The infamous Mars hoax that has widely circulated on the Internet since it first appeared in the Summer of 2004 has surfaced again. I know because I’ve recently received the email from well-intentioned individuals and it now even includes a full-blown PowerPoint presentation to provide a sense of authenticity.

The e-mail declares that tonight, the night of Aug. 27, the planet Mars will come closer to Earth than it has in thousands of years, thereby offering spectacular views of the Red Planet. The commentary even proclaims that Mars will appear “as large as the full moon”.

The problem is that the “Aug. 27″ reference was for Aug. 27, 2003, the night when Mars made a historically close pass by Earth @ 34.6 million miles. Although the Hubble Space Telescope used the opportunity to make some great images of Mars, to the naked eye Mars appeared as nothing more than a bright star, not at all like the full moon.

FWIW it is impossible from the Earth for Mars to ever appear as large at the moon, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing this email again in the future… maybe next time with a video.

Isn’t technology wonderful?

Knowing that at some point I would have to cut the glass for the ’51 I determined that some glass cutting practice would be a good thing. 

I have cut laminated safety glass in the past using the traditional method of scoring and snapping each side and then burning the laminate with alcohol or lighter fluid.  This method worked out so well for me that I have been looking for some time into an alternate method of cutting automotive glass. 

A number of years ago I attempted to cut some old flat safety glass that came out of a school bus.  I used a four inch angle grinder, the same one that I am still using to grind weld beads.  I did manage to cut the glass but the abrasive heated the glass up to the point that the abrasive wheel was throwing off fiberglass strands.  At least I learned how to make fiberglass!  The heat also made what I call “herring bone” cracks all along the cut.  None of the cracks went into the usable glass area because they arced along the cut line.  My plan was to try to sand them off.   Continue Reading »

“Ebbs and Flows”, “Feast or Famine”,  “Binge and Purge”, or whatever you’d like to call it is okay with me, but the last couple of projects including the S-10′s must’ve either taken their mental toll or enlightened me that there’s a world outside of the garage  because I called it quits on all things mechanical for the Summer. Thankfully Norm has been helping us get our ‘fix’ these last few months with his posts about the ’51.

I really had no intentions of taking on more automotive work, but as you know someone usually comes along and makes it worth your while to start doing again whatever it is that that you used to do. In my case it was in the form of a 4L80E Automatic Transmission in a 4X4 Silverado. Someone else had realized how much of a job these things are soon after they started to attempt the removal process, so I had the vehicle flatbedded to the shop.

The good thing about these types of jobs is that they can be Continue Reading »