the time when I was wrenching as a mechanic all day, and then doing body work with one of my coworkers almost every night.  I'm not sure if I enjoyed that time then as much as I think I did now, but potentially rose colored glasses come with Bondo after a couple decades.
The first few afternoons spent doing body work went slowly.  I would put on a bunch of body filler, then sand 97% of it off and repeat.  Getting the larger issues sorted out was pretty easy, but as the issues got smaller, the time involved went up.  In my mind, I continually heard my friend who taught me body work say, "You have a low spot there..."

Eventually I was pretty happy with how the back panel looked.  It wasn't perfect, but the area had been repaired before and much of it is taken up by lights, fuel filler and license plate, so perfection wasn't imperative.

There was also a major issue with the front fender.  At my former house, the car had to sit outside all winter and during a blustery windstorm, a large branch had come down on the car.  This cracked the paint and created a very small dent.  With a flaw in such a noticeable spot, I felt this had to be repaired since I was already doing body work.  This is an area on the MGB that tends to rust out as there is a "shelf" under this spot which holds water and debris.

I chipped out old body filler and primer and spent some time sanding to get it down to bare metal.  Because this is a spot that often has issues, I knew how to repair it.  The sanding of the body work is best done with a towel wrapped around a small rod to get the radius right.  Varying pressure and towel thickness allows for quick repair of this spot.  The rest of the top of the fender was wet-sanded to accept new paint.

With major body work completed, it was on to primer.  Both previous paint jobs on the car were done with Mar-Hyde Ultimate Primer.  But I couldn't find this primer available in small quantities and online sales of it were surprisingly difficult - not to mention pricey.  After researching various options, I eventually settled on Custom Shop 2K Urethane Primer.  This should be pretty similar to the Mar-Hyde and sold for a reasonable cost.  Epoxy primer is far more common now, but the car currently had urethane primer and with doing only sectional repair, I didn't see much benefit to the increased corrosion resistance from the epoxy.

My paint gun hasn't been used in a very long time, so I cleaned it twice and tested it with solvents a few times.  I spent a lot of time prepping the car for spraying.  My barn doesn't have the ventilation of a spray booth, so I knew that overspray and overdust can get everywhere.  I spent a considerable amount of time just masking the car to allow primer and paint to be sprayed without worrying about where else they might go.

Spraying urethane primer is quite easy and I primed both the fender and the rear of the MGB.  I really liked the Custom Shop primer, it had great build qualities and sanded very nicely to a near-mirror like smoothness.  The first coat of primer took care of minor imperfections in the body work.

A second coat was prepped for paint spraying.

At this point in the project, my nerves started to act up - I obsessed over what paint to get.  I  obsessed over the fact that I haven't painted a car is so long.  I thought about every step 20 times before thinking about it some more.
I still had the paint label from 20 years ago, but I wasn't sure if PPG Concept was still exactly the same as it was then.  Also, the label had paint spilled on it and not all of it was still legible.
I went to a paint store that was supposed to be really good in a town about 40 miles away, hoping for good advice.  The kid who was working was quite new, and of very little help.  My plan was to leave the deck lid to have the paint matched, but I was told in no uncertain terms that they would not be responsible for any damage to it and they would likely need to "truck" it out for matching.  The kid also said that they had damaged body panels in the past.  I did not feel comfortable with this...

On to plan B, I went to a more local auto parts and refinishing store.  They guy there was much more knowledgeable.  And while not particularly personable (at all), he was helpful.  He said he could mix up PPG Concept for me, but that PPG Omni may be a better choice.  Omni is PPG's lesser brand, and given the limitations I was working under as well as that it wasn't a show car that was showing its age, I went with Omni.  Total cost with hardener and reducer was less than a third of the cost that Concept would have been.
The paint matched well to a mid-1980's Honda color that may or may not have ever been sold in the US.  The match came back as Honda Nelson Blue - Nelson it is!

With a weekend of warm temperatures and low humidity, I couldn't put spraying paint off anymore.  Conditions were as good as they would get.  I was somewhat apprehensive about this.  I wasn't the best paint sprayer 20 years ago, I was quite sure that I hadn't magically improved in that amount of time.
I thought about buying a new paint gun to replace my questionable Campbell Hausfield one.  But I couldn't justify spending top coin on an Iwata paint gun and I eventually decided that buying a gun that was only slightly better would be foolish.  I knew my Campbell Hausfield would end up wasting more paint through overspray and atomization, but with a full quart of paint, I was far from paint limited.  I retaped most of my edges to avoid any overspray or trapped paint runs.
And so spraying began.  As I hit the car with the first light tack coat of paint, it was catastrophically incompatible with one of my degreasers and balled up on contact with the car.  The paint went down as one big fish eye with a bit of paint between.  That first coat looked like greasy blue streaks.
OH (*^*%%$^&(*)_)_&&^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I unhooked my gun and soaked a clean towel in reducer.  I cleaned the sprayed panel, then recleaned a couple more times with reducer.  This felt like a waste of reducer, but I figured the paint HAD to be compatible with it.
Holding my breath, I restarted spraying.  This time the light tack coat went down well.  And stuck!
Following the advice of the guy who sold me the paint, I dutifully waited ample flash time before spraying successive heavier coats of paint.
Once finished, I unhooked my paint gun and left the barn.  I didn't want to look at it immediately.  Omni is a 2-part urethane paint catalyzed with isocyanate hardeners.  It is good stuff, but is also not good for health.  I wore a 3M respirator the whole time I was spraying and one of my neighbors saw me walking to the house still wearing it.  I'm sure they were wondering what I was up to this time.

With the paint starting to dry, I walked back into the garage to see how it went.  The results were ... mixed.
The rear of the car looked great.  Good coverage.  Good wet shine.  Very little orange peel.  There was one small flaw in the paint, but it would be covered by the license plate.

The front fender was terrible though.  I absolutely ran the snot out of the paint.  I ran it at the front, I ran it on the side.  To make things worse, where the repair had actually been done, there was insufficient coverage.  I'm not sure how I managed both runs and orange peel within the same area, but I did.  And mocking me was a bug that had gotten into the paint right on top of the fender.

The Omni tech sheet says it can be recoated after 24 hours, so I let the paint dry overnight.  With continued warm temperatures and dry conditions, the paint dried well enough to sand out.  Starting all the way back to 220 grit, I sanded out the entire fender, likely sanding off most of the new paint.  I set up my paint gun with higher fan pressure and lower paint volume to lessen the chance of running.  I knew I was setting myself up for more orange peel, but orange peel isn't too hard to get rid of as long as it isn't too ugly.

Painting number two went better.  I very carefully laid down a few coats, using the technique of laying it down in a thin layer, followed immediately by additional paint to keep it wet.  As before, I let the paint flash for several minutes and laid down a heavier coat.
I didn't see any runs this time, but the orange peel looked excessive at first.  The miracle of modern urethane paint took over and as the solvent evaporated, I could see the paint flatten before my eyes.

There was still some orange peel on the side, but this appeared to be imminently fixable.  Much later, I did notice a very small run near the headlight, but this was almost unnoticeable.  I was happy (enough).

The next day I removed all my masking.  I had a moment of panic when I saw a paint drop from the top of the fender into the headlight bucket.  Demonstrating the importance of surface preparation, I was able to easily peel the offending new paint up, with only a small amount stuck at the crease of the headlight.  Everything else looked good.

While the paint looked good, the risk was far from over.  I still had the blending to do.  Since there is no distinct panel on the rear of the car to stop painting, I had hard lines and a ridge between the old paint and the new.  I cut this ridge down as much as I dared with a razor blade.  This made me uncomfortable, but worked surprisingly well.
Then, a week later I blocked out the interface between the two paints, using a stir stick with 1500 grit sandpaper wrapped around it.  Once the ridge was nearly smooth, I did final smoothing with new sand paper without a stir-stick block, and I followed that up with 3000 grit sandpaper.  To bring back the gloss, I used 3M Perfect-It rubbing compound by hand.  Rubbing compound by hand isn't fun, but power buffers can get one into trouble on new paint.  Additionally, the tight space near the rear lights would not have been ideal for a buffer.
Once completed however, the transition between the existing paint and the new paint was quite good.  There is a slight difference in color and texture, but this will be very hard to notice once bumpers, lights and license is reinstalled.  All things considered, the Honda Neslon Blue Omni paint performed admirably.

With success on the rear of the car, I lightly sanded the orange peel on the front fender.  This was then followed by 3000 grit wet sanding and again, hand buffing with rubbing compound.  The end result was paint which looked good and matched the existing paint on the car as well as I had expected.
Things were looking up.

The boot of the car had gotten very rusty over the years, so I used rust converter to protect it, followed by priming and painting the inside.  I didn't want to remask the car so I just used a brush for this painting.  While vulgar, this seems perfectly acceptable for the inside of the boot.  In order to save my urethane paint in case any more spraying was needed in the short term, I bought a quart of enamel for the boot.  Enamel costs about half of the 2K urethanes and has a much longer shelf life.  I wouldn't ever paint the outside of a car with enamel, but inside a trunk is different.

After spending some time touching up some spots that had developed over the last 20 years, it was time to order the parts needed to begin putting the MGB back together.
Moss Motors is awesome, and I placed an order for what I needed.  Given all the work done so far, the order was surprisingly small.  Thankfully nothing was on back order, and it was delivered quickly.

Reassembly of the car was remarkably fast.  As I had disassembled the car, I had made sure to put each part away in a suitable state for putting it back together.  It only took part of one day to get everything put back together.  There was one hiccup, however.  My CraigsList bumper came with overriders, but one of them was actually a front overrider without the holes needed for the license plate lights.  I ended up "unbending" the original overrider and making that work.  It isn't perfect, but easily passes the 10-foot test.  If it ever bugs me in the future or if the chrome starts to come off, that is an easy thing to replace later.

Finally it was time to wash the MGB.  From all the body work and other stuff that goes on in the pole barn, it was absolutely filthy.  I pushed it outside and gave it a good long bath.  Unfortunately, this revealed some overspray had gotten underneath my masking.  Given all the tape, paper and masking I used, I'm a bit baffled by how this happened, but such is life.  Thankfully, a bit of hand rubbing with the Perfect-It rubbing compound took the haze right off.  A second quick wash and the car looks very good.

I'm quite happy with the area that was actually damaged by the accident.  While the seam between the old and new paint can be seen, it is as good as I had hoped given the differences in paint textures, colors and age.  The paint is nice and shiny to the point that it is hard to take pictures of.

This has been a fun, if at times exhausting exercise; it has taken over much of my spring and summer so far.  I was able to resurrect my body skills after 20 years enough to get the car to pass the 10/10 rule - it looks good from 10 feet at 10 miles per hour.  It isn't perfect, but it wasn't perfect before it was rear ended either.  All things considered, it looks good for a car that was restored 20 years ago on a serious budget.
I don't see myself going back into restoring cars, and I'm not happy about the accident last fall.  But the whole adventure through the last several months was not unpleasant.

Where did the repair net out cost wise?  Below is a partial accounting:
Heat Gun:  $13 (will probably find other uses for this)
Crappy Portapower Rental:  $16
CraigsList Bumper:  $100 (I think, and I probably slightly overpaid)
Rattle Can Primer:  $4
Rage Body Filler:  $27 (I probably didn't need the extra hardener)
Spreaders and spatulas:  $7
Custom Shop Urethane Primer and Reducer:  $65
Sandpaper:  $20 (I had some, and have a bunch left over)
PPG Omni Urethane Paint:  $70
PPG Omni Enamel Paint:  $32  (I probably could have gotten just a pint)
3M Perfect-It:  $17 (worth every penny)
Rust Converter:  $11
Other Solvents:  $30 (I have a bunch left)
Moss Motors Parts:  $130
Misc:  $??

For a grand total of somewhere just under $600.

The car is back on the road with enough summer to enjoy it for a bit.  It looks good (enough), easily passing the 10/10 rule.  Hopefully it lasts another 20 years without any major intervention.

Driverless Cars: Our Near Term Dystopia

Somewhere around 1995, a manager, Bill, at work commented how he was not looking forward to the day when he had to pull over to the side of the road and reboot his car.  To be clear, we are already there and have been for some time.  We were really there already in 1995.
Every new car has some form of the rather unhelpful "Check Engine Soon" light.  These lights rarely lie, although faults that they signal may be intermittent or transitory.  Whether the identified fault will cause imminent and catastrophic damage, or it is merely an aged sensor beginning to slow, the driver is free to continue merrily on the way - or nervously on the way depending on his or her level of chronic worrying.
This situation IS the "pulling over the car to reboot" - but the default state is to allow the driver to continue.  The default to continue does not work in a driverless car future; the fail-safe is to be immediately off the road until all systems are go.  Without the driver, the job of many of the sensors and associated software takes on a more life-altering role beyond the life of the automobile and beyond the life of those in that immediate automobile.  Until driverless technology becomes mundane and invisible, this paints a very frustrating future vision.

Luckily robots are not programmed with a sense of fairness, but reliability of "things" is expected to be much higher than of people.  Brakes are expected to work 100% of the time, even if a human doesn't use them appropriately and takes on a telephone pole.  Computers are supposed to boot up every time even if someone clicks on a phishing link and opens the computer up to external control.  Cars are supposed to start even if basic maintenance is sometimes ignored.  So it will be with autonomous vehicles; every situation encountered will be expected to be handled expertly, even if that isn't the standard for humans.  If a deer runs in front of a driverless car, while the car is driving through an oil patch with winds dropping a tree across the road and the car crashes, it will be interpreted as a vehicle/software failure.  Developing vehicles to drive autonomously through 75% driving situations is probably feasible right now.  Expand that to 95% and it gets difficult, 99% harder.  That last 0.001%, becomes nearly impossible...
Cars are also being developed for the globe, bringing efficiency to manufacturing reducing development costs.  Creating autonomous cars that will work as well in Minot, North Dakota as they will in New Delhi, India seems daunting, unless global development reverts to regional vehicles - this is economically unlikely and increases the technical difficulty even further.

I actually enjoy driving.  No, getting stuck in heavy gridlock isn't fun, but I've organized my life so that is rare.  I even often enjoy the daily commute, although the destination may not be ideal.
Listening to the media would suggest I'm a dinosaur in this, but I don't buy it.  I think this is partially due to the growing urban/not-urban divide, which itself is painted with a city-scape lens by the largely urban media.

Uber - basically a less unsexy taxi cab - and driverless cars are now prompting clairvoyant wizards to foresee the death of the personal automobile.  Even douche bags are telling us cars are sooooo 2012 (I've never met this douche bag, but reading what he has written certainly suggests he's quite comfortable in his douche-bag-ness).
We've seen this before.  Dean Kamen told us the Segway was going to revolutionize cities.  Cities were going to be torn down and rebuilt all around his mall-cop-mobile scooter; cars were going to be melted down and turned into Segways.  Dean Kamen may be a smart guy, but he must live in a very narrow bubble.

The one thing we can predict, is that we can not predict the future.  Technology can be envisioned, but how it is implemented is something different entirely.  And how it eventually gets used once it is in the grubby paws of the average person is different still.

Because the future can't be predicted, I'm going to go ahead and predict the future.

1)  Driverless roadways are decades away.
There are a lot of old cars out there.  Vehicle quality continues to improve, and older cars are remaining reliable for longer and longer.  The often-cited average age is 11 years.  And that is average, meaning half are older than that.  Not only that, but how driverless technology will interact with drivers is evolving slowly.  Driverless cars can be programmed to respond in a very predictable manner, but the remaining analog interface (the human) can not - whether in a driverless car or not.  There are also a lot of other interests that play a role in addition to millennials who don't want to drive (the difference between an interest and a special interest is whether one agrees with it or not):  motorcycles, bicycles, antique and vintage automobiles, roadkill.
Much like the houses of the future are only slowly showing up due to a lack of infrastructure and because nobody is tearing down all the old houses to build new ones, driverless roadways will need infrastructure improvements that don't currently exist - we can't even currently keep our bridges safe and roads (relatively) free of potholes, adding in new infrastructure (and ongoing maintenance) seems even more unlikely.

2)  Driver aiding technology is here and will continue to be grow.
Driver aiding technology is currently at the curiosity stage.  Tesla's successes and failures are widely and loudly reported.  Fairly or not, this is true whether the technology was being used as intended or not.  Quoted from above: "And how it eventually gets used once it is in the grubby paws of the average person is different still."
Every manufacturer is looking at some form of driver aided technology, and calling it driverless.  Regulations are slowly evolving, which is probably a good thing.
Some of this will be good.  Some will be bad.

3)  Driver aiding technology will be expensive and frustrating - at first.
Cruise control, fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, throttle  by wire, touch screens, dual-clutch transmissions, etc...  These are just a few examples of technology that was first available on (primarily) expensive vehicles, but worked its way down to plebeian cars.  Once in average-joe-mobiles, these things usually work, but still have levels of evolution to go through until they reach nirvana - aka nobody thinks about them anymore.  Until that point is reached, it can be frustrating.  So it will be with driverless aids.
But advances will be made.  Nobody thinks about cruise control, fuel injection and anti-lock brakes anymore (and few would want to go back to carburetors or drum brakes on all four corners).  Touch screens and dual-clutch automatic transmissions are getting pretty good, with some warts still showing.
There is a fundamental difference, fuel injection was and is happy existing within the confines of the individual vehicle.  If fuel injection required all (or most) other cars on the road to also be fuel injected, or a complicated set of rules for the fuel injection to work and for the carbureted vehicles to aspirate fuel, the evolution of fuel injection would have been very slow.
I certainly hope we are not setting ourselves up for a late-1970s re-reality, where the mandates for fuel efficiency and emissions got so far ahead of the technology that the result was a lot of really malaiseful cars.


4)  Somehow, driver aiding technology will be used for porn.
Every technological advancement always seems to be used for porn.  Glossy magazines, VHS, DVD, HD-DVD, online streaming, cell phones, smart phone, personal computers, real-time streaming...  So somehow I'm sure driverless cars will be used for porn too.

Sadly, I may actually be a dinosaur.  I'm not really looking forward to the current vision of the dystopian driverless future.  I enjoy driving.  I even still prefer a manual transmission.  I'd be lost without a motorcycle.  What I'm encouraged by is that this change will happen much slower than what visionaries are sure of - and it will look a lot different than they see as well.

1 Tire : 2 Weeks : 3 Punctures

The aluminum alloy wheels on my 2009 Toyota Tacoma are horribly corroded.  All alloy wheels corrode, and as I've been paying attention to other vehicle's wheels, my non-scientific observation is that Toyotas in general seem to be worse, with only Fiat-Chrysler vehicle wheels showing more oxidation.  But very few Taco's seem as bad as mine.  I'm baffled by the level of corrosion, as while I don't wash my truck frequently, I am sure that I'm not alone in this.

Because of the wheel corrosion on my Taco, all my tires have very slow, persistent leaks.  This is only mildly aggravating; every couple weeks I check them and top them up.  Having an air compressor in the garage and pole barn, plus a portable air tank makes this tolerable.  For whatever reason, the driver's side are worse than the passenger side.  Given road crowns concentrate corrosive salt and other flotsam and jetsam to the outside, it would be more easily explainable if the passenger side were worse.
I'm not sure if the difference is due solely to metal, but I've had rusty 40-year old steel wheels still hold pressure just fine.  I understand the benefits of aluminum for wheels, but isn't there better metallurgy available without huge cost increases?  My underpowered truck isn't a Maserati, I can't help but think steel might have been a better option.

The first puncture:
On my to-do list before the opening day of the deer season, was to check my tire pressure.  This would be one less thing to worry about going wrong when focused on sitting in a tree for hours on end.  That afternoon before opening day, my driver's rear tire was alarmingly low.  Looking around the tire, I spied the tell-tale shiny spot of metal embedded in the tread.  A quick test with soapy water showed that it was leaking, followed by a worse leak after a yank with needle-nose pliers.

No worrys, Stop&Go to the rescue.

The Stop&Go is by far the best emergency tire repair system I've used.  The hole is reamed out to an appropriate size, and the tools in the kit are used to force a mushroom shaped plug into the hole.  I much prefer the mechanical fixture of the mushroom plug, over the (hopefully) sticky and stringy plugs widely available.  Having done this too many times over the years, the whole process only takes a few minutes.

Most, but not all leaks, are effectively sealed and it is instantly effective (or not) without needing to wait for glue to dry (or not).  The worst leaks that are not completely sealed, are at least dramatically slowed down.
Now I KNOW!!!!!!! that any repair done from outside of the tire must be considered temporary.  I've yet to see one seal a leak and subsequently releak, and I've never seen the plug come apart or come out when correctly installed.  So I still consider it temporary, just sometimes temporary for a very long time.  Temporary might be shorter in a motorcycle however, depending on the nature of the actual tire damage.  Margins are always thinner when dealing with only two wheels.
The leak in my Tacoma tire was repaired, and hunting season progressed.

The second puncture:
After a few days of hunting, I noticed my driver's rear tire was still losing pressure at an atypically high rate.  My first thought was that the rim was the issue, since disturbing the bead while repairing the last puncture in the face of the heinous wheel corrosion can cause an increase in the rim leakage.  I've slowed this down in the past by letting all the air out of the tire and cleaning the bead as best as I can without dismounting the tire.  A small amount lubricant can also help slow leaks and minimize ongoing corrosion.
Once I pulled the tire off the truck, it was sadly easy to find nail number 2.

The leak was again quickly and effectively plugged by the Stop&Go system.  The rim was cleaned up and the tire was doused with soapy water looking for any other tell-tale bubbles.  All looked good and I was able to merrily go on down the road.

The third puncture:
Leaving for work a few days later, the TPMS light came on my truck.  Again, it was the driver's rear tire.  A quick look in the morning darkness found predictably nothing.  I grossly overinflated the tire, and put my portable air tank in my truck for the drive home from work if needed.  As an aside, the portable air tank is basically a pressurized bomb.  I am made quite nervous by having this enclosed next to me in my vehicle, should it become self-mobile during any unexpectedly rapid trajectory changes.
Three tire issues within two weeks is starting to feel like more than a coincidence.  Maybe the rims are beyond oxidative hope?  Maybe someone has it out for me?  Maybe someone doesn't like where I park?  Maybe the deer have a ploy to keep me out of the trees?
The tire was low enough after work for the TPMS light to come on again.  I stopped by a tire store on my way home and they were too busy to look at it, but did air up the tires and give the low tire a wet down with soapy water, unsuccessfully.
Back at home, I was able to find the leak, another puncture, but this time without anything in it.  It also wasn't a nice clean puncture, but more of a short slit in the tire, and right near the edge of the tread where repairs should be attempted cautiously, if at all.  Stop&Go was not able to stop this leak, but did slow it down.

I thought about taking this as a sign that it was time to do something more permanent about my wheels and tires.  I have good tread left, but the wet grip of my tires sometimes makes me wonder if they are made out of slippery eels or something.  I drove to my local tire shop that I've had good luck with in the past (local as in 10s of miles away), to see what they could do for wheels and tires.
En route, I changed my mind.  My spare, while original to the vehicle, was the same type of tire as the current road tires.  I could swap the spare to the road, replacing the now leaking tire (with at least three "temporary" plugs) and buy the cheapest new tire available as a spare.

This was done, with the warning from tire guys that the formerly spare tire was getting old.  Noted - and thanks for doing it anyway.

The fact is, I know I'm on borrowed time.  Hopefully I'll be able to continue to borrow that time until my tire tread shows Lincoln's head and at some point in the future, I'll be able to reboot my contact patch with new wheels, tires and TPMS sensors (the sensors are all original to the vehicle, and with 8 years on the batteries, I'm expecting a failure soon).
Whether I run out of the borrowed time or I impulsively get rid of the Taco first is still to be determined.  Hmmmm, a new Honda Ridgeline probably wouldn't have corroded wheels....

Where the rubber meets the road, it has been a tough year.  I think there was one other truck tire effectively repaired by Stop&Go.  One massive gash unrepairable on another car, along with a repairable drywall screw in that same car.  There were also at least two, maybe more punctures of motorcycle tires.  Please people, keep your sharp crap off of my roads!

For now, I guess I'm headed to CraigsList.com to look for wheels.

MGB Rod Bearings and Toyota Spark Plugs (why doing vehicle service myself is preferable)

I normally do most of my own vehicle service.  There are some things I don't do because they require special tools or are frankly to much of a pain to do.
There were several recalls for my 2009 Toyota Tacoma that I hadn't bothered to do.  There was also an extended warranty on the truck's headlight lenses which the vehicle showed poster child issues of.

This warranty was going to expire in November, so it was a good time to get it done while I was thinking about it and before December rolls around and I kick myself for not getting it done.
I'm relatively busy at the moment, so I decided to do other maintenance at the same time:  spark plugs, coolant change, oil change, etc.  These are things I would normally do myself, but it just made sense to do them all at once (and despite the county's suggestion that coolant can be recycled, there is no one willing to take this, and I hate disposing it locally).

After the truck was done, I drove home and popped the hood open.  The three bolts that hold the air cleaner "connector" to the top of the engine were missing.  I don't mind using the Toyota dealer for service, but since there is a slight price premium when taking it there, there is an absolute expectation that work be done 100% correctly.  While the air connector bolts are probably not the three most critical bolts on the vehicle, not having them there is completely unacceptable and it makes me question the competence of all the work done.  It was late Saturday, too late to do anything about it, my frustration must wait until Monday.

The oil pressure on my 1972 MGB has slowly been dropping with general engine wear over the years.  The vehicle isn't in the danger area yet and there was  no rattling or rod knocking, etc.  There was around 25 pounds at idle and at speed oil pressure was 60 pounds on a good day, but sometimes 50 when really warm.
This is really a case where "a stitch in time saves nine" and rod bearings with the engine in the car is not too heinously difficult, if a bit messy.
I dropped the oil pan and was pleasantly happy with what I found.  In the bottom of the oil pan, there was a bit of gasket material (pretty common) but only a trace of sludgey goo.  When I was working as a mechanic at a British car shop, it wasn't uncommon to drop an oil pan and find an inch of thick grey sludge, suggesting much in the way of metal erosion and general contamination.
Pulling the rod caps revealed 0.010 over rod bearings with just a taste of copper showing on three of the four top bearings.  This is "good" engine wear and suggests no significant issues, especially since the rod journals looked nearly perfect.

The oil pump looked quite bad with clearances well in excess of what should be expected.  I almost suspect that on a previous rebuild/repair, the oil pump was not replaced or rebuilt.  I ordered most parts from Moss Motors, with an oil pump rebuild kit from Engel Imports.  I've read various reports on the quality of the new oil pumps, but replacing the guts almost always works satisfactorily.  I actually had a new oil pump of unknown origin which I decided not to use - due to the unknown origin part.
Since I think engine work must be done with scrupulously clean parts, I was scouring the oil pan when I noticed the pan was cracked.  This explains at least part of the reason why the car leaked so much oil; it is British, so some leaking just serves as rust proofing.  I'm actually surprised it wasn't leaking more with the crack in the pan.  Ebay to the rescue, I was able to find a good pan at a fair price, although it was mislabeled on Ebay, saying it was an 18G pan, which would have had 19 mounting bolts instead of the 18GB-on 18 bolts.

It has been a few years since I've been waist deep in an engine, so I was extra careful reassembling everything.  But everything went together well and it was only a short time until I refilled the engine with oil, pulled the spark plugs out and spun the engine over to get oil pressure prior to starting it.
Once oil pressure was achieved, I started the engine.  Happily, but with a twinge of worry, the oil pressure topped out near 100 pounds - a bit more than I would have wanted.  I let the car idle before driving it, and as the oil heated, the pressure dropped, but not by much.
I had all sorts of conspiracy theories as to why the oil pressure was so high, but Occam's razor suggests the simplest explanation is almost always right.  I had previously (maybe a year ago?) installed Moss' "uprated" oil pressure relief valve (329-235) to help push the lowering pressure up.  With fresh rod bearings and, more critically, a rebuilt oil pump, this might have been too much.
I removed the oil pressure relief valve and removed the shim.  Installing this valve, especially with the uprated spring, is a bitch with the engine in the car, but after a little cursing I got it back in.  The oil pressure is still a bit high, but now at an acceptable level.  I'll need to drive the car for a couple hundred miles first, but I may replace the oil pressure relief spring with the standard one in the future.

On the Monday after my Toyota Tacoma service, I got an automated email from the dealership service supervisor that he expects 100% satisfaction and to email him if I wasn't 100% satisfied.  I don't expect he really wants any emails, but I let him know, in very polite terms, I was displeased.  I never heard back from him.
I returned to the Toyota dealership after work and showed where the three bolts were missing.  The first reaction of the service writer, and it was the wrong reaction, was, "We weren't even anywhere near there."  When I pointed out the spark plugs were directly underneath the bolts, she just made a funny face and got the mechanic.  The mechanic looked at it, walked back to his bench and said something about rusty bolts but replaced the three prodigal fasteners.
I would have preferred if the service writer would have looked at the missing bolts, looked back at me and said, "We screwed up."  But I guess this is too hard to admit even a minor mistake.

I've got a few tens of miles on the MGB at this point.  I won't claim success yet - it is always possible a piece of dirt will end up being in the wrong place or a bearing will spin (or something), but several hours of time and a very messy oily garage floor gives the engine on the MGB a new lease on life.  I did notice that the oil cooler lines have some suspicious cracks in them, along with minor weeping of oil.  This is not due to the recent work, but more likely is exasperated by the higher oil pressure.  I suspect the oil lines are original to the car, and I'll be happily replacing the 40-something year old lines shortly, before an extended test drive is in order.  There is no reason to do this much work to an engine, only to have it undone by an exploding oil line.

One of the Rules of Life is "If you are very concerned with how something is going to be done, do it yourself."  Doing the engine work on the MGB was fun.  There is always a risk something inadvertent may go wrong.  Yet, I'm quite certain that everything was done well and there are not three bolts missing on the top of the MGB engine.

At least my shiny new Tacoma headlights are nice...