by Flash Alexander | May 20, 2018 | Featured, Roxanne
Getting the right brake cylinders turned out to be an interesting pursuit. Prices ranging all over the place and no guarantee that the high price part isn’t the same exact thing as the low priced part. I purchased a $58 cylinder and a $9.95 cylinder and they were the exact same cheap Chinese part!
After completing the rear I was ecstatic when I did a hard hands free test brake from 45 MPH – She stopped straight and I could hear the rear tires skidding on the asphalt. That’s a good thing considering Roxanne was unloaded. After bragging to my wife and dog about what a great brake mechanic I’d become, the next morning out in the garage I found a pool of brake fluid under the drivers front wheel. Nooooooo!
Look at that chewed up metal. No wonder it was leaking. I suspect my hard braking got the cups to break free and move thus causing the new leakage. The shoes too were interesting. They appeared brand new with no wear. The front shoe had a tad bit of wear but the rear had none. Now I know why the howling squeaks and hard pull to the left were occuring.
After buttoning up the driver’s front I took her out for another aggressive braking test – WOW! Best braking since owning the truck! I decided to put off doing the passenger front brakes until after the Old Town Car Show. My repair technique is such that it tends to leave the truck up on jack stands for long periods of time when things don’t go according to plan. For example, with three wheels done, I managed to tear open or completely tear off the brake lines. So, some more parts acquisition and brake line bending, more time on jack stands. On the up side, I now also have new brake lines, though I’m not sure I needed them as the existing lines appeared to be in very good nick.
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Rock Auto Chinese Wheel Cylinder Bolt Hole Measurement 1950 B2B
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Wheel Cylinder Bolt Holes Alignment
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Brake Backing Plate Bolt Holes Measurement
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Old and New Wheel Cylinders
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Closeup of Wheel Cylinder Machined Surface w Washer
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1950 Dodge b2b Left Rear Brakes
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Old Mopar Parts Order – Wheel Cylinders and Fuel Sender
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Drivers Side Wheel Cylinder Exploded View
by Flash Alexander | Mar 5, 2018 | Featured, WordPress
Expertise:
Using simple css code on a page we can force that page to display a custom background of our choosing. On any WordPress website, every page has a CSS ID set on the Body tag. Looking at the page source the opening body tag looks like this for this page:
I can add css to the theme’s style.css to tell this specific page to use a custom background for the ‘body’. Something like this:
body#postid-1405{background-image: url('https://flashalexander.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Balloon-through-the-Clouds.jpg') no-repeat center top;}
This website’s content area is already using CSS to set the Coffee Cup background.
ERGO, if I am going to set a custom background for the page I’ll have to hide the content area background that is laying on top of the page. I use this css to accomplish the task:
#content-area{background:transparent;}
Putting it altogether, adding the following css to my stylesheet gives this page its own unique background:
body.postid-1405{
background-image: url(https://flashalexander.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Balloon-through-the-Clouds.jpg)!important;
background-size: cover;
}
body.postid-1405 #content-area{
background:transparent!important;
}
Take note of this: !important – It forces my css to override the existing css 🙂
All this assumes your using a child theme, where edits to the style.css file won’t be overwritten when the theme is updated. You ARE using a child theme aren’t you?!
Wang Chung
Chinese Philosopher
You’re an IDIOT if you don’t use a child theme.
by Flash Alexander | Feb 9, 2018 | Featured, Roxanne
She don’t have to put on the red light – because she’s got me! It had to be done. I’ve been looking for a vintage 1952 or earlier pickup without much luck for years. The ones I’ve found on Craig’s List totally freaked me out when Jan Baby and I checked them out in person. Finally, I found a prospect in
Montrose Colorado.
Gary & Kathleen Thompson posted a Craigslist ad for their 1950 Dodge B2B Pilothouse pickup truck. It had just the right amount of rust, ah er; “patina”. Not so much that it freaked me out, if you know what I mean. I drove the five hours out to Montrose and took her for a test drive. Wow, she runs and drives! The brakes were a little wonky – soft and pulled hard to the left, but I had already made up my mind.
Gary, a well known resto-mod builder having won more than one Best of
Show with his 1967 VW beetle. was asking for $4,500. I had exactly that much cash in my back pocket. Gary had two car hauling trailers too. I agreed to pay full price if he would haul the car the five hours to Fort Collins. He agreed, amazing!
I was a little concerned what Jan Baby was going to think when she learned I had spent our new kitchen countertop money on a 67 year old rusty pickup truck. After a ride around the block she just smiled, and a big smile to boot. You have to admit, I have the best wife ever. Molly, our faithful canine companion was pretty freaked out riding up in the cab. The rattling and engine noise wasn’t making here too comfortable. Still, she jumps right in when I open the door.
We’re not sure what the future holds for Roxanne. We don’t have the budget for a full restoration. For the time being we plan on keeping her safely running. Any work done I’ll be doing my best to git ‘er done – try each time to make her just a little better than she was before.
Follow my progress on Roxanne’s P15-D24 Thread 🙂
Dodge Hubcap – What color yellow is that?
Roxanne Enjoying the Morning Sun – 1680
Flash and Roxanne at Arapaho Bend Dec 2017
Arrival of Roxanne – Dodge B2B Pilothouse
1950 Dodge B-100 Pilot House Just Purchased 1
License Plate – Colorado 17 TT 160 1950
Old Town Car Show – Roxanne Tonemapped 1920×1080
Roxanne with New Tool Box
by Flash | Aug 5, 2015 | Bric-a-Brac, Downloads, Featured, plugins
Fooling around the past couple days I came up with a fun CSS3 graphic. The first incarnation was a simple html page, but after some thought I decided to integrate it into a WordPress theme as a shortcode by adding to the existing themes functions.php file. This worked great and further motivated me to create a plugin as well.
Cover Swing CSS Fun
Usage: Use shortcode
Your Title Here
Your body copy here... More
Where cover = complete file path to your cover image, link = url to more info website/page/post, title = Brief title.
Now in three exciting flavors!
- Shortcode by adding to any WordPress theme.
- Copy code in functions.php to your themes functions.php file
- Copy css from cover-swing-style.css to your theme’s style.css file.
- Copy images to your themes images folder. If one does not exist, simply copy the entire images folder to your theme folder.
- HTML – Requires no explanation.
- Plugin – Upload the plugin to your WordPress plugins folder and activate.
Demo
Raspberry Tea
You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.
-C S Lewis More
Download
by Flash | Jul 22, 2015 | Featured, Photoshop
Photoshop has a large following of devoted users, thanks to its intelligent design, user friendly interface and plethora of features. This list of the 300 best Photoshop resources speaks to the graphic editor package’s popularity. Pixel-perfect aficionados still feel more comfortable designing their mockups in Photoshop over any of its competitors; including illustration and sketch tools.
Recently I found myself in need of a work book mockup for a client project. The best I could do for my needs was a Pinterest image, which meant I had to start from scratch and create my own. Here I present to you my Spiral Bound Notebook Mockup as a free, no strings attached download. Add your own artwork to the Photoshop ‘Smart Object’ and VOILA!
Spiral Bound Notebook Mockup.zip (5.24mb)
by Flash | Apr 8, 2015 | Featured, Galleries and Display, HDR, Photoshop
New to me! After a three month search I finally found the truck I had been searching for, a Ford F-150 Supercrew 4×4 with the Triton 5.4 V-8. This truck had been patiently waiting for me in Windsor Colorado. Rose (yes I gave my truck a name) met most of my criteria. Low mileage (86K), Supercrew, no dents or dings, clean interior, power windows, cruise control, running boards and a tonneau bed cover.
The previous owner, Bill, appeared to have taken good care of the truck, though he lied to me about keeping it garaged and omitted the fact that the driver’s window had noise issues. That notwithstanding, I’m very happy with the truck. Bill was on top of oil changes, radiator flushes, had just installed new tires – the kind of tires that get good gas mileage and run quite rather than wicked looking giant mudders.
Easter weekend gave me the time I needed to get to know her. I spent about $100.00 in product, mostly Meguires and set about detailing the heck out of the truck; it took three days! When the final coat of was had been applied and buffed to an amazing shine, I drove Rose out to one of my favorite spots along Boxelder Ditch at 5:30 Easter Sunday morning, parked her on the railroad tracks (a train had just passed), pulled out my Nikon D500 and Bogen tripod. With the Nikkor 18-55 attached I took several bracketed shots with the intention of processing at least three consecutive into a HDR via Photomatix.
The shot came to life once processed and I was thrilled with the result. The full moon was a bonus I hadn’t counted upon.
Former photographer, now WordPress aficionado and website developer - spending most days working feverishly, passionately and relentlessly from a Fort Collins, Colorado basement; occasionally accompanied by Jan Baby (the wife), Zac (eldest son), Max (humorous son) and or Molly the dog.
Lunch is at noon, quitting time depends on whether or not I'm skipping out for a drop-in or stick & puck session; hockey eh?!
Friendly to a fault, chatty and wannabe humorous, generally a helpful kinda guy. Poke Flash Buddy on Skype (flashhq) or send a message.
