Thanks guys I have successfully swapped the stator. Getting the nuts off was an adventure and now I have a giant unused strap wrench. I guess its there for next time when I can have the elegance factor. So for anyone stumbling on this thread... What eventually worked sans a giant strap wrench? The Twin II: The rope trick! I would suggest this to anyone over the strap wrench. With the torque I had to put on that thing to get it loose I seriously doubt the cooling fins would have come away unscathed. On top of that it leaves both hands free to apply torque, heat and PB to the nut. Yes I ended up firing it up with a torch and blasting it with the PB several times. One thing to note when buying rope, don't confuse 3/4 with 3/8 or you'll be buying two chunks of rope over two trips. ;) On a similar thought if you got the 3/4 and tried to use the inner bit to do the trick and the engine turns over with the rope in there; you didn't shear the rope core in the engine. You just mushed it flat. Now you wont have to take of the cylinder head and go looking for proper torque speck to put it back on. Just start with 3/8 rope. The vanguard that had no connection to the pistons: Like I described above a piece of angle iron bolted to the flywheel and another sturdy part of the engine worked the charm. As for re-installation I followed Mownie's advice. Thanks for that. The last thing I want is more problems down the road.

Coll, I think your garden is just stunning! You mention the garden is fairly small, and you have about 125 hostas, and also that you have a bathroom area for your dogs. How big is your yard and garden, actually? I posted some photos of some of my hostas the other day, and am going to add a couple of wider angle photos to show how the yard sits (size, arrangement, etc). Would you maybe be able to do the same? I'd love to see the total overall effect. You said that in the photos you put up, we just couldn't see the weeds, failures, etc, and I have to admit that I tried to avoid those in my first photos as well, but I'm going to go for it and lay the whole thing out there for all to see! LOL! I'm hoping you'll do the same :-)

I thought they would be much easier to install - but I really don't think Ill like the look. Im just going to take the time and effort and cut them, it will look much nicer!!

Mother's day has come and gone... so should this thread! I am struggling with some of the statements. I justified the reference to our levels of earnings by saying that most of the stuff that we buy using "credit" cards isn't deductible, so using them isn't going to increase our amount of after-tax cash on hand, which will have an impact on our pre-tax income, as well. Almost none of the things we buy are tax deductible, so this is simply not relevant... because it doesn't change between the alternatives. The only way this becomes relevant is if you are taking money out of your traditional IRA to use for interest payments... So the entire before tax / after tax logic pretzel only works for one specific thing that is not mentioned in the original post. Next, a 28% credit card rate is not equal to a 28% savings rate. This is the difference between compounding interest and effective interest. Even though the two are calculated the exact same way, and compounding is a type of effective, compounding grows but effective interest can shrink. Credit cards are basically rolling installment loans with an 8 year and 4 month payback and no early payment penalty. So the total interest you pay on a $5,000 purchase would be $5,892 over 8.33 years. People will often struggle to convert avoidable interest to investment returns, and most people shouldn't need to do this. The easiest way to do so is by using a version of the Modigliani-Miller theorem. If you want to equate a loan into an investment, then just hypothetically use the loan to purchase the investment and find the interest rate where the total payments on the loan = the total return of the investment. The equivalent investment rate of a 28% credit card, is 9.38%. However, if you are not working with the capital structure of a business, that is pretty useless information. Unless you are borrowing to invest, you should just avoid equating loans to investments. It isn't going to provide useful information. ---- Math questions are best solved with math and not an application of some vague wisdom. Interest is not that hard to calculate, so learn to calculate it. There are times when using your credit card is wise and there are times when it is not. Generally speaking though, balances on high interest credit cards are a symptom of another problem. Typically, either frivolous spending or insufficient income. So, if you can, work on that problem first and the credit card problem tends to fix itself.