Folks Of Interest When the experts chime in.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Or you crazy Kiwi,s have been trying to chat up a queer for years on end.

 

Had a young ricer-drifter-road menace come into the machine shop. Decked out in full regalia, white cap on backwards, the whole bit. Just the sort of twat you need at 4.00pm on a Friday night. He wants his four cylinder something head off his turbo-charged something ported, etc. This we can do. Then comes the question we still quote to this day:

"Also, can you flow balance it for me? My buddy, he's a mechanic, he says you should flow balance it eh."

The bosses advice: "Tell your fuckwit mate he reads too many fuckwit 4 cylinder magazines, and also tell him he's a fuckwit."

The ricer got his head done and was thrilled with the result, and also learned the only stupid question is the one you don't ask. Turned out to be a nice kid, truth be told.

 

It's the experts that appear from nowhere that get me. Not only so called experts but they are "touchers". You know the type. They see a shiny paint job or chrome and feel the urge to have to touch it for some reason. Transfering their grubby, greasy hands all over someones pride and joy.
At home, working on my driveway i was happily finishing off doing some striping on my old trailer camper and cleaning up. A guy, didn't know him, stops to look what i'm doing. I'm not a fan of being watched so stopped and said hello.
Guys straight out says " Those stickers don't look right" and before i could stop him he ran his hand over them, smudging a couple of wet lines. He then looks at me a sheepishly and says "oops sorry mate, didn't reliase that was paint". Experts and touchers, they all need a good f**king kicking!!!

 

I don't have any friends or even aquaintances like that, but I do get the local bozos. My garage faces the street and everytime I open the door on a nice day while working on the car I get these drunks and wasted ex(?) druggies that wander by and walk right in. They always start by telling me what they used to own, then it goes to what they're gonna build and how fast it will be. Eventually they give that all important advice on what I hould do to REALLY make my car fast.
After a short time I escort them to the door and roll it down once they're outside. I'm thinking I need to have some sort of temp fence I can put up when I have the door open so I can keep them out.

 

My buddy used to have a machine shop that opened onto an alley and all sorts of drifters would stop by looking for a job, "Hey I can run that machine, what's it called?" was one of the better quips. He finally put up one of those orange mesh barriers which worked pretty well.

I used to hang a black canvas curtain from my garage door when it was open at night, the light attracted weirdos like some sort of porch light that draws in moths.

Bob

 

Maybe there is thread on the HAMB

 

Is that the munsters chic in your avitar?
Or is that a photo shop?

 

Yes, the 'if that were my car, I'd do a FRAME-OFF on it" Yet, they can barely change oil. We have TON of those guys here in JONES (Ed!) county. Oh, one more: the picky dweebs that put down chicks photo'd at event threads..... Yeah, like those dude's bring anything to the table besides beer guts and scrawny limbs. Rim-shot.

 

A few weeks ago, outside a grocery store, I had a real nice old guy ask about my T Bucket. So, I'm talking to him and he's telling me about some cars he had in the past. A really cool old timer. Then... out of no where, some scruffy dude walks up to chime in. "Well, it's probably not as fast as my rod." The old timer just looks at him. So, I ask what he has, "Well, it's a '40 Deuce and it's got....". I stopped him right in mid sentence. Usually, I try to be polite, but that day it wasn't gonna happen. I explained to him the reason it couldn't be a "Deuce". He starts back, trying to talk about the engine, etc. Then the oldtimer stops him and says, "Sir, I don't know you and don't mean to offend, but you talk a bunch of bullshit." Then the oldtimer just walked off.

Left me standing there, laughing at the bozo. Man, I laughed about that for a few days.

Ran into the old guy again yesterday and got invited to a show this weekend.

 

I was taking about a guy that road his motorcycle to the ice bowl between the Packers and the Cowboys in 67? He had a special SkiDoo snowmobile suit etc..

Mr noitall pipes up I ride my motorcycle all the time in Texas in the 20s. It wasn't that cold because the wind wasn't blowing!?!? I swear it's true. I could not make that up.

 

Just a few words on this. Clearly I know nothing of all the fact's in what was shared here by you, you know this person better than any of us that read this.

I worked along side with the Shop Supervisor at a Company I use to work at. It was a large cabinet making co. with large scale equipment. Most of these have complicated control panels and ton's of wiring. The Supervisor, Ben his name is never came off as a know it all, but he knew it all. One day I had learned he was color blind. So I had asked him the obvious question, then who do you know what color the wires are?, answer, "I learned colors like you. The only differance is if I seen your color like you do I would say thats not the color". I never looked at it that way.

 

Lamp wire or zipcord has a bead on one side of the cord, so you could separate them by feel.... but that would not be used in car wiring (I hope).

 

I worked with a guy that, back in the 60s, went to England with a few buddies and they bought new Triumphs. They rode them all over Europe, across Asia and , finally they rode across the frozen Bering strait into Alaska and home to SoCal. He had been a Hells Angel, but he quit because they were going to kick him out for buying a British bike, even though he still had a dozen or so HDs in his garage. He had a pit bull that was the baddest animal alive. He had an old Cadillac in the back yard, behind the garage. One day he went back to drag it out and get it running and all he found were a few, mangled, parts. The dog had eaten the car. He was also immune to hot peppers. They tasted just like grapes to him. One day, at lunch, someone brought in some jalapinos and offered him some. "Sure", he sez and pops a big one in his gob. He chews it up, and you could see his face turn red and sweat starts pouring off of his forehead. He grins, but his lips were quivering and there was a look of panic in his eyes that was priceless. Not to appear to be a pussy, he asks for another one. After pounding that one down, he stands up and excuses himself to go take a crap. He goes to the can and doesn't come out for the rest of the lunch break.

 

Reminds me of a time back in High school. Someone brought a bottle of hot sauce to class. Pretty much the same situation, Mr. Tuffguy could handle it! He actually took a swig from the bottle, then sat there with his arms crossed with the dumbest "yeah, I'm a badass" look on his face. 3.....2......1...... he stands up and looks to the teacher. Before he could even ask the teacher said "go ahead, Dewight". Before he could even get out the classroom door the entire class (including the teacher) was laughing at him. Apparently our teacher was watching the entire show from the sidelines.

 

My Grandfather, bless his heart, had a 1957 Chevy Apache stepside that I wish I had today. Now he could carry a story with the best of them, and was nowhere near an ass to deal with. However, he insisted and truly believed that a stepside truck would carry more in the bed that a fleetside because the fenders were on the outside. I miss him.

Me? I know nothing and I can prove it, just ask my wife.

 

LOL! I hate to say it but I think I see the old boy's logic. Take a fleetside bed and fill it with, say, firewood to the top of the bedsides. Now take that same firewood and load it into a stepside and it will end up stacked over the top of the bedsides. The stack of firewood is heaped up higher than it was before so that's got to be a bigger load, doesn't it?

 

Just listened to my boss tell me today that "Hot Rodding is dead" He's a muscle car guy, and doesn't understand any of the differences between all the different styling of cars. He had a slicked out easter egg glass '34 Ford roadster with big ass billet wheels, and some stupid graphics. He paid a fortune for it right as the trend was dying, and then lost his ass when he tried to sell it. That experience, and his lack of knowledge have him unwilling to think anything other than "cars prior to 1950 aren't worth anything anymore", and that "all the guys in to them are too old to care anymore." I told him to try, and buy ANYTHING that says 1932 Ford, or 1949 Mercury on the title, and get back to me. I also told him that what he had was a Coddington styled street rod, and that I was thrilled with the fact that the street rod era was over.

Oh well, at least he didn't drop the term **T **D, so, I didn't have to punch him in the throat.

 

That's what it's like for me. You say red, I say it looks green. You say purple, I can't tell it from blue.

True enough. To elaborate, the person in question was so full of his own BS he could no longer separate fantasy from fact. He knew colors just fine, but found it necessary to try and impress me with his telepathic powers and/or tingling spider senses. If he's still alive, he's probably charging around the downtown district in a superhero costume.

 

There must have been a lot of Corvettes bought by guys heading off to Vietnam. I've hear at least 6 of these stories from different people years apart. Usually the story ends with the story teller getting to the old car a few minutes after the old lady sold the Vette and the lucky buyer driving off with it. My kids' Scout leader, who has an experience for every subject, added a new twist I had never heard for this story. He actually got there before the car was sold. While looking the car over another guy came up and offered the old lady twice as much as she was asking, $1000. The Scout Leader told the lady this guy was trying to cheat her because the car was worth ten times his offer and he personally told the guy to "Get the hell out of here." He then went on to tell the lady she should get a professional appraiser to appraise the car and sell it at an appropriate price. The lady took his advice and got a lot better price later on.

Also, let's not forget the $200 year old Cadilac the lady was selling because it was her husband's who died and in his will it said whatever she got for the car his secretary, who he was having an affair with, was suppose to get the the money. I've heard this story about as many times as the Corvette story.

Funny thing is the BSer telling these stories will swear it happened, every time.

 

Get a big dog!

 

Around here it was always Fuel Injection 2dr hardtop '57 Chevy....and sometime it got burned-up in a fire......

Sitting at breakfast this morning and an older guy (OK - he was my age ) at the table next mine to was talking to his buddy about a '64 GTO back in his high school days; it had 3 carbs, 4 speed and ...... ...... 500HP!!!!

 

I was on the other end the other day. Stopped by my neighbor's house, he was working on his boat upholstery, using a staple gun to fasten the material to the seat. I walk into his garage and he cussing up a storm and has the gun tore apart. It's a cheapie gun, he knew it, but it was good enough for what he wanted to do with it. He's cussing about "Cheap Chinese crap!". I ask kind of sheepishly if he has the compressor turned on, I didn't want to seem like on of the experts we're talking about. He replies, "Yeah, it's on, I just had this piece of crap working and then it stopped." I call my son who's into carpentry and has all the high end nail and staple guns and ask him to bring his gun over so my neighbor can finish his project. A few minutes later my son arrives, hooks up his gun to the hose and nothing. I walk over to the wall and look at the breaker box and the breaker for the compressor is off.

I really enjoyed this, my neighbor likes ride the hell out of you if you make a mistake. I remind my neighbor about it every once in a while

 

Now, through the miracle of modern technology,
anyone with a keyboard can become an Instant Expert.

 

Clearly I seen the BS factor you discribed. I just thought I would put out some food for thought about Color Blindness, never did I emply he has correct.

 

One day some years ago, I was having lunch at a table next to a group with an "expert". Among the pearls of wisdom he bestowed upon everyone in earshot: "All Mercedes-Benz are hand-made". I was tempted to point out that Mecedes builds several million vehicles each year and would need a workforce the size of the Chinese Army to accomplish those production numbers. Then I thought, why would I even want to speak to this fool? and went back to eating my sandwich.

 

the Corvette stories aren't always fable even if they are always started with "A friend of a friend" A friend of mine had planned to go look at a 50 something Chevy for sale local,He told another of his friends in front of me where the car was and that he should go check it out for himself. I was there when the info was passed between friends and I was there 3 hours later when when that guy stopped back at our shop with the 57 or 8 Corvette on his trailer it was only advertised as a "50 something Chevrolet in need of a lot of work" in the local Bargain Buyer paper. The proof of the friendship was when this guy offered to sell it to my friend at cost because he was supposed to get it first!

 

"He had a '65 Mustang that was so fast that even he couldn't drive it! Turns out it was a 289, three speed, open rearend car. He said the guy he bought it from was scared to drive it because it "wheelied" too much.."

Ha ha ha ha ha love it. Just like the punk in Fast and Furious who was scared to drive his old man's Hemi Charger because it was too powerfull.......

A car so powerful a hot rodder won't drive it...... would that be like boots so gaudy a Texan won't wear them? Vodka so strong a Russian won't drink it? A role so humiliating an actor won't take it? An opinion so dumb an athlete won't express it?

 

Ok, I'll tell one one on myself. Years ago, I think I was 17 and of course knew everything, my neighbor was getting his 64 Falcon ready for paint. I was helping him pull the trim when we got to the emblems on each side of the C-pillars. I figured they were held on with those little pins that pushed into a spring clip in the metal. He couldn't get it to budge so I told him "It just pops right off, you just have to work it a little harder. So he did and you Falcon guys already know the answer to this one, it had nuts on the backside and when then pins broke it flew about ten feet. Boy did I feel bad. To this day, 40 years later, when he sees me he says, "Hey, that emblem just pops right off." And I have it coming.
But we're still friends and it's all in good fun.

 

we get them over here too, refer to them as Elevenorife. There is a popular holiday destination called Tenerife and the BSer, in his bid to out-do you, has to go one better. hence Elevenorife.

I'm also an ex-soldier and any ex-military HAMBers will agree, that the military is an enviroment where the BSer can flourish.

finally, driving 50's and 60's american tin over here usually flushes out the BSer. leave it parked up in town and i garuntee that one will appear to tell you that he "had one just like it in the 50's, except his was a four door and right hand drive". If you dare to point out to them that they are mistaken, they get argumentative and one one occasion, aggressive.
Like I don't even know what make and model of car I bought, imported and re-built