----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]----
Ed; You're doing it the right way, and applause is indeed given to you for taking the lead in a project that must be done. I wish I could immediately contribute but am hesitant to only speak about what I've actually encountered, which other than normal maintenance is low. After the repairs are made to my current Weick Special, and I'm flying it about for a while, I'll have much more to say in an authoritative and certified manner. The Internet can be a very dangerous thing if one forgets that most of it is opinions. If it's something the reader wants to hear, he believes it. Matter of fact, there's a very successful website that deals specifically with "rumors", Snopes.com. If you receive one of those emails saying Bush had dinner with BinLaden last week in Texas, supposedly written by a former secret service agent and sent to the Buffalo Morning Times, you can easily look it up to see if it's true or false and where it originated. Latest one I saw was that Denzel Washington gave an organization a quarter of a million bucks just because he was an American. Long stretch on the truth. Unless the info comes from an actual credible source or organization, it should be considered rumor. Paul's first book, "This and That About The Ercoupe" was a good source because he first explained that he wasn't a mechanic, then gave actual experiences as he lived them, either through a mechanic or not. I'm not sure he would be able to do such a thing as a new project nowadays. Incidentally, he has recently published small limited runs of the book. Get on the list if you want one. Another credible source would be a type club, but at this point in time there would be none for the Ercoupe line that I would feel comfortable with. Hopefully in the future, with guys like you and Syd on board AND COMPENSATED in some way, that will change, but it not only takes technical abilities, but political abilities, too. Thanks again for all you do. Al DeMarzo Visit the Ercoupe Swap Page - Free and Easy http://www.ercoupeowners.com/swap/swapbook.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: Ed Burkhead To: 'AJ DeMarzo' ; 'Ctech' Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:19 AM Subject: RE: [COUPERS-TECH] Coupe Maintenance Hints and Tips ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- Al, You make a good point that totally unedited mechanical advice is not necessarily a benefit and can be a danger. Yet, we also have the problem - if a mechanic publishes mechanical advice *as a mechanic*, then that can increase his liability risk. If we, as a group of people, try to help each other in our spare time to provide information on the gotchas and references then we have status as an educational, mutual help group for what that's worth. If you have a subject matter expert who wants to take the lead, great! I cheat - I put together what looks right from the best sources I can get, then I run it by real experts for validation. That's how I "wrote" the Annual Inspection Checklist, the Pre-Purchase Inspection and the Coupe FAQ. Those were all vetted and contributed to by experts. The result generally comes out to pretty trustworthy information. Though still not perfect, it's a pretty useful starting point for mechanics. I can see convenience in a Wiki format. For right now I'd propose we try out this methodology. I'll try to provide fairly quick turn around, decent regular web page formatting and some vetting of content. Other editorial volunteers are welcome and encouraged! Content producers are the real heros! Ed Burkhead http://edburkhead.com ed -at- edburkhead???.com (change -at- to @ and remove "???") ============================================================================== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm ============================================================================== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm
