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Author: Jon Steege

Jadclipse plugin not working? Here is the solution and a story..

Jadclipse plugin not working? Here is the solution and a story..

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The other day, I found myself needing to reverse engineer a java class. Some may wonder why, and the answer would be that this jar file composer must not have known about javadoc, and likes to write methods with lots of inputs and vague method parameter names. I thought that it wasn’t going to be such a bad deal because Eclipse has a great plugin called JadClipse that can decompile class files stuck in compiled jar file libraries. Little did I know, the maintainer of JadClipse swiftly left the planet circa eclipse 3.4 release, leaving everyone sorta hanging.

This led me down the road of trying to figure out how to get the whole thing working with older files and all that good stuff. Of course, the last time I used Jad was on a system I no longer have. Well, I tried the handy eclipse plugin system and diligently entered the eclipse 3.4 plugin that someone got sick of not having and wrote. I rebooted eclipse, and low and behold, the stupid thing wasn’t working.

You may now be thinking: “well most eclipse plugins work right out of the box”, and with that statement, you would be correct. This one however, did not.

I started brainstorming what it could possibly be, and a lot of ideas ran through my head such as: “maybe the new guy who took up the reigns of the Jadclipse plugin doesn’t know WTF he is doing, kinda like the guy who wrote this jar file”. A quick jaunt around the web proved this not to be the case, as lots of people claimed to have gotten this new Jadclipse 3.4 plugin working just fine. Next, “could it be user error”? Maybe I forgot to flip the bit that designates Jadclipse the new class file viewer, rather than the OOTB eclipse compiled class viewer, which is less than helpful in my situation. Of course, that wasn’t it.. Jadclipse duly installed itself and flipped its default .class file viewer setting.

Then the epiphany. Jad was a command line decompiler only back in the day. I didn’t have the command line decompiler installed, and the Jadclipse plugin simply uses the output of the jad command line decompiler and then reads the files generated into eclipse.

Simply locating a mirror of the jad decompiler, then placing it in the java path, I now had the command line decompiler working. I quickly checked to see if eclipse was now doing its magic and showing me the source, and it was.

So.. pro tip: if you can’t seem to get the JadClipse plugin working for versions of eclipse later than 3.4 (and probably any version of eclipse for that matter), make sure you have the old school jad decompiler  in your path somewhere. You can tell if it is there by popping a command prompt and typing jad. Good luck!

How to remove a broken exhaust manifold stud

How to remove a broken exhaust manifold stud

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I recently had the distinct pleasure of needing to remove a broken exhaust manifold stud from an aluminum cylinder head on my drag racing car, even when using a torque wrench graduated in inch/lbs. As you may well know, there are only 3 types of people in this world. Ones that have not yet broken a stud, those that have already, and those that never will.

Well, congratulations are in order, because I graduated from class 1 into class 2 in a flurry of expletives. I had just completed a porting job on my exhaust manifold, and in the process of bolting it back up, the last stud (always) decided to break on me. Now, this isn’t one of those “easy break” deals, either. The remainder of the stud was recessed with respect to the plane of the head. So, it is with much reluctance, I now had a research project on my hands.

After searching the web for a while, the conclusion I came to is that the “easy way” is to take it to a machine shop. Well, that just isn’t good enough for me. I figured the machine shop might only charge $40 or $60 bucks for it, but then there are all the gaskets to buy and the downtime to deal with and on and on. There has to be a better way.

Well, there is. And I documented it for all of my readers. Here it is.. enjoy!

Chris Miller wins E-Town Fall Nationals in Outlaw SFWD

Chris Miller wins E-Town Fall Nationals in Outlaw SFWD

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Chris Miller's Outlaw Street FWD car
Chris Miller's Outlaw Street FWD car, courtesy GRS Motorsports

Chris Miller won the Outlaw Street FWD competition at Old Bridge Township Raceway park this weekend, capping a weekend full of the fastest FWD racing in the country. Miller faced a hard charging Fernando Cunha who joined the  NRGTech racing team in running into the 8’s all weekend. In  the end, Miller came out victorious, as engine issues struck the CLM motorsports car.  Miller ran an 8.75 at 172 mph to cap off a great showing as the CLM car blew the head gasket in the semi-final, and the whole thing let go on the launch in the final round. Hit the jump for the in-car video of the race, courtesy GRS Motorsports.

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