Author Archives: Steve Mays

Paul C. Miltenberger: Hero

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Barb’s father, the late Paul C. Miltenberger, receiving the Silver Star following the Battle of Luzon in WWII. Dr. Miltenberger. From the St. Louis Post, July 18, 1945:

Captain Paul C. Miltenberger, 29 years old, Army medical corps officer, has been awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action last April 23 on Luzon. When a platoon sergeant had been seriously wounded and had fallen in an exposed sector of the jungle, Capt. Miltenberger dragged him 800 yards to a protected area where he administered first aid.

800 yards (almost half a mile) through the jungle, under enemy fire, is a long way. Dr. Miltenberger was one of the best people I’ve known in my life. I never heard him say an unkind word about anybody.

Spare engine block for Jeep

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I took the Jeep to Cruise Night where hundreds of (mostly) old car and truck enthusiasts gather to see and be seen. My friend Paul introduced me to Bob who finds/buys/sells old Jeeps and Jeep parts. Bob and his wife were on their way home (Colorado) from a Jeep gathering in Ohio where Bob purchased an old engine block.
As fate would have it, just the engine block I’d need if the tiny crack in my block (see image below) made the Jeep un-drivable.

So I bought it for $100 and will keep it in the Annex as Cosmic Insurance against my current engine blowing up.

Spare tire of the Jeep

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Paul is very particular about the tires he puts on vehicles. They must be the right tire and they must look great. Including the spare which he had to track down out in Colorado.

While I could have lived with this tire as a spare, Paul insisted it get a fresh coat of paint and gave me the privilege of getting all the old paint off.

This involved a few hours with sandpaper and some time in the sandblasting box. A very wax on, wax off experience. This simple chore gave me an appreciation for the time and effort that goes into restoring an old vehicle even though that was never the plan for the Jeep.

When I went to pick up the tire after mounting and balancing, the young man asked for the key so he could drive the Jeep into one of the service bays.

“Might be best if I do that since the transmission is a little… wonky,” I said. “Oh, I think I can figure it out,” he replied.

When he finally did get the Jeep in gear (first instead of reverse) he almost drove into the front of his building. I drove the Jeep into the service bay. (On the topic of shifting gears, I’ve discovered the Jeep is happiest when I double-clutch between gears.)

Fast food run in the Jeep

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I’d love to know what the designers of the Jeep had in mind with the fold-down windscreen. Perhaps easier to carry more equipment or people?
Barb got her first ride in the Jeep today.

I’m still getting used to just how small the Jeep is.

And here’s the boy with his new toy, decked out in his anti-tick treated wood clearing outfit.

Jeep: First check-up

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Most people who buy or restore an old vehicle don’t plan on making it their “daily driver,” for a lot of practical reasons. Reliability, comfort, financial… just to name a few. But for the last few years I’ve driven the Land Rover or the pickup every day. Leaving a cherished vintage vehicle in the garage would be like having a good dog you never played with. So when I added the Jeep to my little fleet, I knew I wanted to drive it regularly so a trip to the mechanic was high on my list. Just to make it safe-ish to drive. After an agonizing six weeks I got the Jeep back this week.

  • Lube, Oil and Filter change
  • Replace front and rear differential oil
  • Replace steering bell crank
  • Replace drag link repair kit
  • Replace headlight switch
  • Replace brake light switch
  • Replace brake master cylinder
  • Adjust radiator fan
  • Reseal right rear wheel (losing air due to rust on bead)

The parking brake doesn’t work and the oil pan is leaking bit so we’re not quite finished but it’s about as good as we can make it for now.

AM radio is being removed from many cars

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Following are excerpts from a story in The Washington Post:

Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, Tesla and other automakers are eliminating AM radio from some new vehicles, stirring protests against the loss of a medium that has shaped American life for a century. […] Automakers, such as BMW, Volkswagen, Mazda and Tesla, are removing AM radios from new electric vehicles because electric engines can interfere with the sound of AM stations. And Ford, one of the nation’s top-three auto sellers, is taking a bigger step, eliminating AM from all of its vehicles, electric or gas-operated.

Some station owners and advertisers contend that losing access to the car dashboard will indeed be a death blow to many of the nation’s 4,185 AM stations. […] From the 1950s into the 1970s, Top 40 hit music stations in many big cities maintained astonishing shares of the audience, with 50 percent and more of listeners tuned to a single station. […] Ford says its data, pulled from internet-connected vehicles, shows that less than 5 percent of in-car listening is to AM stations.

Of the $11 billion in advertising revenue that radio pulled in last year, about $2 billion came into AM stations, according to BIA Advisory Services, which conducts research for broadcasters.

Some of the best years of my life were spent in and around radio. But I haven’t listened in years. The Land Rover doesn’t have a radio and the pickup truck has one but it’s never worked.

It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that radio –in one form or another– paid for every stitch of clothing I ever wore and every bite of food I ate. But it changed and I changed. I suspect FM radio will disappear some day.

Hiking trail update

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We added another 40 or 50 feet to the hiking trail today. I remind myself (and others) that this project (?) is more about clearing cedar trees than creating a trail. Cedar trees are the crabgrass of the woods. They choke out almost all other trees. I quickly discovered I enjoyed cutting them with my trusty chainsaw, but getting rid of them hard work. As noted in previous posts, the wood chipper changed that. But I quickly generated big piles of wood chips and that was when the idea of making a hiking trail “paved” with cedar chips came to me.

My routine goes something like this:

  1. Use marking paint to flag the trees to cut
  2. Fire up (battery powered) the chainsaw and cut the marked trees
  3. Drag the trees/brush to a pile near the wood chipper
  4. Fire up the chipper
  5. Line the hiking trail with rocks to keep the chips from washing away. Works better than you’d think.
  6. Drag the chips to the end of the trail, dump and rake.

The rocks part is the most physically demanding. There’s no shortage of rocks on our property but there’s no easy way to get them to the trail. It usually comes down to picking them up one at a time and carrying them to the end of the trail.

I find all of this satisfying in a way I can’t describe. Mindless, physical activity out in the woods with no clear plan for where the trail leads.