Will the madness ever stop?
 

I'm not sure what to do at this point, as the bad luck continues to surface and mess with me/my family... With my Redline broken, I have to drive my truck to work/for errands, blocking any sale, and I don't think I can afford to fix it right now, unless a simple cleaning can unstick the brake hardware, as my wife lost her job unexpectedly... It also means we lost our health coverage, until my work can re-cover my family, and the coverage I had before was crappy at best, so the working on my leg has to be paused for now... In addition, the payment on my wife's car is due, and my ins company asked for an entire six month premium by 07/05 or else they'll drop coverage on my wife's car...which would equal repossession, I think...

Sorry for complaining again, but I feel a little overwhelmed...

Repo

I don't believe driving without insurance directly means repossession -- it means driving without insurance. I'm sure one of the contingencies of the loan is that the car remain insured at all times. Key point is they won't repo it if they don't know, and if you keep up on the payments and they inquire you can spin it as changing insurance companies and not currently driving the car. They want the monthly payment. Driving uninsured is your decision to make.

Sorry to hear about your wife's job woes.

Order to address things (my opinion for what it's worth)

Diag the redline, bandaid it if needed, and get it back out on the road. Disc brakes are pretty straightforward. Drums are a pain in the ass. Ask Goalie if they turn out to be an issue.

Test as I described and report back ---ASAP. Crudded up guide pins and mounting pins are more easily replaced than cleaned but it can be done.

At the very least. you can replace any worn pads and drive the car till you can afford to implement the cure instead of just treating the symptoms. The rotor will get hotter than normal but you are dissipating the heat via the air flowing past it while you're driving.

Push brake pedal, car stops. Intended result achieved. Move on.

My nephew drove for 3 years with a caliper that would not retract properly. Listened for the brake pad wear indicator, bought the cheapest Autozone pads there are, swapped em in and back out on the road.

Non ideal, but stops the car when you hit the pedal.

What to pay when:

Car payment first. Miss a payment and they can legally repo as far as I know since you've "defaulted" on the loan. But they don't HAVE to. Check the fine print in the financing agreement you signed. There is likely a 15 day grace period for that. Plus nothing wrecks your credit worse than missed mortgage and car payments.

Insurance

Should be a grace period on the insurance payment unless you have already passed the due date and are into the grace period.
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Get Ion back on road NOW.
Sell Ranger for what you can get (no choice if your back is up against the wall)
car payment -- if you can make w/o selling Ranger, do it.
insurance payment.

Healthcare

Usually healthcare premiums are paid in advance for the coming month so you should be good for the rest of June, no? TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT.

Well, the last I remember, when my mother let her insurance coverage lapse on her ION, the bank called and said we had 48 hours to have it covered again or else they would have a rollback in our driveway... Just assuming from experience

wow -- the insurer must have immediately made a call to the financing company. Nasty, unless it's WV law......

Then investigate the grace period thing and the fine print on the loan docs and figure out which one can wait the longest. If the answer is neither, than my advice is to log off the forum and start diagnosing the RL and get it back on the road so that you can sell the ranger........

Have you considered shopping the Ranger around to used car lots, or posting in the classifieds on Ranger forums? Not that I doubt your ability to come up with these ideas --- just that when we are under extreme stress, the mind often does not function clearly

Okay... I can breathe again... Did a lot of difficult phone calls and stuff, along with getting the major issue with my Redline patched up(not fixed but working sort of)... I negotiated with the insurance company, and if I pay half by 7/5 and then set up on automatic debit, then I am fine, no more big chunks... Car payment is paid, and we can just almost make that insurance payment... I'm gonna fall back onto my truck for the rest. No, I'm not selling, but using it to make cash... Gonna haul me a load of scrap metal, I think... With prices down, I won't make much, but hopefully it should be just enough...

Also, my wife starts work again today! She asked for her old job back(she worked for Pilot/Flying J before she went to work at the local jail), and the managers are ecstatic to have her back... Granted it'll be a pay cut($9.00/hr instead of $10.89) but it's better than nothing...

The madness is slowing down indeed... Thanks for helping me concentrate and breathe...

that's what family is for.

Great to hear about wife's job.

I still say to stick it to her old employer's healthcare plan if it's paid up to month's end. Just be sure the doc/facility you pick accepts the old AND new insurance, of course

I missed this.
Life can never be easy. It blows,
But glad to hear she is working again. May not be the money she wants, but something is better than nothing.
I have an 07 Ion that needs to be scrapped. If you pick it up, its yours. Although the travel may not be worth the income.

Thanks for the offer, but you are right, the income wouldn't justify the travel... That, and I don't possess a trailer... I sold my little load of scrap today for 6 cents a pound... That means I would get around 100 for an ION with no engine...

Man, who said anything about a trailer?
Lets break out the sawsall (sp?), and have some fun cutting that thing up!
Plus, it is legal to burn where I live. So we can have a bonfire afterwards with all the other crap from the car.

Actually burning most plastics usually releases carcinogenic or otherwise toxic compounds capable of producing long term side effects---and death for that matter.

This is no joke. (I'm a chemist by trade)

http://www.wecf.eu/cms/download/2004...g_plastics.pdf
The Danger of Burning Plastic
Dioxins & why you dont want to be burning plastic | plasticisrubbish (this one indicates that burning plastic in house fires often kills)
PSA--Burning Plastic Can Kill You. (hydrogen cyanide poisioning in house fires)

I didn't know you were a chemist. Do you have a white lab coat?

only when I have to be in the lab

fancy!

Umm... I've been burning the coating off my copper wire for years! Literally from age 16 (shortly after I got my first ranger and began hauling junk) to about 19, when I got my first "real job" and stopped hauling big loads of junk... I knew that the smoke smelled horrible... Oddly enough, I am around hot, molten plastic all day at work, and when I assist in changing over a large line, you can smell the stuff, it smokes like an old dodge!(no offense Rube)... The largest I helped with was 18" SDR7.3... It was around 18.1" in outer diameter, and around 12.5" in inner diameter... Each 50 foot joint of that stuff weighed nearly as much as my car..., and the smoke was so think you couldn't hardly see, and I coughed until I thought there would be blood...

Sometimes I hate my job...

I can get you a job working with me as a cook. We are in desperate need of help!

ummm

that sounds like it has OSHA violation(s) written all over it.

Do they give you the opportunity to wear respirators?
(not necessarily required to (if vapors are known to be lung irritants or contain toxic substances, you might have a case)

Do they provide you with MSDS sheets (Material Safety Data Sheets)?
By law, they must make available an MSDS sheet for any chemical substance you handle. I don't know what the law is w r t intermediate processing steps but if they know the general composition of the "smoke" you are regularly exposed to, they should be offering appropriate PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), be it gloves, goggles, helmets, respirators if they give a damn about you AND don't want to get sued by you into next Thursday 20 years from now.

The real dangers of plastics giving off toxic stuff is when they are

1)smoldering and giving off that thick smoke. Like when people burn trash in the yard, the plastic is smoldering, gives off all kinds of nasty toxic fumes (depending on the plastic). It's not hot enough to actually burn the plastic--only to make it smolder. Nasty. Do not do this. If you're not breathing it in, your neighbor probably is.

2) House fires, where the plastic starts to burn, giving off truly nasty and dangerous by products like cyanide gas, dioxins, etc. As stated before, the fumes from burning plastics are often what kill people in house fires. Firefighters now wear resp w tanks because of this. If they don't want to breathe it trying to save you, you don't want to be breathing it---and hopefully you're still alive when they find you.

I don't know what your job actually entails. Sounds like some type of plastics manufacturing plant, If so, they should know what they are required to do by law.
Raw materials used for making polymers can be nasty -- hence the requirement for MSDS for each and every compound.

I doubt they are "burning" plastic at your plant (unless they are using/reusing existing plastic as a raw ingredient).

The vapor that choked you is probably a combination of some type of acid wash (sulfuric maybe) and then followed by a final rinse bath that also cools the material down and likely does not really get rid of 100% of the acid wash. Those kinds of vapors can be very irritating to the lungs.

Also remember that molten is not the same as smoldering or burning. Plastic will assume different forms depending on temperature and the molecular weight, among other things. They are heating it until it is liquid enough so it will flow when it needs to be moved from point A to point B, or heating it to a specific temperature to drive a desired chemical reaction.

SDR7.3 is High Density PolyEthylene (HDPE). I'm not familiar with the manufacturing process so I don't know the raw ingredients, intermediates, or the volatile (airborne vapor given off) byproducts of processing, nor the finishing cleaning steps and associated volatiles.

If you can tell me what chemicals are used I can do some digging for you.
Rules: Do NOT tell me the entire process--that is proprietary. For that matter don't tell me the company name. Just the starting chemicals (I can figure out from that the synthesis method they are using, and any chemicals added along the way, and what chemicals they use at the end for cleaning etc.

Oh by the way, I'm NEVER in the lab so I never wear my lab coat.

And my training is in Polymer (Plastics) Chemistry heee heee heee
(Disclaimer: Not all polymers are plastics)

So if you make plastics, start making Saturn body panels!

front me $2M and I might write up a business plan

Someone on the redline group actually came across a company that had the machinery that Saturn used to make newer model body panels. They tried working up a business plan for it.
I really don't want to see the numbers for it

Yes, they provide us with MSDS sheets and the opportunity to use respirators, or at least in the lower building, with the largest line...

All we run is HDPE pipe, in sizes ranging from 1/2" SIDR17(the wall thickness and unit of measurement) to 18" SDR7... We make pipe for water, gas, and plain conduit material, in various colors, but the process is the same... Some virgin material in pelletized form is mixed with some color and/ or some recycled material and extruded through some vacuum tanks starting at nearly 400 degrees... The only fluid used is water, for cooling purposes... The pipe comes out clean, and requires no fort her process, other than cutting to length and putting it on a coil/reel/pallet of sticks...There is no smoke when starting up a line running 12" or smaller pipe, but the bigger pipe that runs slower, smokes pretty bad when it's first started up...

Now, I don't think I divulged any sort of secret and I didn't use our name...

ok, so I will do some hunting and get back to you.
If they are offering respirators on the big line, there's a reason. USE ONE.
No need to cough up half a lung even if it isn't toxic.

If your coworkers call you a sissy, take the high road and ignore. And tell them it aggravates what you think is asthma, which you only seem to have developed since working at that plant.

You won't have to show your buddies an inhaler b c you're not officially asthmatic.
And maybe they'll think twice about their own health and safety.

Take the high road; better to use a respirator in your 20's and live till you're 85 than to die at 50 from COPD

When it comes down to it, the only one who's gonna truly look out for you is you.

The thing is, I'm no longer in the building with the big line, so no more smoke... and no more radio, and back to having seven lines to keep eyes on...

watching a SCADA system display of parameters for each line as they run?

No, the pipe must be sampled and checked manually to make sure it's still within spec... What I'm referring to is watching it go onto its respective coil/reel/pallet, and if the lineman needs help, I try and assist... It's expected of us to help other linemen when we can... Not always easy though...

Please make sure you wear any PPE that you have access to, and do it properly. I've worked in a place (back when I was a smoker) that the running joke was smoking was the only time you got fresh air in there. It was a metal heat-treating plant and electro-plater and some of the smoke from the oil quenches you couldn't see half way across the building. No telling what damage it did to the furnace operators over time. I was shipping/receiving. If you are required to wear safety glasses get them with side shields. I know from my own vision issues that you want to keep your eyes as healthy as you can. Trying to adjust to a lack of vision in one eye would be extremely traumatic - I cope well since I never had 'normal' vision and I am the safety glasses police when I work in a production facility!

I'm glad your wife got a job going, even if it's not what she really wants. Is it possible for her to qualify for a grant to take classes so she can get a certification/degree and open up more options? More and more college online classes are available, just check to be sure they are accredited properly for any credits to transfer.

You guys are young enough to spread your wings a bit. Buckle down and do it - cuz it's much harder when you're MY age LOL

Wishing you only good things while you're straightening everything out.

We make too much money(on our last W2) to qualify for any sort of financial aid for schooling... I thought about getting my commercial license and driving a truck(more money), but even that costs more than what I can swing right now...

You should run for president. That's plenty of money.

Yeah, but the campaign costs are in the billions, and most people don't get the White House unless they've held a major public office for some time... Plus, I'm not crooked enough to be a politician...

Honestly, it could be the best paid job in the entire world, and you couldn't give it to me... I don't want that sort of pressure...