Life goes on - Summer 2023

Really wishing i was still in contact with a old friend that had a frame rack haha been staring around the shop wonder what i can chain to and pull things with. These econo cars are very thin metal, looks like it will pull around decently

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I wounder how close it will be if you measure from the bottom ball joit grease fitting too the rear axel,on my dakota- I gess i find out soon- if it dog tracks,i will have addjust the rear axel. i forgot too measure before i cut the rusty rear frame off. I should have went too salvage yard and took a measurment from a 99 dakota body style truck.

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I always thought the mileage champ was the VW Rabbit. 54MPG. or was that just the diesel version. Doesn’t seem like you need the Toyota now Marcus. Be interesting to see how much someone would give you for it. Probably not that much per man hour of labor.

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nah, it was the 92 Mercury Capri Convertible XR2 turbo performance package. It got over 30+mpg going 70+ with the top down and the radio blasting. :slight_smile: it was a 1.6l mazda engine. It got considerably worse performance with another person my size in the vehicle. and the ones without the turbo were like having 2 other people my size in the car.

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Hey TomH.
Pump diesel out here in the Evergreen State runs consistently 25-30% higher than pump RUG E-10.
Eats into the costs per mile. Then iffin’ you never owned a modern watercooled VW, you never experienced German parts prices. Diesel filters prices. Modern German electrical systems “fleas” problems either.
Ha! Although electrical glitches on Dodge pickups are no bonus either.
His game now is lowest true costs per mile on the 55mph State and County roads he commutes.
Save the penny’s turned to dollars for other needful things. Father of two growing boys.
S.U.

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Nice to see the old Geo Metro get some love. I was once a moderator at the geometroforum.com site, and some of my early adventures can still be seen over there.

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/30/gas-leaf-blower-mower-bans-spread-us-fight-climate-change

No leaf blowers needed here by me. Just lots and lots of weeds and fire suppression mowing of the no-longer-allowed-cow and hay fields:


2nd mowing so far this season. 8 full hours now. Four honest US gallons of ethanol free gasoline used up in the 2017 Club Cadet rider mower.
Ha! Am I lapped from Denver to L.A. four times yet??
USA Today is not a rag-gossip publication. Who the hell fact-checks theses preposterous numbers, eh.

In The War Against the Engines logic and reason; and reasonability are gone out the window.
Fellows they are step by step winning. Overnight all of the many made in China engines could be shut off. By either side.
And those still being made in the USA and Europe shut down too.
Immediatly no more new parts being pipelined.

This is the springtime cast off curbside and garage cleaning out engines stocking up time.
The three DOW member fellows who visited us saw in my new-old shop maybe five-six of my engines. (half of what is in that building) Didn’t see-hear but one running from the four stored downstairs in the house under the security camera’s.
Then this older place down here in Yacolt. 2-3-4 stashed in every outbuilding.

You must plan to be your own parts suppliers.
And never, ever photo inventory them all, right @Goran kindervall
Steve Unruh

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I have been frequenting that forum for about a month now Chris :rofl:

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Hi, Marcus! I had (and really liked) 3 Geo Metros. all 3 cyl, 5 spd manual trans. The first, most worn out one was an experiment in economy, and the oldest, a red 1991. That first one got the best average fuel economy, about 49 was as high as I could get. The next one, a green 1994, was in much better shape, spending most of its life being towed behind an RV between Indiana and Florida. we got it second owner I think and drove the wheels off it. I can’t remember how many sets of tires we wore out. More like 45mpg at best. The third one was a bright red, 1996, I think had the Chevy badge on it, a late model “Chevy” Metro. Had the newer, swoopier body style. I was just getting all the mechanical bugs out of it when someone rear-ended me at a traffic light and totaled the car. didn’t do me any good either, a life lesson in physics, we were punted like a football. No more metros.
Now a 2009 KIA Rio 5, 5-speed, 1.6L, 16 valve, before the GDI engine. We have had a rough start, I have spent more than the purchase price on repairs, but now seems potentially a good reliable little car, 33mpg -ish. Put about 6000 miles on it in the last 6 months. Almost got T-Boned at an intersection a couple weeks ago, drivers don’t take us little car fans seriously. I’m not going to drive that jacked-up black-smoking diesel 4x4 just for respect, ever. Sincerely, I wish you good luck on your Metro restoration project! PS, the high-mileage VW Rabbit was a normally aspirated 4cyl. diesel. I had a gas one, bought new. Great in snow, fell apart quickly. Metros also great in snow. Hard on tires.

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Here in Europe we are not doing much better. To achieve goals of fight against “soda stream gas”, we are bind to rebuild heating systems to heat pumps in next few years. Someone in Bruxelles saw it too little environmental friendly and started agenda to ban F-gases used as a medium in heat pumps. The result directive is expected to come very soon.

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I just wrote a nasty letter to the author and cc’d the interim editor in chief about that article because it was factually inaccurate. Most small engines are not 2 cycle. Small engine is a federal definition for anything under 19kw (25HP).

They passed emissions standards for all small engines back in 2010. There is no way that a drive 1021 drive from denver to LA which is 1021m is going to create fewer emissions then the largest leaf blower running for an hour since that would be a 4-cycle engine on a cart
 But even the largest backpack blower the stihl 800, uses 1.4 litres/hr. I don’t think it is theoretically -possible- for 1.4 L of 50:1 mixed fuel to create as many emissions as 40 gallons of fuel.

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Hi SteveU, good points all of them, there are, now and then, some “aggresions” against small engines even in Sweden, but not much, problem would be when Big-brother EU pull a new law out their a**, banning smaller engines.
Me, i hide them in plain sight (and Many newer spare engines hidden where i can hardly find them myself)
As a somewhat “acknowledged” collector i would have more possibilitys to “use” old stuff without any questions asked, in Sweden we actually have some good political “power” in the Motor Historical Society, which every old car, machine, boat, motorcycle, motorsports club can attach to.
But, as you say, better be prepared.

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I’m with SteveU about having plenty of back up parts but have no concerns about the banning of gas engines. Just another control mechanism by the Mother WEFfers but control takes money and money for western governments is being added to the endangered species list. You can make numbers, but you can’t always make them mean something. Gonna be an interesting summer.

I guess I should add that being old makes you sometimes a little grouchy and the growing possibility of viewing grass from the root side tends to alter your perspective. Good luck dragging that piston and spark plug out of my cold dead hands.

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I don’t know if 42 is considered “old” but im known to be a little grumpy, a “geezer” some said
 it’s probably a matter of your attitude against the society, or more correctly the people in power, that totally lost their contact with reality

:thinking: :smiley:
Best thing is: carry on, be prepared, be as happy as you can, smile to other people, carry a big chainsaw, and Drive On Wood.

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Haha! One of my father’s favorite subjects. He often “brags” about his “prepping” to visitors. He keeps showing them a big flat stone he dragged home from the woods. Also, a couple wide boards he stored away for the final purpose :smile:

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If your still mowing grass, your gardens not big enough :grin: We are pasturing everything this year, even front yard, with goats, and cows. :goat: :ox:

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A sentiment I will wholeheartedly agree with you, Al Frick.
I let our chickens free range in our actual houses surround dog fenced yards.
But they have to come visiting from our adjacent actual out in the county property. Thier house and covered pens the little volenteer apple tree blur in the distance to the left of my all-metal building shed in the previous 1200-foot-long view picture.

IF you want close in animals to raise then Never, Ever buy-in and locate in any City, Town, community area with CCR’s or HOA’s.
They your neighbors will then have a system to dictate to you.

The actual cow grazing and hay making field I have rider mown since ~2007, I’d DID push mower and walk behind mower mow since the year 2000.
Squeeze play by the-three different elements in our then little 900 person Town.
They’d the previous year taken away by Public officials action our 40 years of using our own private water well. Forcing us to buy their Town water. The then Town Mayor; the Public Works manager along with a called out County Sheriff observing while I had to dig out and chop 3 feet out of the well water supply lines to each house.

So yes a low grade war on then on.
One element their complaints were cows brough cow flies. Any animal feed such as goats or chickens would wintering over need would bring in rats.
And the political revenger element from when my father-in-law had been Council member then Mayor got their jolly’s-off mischief-making and creating a lot mowing work sweating for me.
The third element the property buyers “investors” profit making flippers forced the other two generational family to stop cows, sheep, goats and a horse of two grazing generations owned family spaces within the expanded Town boundaries. They both sold out and moved on and farther out.

~150 new houses then got built on these other two properties 2001-2008.
Along with other one-two houses fill-in the town now proud to be up to 1700 folks.

Now by 2020 ever single one of the folks who forces this are gone pushing up weeds. Or also moved away. Scandals. Disgrace’s. Or just plain simple flipping profit-taking.

What I this last season mow once we’re gone by summer end will get sold, re-sold then in-filled with eight more sheeple ATM-living houses. Look like this previous cow fields now a sea of rooftops:


Only that tall centered white house with the red rood is an original old one.

Again! Be careful what you do move into. IF already stuck surrounded by NIMBY’s do anything to move away father out onto crappier less desirable land. Get into make-a-patch gardening.
Just skip past my decades of grief. It can get to be soul sucking. Warping a fellow. Especially if you prevail and “Outwit, Outlast, Outplay” all others and be the last man standing writing the history’s.
Steve Unruh

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I couldn’t agree with you more Steve. I bought 35 acres 4 years ago that is mainly woods and swamp but has about 7 acres of tillable land with a building site already approved by the town. Even so, I put in about 100 feet of gravel road to get to my sugar shack and maple grove. Someone turned me in to the DNR and I had to dig out all 8 loads of gravel and then pay $600 for a permit to put in a log road.

Garry C

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Hi Steve scrub land lots around here away from people and neiborhoods winks go for $150,000.00 ready to build on oh yes you will need power, water, sepic, and what ever else you want needs to be brought in. We were voted the best space to love to live in the nation back in the 90’s , and they are still coming.

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