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  1. #1576
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    O.k. BERNIE , I'll own up to it------I lied to you !!! But only a bit, the guy my son Mark talked so well of he knows as ROBERT MINKS, not only that, you got it in one, so all that was left was for me to lie through my eye teeth-------just playing the "human poker game that's life", don't think too badly of me and I'll apologise sincerely.

    Maybe you can enlighten us here on how he worked his " Thunderbolt Ignition in to C.K.
    Is it Floyd or Robert?
    Thanks for taking part in the game anyway BERNIE.

  2. #1577
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    Always thought his name was Floyd - but that was 50 years ago and I might be wrong? Don't know the whole story, but seems I remember his first version of it he carried around in a five gallon bucket, then began the minituratization (sp?) of the system. First system might have been a 2 cylinder version only.
    Sideline story - two of the electrical guys at the St. Cloud FL Electrical Division were named Dick Tracy and Joe Barefoot. Old story goes when they went someplace and checked into a motel, gave their names, the clerk says "Yeah right", now what are your real names?

  3. #1578
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    [QUOTE=jackiewilson;2719439]OK, so nobody interested at all in a land speed car, don't blame you really, I got my mate Fish to stick £20 in the begging bowl at the F.O.S. When they showed the project in 2013, it's a couple of years behind schedule, but to be fair, what record attempt was ever on time except WARBY .

    Jackie, the Bloodhound job is active quite close to me, and having had the "guided tour" (along with many others.. I'm not that special) I can assure you your 20 British Pounds was put to good use.....not to sure which bit mind...........but somewhere inside on the "thingy" I'm sure.
    The boys down there waste nothing and are always mindful of where the funding comes from and behave accordingly......

    You may know the COSWORTH motor has been done away with.. not too sure of the reason political or technical for certain..before you ask I already
    did and it's gone back to the factory..

    A fellow visitor asked the tour guide feller what kind of safety features were in place to protect the pilote in the event of a high speed shunt......the guy
    sort of coughed some and looked down at his feet a spell and without raising his head told us that some things it was impossible to plan or even design
    for.....I'm pretty sure most of us got the gist of that one....................

    Some folks are I'm sure, are born different...then there is people like myself who get scared wearing thick socks??......Phill.

  4. #1579
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    [QUOTE=ron54;2719657]
    Quote Originally Posted by jackiewilson View Post
    OK, so nobody interested at all in a land speed car, don't blame you really, I got my mate Fish to stick £20 in the begging bowl at the F.O.S. When they showed the project in 2013, it's a couple of years behind schedule, but to be fair, what record attempt was ever on time except WARBY .

    Jackie, the Bloodhound job is active quite close to me, and having had the "guided tour" (along with many others.. I'm not that special) I can assure you your 20 British Pounds was put to good use.....not to sure which bit mind...........but somewhere inside on the "thingy" I'm sure.
    The boys down there waste nothing and are always mindful of where the funding comes from and behave accordingly......

    You may know the COSWORTH motor has been done away with.. not too sure of the reason political or technical for certain..before you ask I already
    did and it's gone back to the factory..

    A fellow visitor asked the tour guide feller what kind of safety features were in place to protect the pilote in the event of a high speed shunt......the guy
    sort of coughed some and looked down at his feet a spell and without raising his head told us that some things it was impossible to plan or even design
    for.....I'm pretty sure most of us got the gist of that one....................

    Some folks are I'm sure, are born different...then there is people like myself who get scared wearing thick socks??......Phill.
    Heard tell they replaced the Cosworth with a Jaguar, sounds like a bit of Richard Nobles string pulling , let's be honest , he's a master at it.

    What makes you think any one who ever ran a boat is different from anybody else . Do you think those guys who rush out to be first out to the fishing grounds with a dozen rods and pair of 300 Verados feel much different to the dad Who pulls his kid up onto a pair of skis for the first time in a 15' boat with a 50 hp MERJONRUDE on its bum.
    Its a bug, a virus, a sickness, a disease and it's addictive and affects you for the rest of your life, they call it simply POWERBOATING,

    IF you want to get into safety cells, you need look no further than the problems WARBY'S having with the UIM and capsules. Go to the "world water speed record attempt" thread.
    Me, being a simple, common sense sort of person, would have thought the number one person in the world to know ANYTHING AT ALL about capsules capable of 150mph + ( which is the starting point for these things) would be a certain Kenneth WARBY ---------do the said mentioned UIM ask this person for guidance and advice on which direction they should be travelling-----------not so bloody likely! WE IN OUR WISDOM WILL TELL YOU WHAT TO DO,!
    They probably go to work on 150 mph bikes------and sit at 150mph desks all day dreaming up ways of justifying their existance which is infinitely harder than building a 150 mph safety cell.

    most of the UIM commisioners know very little about boating and myself would not pay them in penny washers-------most of 'em are a waste of a good skin.

    Anybody care to comment?

  5. #1580
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    Racers
    Quote Originally Posted by bernie View Post
    Always thought his name was Floyd - but that was 50 years ago and I might be wrong? Don't know the whole story, but seems I remember his first version of it he carried around in a five gallon bucket, then began the minituratization (sp?) of the system. First system might have been a 2 cylinder version only.
    Sideline story - two of the electrical guys at the St. Cloud FL Electrical Division were named Dick Tracy and Joe Barefoot. Old story goes when they went someplace and checked into a motel, gave their names, the clerk says "Yeah right", now what are your real names?
    Bernie, had a long talk on FaceTime with Mark again today, he got Floyd Minks name wrong calling him ROBERT -------he first did some prop work for Floyd when he was with Rolla in Switzerland nearly 20 years ago.
    He explained the boat is a RIB, near 40' he reckons with a single Arneson drive.
    Reckon he may have known Howard Arneson, who is a friend of Mark and Phil Rolla anyways !!!

    Upshot of all this BERNIE is that Floyd Minks is exactly what this thread is all about "Tricks that racers get up to when they retire" so will try and get him to tell us what he used to get up to in Fon Du lac. Mark says you can tell he's a retired engineer simply by listening to him talk.

    As usual it's damn near falling asleep time, eyelids are drooping, church clock is striking midnight, truce for now-----we'll start all over again tomorrow , MYGGWY.J.

  6. #1581
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    Quote Originally Posted by jackiewilson View Post
    Racers

    Bernie, had a long talk on FaceTime with Mark again today, he got Floyd Minks name wrong calling him ROBERT -------he first did some prop work for Floyd when he was with Rolla in Switzerland nearly 20 years ago.
    He explained the boat is a RIB, near 40' he reckons with a single Arneson drive.
    Reckon he may have known Howard Arneson, who is a friend of Mark and Phil Rolla anyways !!!

    Upshot of all this BERNIE is that Floyd Minks is exactly what this thread is all about "Tricks that racers get up to when they retire" so will try and get him to tell us what he used to get up to in Fon Du lac. Mark says you can tell he's a retired engineer simply by listening to him talk.

    As usual it's damn near falling asleep time, eyelids are drooping, church clock is striking midnight, truce for now-----we'll start all over again tomorrow , MYGGWY.J.
    Retired Engineers: Quick Story. ​I was working at the Lake one night about 1999 - my phone rings, it's the owner of a large Stamas powerboat with a pair of big Mercs - Stamas had given him my cell phone number. The guy is a retired aerospace engineer, and every time anything with the engines hiccupped, he was on the phone to Stamas, and they gave him my cell phone number. Alex (Charles Alexander, who was at Lake X working on the Dueces High engine) was sitting in the office listening to my conversation. After the conversation ended, I looked at him and said "No reflection on you sir, but these damn retired engineers are a real pain in the ass! He had a good chuckle over that.
    Last edited by bernie; 01-10-2015 at 07:23 PM.

  7. #1582
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    Jaguar Indian
    Cosworth American
    ?

  8. #1583
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    Quote Originally Posted by powerabout View Post
    Jaguar Indian
    Cosworth American
    ?
    Alas no Pilgrim, not any more.
    Jaguar wholly Indian owned.
    Land / Range Rover Indian owned.
    BMW BMW owned [German]
    MG wholly Chinese owned.

    I have to take ten steps back and ask myself "who the hell won what in 39/46"
    The colonials fared no better Just look at Detroit.

    I visit Florida fairly regularly and have done since 1969---------The difference on the U S. car scene is almost as bad as England.
    Skyline is mostly Chinese, Japanese,Vietnamese, Korean, following close behind come the Germans a spattering of French, Spanish and English .
    I think i saw a couple of the old well remembered American Marques, but like most of the English makes they are dead and buried.

  9. #1584
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    Quote Originally Posted by powerabout View Post
    Jaguar Indian
    Cosworth American
    ?
    Alas no Pilgrim, not any more.
    Jaguar wholly Indian owned.
    Land / Range Rover Indian owned.
    Rolls Royce. BMW owned [German]
    MG wholly Chinese owned.
    Cosworth, VEE-DUB owned.

    I have to take ten steps back and ask myself "who the hell won what in 39/46"
    The colonials fared no better Just look at Detroit.

    I visit Florida fairly regularly and have done since 1969---------The difference on the U S. car scene is almost as bad as England.
    Skyline is mostly Chinese, Japanese,Vietnamese, Korean, following close behind come the Germans a spattering of French, Spanish and English .
    I think i saw a couple of the old well remembered American Marques, but like most of the English makes they are dead and buried.

  10. #1585
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    Quote Originally Posted by bernie View Post
    Retired Engineers: Quick Story. ​I was working at the Lake one night about 1999 - my phone rings, it's the owner of a large Stamas powerboat with a pair of big Mercs - Stamas had given him my cell phone number. The guy is a retired aerospace engineer, and every time anything with the engines hiccupped, he was on the phone to Stamas, and they gave him my cell phone number. Alex (Charles Alexander, who was at Lake X working on the Dueces High engine) was sitting in the office listening to my conversation. After the conversation ended, I looked at him and said "No reflection on you sir, but these damn retired engineers are a real pain in the ass! He had a good chuckle over that.
    Keep 'em coming Bernie-------been praying for someone like you to come along and revive this thread.
    Alex was always one of my favourite Mercury people, he even came to visit Joe and me in the Needles hospital, he tried hard not to crack out laughing when he saw us both plastered up to our eyeballs, Is he still with us ?.
    The other guy Mark got mixed up with [namewise] was Robert Noyce, another old retired engineer who is well into boating.
    Did you ever get tied up in the original V6 development Bernie ? Mark and i bought it with the intention of putting it on the back of a missile or whatever Cadillac has kicking about in his back yard.
    The motor spins free and theres gotta be enough parts skulling around to put the damn thing together. Will give Rich or Roger a nudge , been trying to save them for the Cosworth project which Mark is finally talking about.
    Penske was a great friend of Duckworths and must know where there's some DFV bits lurking about.
    The centrifugal clutch will be difficult but is not beyond the wit of man.
    There's a light at the end of the tunnel on Marks superboat, he's hoping to launch it in april/may, then he'll have time to do some of the other things we have in mind. He's been on it four years now.

    By the way Rich and Roger, the Riva Rudy is up for sale if you know anyone who might take a nibble [ or maybe a whole bite], he needs the room to do the cosworth.
    Any old engineers who want to get involved in bringing the V6 back to life, it will all happen in Stuart, FL. feel free to drop by, make yourself known, Mark lives there most hours of the day seven days a week, though he tells me once the boats done he's selling the house and moving in with the three kids alternate weeks and living on the boat. Lunchtime gotta go, talk later.

  11. #1586
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    I didn't have much envolvment in the first V6 - I was in Mercury manufacturing around that time frame, I remember a fellow bringing secret crankshafts into our plant to get them broached, splined, and heat treated, I was Chief Inspector then and one of my layout guys would blue up the splined end and mark where the first tooth was to be cut. We also made the con rods, when production forging dies were being produced by an outside source, they would lead or plaster cast a rod from the un-heat treated dies and then we would measure everything - then tooling and engineering would approve/disapprove the sample and away we would go making thousands of them. I was in charge of gauging things like the size,straightness, bore roundness, parallelism, surface finish, and hardness of the finished rod. I was racing stock outboard hydros during this time period - that consumed my weekends and most weeknights - no factory support for stock racers, even though it was the largest segment of APBA at the time. I was one of the "middle of the pack" racers usually, the APBA Region 7 was a hotbed of stock racing - had the Berghauers, Hank Menzies, Wil Pergande, Brian Berger, the Stippich brothers - tough competitors with more money than I had.

  12. #1587
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    Quote Originally Posted by bernie View Post
    I didn't have much envolvment in the first V6 - I was in Mercury manufacturing around that time frame, I remember a fellow bringing secret crankshafts into our plant to get them broached, splined, and heat treated, I was Chief Inspector then and one of my layout guys would blue up the splined end and mark where the first tooth was to be cut. We also made the con rods, when production forging dies were being produced by an outside source, they would lead or plaster cast a rod from the un-heat treated dies and then we would measure everything - then tooling and engineering would approve/disapprove the sample and away we would go making thousands of them. I was in charge of gauging things like the size,straightness, bore roundness, parallelism, surface finish, and hardness of the finished rod. I was racing stock outboard hydros during this time period - that consumed my weekends and most weeknights - no factory support for stock racers, even though it was the largest segment of APBA at the time. I was one of the "middle of the pack" racers usually, the APBA Region 7 was a hotbed of stock racing - had the Berghauers, Hank Menzies, Wil Pergande, Brian Berger, the Stippich brothers - tough competitors with more money than I had.

    First time I ever set foot on US soil was in Chicago Ill, drove up to Fon-du-Lac, then up to Oshkosh , was with Don Ross. Gave Renato a lift up to the best western motel and managed to get arrested on the way up there in a snowstorm.
    I was running a steady 65 doing nobody any harm, I thought the flashing lights were an ambulance trying to get by-----turned out it was a really pissed off highway patrol officer-----his opening words were, " Hey, you with the big lead foot, get outa the car"

  13. #1588
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    Narrated the tale of our arrest and four hours in Oshbergs pokey last night but must have overrun the allotted time, could not post it and when I hit the "RESTORE CONTENT" button it showed less than 25% of what I'd written---------BUMMER.
    IT's done that to me before.
    Now, I have to sign in with my new password EVERY TIME, I use the site.
    From here on in you'll be getting short and sweet messages, was well turned midnight before I logged off, hate wasting my time.
    Im sure most of you have heard the tale before, but if I don't have much to say sometime soon I may get back to it.

    Do not mess with the French Police, they are even harder than the Chinese ------terminate the buggers, saves money, court time, and in this day and age is probably the way to go.

  14. #1589
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    Secret of being a good father is to make sure your kids know you love them!!
    Secret of being a Great dad is to make sure each of your kids knows you love him or her Most!

    Thats a Wilsonism I got to thinking about in the shop today, just thought I'd share it with you.

    All last weeks efforts came together in a rush, 6coats of varnish on four of the spalted beech items, but the last piece was a dog eared, worm eaten lump of Holly but beautifully marked, played with it for a couple of days and just knew that nothing but beeswax would do for the finish. I called it "BOO" after one of my daughters, maybe you can figure it out------will do phoggie for you-----see what you think.

  15. #1590
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    Went to see my doctor today, good news is I'm in good shape, bad news is, because I had 3 strokes in under 6 weeks I get an automatic 3 month ban. As you can imagine that went down like a turd in a punchbowl and I have to inform my insurance company. On top of that I have to appear before the DVLC TO TELL THEM WHY I SHOULD BE DRIVING AT 83.
    So at the best the insurance company will put the premium up into outer atmosphere -------at worst, there will be no chance of getting a licence.
    Medical insurance for travel to the USA last year cost well over $3,000, they won't even consider it this year at any price.
    i am fit to use machinery in the workshop and I can fly (in a plane of course).
    If any one out there got an ageing nag, pony and trap, decrepit donkey or maybe a Sinclair C 5 going begging feel free to give me a call.
    All in all I've had better days and better tidings but I'm still here, middlin health with all my marbles, lost a bit of top speed but can still trundle along and bore the crap OUTA the colonials on line, don't suppose Lifes that bad after all. MYGGWY.J.

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