Detroit Vs Japan

I believe American cars were much better relative to the rest of the world when we had both the majors and the independents. It's no accident that the most reliable and toughest fifties and sixties vehicles made in America with the highest percentage still on the road and with loyal actitvist owner's clubs are Studebaker and International Harvester. (Jeep was part of an independent then too.) In the late sixties and early seventies American cars sucked. The Vega was a rust ball with an engine that self-destructed in some cases in nine months, the Pinto would explode if rear ended (but ironically had some good drivelines!), on and on.

ditto. in the end i dont suppose it matters. those who care about what they do are going to succeed at it with or without union support.

The Mopars weren't inferior in terms of engine and transmission quality. They were inferior in the way the interiors were put together, the way stuff would fall off, the AC would quit because of the little stuff like switches,etc. GM figured out that those "little things" were what really mattered and got it right. GM electrics, interiors, climate control, were best of industry. AMC and Mopar were often great basic cars with little annoyances. Mechanically intelligent people could fix them, but most people don't. They just get rid of it.

WHO are you calling a traitor, and WHY?

Perhaps. But I've recently seen it suggested that the reason that there's so many 40s and 50s Willys vehicles coming out of barns with

30,000 miles on the clock is that they were underpowered, unreliable, broken down, were parked and forgotten as not worth the bother.

Consider this: How often do you need to tune a modern computer-controlled ignition, fuel-injected engine? How often did you need to tune a points-and-condensor ignition?

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote:

A day is about the number of hours between major OH a smallblock will run at 7000 rpm continuous, even if it's blueprinted and balanced with four bolt mains, forged crank, and fully prepped rods.

A day is about the number of hours between major OH a smallblock will run at 7000 rpm continuous, even if it's blueprinted and balanced with four bolt mains, forged crank, and fully prepped rods.

You put a SB Chev on a generator or a prop drive and run it 100 _continuous_ hours-feeding it cool clean oil and glycol-at 7000 rpm, I'll believe that.

Bill,

A few years ago my parents were looking for a replacement for their 16 year old car. The US automakers no longer made a 4 door hatchback like they wanted. When I mentioned a model produced by a Japanese company my father nixed the idea by saying "I haven't gotten over WWII yet, it has only been

55 years".

Billy

Bill,

In my '02 WJ 4 liter automatic I have no illumination on my transmission or transfer case shifters at night. I took the console apart a week or so ago and where I expected to find a couple burnt out bulbs there were no bulbs.

There is, however, a thin plastic sheet with 2 electric terminals that go to a small "black box" that then plugs into a part of the wiring harness at the aft end of the shifter mechanism..

Is that plastic sheet the lighting unit? Is there a proper test procedure?

Thanks in advance,

-billy

Billy Ray did pass the time by typing:

Your describing an EL (Electro Luminescent) panel. Inside the black box shoud be a step-up transformer. Measure at the box for 12V on the input.

Light reading

Not so light reading. it's for the instrument panel) Since EL is darn near indestructable I'd be checking the fuses first.

Doug,

Hopefully the fuse is the problem. Does anyone out there know which fuse controls the illumination? I haven't noticed any other electrics non-functional so I am assuming it is fused by itself.

-billy

I checked the owners manual and it had no mention of this alone. There are, of course, fuses for the other interior lights and gauges but the only thing that does not illuminate is the tranmission.& transfer case. I haven't been able to find my multi-meter so I can't check the unit voltage till I borrow one over the weekend.

-billy