DanD

I know you’ve worked at getting this rim thing figured out; but like I told you the other day. Go get a set of mud flaps and I’ll hang them on the front of the fenders; that's so you can’t see the tires & rims in your mirrors and you’re good to go. The one's we hung on there last night will be fine; now go fishing. Dan.

I don’t like it either but the panhandling is going on a lot more these days because some of the other means of raising money have been taken away. Or the kids are not being supported by the parents; as in helping in a supervisory position, of a fund raising event; some parents are using the team(s) as a baby sitting service. Here are a couple of examples I’ve run into. I ran a Sunoco gas station for approx 20 years, at a fairly busy intersection here in London. I always allowed one group or other too hold car washes on the weekends, on my lot. That was until the city came in and told me we were no longer allowed; I thought here we go; I’ll need to get a permit for these kids to wash a few cars. As it turned out it wasn’t them groping for a permit fee; it was to stop a commercial place of business from allowing soapy water to enter the storm sewers. That was the end of washing cars outside the shop and the liability on my part of allowing the cars inside to be washed was way too high. As for the lack of support from parents; I went too the coaches of the two soccer teams I sponsor and asked if they were willing to deliver advertizing flyers for my shop. That I would pay the team eight cents a copy and there would be 5000 copies. Plus if it worked out I would ask them for a second 5000 at a later date. Neither of the coaches could get enough parents to volunteer as supervisors to get this done; so panhandling it is???? Dan.

If genetics play the roll as you state (which I do believe); then a fish that is genetically small, does not necessarily mean that it is a young fish or have any less toxins then a larger fish of the same age and species. The percentage of toxins, calculating in their different weights, would likely be the same. Yes if you consume larger fish, you will be eating more toxins; but that’s because there’s more fish to eat. Dan.

Here’s what I’ve made up for a ball lock; it also serves as a tongue locator, when I’m hooking up the trailer by myself. I've also tack welded the trailer’s coupler’s ball adjusting nut, so that it cannot be undone and allow the ball to be removed. I figured that if the coupler needed adjusting after the initial adjustment, then it’s worn out and needs replacing anyway. Dan.

Not a horror story but it could have been; it also showed us the importance of the proper length of safety chains. We towed over to Port Colborne to launch out of Sugarloaf, for a day of rigging. We got back to the marina late that night (after dark) quickly loaded the boat and set off for home. Every time I would accelerate from a stop or apply the brake, I could hear and feel a bump/thud coming from the trailer. After two or three times, I pull over to check it out; sure enough the draw bar pin was missing. The only thing holding the bar in the receiver was the safety chains. I had a spare pin in the tool box, put it in, turned around and headed back to Sugarloaf’s parking lot. Didn’t find the pin but could see all kinds of foot prints in the gravel where the truck was parked; at approximately where the trailer and truck connection would have been. Somebody must have tried stealing the trailer; my buddy had the trailer ball padlocked to the bar but I didn’t have a locking pin on the receiver (my truck, his boat); but I do now. If the safety chains were another 2 or 3 inches longer the draw bar would have popped out of the receiver and who knows what would have happened? Best case scenario would be having an imprint of the winch in the tailgate of the truck; the Avalanche was all but brand new then. Dan.

How can I put it text, you know the signature Mazda "zoom zoom" adverts; well this one will now sound more like ZOOM GERRR ZOOM BAHAHAAHAAAA!!!!!! Here’s a couple of pics; remember this is a project still in the works, so it doesn’t look to pretty yet; but as soon as the insurance clears, she’ll be road worthy and hopefully proving out all our (my son’s and mine) theory behind the electronics and mechanical; then we'll make it look better, maybe???? I made sure that every legal aspect of the car is spot on; not even the emissions people will be able to find an issue with it. If anything it will exceed the emissions requirements that are set out for that year of vehicle. You got to love a hot rod that’ll get 35mpg on the highway and run on regular fuel at the track. The six speed manual trans = 1150rpm @ 80Klm per hour; the engine idles at 900rpm. LOL Dan.

You’re more then welcome Ron and if by chance the people that sold you the rims are not willing to swop them out for you; I can mount & balance them here, one night after work? Oh yea that Mazda will definitely turns some heads, when we let loose with that SL1 350 under the hood. I can hear the guys now in their rice burners; that rotary aint humming the same tune anymore. LOL Dan.

I would be wondering why the battery was gassing enough hydrogen for an explosion to occur; possibly a problem with the charging system, the battery or both? A partially sulphated battery will produce excessive gas; even though the battery was still capable of serving your needs, it may have been on its last legs. Sulphur crystals will cover portions of the lead plates; the remaining exposed lead will become hot enough during charging to cause the acid to boil, producing hydrogen. Also the more a battery becomes sulphated the less capacity it has to accept, retain and deliver voltage. This reduction in capacity will cause the charging system to continually attempt to bring the battery up to a full state of charge. Which in-turn causes the battery to become hotter and hotter and produce more and more gasses? On the other hand, if there’s an issue with the charging system that it’s over charging; as in it doesn’t shutdown when the battery is fully charged. You’ll end up with the same gassing, even if the battery is in good condition; but it won’t be long before the battery becomes damaged from the excessive heat. Yes you do need to properly ventilate the battery compartment and remove/repair any source of ignition (spark); but a good battery and a properly functioning charging system, should never produce enough gasses to cause an explosion. If that were not true, there would be batteries going off under the hoods or under the rear seats of vehicles all the time? When (other then your boat) has someone asked you what that bang was; for you to answer; oh that’s the neighbour’s car’s battery blowing up? Dan.

This one is a 1972 Johnson 3hp.

If you intend on keeping the fish don’t bother filling the well with water; but use it as a cooler and throw ice in it. Cubes melt too quickly so I use old windshield washer jugs filled with water and kept frozen in the freezer until I need them. This block of ice (1 or 2) will last me all day and the fish are nice and cold; which makes them all that much easier for cleaning. Then you also don’t have to worry about transporting live fish. Dan

Does anyone here on the board know where you could have the thing powder coated cheap or for swop work? There’s more then one reason they call us tradesmen; bartering is the best way of beating the tax man and it’s legal. LOL Dan.

Great looking mast; the thing looks strong enough to double as a skier’s pull pylon. Could I make a suggestion; have you thought of possibly connecting a spring between the mast pulley and the chain link connector? It would act as a shock absorber when a wave would slam the side of plainer board and hopefully prevent unintentional knock offs. It would also take a lot of the strain off of the mast’s mounting hardware; the boat and the board’s tow line. The size and pull strength of the coil spring would depend on the size & weight of your planer boards. It should be of a strength that on a calm day at trolling speed and lines rigged. The spring should be approx ¼ of its compressed length extended (stretched). The springs we used were approx 10 or 11 inches long at rest and 12 – 14 inches when under load pulling the boards. One other thing we did was to connect a length of down rigger cable between the pulley and chain connector. The cable was about double the length of the spring’s compressed length. This would allow us to crank in the boards as hard or as quickly we wanted without over extending and damaging the spring. The cable also acted as a safety in case the spring would decide to beak. Just throwing the idea out there; it worked well for us. Dan.

When was the last time you opened up that kicker (3/4 or more throttle) and let it push the boat around for a bit. The plugs might be starting to foul due to running at a consistent rpm all the time? Also before you start tinkering around with idle or mixture screws; maybe throw some fuel conditioner/cleaner (seafoam?) in the fuel tank and give the kick a bit of a run and let it breath. I know my old 3 horse Johnson 2 stroke needs to be run up to full throttle after a couple of hours of trolling before shutting her off. If I don’t it’ll be the fussiest thing ever to get started or idle down on the next start. Dan.

I understand and I’ll call for sure, just to see how things are going. Yes it would be great to meet you; but family comes first, well before a meet and greet with a stranger. And like I said I understand, my bother has chemo the Friday morning before we’re supposed to leave on Saturday; may have to postpone it for a day? If he does feel ok for Saturday, it might be a longer then normal drive with the extra pit stops we may need to make for him. He’s bound and bent that he’s not missing this fishing trip and I’m 100% with him coming; don’t know how many more trips there are left? Dan.

Like we spoke a while ago, if things are well with family (yours & mine) we’ll maybe not need a radio or phone to talk. All we’ll need is a good chair under a shade tree, a cooler filled with our favorite beverages for an afternoon of Temagami fishing 101 lessons. Oh yea, this is all while my younger nephew (13) is out cutting your grass; we’ll tell him it’s to build stamina, so he can go down rigging for the lakers LOL I’m about ready, got my riggers & counter reels all serviced up; the rigger rods are in their holders, just waiting for me to get them wet and hopefully fishy. Dan.

I’m heading up to Temagami for a week, leaving on bass opener morning for the drive up. This will be the first time in about 15 or more year that I won’t be fishing Long Point Bay on bass opener. That’s what got me thinking about my VHS radio and the cannels that we monitor while out on the bay. Yes channel 16 of course but a lot of the locals that I know also monitor channels 68 & 69. They’re the go to channels for local gossip and news of what’s happening on the bay. Do the Temagami locals have such a thing, a channel(s) on VHS where they go just to talk and tell tails? Or is it like the West Arm, where the only things being broadcast are the weather channels? I don’t think I’ve ever heard any hailing calls/talk on 16 in all the years of going to the West Arm? I always thought that it was strange why the radio was so quiet; after a day or two leaving the radio on scan, I end up turning it off. Dan.

I picked up one of the Bear Paw electric scaler and they work pretty well; a couple of passes per side and the scales are gone. It’s more or less a dermal motor that drives an arbor through a cable. The plastic teeth on the arbor are just aggressive enough to grab the scales but not so to tear the skin. You can actually run the thing against your hand and it doesn’t hurt; I let the kids use the thing, as their part of the cleaning. Got it on-line at Bass Pro, it was around $125.00 I think? I’ve seen a few of the different small drum types and none of them worked as well as this thing does. Oh yea, why scale perch; you throw half the flavor away when you skin them. Dan.

There was an issue when synthetic oil first came out; that rubberized seals or gaskets would swell due to a chemical reaction. This swelling would cause the seals/gaskets to fail, turning your engine into a butterball self basting turkey; that leaked everywhere. Today’s synthetics, along with different rubber compounds being used in seals; has all but stopped that problem in the automotive industry. The best thing with synthetic oil is that it’s viscosity stays consistent through a much wider temperature range; whereas mineral oil will sludge up when run in a cold engine and oxidize when ran in an extremely hot engine. These deposits (sludge & oil carbon) accelerate engine ware, where synthetic oil will stay, in that aspect cleaner looking longer. The lubricating qualities of both oils are pretty much equal; if anything mineral oil is slightly better if it’s kept clean and not abused with extreme temperatures. As for not having to change oil as often with synthetic; that’s a bit of a myth. Synthetics just don’t look dirty but both oils are submitted to the same acids and contaminates that the combustion of the fuel mixture generates and gets washed into the crankcase. You should still change the oil at the manufacturer of the motor/engine recommended intervals. Dan.

If you haven’t been able to figure it out; I’d be more then happy to have a look at it for you. My Shop is here in London; I’m not looking for business, just offering help. Don’t know what time will be left this afternoon but my Monday morning could work? I’ll pm the shop’s phone number, give me a call if you’re stuck. Dan.

Be careful pouring liquids directly into the throat of a carb; liquids do not compress. Two strokes are not as fussy because the carb feeds the crankcase; but a four stroke engine’s carb directly feeds the cylinder/combustion chamber. If you accidentally pour a little too much at the wrong time, there’s a good chance you’ll lock up (hydrostatic lock) the engine; which could cause internal damage. Things like bent connecting rods, crankshaft, crack cylinder walls or crankcase; you’d be amazed at what an ounce of liquid can do if it’s trapped in a confined area like a combustion chamber. If you feel that you need to go through the carb; which is a very quick and effective way of cleaning a combustion chamber; get a refillable pump spray bottle; that can be adjusted to a mist and introduce your chemicals that way. The spray bottle is much more controllable, then trying to pour something into a running engine’s carb, with all the vibration and shaking going on; let alone most marine engines have side draft carbs. The spray bottle makes the job much easier; unless your wife catches you stealing her bottle of fantastic from under the kitchen sink. LOL Dan.

Oh man you did it; congratulation!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve never worked on big rigs and at my age I don’t want to learn. LOL. But if there’s ever anything you need help with, you know where the shop is. Tools, equipment, power washer to clean the work horse, is all there for you. If you plan on doing your own basic service work (oil changes) I have all the facilities as in drainers and waste oil storage and greasing equipment. You know I don’t make idle gestures; the shop is yours for the use. Not sure if the truck will fit inside the shop, with the way the hoists are set up but the lot is yours. Speaking of the lot, off hour’s parking for the rig, let me know? The only thing is I’m with Wayne; I don’t touch tires on anything that I can’t carry or fit on my tire machine. LOL Dan

Bearing buddies Part # 2047 fits 52.08mm hub bore. Dan. Beat me to it LOL

I’m really sorry Mike I didn’t mean to insult you in any way; it was meant as a heads up if you were to get pulled over and checked. I don’t even know if it would be an issue? It’s just that I do maintenance repairs to a number of the CFIA’s fleet vehicles and we (an inspector and myself) got talking about how they were going to step up enforcement on transporting wood & trees too and from restricted areas. Believe me I have to much respect for you; to throw any crap your way. I still remember you trying to help organize a trip up to Eddy’s camp for my brother that has cancer; you went out of your way. We haven’t given up hope on going; but we also haven’t been given the green like by the doctor. Sorry again Mike. Dan.

Hey Mike I’m not trying to tell you what to do but before you begin transporting trees from one area to another you might want to check with the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency). That’s just to make sure there are not restrictions on the transport of wild (non nursery grown) trees from whatever area you find them into your area. Don’t ask me why the CFIA is the organization that’s looking after the invasive insect problem (emerald ash bore, asian long-horned beetle along with other insects) but they are the ones setting up the restrictions and in-charge of enforcement; I guess the fines are pretty heavy. Maybe there’s nothing to this and just a thought on my part; but it wouldn’t hurt to check? Cheap trees plus big fine maybe isn’t so cheap? Dan.

Like this for 12 volts. Dan.