ClareQuilty

BTW I never drink the stuff during the day, only for breakfast. It's the perfect breakfast: lots of sugar & caffeine, plus cool & thirst quenching.

Just found some at Family Mart ( why is it only sold in these enormous bottles?):

3 hours ago, tazly said:

could almost hear duelling banjos playing while I read the OP post

Haha, I'll readily admit my (mostly hidden) roots lie deep in Trumpland, but I'm an escapee, not a fan. Mountain Dew however wakes you up - better than anything else out there.

As for any health disadvantages I'm not one to worry about those. Health is entirely a matter of luck, not anything one can control.

Thanks for the feedback everyone and especially thesetat2013, I'll keep looking. Oh and thanks to DSPJC, reminded me of Kickapoo joy juice - not as good as Mountain Dew but a reasonable substitute.

I'm a huge fan of Mountain Dew, the caffeinated American soft drink, so I was very happy when it returned to Thailand a few years ago. For a while it was available everywhere, but recently it has been becoming very hard to find in 7-11 or any of the other convenience stores.

I get the feeling this product (like most products I prefer) is unpopular & may be disappearing. Does anyone else enjoy Mountain Dew &/or perhaps have some advice where it can still be found?

On 11/12/2016 at 5:15 PM, JAS21 said:

It's 5:15 pm now ...how is the car ...

Cars going great now after he cleaned fuel filter. Thinking of selling it while it's on the upswing.  Seems a lot of young guys in Thailand are fond of these old early-90s Civic "3-doors".

On 11/12/2016 at 11:47 AM, Kwasaki said:

 

Yeah easy fix, they will check carb, fuel filter, plugs, leads & distributor,  timing & fuel pump no worries.

Let us know what happened bit dull on here these days. 

Yeah! That's precisely what he did check, and without replacing a single part it now runs fine.. Must've been cleaning the fuel filter (& maybe carb?) that did the trick.

300 baht & I just drove the car 2 hours on the highway yesterday, ran great. :)

49 minutes ago, JAS21 said:

Think it might be a client for Baht and Sold...☺

Why? Because the carb is dirty? I guess it'll just cost a few hundred to fix.

Anyway thanks transam, jpinx, h

Jas21, appreciate the advice. I took the car in early this morning, should have it back by 5.

The problem, I would say, came on gradually. The car's been quite serviceable since I last mentioned it. I'm thinking this might be a "common problem" recognizable to those out there who've experience with carburetors.

My old ~'93 Civic runs fine at idle & low speeds, but driving what I call fast - 50-80 - it has a lot of microscopic hesitations, like the fuel flow is very briefly not making it through the carburetor. I've always seen these kinds of hesitation problems in cars at low speed or idle, never at mid-throttle.

Any thoughts on this? The car ran much better when I got it, but the automatic-choke went out a long time ago & I wonder if this could be related.

Just thought I'd reveal the denouement of this little ergonomic tale: i took the car back for one last readjustment, and after removing the raised portion of the seat cushion, the end result is pretty comfortable. And can you believe it - the kindly upholsterer diddidn'tnt want to charge me one baht for the re-do! This kind of thing happens to me all the time in Thailand & only in Thailand.

Yeah I suggested that to my mechanic, Lancashire, and he admitted it might be possible, but said the cushion-alteration would be better & so farmed me out to the upholstery shop.

Well, I had the carseat bottom redone at the upholsterer's. He lowered the front & raised the back, only 600 baht, reusing the vinyl seat material. The shaving of some of the foam from the front part of the seat was a great success - my legs are comfortable now - but alas it was a big mistake to raise (& firm) the back part. It's quite literally a pain in the tookus! Now I'm going to have to take it back & hopefully he can correct it.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I just discovered via Google that there are products called "0rthopedic car seat wedge cushion", which effectively raise the rear portion of the seat-bottom. Now - where to find such a product for sale in Thailand?

I just picked up this very clean old 1991 Nissan Sunny for a price in the 30s, a good deal I think - the car is very clean, runs and drives very well and has cold air-con.  However, I hate the seats, partly because they're vinyl (I hate sweaty materials like leather or vinyl), and partly because the seat-bottoms are sharply angled (I prefer a very flat seat-bottom).

So, I'm considering either just recovering the seats with cloth if this service is available in Thailand, or better yet, replacing the seats with something from the junk-yard.  Has anyone any experience with replacing car seats in Thailand, or failing that, with recovering in cloth?  Are the seat-rails pretty standard, so that seats can be interchanged easily?

In which currency was the check? There have been a few posts recently about foreign currency checks being refused.

Dollars of course. Thanks for your response. I'd be surprised if the currency was the problem, being USD.

I'm mystified as to why this post hasn't elicited any responses at all. I'm still waiting for the check to clear here, no idea if it will or not.

I am not so certain. People dismiss this man as a reality TV super star. Really? I wonder why? He is a self made for the most part BILLIONAIRE

110% inherited, he's done nothing but mismanage his father's fortune & cheat people.

Clearly a know-nothing who discusses US govt default, isolationism, & other hairbrained schemes is not going to be conducive to confidence in the USD.

The sight of tight polling between Trump and Clinton is very distressing to financial markets. If she starts polling better as we get closer to the election confidence will improve.

I've lived in Thailand many years, and have had two bank accounts much of that time. A few months ago I received a large check from a life insurance company, as the beneficiary. I tried depositing the check down at Krung Thai, but somewhere along the line it was rejected/cancelled by the check clearinghouse "middleman", and the reason given was "poor paper quality". A very strange reason, I would say, given that the check was quite genuine and a similar large check was successfully cleared within the United States by the co-beneficiary.

In any case, after much difficulty and the passage of yet more months, the insurance company has sent along a replacement check. They claimed to be just as befuddled by the problem as I was.

I decided to give Krung Thai another crack at it, but naturally feel quite trepidatious about the process. I've had to fill out numerous disclosure & other forms - perhaps due to being an American, unfortunately we're subject to some rather draconian rules. Has anyone else had difficulty (or success?) depositing large checks in Thailand? Is it possible that its one of those Thai cases where in fact it can't be done but they won't directly admit it can't be done (either in general or specifically in the case of Americans)?

I am afraid the chassis damage would have been it for me.

Even damaged like that, it is not inconceivable, you could get 5000 Baht for it if the engine is in good condition.

With these 2 facts, I would have sought to get rid of it.

But there is no right answer here. I do many things (every day, almost) that make little sense, financially or otherwise, but give me a greater range of knowledge and experience and come in handy months later, often when least expected.

Well actually one of those old Tenas in good condition costs about 5,000 baht if you can find one. I paid 6,000 for this very bike about 5 years ago, and it has been rented out almost the entire intervening time at 1k/month, without ever needing any repairs! (it is typical for a Tena to never need any repairs). So, I figure I'm about 50,000 baht up on the dear old bike. I don't mind throwing away 3,000 on an attempt at fixing it.

Had the same bike for 5 years never had another one so much fun to ride, definitely fix it, cos you'll miss it.

Yes, Honda Tenas are absolutely amazingly durable & reliable machines, and all old two strokes are hugely superior (at least from my perspective) to anything sold today.

As my subcontinental chum puts it: "Old is gold".

Here's a couple of photos I took today when I stopped by to check on the progress of the Tena which got smashed by the Benz.

As you can see it is very slow going - the mechanic has only so far removed the head light thingy and some other plastic bits. But, anyway you can see how badly the forks were bent - no straightening of those I'm afraid. We'll see if it ever gets finished.

After taking the bike apart, the mechanic discovered that not only the front forks and wheel were destroyed, but the front neck part was slightly bent. I said to him that since this meant the 'chassis' was bent, the bike was "totalled" (ruined), but he stated that in fact he could fix it. I assume he still means "for a reasonable price", since he knows me, and he knows I know as well as he does the value of the bike (at most 6k baht). I had originally mentioned I would be interested in fixing the bike only if the total cost was under 3,000.

I was a little bit surprised the mechanic expressed such confidence in being able to fix a bike with a bent neck - seems to me that the 'neck' part is by definition part of the chassis. Is the neck a replaceable or straightenable part?

Thanks Rt85, Stingray, yes its definitely fuel, not engine oil, and no I haven't fixed it, it just happens so rarely and intermittently that I've just ignored it. It seems to happen only when its cold out.

Interestingly this problem as well as the low idle problem which had been annoying me have slowly gotten better (happened less) with time & driving.. Which certainly seems strange to me!

That's nice, but I'm looking for something realistic in a 30,000 baht range.

It is an older model bike so there should be lots of used parts available. It is subjective but I would get your guy to source some used forks and buy new plastic from Honda IF they can match the colours. Tena has full length forks but an aftermarket short set for a Wave is about 2,500 or less. Tena forks maybe the same as Nova Dash?

I think you'll find all the drag guys use those as the basis for a drag bike so there should be lots of old forks around.

Thanks for the input! I'm not at all concerned about the appearance, so I'll let him do the plastic parts in any old makeshift way. But I agree the hardware stuff shouldn't be a problem. I'm just hoping it drives straight & true once I get it fixed.. you never know whether the chassis might've gotten a little bent as well.

Go for it

i 'am just to get ready with my swap with a toyota 1uz with 5 speed w58 gearbox in my ke70

Wow, that looks fantastic! But, I'm looking at a budget of 50,000 total, including paint and bodywork. I'm guessing 20,000 for that paint/bodywork, which allows 30,000 for a new engine and gearbox, perhaps a bit less if the bodywork proves more expensive.

So, I'm thinking of either a good rebuilt 1.3 liter 4K engine (the original engine) or some other larger K engine (I think there was a 1.8 liter 5k?), plus a new/rebuilt gearbox, or, if anyone can suggest a more modern used rear-drive Japanese engine which might still be available cheap in Thailand.