Horns, gas prices,movie props, stuckness, BW auto trannies

[Jim Grammer <jimg@domain.elided>]

Listers(sounds better than Digesters, maybe goes toward the beer thread 
tho'),

After 4 l-o-n-g days with no connection to our ISP.....

Horns:

I've found that adding an extra stock Delco unit to a good working set of 
stock hi/los(make sure both are actually workin if ya got 'em) and being 
careful to face the trumpet straight out the front is quite effective. 
Almost nothing on the road anymore has horns that loud, so it gets folks 
attention(along with the sheer size and relative ugliness of most of my 
rigs). The couple of times I've had occasion to use it on pedestrians I 
'almost' felt bad for them 'cause they just about jumped out of their skin. 
If only the rest of the world would learn to 'Honolulu' recalcitrant bipeds 
;)

Gas prices:

I have clear memories(amazing, I know)of gas being $.28/.29 in CA for a 
long time before the 'oil crisis'.

The road into our new place has been so bad in this weather that we've been 
shopping for a wife commuter with more ground clearance than the Accord 
wagon. Most new sport utes don't get much(or any)better MPG than my 
commuter B pickup, which costs $200/month in gas/oil for my drive. For the 
difference between what a new SUV costs and what I have into this truck you 
can buy 10 YEARS worth of gas at current prices. Wow.

Movies:

What I want to know is where are all these movie/TV prop trucks coming 
from? Does one of the studio vehicle services actually have a stable of 
IH's? Or do they just come from the generic used car pool they use for 
street scenes, etc.?

Stuckness:

So, now that my new place has had more rain than could possibly soak in and 
there's just slimy goo everywhere, I go to pay some attention to the '68 
T-all that's been parked for a couple months(figure I probably want a 
backup vehicle for commuting again). Well, those nearly bald HT Firestones 
on the back just weren't gonna grab 'hold of anything underneath 
them.Instant ruts. Hmmm...one front hub does not want to engage, noway n  
ohow, and the front dif's open so 4WD isn't likely to help. Hmmm...the 
trucks pointed uphill, and there's a stack of old fence boards closeby....I 
grab a couple planks and a block, stuff a crude ramp under the back of the 
rear wheels, spin my way up it about 4"(vertically)and stop. More planks 
bridging forward from the ramps across the rut, and Rosemary cruises out 
like nobody's business. This at 9:00PM in the rain...our tenants though I 
was a little 'touched'.

BW auto trannies:

Joel, ya might as well use the BW if it's handy. Which brings up an 
interesting fitment question. Torqueflites(727) have the converter 
housing('bell housing')integral to the tranny case, so there are different 
case versions for both the IHC and AMC engine block bolt patterns. The BW 
automatic(also variously known as a T-28, Ford-O-Matic, Flight-O-Matic, et 
al) uses a seperate converter housing that bolts to the tranny case. On the 
trannies I have lying about(thanks Mike B.)the converter housing is an IH 
part. This leads me to suspect that the trannies all have the same tranny 
case/converter housing bolt pattern. Can anyone confirm this? It would at 
least give us some more boneyard sources for BW cores(like anybody but me 
cares about these things ;))

Jim