On Saturday, 6 September 1997, at 09:26 elkhart@juno.com writes:
>I have done the Vega rim treatment to "Old Smuckers". Three rims were
free
>and the fourth was $10.
What is the Vega rim treatment, and what are the advantages? I now own a
'79 Midget (Molly Maguire), and used to own several Vegas, including a
'72 with a 400 cid small-block V8. Somewhere (in all the 'car stuff' I
have stashed hither and yon) I have a set of stock Vega wheels, as well
as a couple of sets of aftermarket wheels.
The remainder is well off-topic, so you may safely ignore it.
Sorry to hear of someone stealing parts from your car. What annoys me
the most is that even if caught, the thieving @#$% aren't really going to
be punished. Occasionally, however, you run into instances of justice:
when I was in the military, a young soldier from my unit decided that my
car stereo was not being treated well, and attempted to liberate it so
that it might go to a better home. This was before I discovered the the
joys of LBCs, and owned a 1975 Chevrolet Monza with a small-block 388 cid
V8 as a daily driver (I liked to go as fast as possible in a straight
line).
I discovered him with his head under the dash, laying across the front
seat with his legs sticking out the door. After I administered a
disabling punch (given his position, I'll leave to your judgement as to
where the punch landed), a buddy and I restrained him until the sergeant
on CQ Duty arrived. This sergeant was the thief's squad leader.
Because incidents are reported up the chain of command and cause problems
back down (if a soldier living in the barracks does something 'bad,'
everyone living in the barracks suffers as a result), we worked out a
deal where I would report the incident to the first sergeant and ask that
the soldier be assigned to extra duty as non-judicial punishment. Part
of the understanding was that the soldier would repair the damage he did
to my car, and any other work to it that I needed, on his time, for one
month.
I had him replace the dash (did a better job than I could have done),
clean the undercarriage (twenty-years of accumulated grease and grime),
pick all the rocks out of the tire treads (daily), and clean and polish
both sides of the wheels (and since I had never cleaned the
backsides...), along with clean the interior, wash, wax, etc, etc. The
upshot is that the kid learned just how much people put into their cars,
and developed a bit more respect for other people's property. I wouldn't
say that we became friends, but after he bought a project car, he would
occasionally ask me for help and advice -- and you should have heard him
go off when someone stole the wheels from *his* car.
Rich Arnold
Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA
richard.arnold@juno.com
"It is wise to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties."
James Madison ca. 1791
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