I wish we had a place to....
 

Forum Moderators,

I have absolutely no idea how these forums function and if this is even a possibility but,…. I see a lot of repetition in questions that I may have a partial solution for. I wish there was a place to upload drawings and sketches too. For example, I don’t know how many times someone has asked for dimensions for carrier armor in the last couple of years that I’ve been a member. I also know that some very generous individuals have taken the time to make up dimensioned drawings, but there is still the difficulty of distributing the info. I bet there are detailed drawings out there for a vast majority of parts by now, but no one knows about it, or at a minimum has difficulty sifting the required info from soooo many years of previous threads. Ideally my idea would work something like this. I have a need to make part number CTL@$*&%. I would first go to this new section and do a search for it see if any existing sketches/drawings exist for it yet. If not then I can bug people for the info. I was also thinking that this section could hold a few new file types. For instance some CAD files like .dxf. Being able to download a CAD file could be a big deal to a bunch of guys/gals out there. There could be multiple sketches for the same part which would validate the accuracy and help evolve that part drawing. I can already see that this suggestion will bring up the much fought over issue of original vs reproduction. Hey I would love to use original parts and I do when ever possible. In my experience it has been more costly to make new but often I have not had any choice. I envy those of you, LOL that have a few rusting hulks out in there back 40 to chose the best of the components from. Thank you for your consideration.

Stephen DeMocko

Gathering the info
 

Interesting idea, however I think making it happen within the structure of a forum may be complex.

It seems to me this sort of thing would be better off on something like a special resources website subject to copyright of original drawings, and someone having the time and resources to put this together.

The other problem would be Band Width which CAD and other high Res images/drawings take up and who pays for it? :)

drawings
 

What about a sticky in the restoration sub forum that just contains links to all the drawings? That way they can be anywhere and better suit the individual poster.

Or how about doing some searches of past threads to find the info before asking about it. Ive seen a number of threads over the past few years where people have asked for info only to have another member link to an older thread that's got exactly what they were looking for.

Many a night I have spent searching and re-reading old posts on here looking for info before Ive posted a question. Or when I have found info, I have searched yet again to look for older posts. This helps to in a way "update" some older info.

My only gripe with saying all this is that sometime I do find the searching function to be of limited use since your word can't be 4 letters and under. Is there anyway this could get changed?

Sticky
 

Sounds like a good idea Ryan - just need to find someone or some enthusiastic people to do the researching and linking. Let's see what Hanno thinks when he awakens.

Jordan,

I understand your concern about the "4 letters or less" limit.

An example of this is searching to see if anything is posted about the unique brake system found only on the C60X (or for that matter the other oddity - the F60H). The 4 letter exclusion makes the combined search "c60x brake" behave the same way that a search on "brake" would. One way around this would be if we all agreed that we would always use c60-x instead of c60x when posting innformation, but this fails for anyone looking for information specific to the c8, f8, c8a or even c8-a.

In my ignorance of how the search function on this system works, I have guessed that the 4 letter limit may have been put in place to better define what we are seaching for by reducing the chances that the search phrase we enter might be included within other words. An example of this is searching on tan (as in paint, but without the word paint in the search) would get results for fuel tanks, ram tanks and tanks for electrolyitic de-rusting as well as the desired paint threads - and these are real topics that came to mind without thought.

I don't have any bright ideas as to the solution other than to think of as many terms as possible that might describe what you are looking for and try them all. Also be sure to check alternate spellings tire and tyre, color and colour, etc.

A repository for drawing and dimensioned photos
 

Hi All

The idea of a repository for drawing and dimensioned photos is a great idea, but I agree difficult to do in side of a forum such as MLU.

As someone who has done CAD drawing of CMP parts in the past I would point out another problem and that is drawing file type my CAD program list 15 different file formats.

To get some more ideas on the problem look at some of the following MLU threads
http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/se...earchid=232008

Now on to possible solutions - Who in our group have web sites with space to host drawings and what is your area of focus?

I'm willing to look at hosting drawings of Chevy CMPs.

Cheers Phil

TMs
 

Do we have a place for TMs here, or do we refer to other sites?
Ie: Steelsoldiers.com or Militarytrucks.ca ?

Check out Traction Talk
 

Kieth,

Check out Traction Talk (http://www.tractiontalkforum.com). It is a pretty lively road steam forum. It is based on the same platform as this from memory. In it there is a members section which contains a library, a drawing repository, a castings and patterns section so all of that information is contained in the one ara. It works quite well.

Just a thought

What ho! Sorry for my late reply, I don't get the time these days to peruse the forum like I used to.

Anyone is able to start a thread with links to the various threads with a common subject. Moderators can (and do) merge threads if they turn out to be on the same subject, or move them to the appropriate forum. Making a sticky of a must-read thread is not a problem, just as and the moderators will do that for you.
So we have a way to gather information and keep it together. It is up to the members to search the information and bring it all together.

In the past searches were limited to words at least 4 (5?) characters long to limit the bandwidth used by internet search engines software. I will see if I can alter the settings. But I've used Google to search this forum and it works very good.

David, it would be great if you could find out for us what Traction Talk has done to set up their members section (I am not a member so I cannot enter that section).

Thanks,
Hanno

Site for Documents
 

Hey Guys

I have my own domain with plenty of space as well as the ability to setup secure logins. I could offer the space to upload any documents for all vehicles, etc. As to the file type for CAD drawings I know the fabricating shop I deal with they use a waterjet to cut steel and it will read .dwg files which all versions of AutoCAD can save as.

If this seems to be a viable option let me know and I will setup the ftp site for all here to access.

Gary