By Robert Emslie
In the 1950s atomic this and radioactive that was all the rage. The atom may be one of the smallest things around, but back then it was pretty big, especially when some crazy scientist decided to split one. Chrysler, always wanting to be the half-life of the party, offered this ad where three soon to be cancer victims transferred a radioactive set of points to the safety of an open metal cup after running wear tests on it. Fortunately they do have a lead-lined box for longer-term storage. That right there was practical imagination at work.
Last Call indicates the end of Hooniverse’s broadcast day. It’s meant to be an open forum for anyone and anything. Thread jacking is not only accepted, it’s encouraged.
Image: Vintage Everyday
Latest
Cars, Trucks, Bikes, Project Cars, DIY, Travel, Adventure, Podcast, Videos
Jeff Glucker
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the radioactive material for the Manhattan Project was produced, was not only a “Secret City” but also gave gospel-country crossover band The Oak Ridge Boys their name, as they were frequently brought in to entertain the townsfolk.
And while we have the WABAC machine all warmed up, and are talking about radioactive points, here’s Mary Tyler Moore cavorting about as “Happy Hotpoint”, the advertising mascot of the Hotpoint company.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldf12KsqT7M
I had a chance to visit part of the Oak Ridge facility in college. Very cool stuff going on there… more recently a Cobra built by additive manufacturing.
One of the reasons the Oak Ridge site was chosen was because the folks were eager to get work and NOT ASK QUESTIONS.
A friend of mine lives in west Knoxville, and drives by ORNL all the time. A very interesting place. Also around ORNL? Cemesto houses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemesto
The Atom is still an object of fascination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffO3_rxAUqs
Other than the 649.7hp difference, these cars seem remarkably similar to commute in.
http://bcove.me/qe5649kx
So how does making car parts radioactive help simulate wear and tear?
Surprisingly scientific explanation, confirmed by the ad text: They make one part radioactive, and leave the rest “cold”. Then they use the engine for a while, and measure the radioactivity (=amount of material transferred from the “hot” part) of the formerly “cold” components.
I doubt they still do this in machine engineering, but the concept of a radioactive tracer is used for PET imaging.
That’s the part I didn’t get. It’s sort of a way to measure pounding?
I guess so. The good news is that The Atom was replaced by
The Death Raylasers, maybe AFMs, improving the dress code in the lab tremendously.All the best atomic scientists wear jaunty plaid bow ties.
Considering he could put that lead cask between himself and the hot point there-by actually trying to follow the principles of ALARA, I’m not so sure about that 😉
Smart engineers!
There’s a new car in the engineerd™ family driveway. This is Gretel. A 2010 BMW 328xi. With 50k on the clock she’s just broken in. She has the 3.0L inline 6, which means 2/3 cars in my driveway are inline 6s. I’ve informed Mrs. engineerd™ that her next car will have to have an inline engine. With a bunch of creature comforts, this will be my DD and the family around town and highway cruising vehicle. That’ll save wear and tear on the Jeep and take some of the load off the wife’s Edge. The Edge is 4 years old and is about to click over to 100k miles.
Nice E90. I really like these…the last of the N/A I6, and the first Bimmer I ever drove (my sister’s). I was hooked immediately.
Hope you are prepared for the repair bills. Did the 2010 models still have dip sticks? I loved driving the 3 BMWs that I had, but the last one soured me on any BMW built after about 1993. At one time I had an all I-6 fleet of 3 vehicles (1992 Ford F-150, 2004 Trailblazer, 1996 BMW Z-3(S52 transplant))
It’s dipstickless. I’m prepared to pay extra for parts. I’ve got the Bentley manual for the E90 on order so I can do as much of the maintenance and repairs myself as possible. One of the best independent BMW shops in the state is only about 2 miles from my house, so they’ll be getting my business when I can’t or don’t have time to do the work. Luckily, now that I have 3 vehicles I can take my time on stuff and not have a deadline to get it done before I have to go to work the next day.
It is great having an extra vehicle. I have paid shops to just diagnose problems for me and then go fix them myself. Good luck.
Good grief, is that Hans Conreid? The things you have to do to make a living.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/15/132908725/5000-fingers-sings-again-a-seuss-rarity-revisited
That clip is from The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.
It was a huge flop in 1953, but a cult classic today. Written by Dr. Seuss, who also was the set designer, his touches are all over this film. Conreid’s character was an inspiration for Sideshow Bob, who has the same last name.
Watch it sometime, with or without a buzz going.
For all you Cornbinder fans out there:
Hemmings Find of the Day – 1978 International Scout II
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2015/06/19/hemmings-find-of-the-day-1978-international-scout-ii-2/
With 6,522 miles!
http://assets.hemmings.com/uimage/42705792-770-0.jpg?rev=1
That’s ridiculous. Even my International has managed more miles than that.
That does look nice. Someone has messed with it though as I see an aftermarket ballast resistor. My guess would be that when they had ignition problems they said screw this “black box” junk I’m putting a points distributor in it because I know how those work. The locking hubs have been replaced too, those are late model warn hubs not the old school warn hubs that would have had the IH logo on them if factory installed or purchased from the dealer.
That ad photo would have made a great album cover, for Kraftwerk, or DEVO.