what did you wrench on today??

[Grimly]

Space Quest continues - in the effort to find and explore new storage solutions, I've been putting up more racking. Surprising how roomy that end seems now, and that's before I clear up the stuff that's lying off to the side which will be going onto the racking.

 

[Grimly]

Oh, joyfulness abounds. In amongst the detritus of engine parts I found a missing '79 850 kickstart side cover - I was sure that had disappeared during the Great Shed Roof Collapse that happened years ago at a mate's house, where I'd left several tea-chests of surplus bits. Turns out I'd kept all the bits of that engine together and brought it here, in its entirety.
This means the '79 engine can be rebuilt properly, with kickstart attached and without having to go out and find one.

 

[sinkankan]

I bought an American truck, (probably more Mexican) a Ford F150 1989 Custom.
It's 2WD with a limited slip diff, 302 cubic inch fuel injected and I'm the third owner. The 2nd owner just bumped after buying from a country dude, and it's in good condition for it's age. Faults, poor paint work, heavy Australian made steel tray, one of the dual petrol tanks isn't connected, horn doesn't work (watch for finger).
The good points are it has good resale value here in Western Australia, good solid motor and g/box, chrome mag wheels and new tyres, Kenwood sound system and Bluetooth, body doesn't have any visible rust except for the minor paint marks.
I've ordered a moulded carpet set from Sydney, and just had the seat redone, new cloth, new foam underneath. So tonight I serviced the seat tracks, put new springs on the slides, and replaced the cable. Gave it a buff and repaint.
Picture of the bottom half of the seat.

and the new springs, tested and works fine. Paint will take overnight to dry, it's winter.

Spoke too soon, found some rust under the trim in the floor, under the rubber trim. It's an easy fix to replace the metal with 1" aluminium angle to hold the door seal. Plenty of sand and rubbish in this little crevice, and a good moisture trap.
For a 26 year old truck it's suprising free of rust, and I'm painting the floor with POR 24 rust proofing before applying the new soundproofing.

 

[Guest]

Air compressor extension cord/adapter

Air compressor extension cord/adapter

My air compressor runs off of 220V. The house I'm renting doesn't have 220 in the garage. The laundry room links the garage to the living area, and has a 220V clothes dryer outlet. So I made a special extension cord. A 4-prong drier cord, 6' long, $24. An outlet of the type typically used for 220V window air conditioners, $9. An outdoor electrical box, $8. Strain relief, $2. A cover plate, $1. Indoor electrical boxes don't have holes for 3/4" strain reliefs, which the dryer cord requires.

At the same time, I replaced the 5' cord for the air compressor itself. After 35 years, the outer cover of the cord was shot. I used 9' of 14/2. Yeah, 14/2 seems small to me, but it is only 9', and I think that the original cord was also 14 gauge. $13 for the wire, $15 for the plug. I didn't find any plugs that could have handled 12 gauge or larger.

So, $71 to turn the compressor back on. The air hose was also 30 years old and leaking, so I threw it out before moving. For now I'm using HF vinyl 3/8" hose. It will be replaced when I find a permanent place to live. The old hose was also 3/8", but the regulator was 1/4", negating hopes of higher air flow. For now it is going back on. The regulator and filter will be replaces with an Astro Pneumatic 2618 Air Control Unit, $80 from Amazon. Reviewers say that DeVilbiss sells the same device for $130 and Snap-On gets even more.

One other observation: HF 3/8" connectors for air hose are internally stepped down to about 1/4". I'll eventually drill those out.

 

[Grimly]

Installed a tyre machine that's the same as the HF manual cheapy model. It wasn't new, but quite serviceable.

Unfortunately the HF bike tyre adaptor isn't available here, so I'm making a bike tyre changer from an old Transit van rim on three legs, like this example...

 

[Grimly]

Cheap and crappy gasless MIG wire

Cheap and crappy gasless MIG wire

With my toy welding kit I'd struggled through the last couple of reels of Super Six, and put a reel of flux-core Weld-Team on. I'd never heard of them before, either; turns out it's made by Air Liquide; the French equivalent of BOC or Air Products, for those who have a degree of familiarity.
Holey Drawers! The difference - night and day - suddenly the machine became a welder again and not a maker and distributor of smoke and blobby melted metal.
And here's the best bit - I only got the Air Liquide wire because my local supplier started stocking it out of the blue and had nothing else in - turns out that was a lucky break, as the other stockists in the area only had the Super Six anyway, which they were charging more for.

http://www.airliquidewelding.com/en/about-air-liquide-welding/our-brands/weldteam.html

It had got to the point I'd started to wonder if I'd lost my touch - I don't claim to be wonderful at it, but I knew I was better than that; either that or the machine was pegging out. The Super Six is just totally inconsistent; some reels are quite passable, but these last two were bloody awful. I suppose they're sourced from whoever can knock it out cheaply enough, and these days that's probably somewhere in China, with not much in the way of QC to interfere with the price. Problem I have locally is the dearth of stockists and now I've found this supply, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was a one-off. I can only hope they continue to stock it.
I had a look at the label, but it doesn't say what standard it's made to or whether it's the same as E71T-GS, or anything else. If it's actually made by Air Liquide, I hope they maintain the quality.

Whatever happens, I'm avoiding SuperSix like the plague from now on. there's a remaining reel of SuperSix on the shelf and it can stay there for emergency use, but it will be sub-zero in Hades before I actually use it.

 

[gustovh]

Did a front break job on Scruffy, replaced the oil cooler adapter with stock, installed the carbs, removed the luggage rack, reinstalled the mirrors and took her out for a blast. Triple digits in 3rd, she works.

V

 

[Grimly]

Tyre bay now taking shape, with HF and H-M side by side. Will pick up a length of 14mm all-thread for the front wheels. 16mm I already have is perfect for the rears.
More pics when I slap som paint on.

 

[rustybronco]

And this is how they should start.

 

[GS1150Pilot]

I put a front transmission mount and two rear shocks on my Buick today.

 

[Joe H]

New R/R? hoping to be up and running tonight. Also going to do some checking on the carbs and plug wires and possibly a valve check if time permits

 

[Grimly]

Fun tiime in the workshop.
Busy welding away and looked up to find the bench merrily on fire, just a bit.
I'm glad I hadn't walked out a few seconds earlier for a leak, as I'd intended to.

 

[Guest]

After my starter clutch failing at the weekend I decided to overhaul

Now ow just waiting for repair kit and re-assemble

 

[Guest]

New R/R? hoping to be up and running tonight. Also going to do some checking on the carbs and plug wires and possibly a valve check if time permits

Hope you bought a new Series RR and not an old shunt type.

 

[Joe H]

Hope you bought a new Series RR and not an old shunt type.

I hope I did too!!


And this just showed up?now maybe I will what its doing.

 

[Grimly]

Take an old van rim, add some all-thread and some angle-iron, stir it up with a welder and Bob's your slightly deranged relative.

 

[JTGS850GL]

That is one NASTY wheel.

 

[Grimly]

That is one NASTY wheel.

It lay up the back of the shed for 15 years, unloved and forgotten about, but apart from needing a set of bearings, it's quite sound and has good discs. It will be cleaned up, painted, and put back into service fairly soon.

 

[Grimly]

Well, that was easy...

Well, that was easy...

On the XS650...
I put some new pads in the fronts - cheapo Caltrix, as I didn't want to spend too much if I was wrong - and the lost motion has largely disappeared, thanks to the presence of unworn and square pads now. There's still a bit, but I suspect that's caused by slight wear on the sliding pin and bush and possibly ancient rubber of the bush on both sides. The angled wear on two of the pads was a dead giveaway to worn sliders and pins. I'll replace those in due course, but for now it's got two-finger stopping with the 14mm m/c and the lever is still a reasonable distance from the bar at full squeeze. These old brakes are actually decent enough if kept in good order, and when these bikes were new, I don't recall them having rubbish brakes, especially with the twin fronts.
Moving on to the rear brake - I dismantled the rear caliper and found nothing out of order, everything was free to move, but when I laid the brake line down on a slope and cracked off the union at the top of the m/c body, a spurt of air came out.
I know where that came from - when I laid the bike on its side when I was doing the starter blanking plate. Oddly though, it didn't show up until a couple of hundred miles had passed.

The small brake bits and pieces - the anti-rattle and anti-squeal shims don't seem to be available outside of getting an OEM overhaul kit, so I'll have to stump up for a couple of those by the look of it. Since I'm planning to replace the Caltrix pads with something decent, I'll buy OEM with the kit included - seems to be a fair price anyway.

 

[wymple]

Stuck a Denso alternator on my Moto Guzzi. 2 wires, 14.4 volts, 35 amps.

http://pic100.picturetrail.com/VOL683/2961393/5987839/411485351.jpg