I have been saying this shit was a hoax from the first time I heard the story. I based that on the fact that every other time there has been a big to-do about an alleged white-on-black hate crime, it has been a hoax.
EVERY TIME.
Welcome to the Sai-- no, I did that one already. (But this is a perfect example of the application of the phrase.)
* * *
In War Games there is a scene where Matthew Broadderick is sent to the principal's office yet again.
The principal greets him sarcastically: "Lightman! What a, uh, surprise. Won't you step into my office?"
* * *
Giving the communists a taste of their own medicine. While I generally deplore vandalism, I cannot think of a better place where its application is warranted.
The grave of Karl Marx ought to be shallow, unmarked, and shared with dozens of strangers. 100,000,000 people have graves like that because of him. If there is anyone that I could point to as the focus of evil in the modern world, it's Karl Marx.
* * *
Yesterday was one of those days where you look at the clock and think, "WTF, why isn't it later than this?" After being at work two hours, it felt like five, and it wasn't, and when I later looked at the clock and saw that it was seven PM I moaned, "Why isn't it nine?"
But the day did end, eventually, and I proceeded to be up until 4 AM fooling around with the PC and doing a little WoW. We slept in today; I had a shower as soon as I woke up but then mucked around with WoW for a while before running to the grocery store for some needed sundries. Came home, more WoW, then a 4-hour nap; and when I got up from that, Mrs. Fungus wanted Taco Bell.
The new Taco Bell here in the Fungal Vale does not suffer from whatever malady besets the next-nearest one, in Richton Park; when we get food from that one, we inevitably suffer "symptoms" the next day. But this one, the food tastes good and doesn't ruin our digestions, and as a bonus they're open after midnight. And we like Taco Bell; we just don't like having our dispositions upset by bad food.
There are half a dozen other fast food restaurants I would have preferred in its place, but as long as the Taco Bell continues to have non-gastric-destroying food, it'll do.
* * *
Watched a series of videos on YouTube by "Fuzzy Dice Projects" in which the guy rebuilt a 4T60e transmission in his garage.
I do not quite understand why, in this era of digital controls, modern automatic transmissions have to be as complex as they are.
Take a transmission like the good old Turbo-Hydramatic 350. Three forward speeds, one reverse...and it's a fiendishly complex beast. It's not hard to learn how it works--this band applies for that gear, etcetera--but at the heart of it is the valve body, which is a rat's warren of passages through which hydraulic fluid passes, under pressure.
The valve body of an automatic transmission is, essentially, an analog computer that uses hydraulic, rather than electrical, pressure. PSI instead of volts. The pressure on the various valves and regulators in the thing determine which gear is operational at any one time, and it's a function of load, vehicle speed, engine speed, and throttle position. It basically integrates those four variables and selects a gear based entirely on those inputs. (The driver can manually select gears but that's a different function.)
With computer control, though, it seems to me that things should be different. The digital computer running the rest of the drivetrain can see all those variables (and others besides) and should be able to run the automatic transmission without that complicated valve body. And I figure that machining the valve body has to be a fairly expensive process, so they'd get rid of it if they could; the fact that they don't indicates it's necessary. But I don't get why.
Anyway the 4l60e adds an overdrive gear, and somehow that makes it even more complicated than the Turbo-Hydramatic was. The guy completely disassembles it and puts it all back together over a series of eight videos, and I was bewildered by the array of parts in the damned thing. The valve body was the worst, with clips, plugs, valves, springs, accumulators, regulators, and check balls. Holy crap.
Guess that explains why transmission repair is so expensive.
On the plus side, the 4L60e does not require a great deal of specialized equipment for service. A good set of snap ring pliers, a specific type of spring compressor fixture, and a good set of bushing and seal drivers would do it. Then you just need to keep track of all the parts and make sure they all go back where they came from.
I figure that rebuilding the Jeep's transfer case is probably in my future. I don't know what I'd do if the transmission went, but I'd bet money it's not as easily rebuilt ("easily"! argh) as the 4L60e is. Probably try to find one in a boneyard.
I do--when the weather warms up--want to massage the old crate and fix a bunch of stuff that's been bothering me. Besides the little mechanical bits that need doing, I'm thinking that I'll take a stab at fixing the rocker panels, and patch the hole in the floor. WTF I have the welder; why not use it?