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Messages - BLeavitt23

2
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / '87 Face Lift and Opinions Requested
If I wasn't broke, I'd buy a nice set of wheels for the ol' bird.  Problem is, I am broke...
Refinishing them is an option.  The only problem is this is my daily and I can't have it off the road for more than a weekend.  I'll have to think about that one, though.
4
General Fox T-Bird/Cougar Discussion / '87 Face Lift and Opinions Requested
Hey guys-
Haven't been around here much lately.  Wanted to check in.  I've been busy with the cars.  Mostly the '86 with the whole Megasquirt thing, but I gave the '87 a little needed attention.

The paint on the '87 was horrible.  It was spray bombed before I bought it, and it looked OK for a while afterwards, but it started rusting really bad under the passenger side belt trim, and also at the bottom of both rear quarters in front of the wheel well and it was fading off the hood and roof.  I had to do something, so I decided to grind off the rust, delete the side moldings entirely, and paint it again.  I was happy to find that none of the rust had gone through the metal completely (no holes).  I need to replace the passenger door as the bottom third of it feels like cardboard, but it'll be OK for now.  I'm under no illusion that this is a permanent fix, but it's at least a good improvement over what it was.  Only took time and 12 cans of Rust-oleum.

Anyways - here's the before and after:


X

Almost forgot about the opinion part of the post...
I'm having an internal debate on what to do about the wheels.  To paint or not to paint.  I have a can of satin black left.  I was think about spraying them, but I can't commit.  The wheels don't look all that great as is.  What do you all think?
5
Lounge / A little excited over here!
Thanks, man!  I'm not a big fan of the old green look, so all the lighting is getting converted over to red except the gauges (obviously).
6
Lounge / A little excited over here!
That's kind of a lie... I'm super excited!  I finally... FINALLY got the '86 running on Megasquirt.  It's been 11 months since the last time I got to hear it run.  There have been so many problems during this process, I lost hope several times, but I kept at it and finally got my reward!  I love this car...
[video=youtube;QJD5fNTpUMo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJD5fNTpUMo[/video]
8
Lounge / "Vaping"
I'm admittedly not around here all that much.  Seems like every day I have less and less time to hop on the computer, but I THOUGHT I had subscribed to this thread at least...  I was wrong!  Anyhoo....

Did you succeed in cutting out the cigs, Chooglin???  My dad is still working at it, but making progress.

Thanks very much, fellas - I DO feel a lot better.  90 days in and I've gone down to mostly using 3mg juice now. 18mg to 3mg in three months.  I think it's going pretty well.  I have one vape shop that I frequent - gotten to know the owners pretty well.  I'm an engraver... been working as an engraver for fifteen years.  Well I have two vape pieces I laser engraved.  One day I took them into the vape shop and showed the owners.  We got to talking about engraving for them and it looks like I could have a new business venture to think about!

One of the owners of the shop was a Ranger.  His best friend, who was also a Ranger, was killed in Afghanistan.  So we talked about making a tribute to him.  We talked about this for probably an hour or so and I ended up doing the engraving you see in the below photos.  I decided to do this one for him at no charge.  Well now the other owner, and another employee want their boxes customized as well.  I also posted the photos below, along with the photos of two of my boxes I did on a vaping forum I frequent and have had a few people contact me to customize their stuff as well.  I'm also engraving that shop's logo on a bunch of sleeves, and whatever else they should want.

This started life as a plain black box, except for the Sigelei logo...





10
Lounge / "Vaping"
Chooglin - this one's for you!  69 days since my last cigarette.  Going by how many cigarettes I would typically smoke in a day, that's 2088 cigarettes avoided in that amount of time!
11
Lounge / "Vaping"
Well it was a month yesterday and no desire to light up a smoke.  I'm very confident that I'm done with cigarettes.  Still not saving any money.  Bought two more tanks and like eight different juices.  I'm sure there will come a point when I'm only buying juice and coil supplies, and nothing else.  I've gone from 18mg nic, to 12, and now to 8/6 (depending on the juice).

Also, within the past couple of weeks I've gotten one of my sisters and a buddy of mine to switch to vaping.  My buddy has been doing it for almost two weeks and he hasn't had a cig, and he says he really likes it.  He was a smoker for thirty+ years.  My dad, who has been smoking for probably 45 years has promised that he is going to a vape shop tomorrow.  I hope he does.
12
Lounge / "Vaping"
Two weeks in and no cig.  Don't even want one.  They smell a lot worse to me now, though.  Feeling better as well.  I don't cough much at all anymore, and I'm  sure I smell better.

Only problem is I'm really getting into this vaping thing and just bought a bunch of stuff to make my own "mod", so I am not, so far, saving any money like I had planned...
13
Lounge / "Vaping"
Quote from: 87thunderbirdBlackJack;446048
We vape, its expensive to start with but alot healthier. my old lady worked at Cravin Vapes here in ft wayne its just flavored vapor with a little nicotine in it. its a step up for sure. it helped my old lady quit smokin

I say a +1

I'm glad to read that it helped your old lady.  I've thought about it for a long time, but I never thought it could replace cigarettes.  So far it has been good enough that I haven't really wanted a cig since I started it.  It's been 86 hours with no smoke and I'm really happy about that.  I'm using an 18 juice for the most part, though the stuff in there now is a 12.  I want to step down every couple of weeks until I get to the zero nicotine stuff and see if I can stop completely after that.  For now I'm just happy to not be smoking or smelling of cigarettes.  I've been a smoker for 18 years and, until now, have never gone more than 8 or 9 hours without one.  I've tried the patch and the gum in the past, and also just not smoking, but never had the willpower to stick with it.  The hardest part is when I'm working in the garage.  I could go through a whole pack of smokes in 4 hours when I'm doing something with the car.  I have my '86TC in there now and I have much work to do still to get it running on the Megasquirt, but I haven't gone into the garage for a few weeks because I know what will happen.  Maybe now I can give 'er a go and vape instead of smoke. 

Vinnie - I forgot to subscribe to this thread so I don't know what you posted originally, but it's all good anyways.  I'm no stranger to the dangers of cigarette smoking.  My grandfather died of lung cancer because of it.  I also spent a lot of time working in Hospitals and on the Ambulance when I was a Medic.  I still remember the "Blue Bloaters" and "Pink Puffers", people who were still smoking while on O2.  One thing that always bothered me was when we'd go into a house with little kids and the whole place smelled like an ashtray.  I have NEVER smoked in the house or anywhere near my, or anyone else's kids.  I'll be the first to admit that smoking is incredibly stupid.  I definitely picked it up from my Dad, and I REALLY don't want my kids to pick it up from me.  I have always taken great strides to hide it from them.  With luck, some day soon I won't have anything to hide anymore.

On another note - I haven't said anything about what I'm doing to my wife, yet.  I don't know if she hasn't noticed or just hasn't said anything, but I would imagine I must smell better lately...
14
Lounge / "Vaping"
Anyone have opinions on this?  Or does anyone here do it?  I've done a lot of reading about it for a while now, and considered it to try to help quit my pack and a half a day smoking habit.  I've been smoking since I was 15.  Now I have two kids and have wanted to quit, but my body will not let me.  My wife just quit one day, like 10 years ago, and never had another one.  It's not been so easy for my.  I couldn't go three hours.  One would think it would be as simply as not buying them anymore, but for me it's not so easy.  Anyways, I've been resistant to try the vaping thing because I didn't really feel like it could help.  Well... a coworker of mine is really in to it and offered to sell me one of his units pretty cheap so I figured I'd try it out.  I figured why not - at the price he was selling it, I wouldn't be losing out on much if it didn't help. 

Well I haven't had a real cigarette since about noon on Wednesday and, so far, don't really have the desire to light one up.  Right now I'm using a higher-nicotine content "vape juice" and it's really been a good alternative so far.  The overall goal is to gradually reduce the nicotine content until it's zero and hopefully quit both smoking and vaping.  I am encouraged so far and hopefully this plan will come to fruition.  If nothing else, it certainly smells better!