The Man Thread

[ex]

TBH not sure where all the Ford hate is coming from.  In the auto industry, they're one of the best.  Sure they have some problems and some bad models, but comparatively speaking, Ford has a lot less problems than many other American brands.  Pontiac is one of the worst offenders...there's only 2 cars they make that are decent (no, Firebird is not one of them).

I remember working for a GMC-Pontiac-Buick dealership a few years ago, and I'd never seen so many pissed off and dissatisfied customers.  I mean, everyone's pissed when they're at a dealership because of the assfucking they get, but still...it was exceptional.  Sadly, those cars aren't the worst in the industry.

Going overseas, there's some alright cars.  I know Toyota makes a good car, even with the little issue a few years ago of the sticking-accelerator problem.  In general, they build a car to last.  My friend has a Toyota Corolla that was a hand-me-down from his dad that still runs.  Was bought new in 1967, still runs today.  Had to have tuneups over the years of course, but almost all of the engine is the original.  Had to replace a carborater or something once I think.

What makes it a superior piece of machinery is the timing chain it uses.  More cars should be built with it, as chains are usually superior to the cheaper belts in most cars today.  My old car was a 2004 Corolla, it was my baby... I loved it.  36 miles to the gallon highway, 28 in city, always ran well.  Did have a couple things go wrong with it but it didn't cost too much for the parts themselves...the charge the dealership did me was another story (this was before I learned to just take it to a trusted shop where they'll only charge what the labor costs instead of upcharging the fuck outta you).  Some ignorant fucking Mexican bitch decided to total me out one night, however, and I lost my beautiful little efficient Toyota.  On top of that, the dumb cunt ran a red light and slammed into me, didn't even check to see if I was ok or not, and ran over to the cops a few minutes later (after they showed up) and said it was MY FAULT!  And to add insult to injury, the insurance company even said I was lying about the color of the light (said I had the red light, when I specifically looked up after the wreck to see it STILL lit up green).  They went so far as to even try to have the police report changed (they failed in this, thank god).

I really miss that car, as the cabin of the car was almost as spaciously laid-out as a sedan, like literally just a couple more inches and the inside would've felt like my Ford Taurus does inside.  The room was nice in it.  It wasn't all crunched-in feeling like most compact cars are.  It was very nice.  I hope to get another Corolla again, as they did some major improvements to it and it gets far better speed ability (went from 115 or so max to 150+ mph), with around the same gas mileage, with every model up to this year.  Supposedly, the new 2014 is supposed to top 40 miles per gallon highway.  Would be nice.

[|iR|Focalor]

Pontiac is one of the worst offenders...there's only 2 cars they make that are decent (no, Firebird is not one of them).

ARE decent? Pontiac don't make jack shit no more, they're kaput. I'd venture a guess that Pontiac sales started steeply declining after the 90's, and when the economy crashed, it was a no-brainer to amputate that section of General Motors in an effort to save the company.

Pontiac had a some good models, but they did some experimenting with them here and there that turned out to be some truly crappy designing. In my opinion, the absolute WORST thing they ever did was make front wheel drive cars. HORRIBLE idea. I used to have a Bonneville. It was a very heavy car and it would've benefited more by having the power delivered to the rear wheels. If for some reason you ever had to drive off of pavement, it was bad about getting stuck in soft ground or mud that a rear wheel drive vehicle probably would've been able to handle. The suspensions and brake systems on some of the late 80's and early 90's models were horrible. They kept trying to test things and improve and innovate, but really all they succeeded in doing was ruining their reputation with buyers to the point that everyone told GM to fuck off and they started buying the more reliable imports.

[The Happy Friar]

Front wheel is great up here where the snow is.  I miss standard.  I'm not even sure you can get standards off the lot any more.  Standard + FWD was my friend here in the hills when snowy. 

I love fords.  Only ever had Fords.  Two station wagons (man, they were beasts in the snow!), a sedan and currently a minivan.  Minivan has issues but I've abused it pretty bad.

The only thing I'd like more then a Ford truck around the farm is an older Jeep Wrangler.  Light enough to not get stuck in spots, skinny enough to get around in the woods, strong enough to pull logs around.  Ford doesn't have anything to compete against that.  Just like they don't have anything to compete against a 8 seater station wagon any more.  :/

[|iR|Focalor]

From my experience, front wheel drive was always HELL on brakes. I was literally having to take my car in every 3 or 4 months to get brakes put on. First the fronts would go bad, then in another 3 or 4 months, the rears would wear down to metal. One time I didn't have the money to immediately take it in for brakes and I had to let it go longer. I was an at-fault collision waiting to happen. But luckily I drove it smart and didn't ride anyones ass in case they had to stop quickly. By the time I got it into the shop, it was making horrible scraping sounds even when not applying the brakes. In bumper to bumper expressway rush hour was the worst. I'd be inching along with everyone gawking at me in my noisy piece of junk that sounded like it was fixing to fall into a million pieces. As I'd creep along, it would screech and scrape and then all the sudden make a loud CLUNK like something broke off, lol.

It also had tons of other problems. At one point, the trans-axle snapped, and THANK BEJESUS it didn't happen while driving anywhere. Prior to it happening, I had been driving well over the speed limit on the expressway through downtown atlanta. I noticed while driving that it felt like something was trying to turn the steering wheel when I'd hit dips in the road. It wasn't until I got back to a friends house out in the suburbs and backed out of his driveway over the curb when it finally completely snapped and wouldn't move. That was not a cheap fix. One time I had some kinda ignition module box go bad. It's a little black box mounted on the engine that controls the timing of the ignition to each of the valves. It didn't entirely crap out though, so it was firing at least 2 or 3 of the cyclinders... while the others were just getting flung up and down. That was an interesting couple of miles. When I'd get it up to about 35 or 40mph, the front end would start hopping around violently from the pistons slapping around without firing.

Always nice to have a friend with a Jeep Wrangler. I had a girlfriend once who drove her car into a culvert while trying to back out of someones driveway in the dark. She was in one of those squatty little Mitsubishi Eclipses with dark tinted windows, and the rear window is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to see anything out of already, so it being dark and having dark tint on the glass didn't help anything. I tried pulling her out with my 2WD Ram 1500 and all I ended up doing was slinging rocks all over the place. Another chick in a Jeep showed up and pulled her right out without breaking a sweat.

[|iR|Focalor]

To do this shit for fun and/or a living, you are most definitely a MAN... and fucking crazy too.

It's one thing to see a guy get knocked out cold with a punch or a kick in something like the UFC, but it's a little different when it's a 1 ton bucking bull's skull bashing a mans skull, putting him out like a light, and then nearly stomping all over him as he lays there comatose. This is what I'd call a "butt pucker" moment.

http://www.pbr.com/en/media/videos/2013/4/wreck-ty-pozzobon-knocked-out-by-carolina-kicker.aspx

[|iR|Focalor]

Pretty cool little "blog" I ran across. Has non-working text links to rar files for mostly skin flicks, some kinda old and cult classic, some not so old. Some of these older movies are pretty impossible to find in your local video store. I guess all of them feature women who posed for Playboy at some point.

http://playmatesinthemovies.blogspot.com/

[The Happy Friar]

Changed the bearing in my van yesterday for the first time.  Grrr.... manly.  :p

After I bought all the tools it most likely cost more then if I paid a shop to do it, but now I own a bunch of new tools so next time it should only cost ~$100 for parts.   

Got a new 30mm, 29mm, 3x18mm sockets, a puller and a torque wrench now.

[|iR|Focalor]

I bought a new mower this weekend. It's a John Deere D110 riding mower. I had an old Snapper riding mower from the mid or late 80's that used to belong to my grandfather that needed some work done to it before it would be usable again, and I looked into the price on getting it fixed. Final price tag on the motor rebuild, new tires, and all the other stuff that would need replacing... a tad over 1 grand. I remember using it back when it still worked to cut the grass at my grandmothers old house and it just never worked so superbly that I could justify paying that much to repair it when I could spend about 500 dollars more and get a brand new riding mower that would probably have more power.

I looked into getting one of those professional style low center of gravity zero-turn riding mowers, but those cost anywhere from 3 to 5 grand depending on what you get. So instead I went with a traditional tractor style rider. Just about can't beat a John Deere either. As long as you don't totally abuse them, they'll last virtually forever.

I had been mowing the whole yard with a self-propelled push mower, but that thing was never meant to cut almost 2 acres once a week, and after about 3 or 4 years of using it now, it was wore the fuck out and ready to be retired. NICE AS FUCK not to have to hoof it pushing that old pile of shit Honda around the yard in the muggy Georgia summer heat anymore. Took out the John Deere yesterday and what used to take me 5 to 6 hours over 2 days with the push mower only took 2 hours on the new riding mower. HOLY FUCK, how fucking stupid have I been!?! Been killing myself trying to do this shit with a pusher. Should've done this years ago!

[Sgt. Dick]

Good Call, I bought a John Deere L100 about 10 years ago and It still runs great today.

[The Happy Friar]

Awesome.    I have ~1/2 acre of grass to cut.  A couple years ago I worked on the deck of our riding mower and specifically told the kids to NOT drive it, I wanted to test and make sure I didn't do something wrong first. Well, they drive it and I forgot to put a washer between on there and about $200 worth of damage happened.  So... I told them that since they didn't listed to me they had to use the push mower. 

Turns out they use 1/3rd the gas and do it in the same amount of time so I have no plans to fix the riding. 

[Whirlingdervish]

I have gardeners for my grass. It's glorious.

I used to use a 10hp toro riding mower yeeeears ago that looks about that size, at this church/school where I was the maintenance guy. It served double duty as a little truck to haul shit around and a mower so I got our money's worth.
I'd cut the fields and such with it, but most of the time I used it to haul dirt/sand/gravel around while I was fixing irrigation lines and it was invaluable when I did a few hundred feet of paver walkways.

little cart hooked up behind it and I could drag around bricks and railroad ties and such all day long and save my ass from having to wheelbarrow everything from my maintenance shed to the other end of the campus.

the only downside was I had to reeeally look closely at the field for foreign objects when I mowed. One time it tossed a sizable plastic dinosaur that was hiding in the long grass, all the way over the fence and dented someone's car in the parking lot.

[haunted]

I pay kyuss 10 bucks and a burrito to mow my yard.

[|iR|Focalor]

I remember one time when I was probably 15 or 16 using that old Snapper riding mower to mow my grandmothers old yard. You had your forward movement pedal directly on the right side of the steering column between your knees, and on the left side there was a spring loaded L-shaped metal piece that you could push over to the right through the steering column which would catch on the lever of the forward pedal on the right side to hold it down like cruise control. Well one time I was cutting up on the side of this ditch that ran through the back of the yard. I should have been going straight up or straight down the side of the ditch like any intelligent rational person would, but no, I was a fucking impatient genius just trying to get done faster... well it's probably a 30 degree bank, and the damn thing started to tip over on me. My life flashed in front of my eyes, all 15 retardedly short years of it, because there was no safety feature to stop the blade if you get off the mower. I fall off sideways down into the bottom of the ditch, and I was praying the mower would only roll onto it's side and stop and NOT ginsu my ass into a million pieces. Instead, it plopped back down on its wheels and continued on into the neighbors corn field where it mowed down probably 30 corn stalks before I got to it to stop it.

[Sgt. Dick]

I pay kyuss 10 bucks and a burrito to mow my yard.

 

[The Dreaming Dragon]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/online-pornography#pornhub