Yes, thanks to all regarding the difference between PYREX and pyrex. I checked; all that I have is pyrex. Well, so far so good with those, but I’ll be careful from here on in.
Possibly the most famous use of Pyrex glass was the construction of the magnificent 200-inch mirror for the Hale telescope at the Mount Palomar observatory in California.
It was really a monumental achievement. The Pyrex mirror took several months to carefully cool down after it was cast at Corning Glass Works in New York before being transported to California.
I read a book about it some years ago and one thing I remember is the main astronomer in charge (George Hale was deceased by the time the telescope was ready) was the first to look through this magnificent telescope. I’m not sure but I think it may have been the famous Edwin Hubble.
The story is that after peering through it, he descended and left without a word. Turns out, what he saw was totally blurred and disappointing. But it also turned out that it was because the mirror had not yet stabilized to the outdoor temperature. The 200-inch telescope on Mt Palomar eventually became one of the most important scientific instruments of its time.
Buy a bag of potato chips (or anything sealed really) at 5000 feet. Drive up to 11000 feet.
BOOM.
I’m glad you discovered it before it was broken by one “clunk” too many. LOL
Eeeew! At least mine blew on the floor of the back seat area and, instead of having regular mats, I got the rubber ones that you can detach, remove, clean, dry, and replace. I know me, and I know the “accidents” that I can have.
Back in high school, four of us drove together, and I was sitting in the back seat of the car when the back window suddenly shattered into many tiny pieces. What the hell? Gun shots or something? (I mean, this is Chicago, so not an unserious possibility.) No, a brief instant before the explosion there was a electrical crackling sound from the rear window. The defogger had been on and – I don’t know the science of this – but something happened that caused the window to explode. Maybe someone can help me out here. The glass didn’t really explode outward. IIRC, it popped and just kind of pebbled down (it’s tempered glass.)
But it was quite the unexpected surprise on the way to school.
It took a few explosions for me to stop keeping seltzers in the car during the summer heat. But one was a can in the cupholder/map pocket on the door, near the driver’s left shin. It blew out the top seam and sprayed into some seemingly impossible spots like my instrument cluster and all three front panes of window glass.
And the droplets are still visible on the windshield. I thought I cleaned the interior glass pretty thoroughly in the autumn with Magic Eraser & personal TLC but, now that defrost season is blowing cold, it shows everything.
With all of the great names out of the various micro breweries, I’m surprised this isn’t a beer.
Me too- that would have been a big mess. It was way in the back of the trunk. I’m still not sure how I forgot that I bought pasta sauce…
I have a 2002 Jeep Liberty. A rust-bucket.
A few months ago I was driving onto the parking lot of a Menard’s store when I heard a loud BANG. Afterwards it was difficult to move and accelerate. Felt like a brake was squeezing on a rotor. Got it into a parking spot and took a look. The lower ball joint on the front driver’s side suspension had popped out. And then the bolt/stud for the ball joint was gouging a deep groove into the wheel. I got it towed home.
It’s been like this for the past couple months. It’s become an eyesore. I eventually need to fix it, I guess. I have a lift and tools in the barn, but I don’t know how to get it back to the barn. I do have a 4WD truck that I can push it with, but… it obviously won’t steer in that condition, and (again) I need to get it onto a 4-post lift. Am open to suggestions. My only idea is to try to do the repair in-situ. But jacking the front end up on dirt is not fun.
Thank God, luck, or your favorite deity that it didn’t happen while you were doing 75 MPH on an interstate. You might not be here telling the tale if it had!
That quite the dilemma. I’m thinking one option is to junk it. If one ball joint has gone, how long is the other one good for? What is this thing worth at this point?
If you have a lift in the barn and are willing to work on it yourself, maybe calling a tow truck to move it there is the most reasonable plan. A tow truck, a dolly, and a bit of pushing onto the lift might do the job. But personally, I wouldn’t trust this thing on a highway.
If it truly is a 24 year old “rust bucket”, @Crafter_Man, I think it would be wise for you to take this advice. Looking at your pics, I see A LOT of rust and, as we all know, rusted metal is weakened metal.
Body rust is not typically structural, although it can pose its own hazards, such as allowing ingress of exhaust gases. But it tends to correlate with structural corrosion. As one mechanic said when I commented on the body rust on my old Dodge Caravan, “that’s nothing – you should see the underside!”.
And in fact, when the coolant pump failed on it, my trusted mechanic – who I trusted implicitly because he’d worked miracles on it and saved me a fortune in repair costs – told me that there was no way to remove the rusted bolts on it without causing a lot of expensive damage. That was when I decided to junk it. By that point a lot of other stuff had stopped working.
A few years ago, I just finished changing the oil in my youngest’s 2006 Ford, when one of the brake lines blew. I replaced both, but if that had happened on the Interstate through the mountains on her way here, she may not have made it.
Many years ago, I took our Chevy into a Chevy dealership for something specifically Chevy-related. I cannot remember exactly what (engine? transmission? rear diff?), but it had nothing to do with ball joints.
When I got it back, it was wonky. The brakes just weren’t right. The steering was off. It was driveable, but just barely.
Thankfully, Richard, a local friend, was a mechanic, and he took a look. Everything engine and transmission-related seemed to be fine, but then he said, “Those ball joints look funky. Jesus H, they look like they’ve been deliberately fucked-up.”
I went back to the dealership, with Richard in tow. Richard reported his findings to the service manager. Long story short, they restored my car to the way it ought to be, didn’t charge me a dime, and fired the responsible mechanic.
Great, but the damage had been done. I never returned to that dealership for service.
Fired?! Wonderful, but his nefarious actions put your safety at risk and, as far as I’m concerned, qualified as a criminal act.
Of course they’ll want to replace both ball joints. They’re cheap and the work is simple. if frequently vexing since those parts often need some serious percussion to be persuaded to come apart.
By far the hardest part of that job is going to be getting the derelict onto the lift. Of course that’s one of those ounce of prevention vs. pound of cure situations. However the vehicle got to where it sits today, that’s the time it could have been put directly onto the lift. Or moved to a shop recognizing that this fix was beyond DIY just for the hassle of getting it lifted in their home shop to work on it.
The failed ball joint looks like the rubber boot failed long ago and a lot of road gunk got into the bearing surfaces and eventually wore that groove in there that led to complete failure. The other one may be in much better shape, or may be about the same shape. All depends on whether / when its boot has failed.
I don’t see anything else about the underside of that vehicle that suggests it’s anywhere near structural failure. That level of surface rust on frame members happens real quickly in the life of a car. But were it mine, while it was on the lift I’d be looking real seriously at the condition of every moving part in the suspension system in all 4 corners.
I was attending a staff development seminar in the hot Georgia summer. I had a small foam cooler with some Cokes in it on the floor behind the driver’s seat. One afternoon I returned to the car to find the lid off of the cooler and sticky Coke stalactites dripping from the headliner.
Thermal expansion and contraction of the sheet metal. My first home was a mobile home with a fuel oil furnace. It would bang every time it stopped long enough for the metal to contract. I had to screw in a piece of angle iron as a brace to stop the noise.
As for things in your car that go bang I had a cheap butane lighter explode from the het of the Sun. I couldn’t figure out why there were all these little pieces of plastic in the car until I found the thumbwheel. Luckily the gas in the lighter didn’t ignite.