Okay, confessions of a Mad Man (that would be me)... Winter Hibernation for us began in mid-November of last year, a typical begin time. The pony cars were parked inside our garages, and one is actually raised on a four post lift with a 1997 Honda Del Sol SI 2 seater sports car under it. Lynda and I have been suffering, along with other enthusiasts during Winter Hibernation, as we do not run our pony cars unless the roads are dry, and there is no salt residue (for snow/ice control) on the street surfaces. Usually it takes two good rains to flush the salt off the streets. We had the first such rain the other day. After one more rain storm, once the roads are dry and temps are back into the 60s and above, we plan to do a lot of cutting around in our pony/muscle/sports cars. And go to as many car shows as we can, locally and regionally.
I also purchased a bit of equipment over Winter Hibernation, and look forward to using some of it once the garage is warm enough to work in for more than 15 minutes at a time. With the equipment we already had, one may wonder what more I might have possibly needed. Well, let's see:
- PicoScope 2 channel oscilloscope for various electric and electronic diagnostic routines
- MicSig SATO 1004 4 channel digital oscilloscope. This is more powerful than the PicoScope, and is an all-in-one tablet unit, not requiring an external PC to use
- SteelMan Chassis Ear, with 4 wireless sound pickups (it can connect to 6 such remote listening/pickup devices) that can be placed anywhere inside the engine cabin, in the trunk, under the hood, under the chassis, and aimed at certain locations to help a tech to locate and identify the source of various vibrations and noises. Gawd, I wish those were available back when I worked as a tech at a Ford dealership in SoCal (70s and 80s)
- Another borescope, but this one has a camera end with three different cameras, all pointed into different directions. One is pointed along the line of the cable the cameras are connected to. The other 2 are at 90 degree angles from the camera cable, and across from each other, so I can see the two sides of where the camera head is located. I figure that will be handy when wanting to see cylinder wall conditions as the camera head is being sent into a combustion chamber via a spark plug hole.
- An Xtools D7 ODB2 diagnostic scanner. If you have been wanting to get a high end OBDII/OBD2 scanner, but do not want to pay thousands of dollars for one, this is the real deal. I got ours for just over $400, including shipping, and with 3 years of updates. If interested I suggest you look at this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poTobQ0nw54 All I can say, is, Yowza! I have gotten some other scanners, which are decent but not really as high end as I really wanted. Well, dreams do come true I guess...
- I also picked up a few hand tools, and another DVOM with an inductive ammeter clamp that can measure fractions of milliamps to help track down the cause of parasitic draws on a battery.
So, it looks like I am all set to have some serious fun this Car Season. And, I just may have some projects I can post within this thread, just because if for no other reason. For fellow enthusiasts in the Rochester, NY, area, if y'all have need for any of those tools/equipment, let me know and let's see if we can coordinate some play time at our place with your vehicle(s)...
I do believe this is the year I am going to see if I can work on some cars other than just ours, as ours are really running well right now. I do not want to get bored, you know... You know, the while, "Idle Hands, Devil's Workshop," kind of thing, heh heh...
