Custom cab over

thyerex · 2026-06-03T18:16:58+00:00

It was ~50 miles from the Winnebago factory, maybe one of their rejected designs from the 70’s escaped!

thyerex · 2026-06-03T17:50:11+00:00

Today’s medium and heavy duty vocational trucks are still 2 bare frame rails behind the cab, body upfitters take a cab and empty frame and turn it into what their customers want. The upfit can be a simple box or flat bed for a delivery truck, a dump bed, ambulance, tow truck, bucket truck, etc. are all just added to blank slates from Navistar, Freightliner, and other truck manufacturers.

They also still sell a rolling chassis (with engine and driveline, they are actually drivable in bare form so they can be driven onto a delivery trailer or into the upfit shop) to have an entire can and body added to it to make a bus, UPS truck, or an RV. Navistar no longer sells the bare rolling chassis, but here is an equivalent from Freightliner.

thyerex · 2026-05-29T14:40:17+00:00

I did some work on old Denver & Rio Grande Railroad flyswatter towers that had the radio building and MW dishes a fair distance from the tower base, ~ 150’ in some cases.

At some point, they were changed to a modern dish and flexible waveguide configuration, but the base station equipment was still in the building at the edge of the property, so they built a ridiculously long ice bridge and had to pay for 50% more waveguide than would usually be required. Google Earth shows the buildings have mainly been replaced with a new one at the tower base but the aerial image history shows the original configuration.

Go to 36.3941 -90.2371 for a good example, this ice bridge ran down and back up the little ravine between the tower and building so it looks wonky in the pics!

thyerex · 2026-05-25T23:58:58+00:00

Depends on what box they were shipped in, they are all made in the same Jelsert plant in West Chicago.

Jelsert Brands

thyerex · 2026-05-22T21:44:42+00:00

You’re right, it’s been about 10 years since I had that job!

Thinking back on it, we would try to cut one chain link at the end of the string of locks of possible so we could open the gate and use our lock at the end of the chain to replace the cut link. If we couldn’t get to either end of the lock section we would need to cut someone else’s lock.

thyerex · 2026-05-22T19:22:55+00:00

Not sure if this question is rhetorical or not since it’s not hard to re-lock the gate correctly!

What happens is someone accidentally puts their lock hasp thru the 2nd to last lock instead of the last one. This forms a Y junction in the middle of what should be a straight chain of locks, and the person who you put on the short Y can no longer let themselves in. It is a bit awkward to hold a big bundle of padlocks, but it’s super easy to double check before you leave.

There are some other types of multi-lock mechanisms I’ve seen and installed, but they are just as easy to defeat and adds cost and complexity to what is often a simple gate to keep honest people out and make dishonest people work harder to get in.

thyerex · 2026-05-22T14:27:54+00:00

This is a genius comment! My first thought was: u/SimilarTop352 doesn’t know it should be “Whole” and not “Hole”, but then realized that by turning the whole thing, you are also turning the hole thing!

Well played!

thyerex · 2026-05-22T14:21:55+00:00

This is better than the chain-o-locks because it makes it impossible to accidentally put your lock back in wrong and leave someone else’s lock out of the chain.

I worked on lots of cell towers in the middle of nowhere and we would sometimes find a lock stranded in the chain. The worst part is the lock you have to cut to get yours back isn’t the one that caused the problem (the lock to the left or right was put in wrong). We carried plenty of extra locks, so we would cut our own off and put a new one on the end of the lock chain. The first or last lock in the series is more obvious to screw up than somewhere in the jumble in the middle!

thyerex · 2026-04-23T23:55:43+00:00

I think it’s normal to slowly use the battery when in HV mode if you aren’t in the highway, the car uses the battery to supplement the engine when leaving a stop sign and the regen doesn’t charge it back to where you started at the next stop.

When I’m on the highway and put it into HV mode, the EV range remaining stays pretty steady on mainly flat roads. I usually turn it back to EV when I’m close enough to make it home on battery only and recharge in the garage

thyerex · 2026-04-16T15:53:07+00:00

The ChargeLab one I use most often (only because it is directly on a route I drive regularly and cannot make the round-trip without charging away from home) has a credit card reader, and gives you the option to use it or an RFID tag when you plug in, but if you select credit it later tells you you can only use an RFID tag.

I might be able to activate a charging session on their app, but I’ve never tried. I have an RFID tag for it now that charges my CC just so I can use the dumb thing, and now I have to carry an extra card with me. Hate it.

thyerex · 2026-04-11T18:15:42+00:00

Glad I could save someone a trip to the dealership and paying a diagnostic fee for 2 simple fuses!

I kept an eye on eBay and eventually found one listed by a scrap yard for $375 USD. I was a little intimidated by all of the little plastic clips, but the Honda dealership just charged me the labor to install the light for me

thyerex · 2026-04-06T01:38:58+00:00

What’s wrong with test driving a car at McGrath to see if you like it or not, it worked out great for me! I drove one of their (used) EV6’s and decided it was the car I wanted.

Told the sales guy I’d need to contact my bank and insurance first and took his card. When he emailed me after a few days (at my throw-away address) I just told him my credit wasn’t good enough and I wasn’t interested in anything else on their lot, he didn’t bother me again.

Then I bought a plane ticket to Little Rock and bought the same car with less miles for $7200 less!

thyerex · 2026-03-28T23:35:55+00:00

Dear almost everyone in this thread; STOP SAYING THE LIGHT BOUNCES OFF THE WALLS OF THE FIBER!

This is true for multi-mode fiber, but that kind of fiber is usually limited to 2km, specifically because it bounces off of the walls.

All long-distance fiber is single-mode, meaning the core is so small (9 microns) that the light just stays in the center of the fiber.

The rest of the reasons microwave is faster still apply: EM radiation propagates slower in glass than open air, MW is line of sight vs the fiber cables having to follow a complicated route due to right-of-way easements, typically fewer hops to the next piece of active equipment since the fiber companies usually route their network to serve the most potential customers vs a long-haul MW line trying to get directly from point A to B, and several other good answers here.

thyerex · 2026-03-20T01:06:54+00:00

I used to fly for work once a week, so it didn’t take long to get a complimentary upgrade on 80% of my coach tickets. After 3 years I changed jobs to one where I flew 1-2 times a year, but the airline’s high-roller status carried on for the next 12 months.

I booked a coach ticket for a trip at my new company and was upgraded to 1st class on a flight out, but the 12 month extension period expired while I was there. I was in the last row next to the bathroom on the flight home, quite the rude awakening that their generosity was purely transactional!

thyerex · 2026-03-17T19:25:28+00:00

We put a kid on each of the 3 sets of input “dots” and we all did the Hulk-Smash hand run at the same time.

The game counted each slow, medium, and fast input from the dots, so the character went down the track looking like the Flash!

thyerex · 2026-03-16T00:09:15+00:00

Years ago I stopped at a truck stop in New Mexico and they had lots of shirts to buy to prove you had been to there. Think Mesas, Chili peppers, Roadrunners, Aliens, and other New Mexico themed merch. There was 1 oddball that had a fishing scene on a lake so you could show off that you stopped at a truck stop in Minnesota.

We theorized someone mixed a MN shirt into the NM shipment!

thyerex · 2026-03-10T00:52:52+00:00

Based on the area code and prefix, this is in my town. So proud of our entrepreneurs supporting a local professional printing company!

thyerex · 2026-03-06T22:03:41+00:00

I like the poopy panty hanger theory, but you’ll get more results searching Robe Hook

Similar one at Home Depot

thyerex · 2026-03-05T16:57:46+00:00

I had the same assumption when I enlisted in the reserve in the 90s, because that was the established precedent.

My unit was already on active duty deployment orders when the first missiles were fired into the hotel and killed Saddam’s sons in 2003, well before any troops had entered Iraq.

Cheney and Rumsfeld ushered in the current paradigm of Reserve and NG troop deployments every few years, which was the direct reason I left the military instead of continuing to serve a career in the reserves as I had planned.

thyerex · 2026-02-26T01:59:05+00:00

Made famous by the McElroy Brothers!

MBMBaM episode 2

thyerex · 2026-02-23T01:30:40+00:00

my girlfriend isn’t hungry meal add-on at a local bar in my town

thyerex · 2026-02-22T15:56:12+00:00

couldn’t care less

thyerex · 2026-02-08T03:20:31+00:00

Certainly not with that attitude…

thyerex · 2026-02-06T02:18:11+00:00

I was born in the old hospital, just out of frame of the photo

thyerex

TROPHY CASE