Nellie, ME's HHR

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

I had one as a company car many moons ago. It was a very utilitarian AUTOMOBILE.

Besides Dan loves to run vehicles until he's gotten his money's worth out of them, and then squeeze another 2 or 3 years out of them. THEN, he rebuilds one more time. Reduce, reuse, recycle! Then there's Dan

[DanStokes]

Besides Dan loves to run vehicles until he's gotten his money's worth out of them, and then squeeze another 2 or 3 years out of them. THEN, he rebuilds one more time. Reduce, reuse, recycle! Then there's Dan

Truck's pushing 300K and I suspect he'll be with me 'till the end. As far as Nellie - 198K IIRC. I've suggested several replacements but ME loves the little TRUCK (says so right on the title) so I'll keep putting her back together. The things we do for love......

BTW - about the truck/HHR thing. I suspect someone at GM was able to push EPA to classify them as trucks to bump the truck CAFE into the acceptable range. Nifty bit of work if you can pull it off.

Dan

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Truck's pushing 300K and I suspect he'll be with me 'till the end. As far as Nellie - 198K IIRC. I've suggested several replacements but ME loves the little TRUCK (says so right on the title) so I'll keep putting her back together. The things we do for love......

BTW - about the truck/HHR thing. I suspect someone at GM was able to push EPA to classify them as trucks to bump the truck CAFE into the acceptable range. Nifty bit of work if you can pull it off.

Dan

Yup! DEC commented on EPA RULES all of the time. Guess who was 1 of the authors? We won some, we lost some. The best was HDD road draft tubes. I fought for pcv systems while at EPA and never had any progress. The 1st time EPA proposed HDD rules for 2004 and 2007, I contacted Cle Jackson and asked what we had to do to get them to make that part of the new rule.

our lab did a quick and dirty research project on an IH diesel with 70,000 miles, measuring what came out of the road draft tube. Amazingly high benzene was the key. I wrote a 5 page report that had that data. EPA, to their credit, rewrote the 2007 rules package making the manufacturers have to include road draft tube emissions in their cert packages. Guess what? Road draft tubes went away. Yes it added approximately $100 to the cost of a new engine, but guess what? The data on those engines relating to useful life shows that it has doubled in the ensuing years, and like new car engines, maintenance costs over the life of the engines, when adjusted for inflation (Don't believe the last 4 administrations on their inflation data...) has gone down with the first major rebuild coming at 1 million miles for a maintained engine, vs. 500 k before.

Oh and you bikers can see the difference as well. Remember when the center of the highway lanes were saturated with oil? And you used to avoid it at all costs? Now remember the last couple of years where you could ride in the center of the highway lanes? Yeah, that's because trucks since about 2008 have had pcv systems, not a huge pipe from the crankcase spewing out oil. And I'll admit NAFTA has many problems, but one benefit is both canada and Mexico follow EPA vehicle emissions rules because of it.

And the only emissions device that doesn't hurt performance? The pcv system if you maintain it. In fact ring seal is improved, and oil past the valves is decreased. Why is that important? It keeps oil out of the combustion chamber, lowering octane requirements.

Done with my rant. Sorry for the diatribe, it's 30 years of my life trying to get sensible rules not knee-jerk reactionary rules like SCR that causes more problems than it solves. But I won't go into that now.

Dan knows. We were relegated to the back of the lab after the Crusher Camaro... At least it was a fun interesting little project!

[DanStokes]

BTW - My 2002 Cummins has a PVC. Don't know if Cummins was ahead of the curve there.

Dan

[SuperBuickGuy]

BTW - about the truck/HHR thing. I suspect someone at GM was able to push EPA to classify them as trucks to bump the truck CAFE into the acceptable range. Nifty bit of work if you can pull it off.

Dan

Oh the conspiracy theories.... based on my experience with government boffins, this is what happened. An intern took the application in, looked at the picture and thought "truck" so they checked the "truck" box. GM went "hmm, interesting." then the 'truck' was produced - at that point, someone else noticed the issue but by then the EPA had spoken and once spoken, it will never change. Let's not forget that my H3 Hummer was classified as a 'car' ....

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Oh the conspiracy theories.... based on my experience with government boffins, this is what happened. An intern took the application in, looked at the picture and thought "truck" so they checked the "truck" box. GM went "hmm, interesting." then the 'truck' was produced - at that point, someone else noticed the issue but by then the EPA had spoken and once spoken, it will never change. Let's not forget that my H3 Hummer was classified as a 'car' ....

Well... let's just say there's a madness to their method. It has to do with the way that the actual Clean Air Act Ammendments of 1990 were written by Congress. Remember EPA doesn't make the law, only the regulations authorized by the law. As much as I railed against EPA before I knew anything about it, now that I was part of the system, let me just say that further more and because of the way that the actual Clean Air Act Ammendments of 1990 were written and outside entities suing EPA, from both the right and left, it's amazing that the staff make any sense at all.

Not that I like a lot of the rules... Oh well, we're all just analog men living in a digital world!

[SuperBuickGuy]

Well... let's just say there's a madness to their method. It has to do with the way that the actual Clean Air Act Ammendments of 1990 were written by Congress. Remember EPA doesn't make the law, only the regulations authorized by the law. As much as I railed against EPA before I knew anything about it, now that I was part of the system, let me just say that further more and because of the way that the actual Clean Air Act Ammendments of 1990 were written and outside entities suing EPA, from both the right and left, it's amazing that the staff make any sense at all.

Not that I like a lot of the rules... Oh well, we're all just analog men living in a digital world!

That.... hmmm

True, they don't MAKE the law, but they interpret the law through rule making. Remember Bill "oh THAT woman" Clinton? it's a national joke that no one knows what 'is' means anymore because he redefined the verb (not to mention his creative use of cigars).

But still, the biggest cop-out ever is the suggestion that an Agency doesn't make the laws. Let's even go further, not only do they define the laws but whenever Congress gets a wild hair, they look to the Agency to draft the language of the new law. But yeah, they don't 'make' the law.... sorry, my friend, not buying what you're selling.

Can't go further, but I promise that if the US ends it will be due to Agency action. As Justice Scalia said "Agencies do not have to abide by the Constitution" and that is hard truth.

[DanStokes]

Back on the topic at hand......

Here's where I left it tonight. Harry got the paint done and in time for me to pick 'em up and apply bolts to the proper places. I still have to assemble the insides of the doors, etc. and there are new front door speakers coming as one was wounded (don't know how that happened). But Nellie looks like a truck again.




Dan

[Russell]

You make it look easy!

[DanStokes]

You make it look easy!

Not all that hard. I'm proof that any idiot can do this stuff! BTW - I have a bunch of Mustang bits for you including brake parts so come on over when you get a chance.

Dan

[DirtyWhiteBoy]

Looking good Dan!

[DanStokes]

Looking good Dan!

Thanks! Putting doors together but I'll have to wait for the new speakers to finish the front door. I'll probably take the inner panel off the rear door as there's a rattle with the window down but it's silent with the window up. Mystery to solve tomorrow but the speakers aren't expected 'till Tuesday anyhow.

Dan

[DanStokes]

And the finish line. Pretty happy with the body gaps though I'd like the back of the rear door to be in about 1/8" but the striker is out of adjustment so I'll live with it. The doors close like a bank vault (as they always have) and I'm not hearing any wind leaks or rattles so all in all I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

Right now ME is at a local shop getting the headlights aimed then everything will be complete.

[Russell]

As long as ME is happy, your happiness is 2nd

[DanStokes]

As long as ME is happy, your happiness is 2nd

So true, and she is! She's SO HAPPY to have her Nellie back. She drives Vanna OK but is not as comfortable in her as in Nellie. Our local shop was backlogged so I used the back-up shop to align the headlights and that went well. Following a fender replacement (the light pod bolts to fender sheetmetal) and 2 new light assemblies while I was at it, the likelihood of properly aimed lights was close to zero.

Dan