Episode: 101
Title: HPR0101: This old Hack Part 8
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0101/hpr0101.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 11:31:10

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We're back again,
catch us and we'll be back.
Well, good morning, welcome to this edition of this old hack, so good morning, time
here. Happy spring time, and it's one time to get out and get caught up on some
of those projects you might have been putting off for the winter, like, say, fixing
them on. Today, that's exactly what I'm gonna work on is. By one more, as far as we
know, the starter went out on it. They got to the point where the battery was already
dead anyway, so I'd have to jump and start it, and then they got to the point where
a jump starting it wouldn't work anymore, so after a little research, we decided that
it was the starter that wasn't working, and so the first thing I did was with any engine
electrical project, I disconnected the negative battery terminal. To prevent accidental short
circuits and sparky deals and that kind of good stuff. Well, I came out here and assessed
my project previously for recording, so I already have disconnected the battery terminal,
which wasn't much to it, it just took the, you know, the vise groups and backed off the
nut a little bit. Then I went to actually remove the starter, that's what I noticed
that it was held in place by special torques, head, torques head, bolts, torques head, screws,
wherever the hell they are. What that means is that instead of your standard hex head, the
torques head is a star shaped creation, so you have to have special tools to operate on
torques type equipment. One of the first places you'll find torques is in your cars, especially
Ford cars, but I've also seen them in whole variations of these star shaped socket in GM
vehicles as well. So I've disconnected the battery terminal, I had to go shopping and
purchase my special sockets, which you can't just buy the one, you have to buy the whole 11
piece set from all the world there, which it's the 11 piece combo torques bit socket set,
and it's 11 pieces, it's $22, so, you know, that's $2 a freaking socket there, which that may
or may not be cheap depending on the level of budget you have. And I want to head about a new
ratchet driver, because I wasn't sure if I had a size of a drive to issue this, 3-8 inch
ratchet driver. Now, ratchet drivers, they were ratchet handles, whatever they won't
call them, they come in different sizes, you got a half inch, you got 3-8s, I think they
make inch, a variety of sizes, pretty much what that means is that's the actual piece that fits
into the socket itself. So, for example, you wouldn't want to use a small quarter inch
ratchet when working on a big piece of machinery, because you're going to snap that little piece
of metal that attaches inside the socket off. I've done it many times on many cheap
ratchets, which is another reason I went ahead and bought one, because I think I probably broke
off the last one. So, with your using stock, you need to make sure you have the right size driver for
your set, and they come in different grades, different quality, and of course you get what you
pay for, the nice thing about if you get craftsman tools, you can always take them back to sears,
and they will replace it for free. That's assuming you've got a sears in your area. Most of the
nicer ratchets have like a button, so you can release the ratchet from the, so you can release
the socket from the ratchet, which means if you've got like a sticky bolt, sometimes your socket will
want to stick inside the bolt instead of on the end of the driver, so what the fuck was that?
Oh wow, that was two bees having sex. They were giving me a flying buck, so what I'm doing now is I'm just
trying to get the old saddle here, there's no big deal, effort easy to turn, so I don't have to worry about
breaking anything off. There was a little plastic cover that covered the gears on the end of a starter.
Now, it might be a good time to start talking about internal combustion engines in general. I
plan on doing more about vehicles in the future, transitioning from home repair to
the automotive repair as we get into the springtime into summer here, so we're looking for it to then.
There's a few projects that I've got to work on in that area, so the internal combustion engines are
really pretty simple. Mainly it's just like it sounds, it's a controlled explosion.
Inside of a chamber, the explosion forces a piston to go down, which in the case of vehicles forces
a piston on another side, an opposing piston to go up, and this upward and downward force
does other things as well. For example, the piston going up will force the exhaust gases out of the chamber
and into the exhaust system, and then when it reaches the top of its cycle, it starts to head back
down, then the valve will open that that's in the fuel and air,
which then it gets ignited by a spark, which is in the top of the, it depends on the setup of the
motor really. I'll get ignited by a spark and the spark will ignite the gas and the fuel,
which will drop the piston downward and continue the process, and it's of course it's a whole,
there's a lot more to it than that. That's just a really oversimplified kind of a way of looking at it.
Now the starter kind of gets everything started, right? It's got to manually turn the
motor that first few times to get it going
because it's like a, the spark is part of the mechanical action. The spark doesn't come
directly from the battery, in the old cars you had your distributor cap and your distributor.
Now the battery
runs to the distributor and the distributor has the spark plug wires on top and it has
a gear at the bottom so the distributor slides all, that's a long shaft that slides all the way
down into the engine block. Now as the engine turns the gears spin a rotor at the top of the shaft
and that rotor determines which piston which spark plug to fire in which piston and it does this
in order so it all stays in time and balance. Now this is one of those things that you really don't
want to mess with. You can't change the wires, put them on different plugs because you'll
at best cause a backfire at where should you probably cause some serious damage to your vehicle.
So anyway the, okay I've got the starter removed here and see it's got, of course it's got the
the one power hot wire from the battery and then it's got a little clip that's just
seems to be used for routing wires around it so all I need now is
pliers and I will be ready to have this thing removed so my wife can
or a new part so depending on how long this takes the skidding of the part I should say takes
I may or may not have the reinstallation and testing of the starter in this episode or
it may be some later episode that I've complete this project but that's that I've simply removed
the starter and now I have to use it to order a replacement and this goes back to something I
recorded previous yet as of yet unpublished show is that if you have to get something repaired
on a vehicle and you have to take it to the auto store then you're best off and if you can
don't drop the starter on the ground if you can if it's all possible to take the actual part to
the part store that way you can match them up before you go um trying to put it back in and
I'll keep mentioning my broke down van's story but I've got a lot of those and uh so the night
the van broke down and I had to swap the alternator out in the parking lot when I went to the
part store I told them the wrong year or something for the van and so I ended up with the wrong
starter although I didn't realize it and it looks the same it's but when you go to put it in there
it's got mounting points that are in specific spots so no matter how much I turned and twist the
damn thing it still wasn't going to go no matter what there's no
ghetto way to make a the alternator you know you can't just stick it in there with one bolt
it's not like uh you can't duck tape it or it's got a lot of freaking torque on the
on just the nose of it I mean it's like you've got this belt that's under high tension
and the alternator has a pulley on one side of it and it's got all the tension from
this belt on it I mean this is like some serious you know pounds of pressure
and so you can't just put it on there with one bolt because it has to be just perfect because
this belt has to run around it it however many RPMs it runs around it at you know this is like
the the running of the motor kind of an important thing
and uh the head split and then we had some hippies showed up and they happened to have a head
and they reached strong it for me and put it in a brand new head on it for me
it's not hard I don't know how to demonstrate please well you can uh
uh I don't know the different ways to play a jibby like jibby's jibby's though
the way down by the fire like this is when you warm the head up it gets a better sound like
here you see that right there if you warm it up it'll be it's have been
let know it'll be like a couple of octaves higher because it'll ping ping ping instead of
bomb bomb bomb because it's skin tightens up when it's warmer
but um now the hippies know that's it now I like to sit on the the wide part of the bottom of the play
so
you just want to sit in the chair
as long as you keep the the port off the ground then it sounds all right
that's maybe in gangster
that's my my loose trunk sound
that's my loose trunk style it's good
and they put these straps on before me
yeah my friend my friend loves actually stand up like you're in the line
I do
you still have your fingers on it
and sometimes I'll play with it we'll be sure to over it
just take it next to the fire
because it keeps on base without
vibration
I do that right that's way to one
I actually um if I could like be alone by a fire and playing it for a while I probably
enjoy it immensely but it's just the idea of people washing me not know how to play the gym
me I don't care I've heard some people do some crazy shit on the gym yeah I mean there's like
there's there's a lot of tricks that I don't know like if you wet your finger and you smack it
and you slide the wet finger across the skin then it'll make kind of a
sound as you go from the center to the edge where it's a low low tone in the center
and then it's a high tone on the edges and I actually depending on how much pressure like if you
hold the the skin tight with one hand you could change kind of the pitch of the high notes around
the edge too it's really similar to the conga yeah that's the technique that you might
when you put a conga oh yeah I'm not sure where the difference between the conga and the
gym be is other than the inverted shape it's exactly the conga on the bongo I mean obviously
the relative size yeah an actual conga yeah I played I played real congas before but I mean
it's just it's all it's all just ethnic it's different it's like that obviously there's nothing
like that therefore it's a different one now you know yeah everybody's are they're they're really
nice you know from traveling you can hear that shit all night you have fucking drum circles like
200 people playing drums yeah and if you're in the right state of mind you can go all they
have not to me eight hours straight once you get into that zone that mantra you can just sit there
and like new drummers will come in and you know the drummers will go out with like the beats always
going on so like you can just take a break for a while go smoke a cigarette you know do whatever
the beats still going on and you just come back you know usually it's like somebody sitting next
to you without a drum like hey you know you don't play the drum for a minute but sure you know
you just this bag looks like ready whatever and then come back like oh I can have my drum back
to go okay just go sit back down the beat never stops for like fucking two weeks yeah straight
you know literally fucking there's always somebody fucking playing for 24 hours today there's always
somebody there fucking drumming always a fucking fire always fucking people drumming and there's always
five and coffee lots of coffee said she knows this but I think she knows this man I did drum
corps two years I've never learned how to play you don't you don't have to bang on yourself from
my hand to play forever no yeah we'll do it as long as I bought it so yeah I get like that
yeah usually but I usually I get like inspired to play and I ended up playing like it like 140
beats per minute but only for five minutes I know right
not fucking Terry enough for like fucking five ten minutes and like the next day my hands are
all fucking swole up and she's like yeah I fucking rocked that drum
that was a really cool thing about it was probably my favorite parts favorite memories
of civil war ran out especially when you hang out with the Irish Brigade
the musician course and and that's cool mean they usually started if I mean nights like this
there would be 300 of these fires right in the cat worth uh-huh and you know and the guys
sitting around and you know they they have like their their period flash and stuff they'd be passing
that around you know they would they would be wrapped they you know they'd make their own cigarettes
oh yeah we we we used to roll oil cigarettes all the time and we'd still do it if it wasn't
so hard to find them around here and you know pipes pipes were you know very popular in that day
and age yeah old you know old pork pipes and stuff you would just sit around and all of a sudden
you know a guy would come up with a like a guitar or like a period replica guitar or a
fight or you know a harmonica right a lot of people carry harmonicas you know and everyone
that's why you get lucky to find one Irish guy who brought up his life in that can't look at the name
drum head pressed over a wooden frame and it's got a cross member in the back
and you hold it and you can adjust the tension of the drum head oh yeah and it's it where it is
it's a double headed mallet it's a it's a stick about that long with cork on both sides and and you
you hold it in the like in between your fingers like this and you hold the drum and you just
adjust the tension and you play just rocking it back and forth nice and I mean it just it's just
you know you don't start getting these Irish drink songs going and I mean it's just great you
know you just think we sit around for hours yeah I got invited to go do a reenactment
um probably coming up sometime soon at the uh the anniversary of Swift Creek is coming up
you need to get you an outfit and um I got a I got to see if they can they said they're going
to try to find me an outfit of course I'm going to be playing the great team
do you know that that that would be that's something I would I would
I'd love to get back it's expensive is it initial the initial set I think it's going to have
like the uniform and all that shit I mean the uniform is the cheap shit oh yeah it's the
and there's all different types of reenactors there's the casual reenactors who show up for the
you know the reenactments and stuff who come with their shit all nice and pretty and you know
every fucking little piece you have an interview of campaigners and there's actually people
young these campaigners are people who in May a lot of them are schoolteachers uh-huh
they're they're work job ends in May and they will hit the road right and they will be out for
months at a time these are men who don't shout oh yeah I mean these are men who very seriously if
you want to find the closest thing you'll find to a real living civil war soldier persona that's
who they are right that they learn the dialect they carry they carry they'll take pictures of
their wife and children in period dress and have a historical photographer take a picture with a
period camera nice they'll carry it and lock it still they'll write diary entries they'll write
letters to their wives you know and it's you know they fucking stink and they carry what a soldier
would have carried you know from being on the on the road being an war for two three years they're
not walking out of the goddamn campaign pack why because we all know that your first or second
value dropped that motherfucker never picked it back they're not walking around with all these
little like little shit that everyone else carries I mean there's there's very different
reason once you once you're out there long enough you realize to get rid of the dumb shit
and just carry what you need you know some people you know showed up and they have all these like
well this is mine here this is this and this and this and the bottom line is by the end of
the war you had a few things that were yours yeah you know you you risk your life to get back
that's like these chairs and you waited you waited yeah out to the next battle and you picked up
something that you dropped the last battle off the dead guy standing next to you yeah and
like these chairs like the guys come out to the gatherings and they buy all this camping shit to
come out the fucking go live in the woods with the hippies and then they ended up leaving
walking chairs and fucking all sorts of garbage and shit they didn't know they didn't need
until they got out there and they're like oh shit I don't need all this dumb shit I just need
to fucking sit around on a log and fucking drink some beer folks since back oh they didn't have
to have a filter we can fucking roll them up in some papers it's like no it's a lot cheaper that way
yeah but um that drumhead should be fun
warmed up
they still change the pitch stuff
they have never I've never learned to play drums I just played drums with hippies in the woods
but it's fun it's good release
yeah if I want to finish the cigarette first then any rings I might have
could damage the skin on ring yeah I am sure I can't I can't wear
I have to wear the plastic ring
I can't wear rings we haven't found one that I can wear anyway I have tried gold and silver
I haven't tried platinum or titanium or any of that shit yet but
it just eats my fucking finger like the last time I tried to wear a ring I think it was
white gold and we're silver I don't know but I'm fucking eight hours later my finger was
fucking raw with the ring was sitting I just have a chemical interaction with the fucking
metals my belt buckle if it hits my skin and that's not you know for like the day and I fucking
words rubbing against my stomach it'll look in the overall and shit I don't get it
hmm some people some people just have orange rations the metal yeah that's that simple
can you write that because there's a stuff like that right no because I'll turn my neck green
I don't know the name of red neck right yeah I guess so with the wrong up being a red neck
that's for sure that would be a red neck than a blue devil by god
I know right if you wet your finger and you smack it and you slide the weight finger across
the skin then it'll make kind of a
just nice oh man yeah I've got a one recording you should have a fucking hour recording dude
oh
oh yeah that's fucking thing but I mean like the
the birds out here last year I recorded I'm just during the day one just random day and I mean like
playing the uh the recording back on the computer it sounds like it's like actually in the jungle
I mean it's like I'm like got the camera and I'm panning around like the tops of the tree
using shit and all you hear is like there's 10 different species of birds I'll make a different
sounds and shit and I'm just panning around the tree trying to find one of them
and just have jungle fabulous for sure it was weird yesterday I was sitting outside the PD and
it smells like syrup I just had to sit down in the bench there in that common area
I'm burrow used to do that so much on my m16
yeah I used to have to switch my loves because the burrow m16
it burns up so quick you put three clips in the name 16 the burrow heats up so fucking bad
you know
if you wet your finger and you smack it and you slide the weight finger across the skin
then it'll make kind of a
I'm one planted my nuts in that hole I'm gonna blow the thing
let uh we've been much better off finding out what's soft and pink
I gave a very warm chase in the floor I got those
those bison over by the house but there's some bison private stock
there we can steal we're gonna steal somebody's bison I think that's a bad idea
yeah
well I've never seen no you've never seen a bison well the buffalo
well I thought no they're they're they're American buffalo so they're bite they're they're
but they're buffalo but they're really American bison people call them buffalo but they're not
really buffalo real buffalo like the ones you get in India but they make mozzarella cheese from
the best buffalo like a buffalo bee or
yeah that's what I'm talking about to the but the American buffalo that they had out in the
wild west those are American bison real buffalo like they got out in India that they get milk from
to make mozzarella because the best mozzarella in the world comes from buffalo cheese
good time now what let's look at the fight the bulls
the Chicago bulls my fight no what are you talking about
you run away with trucks I'm thinking get out of the way to run him do first if we get on the
side I'm with a truck you throw that loop on his neck jump off let the rope go wrap it on his bumper
and then put it in reverse he'll stop because the rope will tighten up and he weak anyway
you know that's you get mad but this is out of the truck we glide ball
and look weak do you or if he's got mad countersies or something
you get there you'll tell you to be okay with two or everything or you'll be on my dick right here
I don't know you've got a mad car then that's when I have to pull the 12 gauge out
there it is I've dropped 12 gauge it is I'll drop right in my bag and then what are you
going to do with him get a fork with them here chain saw and go to cut I get that
the you're not going to eat the cow after it's been killed but they've got us these
thing got mad come he's going to shoot it because it's a dentist I don't know that's a couple
buddies man go here let's get him if you tell them that you ate the cow that had mad cows he used
they're going to quarantine your family if he's like ET and shit they're going to put a big bubble
over your house there's a big guy who will get through that hey roll that roll and go down in there
and see if he eats on it I think eat hey but they rather have fresh grass huh
you don't know the bottle you don't know I don't know anything about ball
well that's how it's a big pile of bullshit over there I'll take a picture of that too
oh yeah it's your point on my plate the bullshit there's a certain period of time you're
supposed to let it ferment before you use it for gardening you gotta bunch up it around here
we're sitting against a disc I don't think your nuts were in a hole because they've been
planted you're in a set you only put one bulb in each hole isn't she so so oh your nuts put
in one hole which means no one pounded them and it's really roll over here too take a look
at this store I found on roll that
conquers the coin had all the good things a dog could hide for
but the thing he left most of all was his queen she's C5
thank you for listening to H.P.R. sponsored by caro.net so head on over to C.A.R.O.N.E.C. for all of her
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