New Enthusiasm.

Ok I have been very busy for the past couple weeks and I'm still not caught up in what I need to get done. Today I was at my shop early, then stopped back by the house to check eamil and shower before going to work. I have to comment on this one. Classic Diver has photos posted of the new Mercedies Gull Wing!!!!

SSSWWWEEEAAATTT!!!!

I remember seeing one Mercedes Gull Wing as a kid and I was left speechless. My father who is also an Enthusiast would tell me about the history behind such grand machines. I hope that this new rendition is able to live up to the hertiage or liniage of it's for farthers. check this out I hope you enjoy this as much as I do...Have a good day. I have to go to work now.

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John Deere

   Over the weekend I found an antique John Deere tractor, funny thing it just so happens to have the same hood as the one I'm trying to restore. This is both a good and a bad thing. Good to see what the front of the hood should look like, bad to realize I have a ways to go. This morning I'm going down to an aircraft indusrty supply store called "the yard" to see if I can find sheet metal the same thickness as the hood. I'm also going ot be purchasing a tank of gas for my welder. In order to finish this hood and have it look correct I am going to have to cut the first couple inches off the hood, do some hammer and dolly work and weld on a new lip. As you can see from the top photo, pay attention to were the hood orniment sits. Then look at the second photo and you get an idea of how much damage this hood had. The first couple of inches were crumpeled or folded under. So much for having the hood done in 20 hours, I have more than that into the hood right now and I still have alot of work to do, this is going to be another painfully long week. Inorder to keep fresh postings up I'll post about my progress, even though it was not my origimnal idea for this to be a restoration blog. That would be "Glory Days Automotive Restoration."...This concludes todays posting have a good day.

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Not getting enough done

   Already its Thursday. The John Deerre hood I'm restoring is taking up alot of my time right now. I was hoping to have gotten more accomplished with it over the weekend, but I was not so fortunite. I usualy start my morings at 6am or try to be at my shop by 6am to get in a few hours of work done before going to work for the man. Sometimes depending on how I feel or how much I feel I need to get done I go back to my shop and put in four or five more hours at night....That kind of describes this week.

Later on this week I'm gonig to be posting these photos on "Glory Days Automotive Restoration"
This shows the hood prior to my working on it, I'm not sure how old this hood is or even how many times people have run into inanimate objects with the tractor. At this point I'm not gonig to be able to get all dents out but I have made an excellant attempt at minimizing them.

 As you scroll down you can in the photo's that I have minized the major damge using a three pound sledge. I found out the hard way that anything smaller was not gonig to work. I was able to use lighter hammers and dollies for smaller dents and blending the high and low areas together, I them flipped the hood over so that it was face up and continued by filing down high spot to further help with the blending of high and low areas. Lastly I applied Evercoat short strand body filler to finish smoothing out the hood. Currently I have between eighteen or nineteen hours invested into this project. By the looks of it I should have it in paint Sunday.

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To busy to post

Again I have to appologise for not posting on a regular schedule. I have been busy restoring a John Deere tractor hood for a customer and I'm trying to have it done Wedensday or Thursday of this week, which means I have to work late nights. One of the pit falls of having a full time job, trying to start your own business, and writing a blog. Unfortunatly something is going to suffer and in this case it happens to be this blog because I'm not near a computer were I can take time out of my day, surf the internet in search of content for that days posting.... Oh what the heck I have about 20 minutes.  

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Autoblog Green — We Obsessively Cover The Green Scene

Autoblog Green — We Obsessively Cover The Green Scene

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I found an interesting article to about a diesel powered honda insight that is getting 80 miles per gallon with just a manual transmission. The car is running and driving but the company is trying to work out some bug to get the hybrid portion to operate.....Here is a link to the companies web site. http://www.redlightracing.org/ Thats kind of crazy because just last week one of the guys that I work with and myself were having a disicussing about an engine swap involoving a volkwagen tdi motor. The honda insight never came up in conversation but now that I think about it. I think thats an awsome idea!

Also, I did not relaize this at the time but, red light racing is one of the companies competing in the "Progressive Auto X Prize"

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This is my new favorite automobile

   I just found this posting on autoblog.com, and absolutly fell in love!! This is the type of sports car I would like to own, one with classic 50's styling, yet utilizing modern drivetrains for motivation. I'll take mine with the jag straight six, giveing this beuty a personality very similar to vehicles of its day.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/04/quick-drive-rizk-ra-marries-old-and-new-to-create-one-beautiful/

http://www.rizkauto.com/   I have to recommend that you check out the web site. If this magnificent work of art appeals to your taste. There is a good deal of information, technical drawings and galleries showing the details that compose this fine work of art.

  Understandably I have not had this blog for a very long time, but I have not posted  any infor mation about the new cars coming out because none of them grab my attention. This not only grabs my attention.... But, grabs my attention and puts it in a stranggle hold like a Boa Constrictor.

Now if only I had enough money to by one.  Mom, Dad I would like you to buy me a new car. Yeh some how I don't think that is going to fly.

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Could any of these companies be the future of the auto industry?

    In the early 1900's there were an estimated 2000 automobile manufacturers here in the United States alone. Alot has changed over the coarse of the past 109 years. I wonder if we will be seeing any new automotive manufacturers emerging in the future... So far my postings have primarily been focused on automobile efficency. To be honest with you Id like to have a section for "this day in automotive history", and "product reviews". For the time being I'm going to keep with the vehicle efficency theme. Today, I would like to look at the "Progressive Automotive X Prize". This organization is sponsoring a competion currently involving 90 teams all trying to develop vehicles capable of acheiving 100 miles per gallon. Personaly I have been on several company web sites and done a little research but their are some rules and regulations I'm not aware of that seam to be knocking some of the companies out of the race. The biggest pit fall for these companies to face is going to be the requirement in the business plan explaining how they are going to produce 20,000 units per year. Below is a listing of the remaining 90 entries into the competion. I shall be looking at each company, I'm currious to see what kind of technologies they are useing.

The complete table: Official Teams - April 7th, 2009 Official Teams - August 20th, 2009 Comment

7K Hamsters
Adiabatic
Aero-Siordia Hyper X Racing
All Power Labs R1
Alterna
Alternative Fuel Sciences 
American HyPower
AMP
Apet-X R2
Aptera Motors 
Avion Car Company
BDCOTSRUS
Belloso Motor Company
BITW Technologies 
Boulder Electric Vehicle 
Brilliant-EV
Cloud Electric Racing
Combined Technology Solutions 
Cornell 100+MPG Team 
D'Antheus Motors
Daheco Engines
Delta Motorsport
Eco-Taxi 
Eddison * 2 --Mass Management
Electric Truck Electric Truck
Eltra Technology, Inc.
EnerMotion
Enertia Motors
Engineous Power
Enginer 
ENVERA
ENVI
EVIN
Falcon Future
Finishing Dutch (Prautotype)
FVT Racing Future
Gaia Transport
Gomecsys
Goodwin-Young LINCVOLT
GotPower
GroupXCaliber
Herf Duo
Illuminati Motor Works 
Innovative Environmental Energy Concepts
Ino8
Integrated Innovations Corp
Jordan Engineering
Kinetic Vehicles
Kinetix Motors
Liberty Motors
Lightning Hybrids
Loremo
Maxi-Eco Team
MDI-ZPM
Millennial Powers Motors Corporation
Millmac
MIT VDS Vision XP
Motive Industries Inc.
Nelson TYWA Power Corp.
NgEK
NorthWest Energy Research Associates
OptaMotive
Parr Piston Engine Company
Pegasus X
Persu Mobility Inc.
Physics Lab of Lake Havasu, AZ
Pinwheel GT
PMC 
Porteon R3
Poulsen Hybrid
RaceAbout Association
Red Light Racing
Revolucion Motors
Ricker Truck
SABA Motors
San Fernando Hybrid Alliance
Slipstream
Spira
SSI Racing
Synergy Innovations Electric
T3 Motion 
Tango Tango (Commuter Cars)
Tata Motors
TEAM EVI
Team EVX 
Team FourSight
Team Global-E
Team GreenWorks
Team HydroPhi
Team Myers Motors
Team Tejas
Team ULV-3
Tesla Motors 
The Little Engine That Can
Tri-Hybrid Stealth
TTW Italia
TW4XP
Team Urbe
USA Electric Cars
Utopia
V-Mobile
Velozzi 
Veperformance
West Philly Hybrid X Team
Western Washington University 
WIKISPEED
X-Tracer Team Switzerland
XLR8SUN 
ZAP

Have a good day...Dave

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