Bad start to a great weekend.

I got to instruct at our local novice school this weekend. Man, had a great time. Had a couple of students tell me that I really helped. One told me that I made it fun for him- that was neat. And a couple of them sought me out for rides on the course in the afternoon. Really made my weekend!

Which is good, 'cause it got off to a bad start. Loading up for the trip (autocross today) two of my Spinwerkes wheels and Hoosiers with two events on them were stolen. Long story, but there was about a five minute window when they were sitting on the parking pad behind my house (in a good neighborhood) unattended. Can't believe it. Hell of it is they were almost certainly taken as scrap metal to be recycled. Quick way to burn through $1,200 or so. And it'll take a couple of months to get two new ones made.

But, I was determined not to let it ruin my weekend (after a good rant and some sobbing). Nothing to do about it, so I'm really trying to put it behind me. Ran Tom Celica on it's really bad street tires. Obviously not fast, but I do think I learned something for the experience.

Ah, well. I did have a great weekend with friends and family. So, you know. What are you gonna do?

Sorry to hear that. This metal recycling thing has really gotten out of hand. Last week when I got to work, someone had taken a sawzall and cut off our outdoor water actuator for the sprinkler system (which essentially is like a big faucet) from the side of the building. So we had a 20 foot geyser with the whole parking lot full of water. The cop said they use a battery operated sawall and get in and out within a few seconds. So all that water wasted and who knows how big the water bill will be as it might have been going on for hours. Apparently they had done the same thing to other local business's in the area and taken some some copper gutters and down spouts from a nearby church. We had to replace our actuator with a PVC one as we were told they would come back and take it again if it was replaced with a metal one. Total cost to replace with new brass fitting $200-$300. Total recycling value $2-$5.

Really sorry to hear about the wheels. I'd really like to see some harsh penalties for recyclers who accept stolen metal, but it would be really hard to enforce.

As obvious at it might seem for somebody to show up with a bunch of sprinkler actuators that were obviously cut off and stolen, all it would take is for one contractor to show up with the same thing from a demolition project and get hassled for the whole thing to blow up.

My weekend started out great and ended ok but in the middle - was filled with awful.

A good friend blew his motor at NJMP last weekend so we were swapping in a JY replacement. We had beer... great so far...

All buttoned up - won't start. Compression, fine. Leak-down, fine. Fuel, Si. Spark... yes... but seems like the timing is off. Hours are ticking away while we check everything... but it really seems like the timing is off. Finally, I pull the valve cover and bring the motor to TDC by aligning the cams and using a dial in cyl 1... the berkeleying gear wheel on the crank (that generates the signal to the ignition timing) does not agree. Someone pulled the guide pin and installed the berkeleying thing about 45 degrees rotated. WTF!?!?!?!?!

Aligned the wheel, hit the switch and brapppp! Alive and well. A whole beautiful sunny day shot to hell. Now I can't sleep wondering why someone would do that. Junkyard joke? Reason a perfectly good low miles engine winds up in a JY in the first place? Bizarre timing trick for running a different firing order?

People who steal metal for scrap should be cut up and sold for scrap.

Brett_Murphy wrote: Really sorry to hear about the wheels. I'd really like to see some harsh penalties for recyclers who accept stolen metal, but it would be really hard to enforce. As obvious at it might seem for somebody to show up with a bunch of sprinkler actuators that were obviously cut off and stolen, all it would take is for one contractor to show up with the same thing from a demolition project and get hassled for the whole thing to blow up.

a lot of municipalities/states ... etc .... are starting to require picture ID before accepting scrap metal ... cooper for sure and I've heard for other metals as well ... can't see where a legitimate contractor would have a problem with that

Someone took the air conditioner units that were outside the back wall of the brewery when it was still in Harrisburg. Same deal, Sawzall'd the pipes and took the whole unit.

Good work teaching at the autocross. I had an instructor ride along a couple times, and it helped a whole lot. He was a new instructor, too, but he still helped me with the basics.

I work in home preservation company for bank and fund owned homes. We install metal cages over HVAC units in for sale houses. Thick square tubed steel run into concrete footers covering the units. Anything less and they will be cut up and tossed to the side. On commercial buildings we have alarms on the units that go off if anyone opens them up. We should have heeded out own advice, they got our office building (50,000sf) with a 24' deck height for all the units. Insurance claim was north of 50k.

We have trucks that cruise our alleys looking for steel constantly. I wouldn't be surprised if there where turf wars that go on over it. I placed a couple of wood sides to a baby crib that had been converted into child's bed out in the alley a month or so back. I had the bolts for it in a zip lock bag taped to the wood in case I ever needed to find them. They took the bolts out of the bag. Amazing.

Stolen scrap metal sucks. There was a story on the peachparts board where someone had 2 cars stolen and found out they had been taken to a scrap place, and as soon as someone at the business found out they wanted to come get the cars they crushed them both, ridiculous.