We always take jackstands for granted, because they are one of the go to safety items in every garage. When there was a recall on some of them from Harbor Freight last year it was crazy how many people were up in arms. I have lots of Harbor Freight jackstands, but none that fell under the recall, no pun intended. With that said, we all throw a set under the car and climb under without much concern as long as they are sitting flat when we let the jack down on them. And nobody ever thinks about just how much load is on them or how much load they are rated for.
With most weight rated items there is a safety factor. I’ve been told this is 3 times the rating, but I’m not sure if that is true. So just how much will a jackstand hold up compared to its rating? And does the design really matter? Are aluminum stands really strong enough to use with your muscle cars, trucks, etc? Watch this video and you will find out just how strong they really are. And just how catastrophic their failure can be! The destruction ends with a broken window in the hydraulic press room.
I grew up in auto shops and at race tracks where tires were always balanced after being installed on a set of wheels. At my Grandpa’s or my Uncle’s shops it was super common place and I learned at my Grandpa’s on an old fashioned Bubble Balancer. Later on I would learn to use a Hunter rotational balancer at my Uncle’s shop, and would mount and balance wheels all the time. But the bubble balancer never went away, because every single Firestone, Goodyear, or Mickey Thompson slick that my dad ever had installed at the track was balanced with a bubble balancer. And if you go to the track today, Goodyear, MT, and Hoosier all have bubble balancers in their trailers and use them for slicks. Some of them do have newer digital rotational balancers as well, but these can only be used for smaller tires. In the drag radial world there are even folks who claim no balancing is needed. I don’t happen to subscribe to that philosophy myself, as I want a smooth drive on the road and no shaking when going fast on the track.
In this Tech Tip Tuesday, Doug from Motion Raceworks shows you how he balances his drag radials for his VERY low 7 second Nova and what he uses to do it. He also has some tips on weights for racing. Watch and learn and go buy a balancer.
Fitzee’s Fabrications is building a car that he calls Crusty, because it is just that. Because the car is getting built into a cool drag car, and a ton of the rusty crusty bits have to be cut out anyway to build the chassis, cage, floors, firewall, and tubs, it was no big thing. Luckily Fitzee is a specialist at sheetmetal fabrication and repair, and he not only makes it look easy, but also explains how you too can make it easy. His tips and tricks, methods, and attitude are enough to inspire anyone to do rust repair. I have learned so much from watching him and a couple other guys online that I know I’ll be more comfortable doing rust repair and sheetmetal fabrication than I’ve ever been. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done rust repairs, body mods like shaved handles, and plenty of fabrication, but I’ve never been a body guy. I have done repairs and made them ready for bodywork, but I would never have considered myself super comfortable with it. But Fitzee is confidence inspiring!
Seriously, watch this, learn, be inspired, and check out the new project. It’s a 1970s Corolla, that’s going to have a custom chassis, cage, turbo LS combo, with leaf springs out back and a Mustang II up front. This is going to be a fun little car and we totally approve. He’s planning to stretch and resize the rear wheel openings because he’s going to have more tire than will fit the stock opening, and the entire project is being built on a budget. Anything that can be fabricated instead of being bought, will be, and we love him for it.
Call it a toll of war, call it experience by years, but it is just a true, frank statement: I know way too many people who are missing limbs. Many have lost hands, feet, legs, eyesight and in many cases their minds as well. And that’s before we get into other issues, such as disease, accidents and the C-word that I can say in public. When humans started out on this planet, missing limbs all but promised that you were not going to eat well, and that if a big cat suddenly decided you were dinner…well, so long. Then it became a matter of public hindrance, a disability. Peg-legged sailors, riflemen with the sleeve sewn shut where an arm should have been. Nowadays, prosthetics are borderline unreal. From a basic foot extension that assists with balance to the radical neuroprosthetic technologies that are being studied and tested, what you can get away with via prosthetic devices today is nothing short of amazing. Handicapped? Not as much as you might think.
The amazing thing about this home-built aluminum hand…itself, a pretty loaded group of words…isn’t that it was built at home, or that it functions as well as it does. The fingers can splay, they can grip, they can form a fist, that’s pretty solid for a home-built unit. No, the impressive thing is that it was built at home by your narrator…you know, the man who actually needed the prosthetic because he is missing a good portion of his hand? As he shows off the latest generation of his device, you’ll pick up on the improvements he’s made along the way, such as the move away from 3D-printed fingers (too fragile).
“I built my own artificial hand, and it works great.” How do you follow up a gem like that?
Strategic Partnership To Develop Future-Proof Cars
Mercedes-Benz, one of the world’s oldest and most-respected premium automakers, is taking a big step into the future by partnering with super chipmaker Nvidia to create a new generation of software-defined cars. The plan is to embed a high-powered processor to power the software of all Mercedes, starting in 2024, allowing original software to be updated and new software to be downloaded, creating what potentially could be a 20-year-old car with state-of-the-art technology inside.
Starting in 2024 Mercedes cars will have a new operating system
Ola Källenius, chairman of the board of management of Daimler AG, joined Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, to make the announcement online today. They said this “perpetually upgradeable machine” will offer “endless possibilities” to the customer, eventually ranging up to full autonomous operation, and open up a new business model for the automaker. The companies added that thousands of engineers in Silicon Valley and Germany would be dedicated to creating updated software and new technology for the cars over the life of the vehicle.
The chip that is the foundation of this new system is the next-generation Nvidia Drive AGX Orin, which will have multiple processing engines for high-performance, energy-efficient computing and artificial intelligence (AI), and will come equipped with an array of sensors. It will be capable of processing 200 trillion operations per second (TOPS). As Huang described it, the chip will “solve problems that ordinary computers can’t solve.” It also is designed with built-in headroom “for things that haven’t been invented yet.”
Of course, for automakers 2024 is right around the corner given the timeline for new model development. For chipmakers like Nvidia, the development cycle is shorter, but in this case the chip is “still being designed.” The commitment promises a long-term involvement and further growth even after initial deployment. The joint vision of the companies is to offer “the ability to automate driving of regular routes from address to address” as well as deliver additional safety and convenience applications.
The New Car Business
In some ways this is a traditional automaker trying to catch up to a disrupter, in this case Tesla. The Palo Alto electric car maker has taken a different approach than incumbent auto companies, eschewing annual model changes (or even designating annual models), minimizing redesigns, but utilizing over-the-air (OTA) updates to add new software and features to customer’s cars. The most recent example was an OTA software change that extended the range of Tesla batteries to more than 400 miles on a charge.
The Nvidia chip that will power it all
When asked about this, Källenius deferred talking about a competitor, but noted that all new software from Mercedes would have a safety focus, be fully tested and meet industry standards, a not too subtle jab at Tesla’s pattern of rolling out beta versions of its software (and hardware) for use by customers.
Huang said with the advent of the 2024 Mercedes equipped with this new technology “the definition of a car will change forever,” with the newly purchased becoming the “starting point” for what a car could be.
Källenius added that the concept of “updates for the life of the vehicle” moves the automobile closer to the “iPhone on wheels.” Since Mercedes, working with Nvidia, has already created MBUX, the automaker’s proprietary infotainment systems that incorporate AI, this is logical extension of that relationship.
Mercedes is not worried about this new approach to automaking changing its sales cycle, although Källenius admitted it could impact things. In the same way this is a reinvention of the traditional automobile, he said Mercedes would need to continue to reinvent luxury in order for new vehicles to appeal to new buyers. In the meantime, older vehicles would be serviced by “engineering angles in the background” to keep customers allied to the Mercedes brand.
Changed Relationships
Not coincidently, I’m sure, Mercedes announced earlier this month that it was putting its joint work with rival BMW on autonomous vehicles on hold. Källenius said the major difference between the two German companies was a matter of timing. It seems clear Mercedes-Benz is ready to move ahead more rapidly.
The Perpetual Upgradable Machine
He also clarified the most recent direction from the company on its autonomous vehicle technology. While Mercedes had been working with supplier Robert Bosch on robotaxi concepts, Källenius said the company now believes full autonomy will first appear in its heavy-duty trucks used in hub-to-hub operations.
Similarly, Nvidia said the Mercedes relationship was not exclusive and the company would continue to work as it does today with a variety of automakers.
Nvidia engineers will be writing code and Mercedes engineers will be working on the first vehicles that will incorporate this new system over the next three years. Mercedes said it will roll out the Nvidia system as new models are introduced, but significantly that it will cross the entire product line, pointedly not a feature exclusive to the high-end models. It looks like cars of the future will be tied to the cloud as much as to any dealership on terra firma as auto companies continue their move to become mobility companies.
In these cars software will define them
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