HG's thread of miscelaneous stuff

[hgs_notes]

Snow trucks...














This next set of pics was an interesting find. Back in the day the post offices in most towns were also shelters. The cold war was going strong with the USSR. People were building their own bomb shelters, etc. This particular post office still had a few remnants from there nuclear fallout shelter days. Check it out.
















I see these old postings from time to time also. As a boiler inspector I think it's pretty cool. I still inspect a few old boilers like this once in a while.




Rusty crusty thing...


On Christmas night we had an ice storm come through. It was pretty bad. Lots of freezing rain and downed power lines, broken trees, etc. We had about 60 mph winds here and it blew most of my south facing shingle tabs off the house. It even popped the side doors out of the tracks on one of my sheds. We were lucky right around here and most of it was just rain, but west of here it froze. I was driving through that area a few days later and in NE SD they were still cleaning up and getting the power lines fixed. The trees became ice sculptures...

[flashed]

Thanks again for the cool pics ,always interesting stuff .That ice is what we normally get in my part of Georgia .

[Palf70Step]

Nice stuff. I would really like an old Willy's pickup/wagon again.

[hgs_notes]

This car lot/repair place is right off I-29 in SD on US Hwy 12 I think. Had some interesting stuff...








I can't remember what town this was in. I think it was west of Benson, MN. One of the numerous small towns I drove through on that trip.


The next set of pics were at a place just north of Oakes, ND. The owner wasn't around but I wish he had been. A couple of these would look good around my place.

Cool Olds. The grill reminds me of a late 60's Toronado.




The american Mini...






This Fiat 600 is such an oddball I love it...












Love the graphics...




GMC










I don't know what this one is. Cool hood ornament...








That's it for today. I'm almost caught up again. Have a great weekend everyone!

[Palf70Step]

That little Metroploitan is kool. I have always liked them. That mid 50's Olds reminds me of the one I tried to get from my dad to fix up as my first car. Unfortunately when you can poke you finger thru most of the frame rails, it does not make a very good project.

[NONHOG]

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q...+hood+ornament

[Dieselwrencher]

The cool looking shiny ness of the ice during the ice storm is the only cool thing about an ice storm IMO. There's a lot of good cool stuff you posted. You sure don't see may fiats setting around. I wonder if there was any significance to the Mike's Diesel sign on that dodge wagon/van?

[hgs_notes]

These pics were from a sculpture park in Vining MN, which is a tiny town in northern MN. Unfortunately I drove by at dusk so the pics are really dark. My apologies.














This old service station was pretty cool. Somewhere in SE ND.

[Ol Blue K20]

Nice tour as usual Mike. Thanks

[hgs_notes]

Yesterday I put the down payment on my dream car.

http://www.factoryfive.com/kits/mk4-roadster/

Last Friday I got an email from Factory Five that they were going to have a sale. 10 car kits marked down to their 1995 price of $9990. About a $3000 discount. I got the 9th one of those 10. I earned a bonus at work that I received Friday. I did my taxes on Sunday and even though I'm not getting a refund, I'm not having to pay in nearly what I was expecting. I had money set aside for that. I'm not well off, but I make decent money. I've scrounged and saved and did as much work as I'm capable of myself on home improvements, car repairs, etc. to save money.

I can talk myself into just about anything I want to and justify it to myself in many ways.

I have a lot of projects to finish before I get started on that one, but I wanted to share my good news with a group of people that will totally understand and appreciate how significant of an event this is for me.

[Ol Blue K20]

Nice....good for you Mike.

[flashed]

That will be a cool project .congrats .

[NONHOG]

Have to take us along with an alternate tinkering thread. What engine?
Way to go!

[Low Elco]

Congrats!

[Indian113]

way To Go! Can't wait to Follow this Build, love those Cobra's

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Nice....good for you Mike.

Thanks Dale

Originally Posted by flashed

That will be a cool project .congrats .

Dang right

Originally Posted by NONHOG

Have to take us along with an alternate tinkering thread. What engine? Way to go!

Planned on it. I'm thinking eco-boost V6 with an AWD drivetrain.

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Congrats!

Come on up to blizzardland and lend a hand.

Originally Posted by Indian113

way To Go! Can't wait to Follow this Build, love those Cobra's

[hgs_notes]

Not a lot to add today, but a few things. Last week I put on over 800 miles in 2 days and didn't take any new pics. Boring drive. I did see a few things I would have liked to stop and check out but I really didn't have the time.

Anyway, here's a couple parts trucks in Sleepy Eye...






This grain truck was at the shop I brought my daughters car to.


I love these emblems...


The one pic I took last week...


There is a bar there called "The Bone".

This chopper belongs to one of the guys working on my house. It was warm enough last week for people to get out for a ride. We get a couple more days of this nice weather before we drop back down to normal, which isn't too terrible going forward. Highs around 30 is way better than highs around 5F.






The rear fender is in my garage. The builder didn't put a bump stop on the rear suspension to prevent the tire hitting the fender. It's got air ride and the shock leaked down while he was riding until the tire hit the fender. It caught hard and cracked it almost all the way across just above the mount. While I fixed that crack I found 2 more around the mount. I should have taken a before pic. There were about 8 holes drilled into it to hold a steel plate on the back side. Their attempt at a repair. Not pretty.


Crack in the fender next to the mount...


Crack in the mounting plate...


The cracks are repaired and we'll get some filler in there and respray it. This part of the fender can barely be seen so it's just getting some black over the mount and repaired area.

[hgs_notes]

Today I just put on about 260 miles in a big circle locally. I took a couple roads I hadn't been on in a while and a few roads I drive regularly but saw a few new things driving through. Like this mega caddy that has seen better days but could still be a sweet low and slow cruiser I saw in Jordan...


A rough and somewhat ready square body tow truck in Montgomery...


And this old workhorse GMC behind a shop...


Someone is trying to get a railroad museum going.


Looks like they scavenged this engine from NSP, which stands for Northern States Power, which now is known as Xcel Energy. Probably from a coal plant that used it to push coal cars around.


A caboose! I miss seeing these. I'm not ancient old, just middle aged but when I was a kid the trains still used them and there would be guys in them hanging an arm out those upper windows. They would wave sometimes. And I once stayed at a place in Belgrade, MT that had a whole bunch of them set up as individual IDK what to call them, campers? Each was a nicely set up room like a hotel but real nice. My oldest girl was very young and slept in a drawer.




This is a project. Unfinished? IDK, but it's a long ways away from being useful just yet. Interesting though...




That's it for today. Glad I'm home for the next couple days. We got another blizzard rolling through tomorrow night. We got spoiled with some really warm (for us) weather the past couple weeks. Winter is far from over for us yet.

[fear_nothing]

Love this thread. I grew up in the general area of your travels. Its pretty neat recognizing all of the small towns that you happen to traveling through.

Did I double take on this one as I used to have one just like it.... mine was a short bed '65. Man I wish I would have kept it!

[Dieselwrencher]

Nice new pics. That bike looks pretty sweet. Too bad they did the shotty repair on it. Old trains are very cool. There were still cabooses in use when I was a kiddo. I was just telling this to my kids the other day as we went by an old inop caboose some one had in their yard. I bet those high scrap prices made a lot of them go away.

[El Dorado Jim]

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

Yesterday I put the down payment on my dream car.

http://www.factoryfive.com/kits/mk4-roadster/

Last Friday I got an email from Factory Five that they were going to have a sale. 10 car kits marked down to their 1995 price of $9990. About a $3000 discount. I got the 9th one of those 10. I earned a bonus at work that I received Friday. I did my taxes on Sunday and even though I'm not getting a refund, I'm not having to pay in nearly what I was expecting. I had money set aside for that. I'm not well off, but I make decent money. I've scrounged and saved and did as much work as I'm capable of myself on home improvements, car repairs, etc. to save money.

I can talk myself into just about anything I want to and justify it to myself in many ways.

I have a lot of projects to finish before I get started on that one, but I wanted to share my good news with a group of people that will totally understand and appreciate how significant of an event this is for me.

cool, you got the factory five kit, I know a guy out here in Ca that builds cobras for people using factory five kits....keep us posted on the progress

[El Dorado Jim]

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

The meme is funny, but wrong. Look at the plug ins. Those are not US style, they are probably european. Look at the bottles. That is not what you would find on any true american rednecks table. We are actually in a bit of a thaw here for a few days. It was nice going out to the car for once with temps above zero.

Couple interesting things today. I'm still getting used to my new car. It takes a little while to adjust when you have as much seat time as me. Everything just feels a little off. Anyway, I noticed today that my speedo doesn't have kph on it. Other than my trucks I can't remember driving anything in a long loooong time that didn't have both mph and kph on it.

I like it.


I was on my way up to Minneapolis again. It's where the majority of my workload is. One of the places I worked at today was a recycling center. Now you may say to yourself, Self? Why the heck would he think a recycling center is interesting enough to take pics, post them up and for me to waste my time looking at them?

This isn't your everyday recycling center where you drop your empty beer cans at. I mean you could do that, if you have like a semi trailer load of them. But then you would probably be too inebriated to understand what all these letters and numbers on the tv looking thing in front of you mean.

We'll start with this...


That is a 5000 HP electric motor. Powered by 4160V 3 phase AC. It has it's own power transformer. It drives a ginormous shredder. And it pains me to say it but I don't have pics of that. Wish I did, but that area is kinda restricted and basically the only part you see is a giant steel box with gearboxes and stuff. The shredding action is watched on a tv monitor.

So what will this thing shred you ask? Just about anything.




Yes. Even whole cars...




This was on the top of the pile. I didn't think a hubcap was worth the climb, nor life and limb to collect.


The discharge pile...


Here's a closer look at what the output is...


After shredding the stuff is run through various sorting machines to separate ferrous from non-ferrous and rubber/plastic etc is removed. They can sort the non-ferrous further to and sell the material in bulk based on the grade and type of material. It's pretty incredible really.

A short time later I was on the right side of da fuzz.


Better to have them in front of you than behind you.

On the way home I had some free time so I stopped by Sport Wheels again. It's the bike place I was at a while ago. I was checking prices on parts for a friend. I never knew how extensive this place really is. They have a pull your own part yard and if you dig old bikes, or new bikes or any freakin kind of bike at all you're gonna love this place. My new playground. I just need a bike to get started with. I think I should be able to find something...






Cool tank...


Sweet!


Daayumm!


Looks like a fun project, CBR600 I think...


Never heard of this one...


I'd ride this around the neighborhood...


I like the gauge in the headlight bucket. I wonder why that design idea went away.


Another one I've never heard of...


Interceptor. I like the name. I could see myself on one. Not this one. Or this type of bike, but something I can name Interceptor. Like Mad Max.


Cool old rusty stuff...




That was my day in a nut shell. I hope you enjoyed yours.

wish there was a place like that around me....soo cool! lots of cool bikes

[El Dorado Jim]

love all of your pics, cool thread,

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Nice new pics. That bike looks pretty sweet. Too bad they did the shotty repair on it. Old trains are very cool. There were still cabooses in use when I was a kiddo. I was just telling this to my kids the other day as we went by an old inop caboose some one had in their yard. I bet those high scrap prices made a lot of them go away.

Could be. Used to see more train cars used for storage in peoples yards. Now people get shipping containers or semi truck trailers.

Originally Posted by El Dorado Jim

cool, you got the factory five kit, I know a guy out here in Ca that builds cobras for people using factory five kits....keep us posted on the progress

I'll have a build thread for it but don't hold your breath. It's going to be awhile before I get started.

Originally Posted by El Dorado Jim

wish there was a place like that around me....soo cool! lots of cool bikes

There is, see below.

Originally Posted by El Dorado Jim

love all of your pics, cool thread,

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.

[nibulus]

Subscribed.

I like the randomness of this thread. Plus it's also informative now and then. Keep 'em coming please.