Vladislav

Paul, thanks for sharing. Always interesting to see what you never saw before.

Looks like there are two of them. One portion with inner splines resides on the end of steering column where it normally is. And the similar #2 attached to the steering gear U-joint. Possibly shortened to a certain desired length judging by a seam (?) near its middle. If all is that way it turns out the central portion of the shaft can travel front-back having splines at the both ends. No?

BTW wasn't this Superliner also painted by that guy? Or anybody else from his family? Or maybe just the same name? Yours turned out great.

Paul, those are good points you mentioned. Let's keep at least them.

I would come paint it for you for a fun of a couple of weeks spent in West Virginia. But American ambassy doesn't issue visas for Russian citizens starting from the time of the known events.

Actually you are Paul. As KT engeneer mentioned the effect takes place at a spot where pressure in the fluid drops lower than the evaporation (actually - boiling) point. Fluid boils at a certain tempertature but that temp depends on pressure conditions. On high mountains water boils at 90 or so Celsias not 100 for example. Same for every fluid. So if we have a certain avarage temp say 20C or 95C fluid doesn't boil. But imagine if the pressure drops locally, by sonic wave from combustion in a liner or by hard centrifugal force in a impeller. I mean some portion of fluid is forced moving and the sorrounding portion can't go same fast due to its mass or because of dynamic resistance in the suction channel. So that point evaporaits for short moment building a bubble, filled with the fluid wapor. In the next moment the bubble moves to another area where pressure is normal or that same area gets pressure change (sonic wave went further off) and the bubble gets pressed down very fast. It makes hydraulic hit like in a injection line and its now sonic wave hits surround. Attacking a liner or empeller wheel or whatever is on its way. Hundreds of thousands such hits applied to the same spot during prolonged time (hours or years) chip off the material making a cavit and than later a hole.

Can't belive! Sounds very drammatic. What I can say... Diesel is about 80-70 American Cents per litre here in Russia. Slowly creeped up from 50 or so Cents a year ago. And with no affect from the Middle East events. Sanctions work two ways. The 2nd is limitation of oil products leaving the country's inside market. But honestly I would better like the both events to not take place.

No, no, not that fast! He should buy a pair of rear alu wheels to install onto the CH!

You are always welcome Paul. And sure the rest of the crue. My collage research thesis had relation to centrifugal pumps. Not directly though. I studied mining and my diploma theme was "hydromechanization' - destroying of soft soils by stream of water and than transporting it away in a shape of pulp by big pipes. The pipes were really big, of 500-700mm ID and of 3-4 km of length. Pumps which were sopposed to move such volume of fluid were large correspondingly. And correspondingly expensive were cavitation issues. The most troubles with the pumps were predicted by regimes they're operated at. The main subject was managing it and the most straight and correct way was setting right revs. But that was a problem at the time (early 90's) since powerful semiconductive devices were unavalible and the pumps spinned at the speeds typical asynchrone electric motors provided. That way speeds of flow in suction and supply pipe lines didn't corellate well bringing cavitation to pumps and settling derbits on bottoms of pipes clogging them.

Speaking Tom's situaion cables could also be put at the outside to some anchoring spots the way we anchor a tent. But seems a risky deal with good chance being stumble. So that idea with fence posts or poles seems better. For example 2x2" square or 2" OD round pipes could be put into the ground (better cementized) maybe for a feet or two deep with a portion of 3-4 feet above the ground getting right along the structure side rib and bolted to it near the top and the bottom.

You can see some very long bridges hanging on cables. So X-ing a shed isn't a really hard deal.

Maybe it's not fine to flood up Larry's thread but seems I should toss a pair of nikels to this basket. Paul's explanations were wrong (or maybe we are both wrong with him as he clever addmits sometimes). The effect of cavitation is predicted by taking the fluid body apart. It's possible if you "pull one end" and "hold the other". For example in a centrifugal pump some portion of fluid is forsed to go to the outside due to spinning but the incoming fluid is hold down because of excessive resistance in the suction channel. Or similar effect can be achieved on a surface of impeller blades. Big impellers have section of blades made by the same principal as a plane wing. That "assymetrical ellipse" shape produces difference of pressures on different sides of the wing. More curved side gets lower pressure what helps getting the plane up. And same effect is used in leaned (not straight) boat sales. Ok, that's a rocket since but the point we deal regarding cavitation is fluid is broken down in a certain point. So a bubble occures there. That's not gas in fact. It's vaccuum. It could be gas filled to some minor grade because of intensive evaporation to the vacuumated volume but what has meaning is that volume is under notably lower pressure than the whole fluid body. When that bubble moves from the area with conditions which produced it to area with normal conditions normal pressure in the fluid presses it down immediately. And as long as fluid doesn't compress as gas it produces big hit in that spot. It's pressure wave spreads over surrounding fluid and since fluid is super-conductive for stress it achive structural parts of the device. During cavitation we have a kind of "hammering" to empeller blades, pump housing or a cylinder sleeve (here the effect is stimulated by pressure jumps in the combustion chamber if combustion isn't going right, for example being detonative). Ok, constant hitting to a structural element makes material brittle which is followed by chipping out and making cavits. This way general reason for cavitation to take place is incorrect movement of fluid in a certain passage. For centrifugal pumps the most typical reason to cavitate is higher revs than they are designed for. And clogged suction side too or sucking from very low level.

Best of luck! Fingers crossed.

Yup. Or just cross ropes. I mean for instance a steel (SS or galvanized) cord put from front lower to back upper corners with screw tie ups incorporated. A couple to each side and a pair crossing each other at the back end. Sorry I'm blind posting the advice, can't see the pics.

No!!! Alu fronts correspond with the alu tanks. And the rears are asking to complete the line. If the truck has tandems they could be different than the front. Or you can paint the fronts white and the tanks either. But you'd get the look of more like a fridge than a fashioned highway truck.