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The Albatross

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:48:00 -0400

The albatross landed two weeks ago, for a short two week visit.This is a huge Chevy bread truck that was here to repair the brake lines, carb and lighting to prepare it for Handi-man Jack to get business going.
So far a new brake line was installed. The brakes were bleed but upon moving the truck the rest of the lines in that circuit exploded, so now we have to repair the rest in order for it to keep it's fluids inside.

The Carburetor was a nightmare. After sitting 4 years the float needle was stuck shut and varnish was so thick we had to remove it. Rochester carbs have a special head on the idle mixture screws called a double "D". A special tool is needed, so a hunting trip was required through the rows and bling that most autoparts stores try to push on the public. Soon enough I found what I was looking for at the third store. I always wonder when leaving the store "why didn't I go here first &$%^&!" So back to the truck.

The carburetor mixture screws were almost out all the way, at least 10 or twelve turns. No wonder it spewed black and blue smoke out the pipe. I bought 8 feet of brake line and bent it as close as possible to match the original shape, now it needs to be installed. The battery picked out for use is from a diesel Mercedes that's parked due to lack of funds, so the battery tray needed modification to fit this over-sized battery. A hammer did the trick! Chevy started using those side terminals on vehicles some time ago, and this one is plagued with these poorly designed terminals, so in order to run a real top post battery the ends need to be re-fitted with the standard post style terminals ends.

The electrical work comes after this...It should be easy enough, but I'm told there's a plan....oh boy!

Good ideas that go wrong.

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:20:00 -0400

It seemed a good idea to set up a blog. Letting folks know what�s happening on this site and what we�re up to, and is what the idea was.The blog software allowed for comments and what was called �Trackbacks� that allowed everyone to send messages back for linking their blog or site to us. The very sad part is, every adult site that could be listed, was listed. Over 4500 trackbacks on just one article, and another 2300 on another. Adjustments to the software had to be made to eliminate the ability for trackbacks or comments to be posted. So now my blog is more a journal than what has become known as a blog. Of course �BLOG� originally stood for �weB LOG� but some how the need for folks to comment back was added to enhance blogging. I did some research on the matter of pornography to find out more of the psychological reasons people have a need for this, and am left with only one answer, money. Making money selling porn is very profitable. Billions of dollars have been made and will continue to be made via the sale of porn. Not here though. We�re sorry that this blog was used as a link dump by these sad types.

Honda XL125

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:55:00 -0400

Fun little enduro machine.

I pick up a Honda late this fall hoping to get in going to help teach people how to ride. A $300.00 investment to have a small ride seemed a good idea. A few people I know wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle. I couldn�t believe that some have reached their adult life without ever having the chance to get on a dirt bike and ride, but with dwindling resources of good woodlands and more and more property getting developed due to over population I guess I could see that some kids are never going to get this chance.

In the beginning I thought this would be a simple project, but as it turned out it wasn�t. The prior owned had some one work on it that had now idea how an engine works. As it turned out the machine had sat so long the inside of the cylinder had rusted to the point were the piston was locked in place. Out the motor comes. After disassembling the motor I discovered that I could rotate the crank so the cylinder would rise enough so that I could get some wood blocks between the crankcase and the bottom of the cylinder. I have a mallet with a long plastic handle on it. I put the handle down the cylinder so the soft plastic was against the piston and gave it a tap. Nothing moved, so I applied my propane torch to the cylinder, constantly moving the torch so I don�t melt the aluminum. After ten minutes of heat I gave the motor another blow and I could see the piston move a very little bit. I then sprayed a lot of penetrating oil down the cylinder and hit it again until the piston was free enough to allow me to pull the cylinder all the way off the engine.

The cylinder needed boring out. Getting oversized piton and rings was a quest for such an old machine. As it turns out the XL125 wasn�t as popular of a machine and many sizes of pistons and ring as well as many other parts are now discontinued. I ended up going with the 0.50 piston and 0.75 over rings. You can always grind the ends of rings to the proper fit. It�s fussy work to do, but it can be done. The cylinder head was pretty ugly too. I found a valve spring compressor that seemed small enough to fit, but I still ended up having to grind down the legs to make it small enough to fit the Honda head. After pulling the valves out I knew I was in trouble. I had always sent out valve jobs, but no one was telling me anything in the way of a reasonable price. I started looking around and valve cutting equipment wasn�t cheap. A single cutting head was a lot more that I thought, and a whole set was more than I paid for the bike. Sure I wanted to get something that I could use more than just once, but Christmas was on the was so I had to be budget minded. I started looking on eBay for any deal I could find. I found an original Air powered official valve seat grinder that few were bidding on. I was persistent enough and one the auction. Now Just before Christmas and I have no time to work on it. When the valve grinder came in I was able to grind the valve seats and hone in the valves on one Saturday morning. By the afternoon I had the engine assembled and ready to mount. It wasn�t until after the new year that I was able to load the motor in the frame and then put all the parts back together. Snow snow and more snow kept me busy. Shovel plow, shovel plow, it seemed my life was taken over buy the forces of nature.

Finally a Saturday morning where I didn�t have snow to push and it was warm enough to consider riding it around the back yard. I still couldn�t get the motor to start. Some one had put grease in the motor instead of oil. Between the assembly lube and the grease in the motor the rings just couldn�t seal off well enough to make compression. I discovered that the spark advance unit had also been taken apart and put together 180 out of phase. After correcting that I put AFT in the motor to wash out the grease. I know that I should have done all that before, but this was supposed to be a weekend project. I didn�t think that I�d find so many mistakes on one machine. I used the kick started to turn that motor over for about an hour. I decided that I�d pull the drain plug and let it sit overnight. The next morning I was ready have at it. A few house hold chores done and out to the shed. I thought it would be a good idea to clean the work bench first. My coat must have grabbed the bike just enough to start it tipping. All of a sudden the bike hit the back of my legs throwing me against the work bench tearing a hole just below the knee on the back leg of my pants and slamming me to the floor ripping my pants down to my knees. I threw the bike off of me and pulled my pants back on. The pain was more than I could handle so I went inside to see what damage had been done. Here I hadn�t even ridden it and I have my fist injury. There was a tear through the pants so after removing them I found I had a gouge that ran from just below the knee eight inches long. Since I generally don�t bruise right away, a box of band aids and a cup of coffee to calm down did the trick.

I headed out the shop again feeling my knee creaking, the muscles in the leg now so tense that I can feel the blood coming to a slow and I couldn�t move my angle very well.

I made it to the shop and then fill the crankcase with more ATF. I figured it was time to turn the key on The compression felt good this time. After a few kicks I the motor popped through the exhaust. I tightened down the head pipe and pushed the machine outside. A few kick more and the motor started. It didn�t stay running very long. I pulled the carb to find that from sitting in the shop there was now some ice in the jets. I blew them clean and placed the carb back. One of two kicks later and the motor was running. As soon as the motor started to heat up smoke poured out the exhaust pipe. Now it would seem that that was backwards. But after thinking about it for a while If some one load the engine full of grease then I was thinking that the same applied to the exhaust pipe. A few laps around the back yard a little above idle and the motor still sounded good. The pipe must have started to clean out because the smoke was hardly there anymore. The spark plug was black from burning off all that grease. I drained the AFT out and the result was very black and goopy sludge. I put new 10-30 oil in and then rode it for a few hours later that day. The next Saturday I let the first learner ride it around the back yard. Between the slippery snow and the new ride never riding before it was fun to watch. Come this spring I can let it be ridden more, and then get the turn missing signals for the rear and make it road worthy. For now it sits in the motor shed waiting to be ridden again.

Barracuda

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:27:00 -0400

My 67 Barracuda is now going through re-conditioning.I've put off putting a balanced motor in this car long enough. It hasn't been any fun to drive this machine as that the 360 motor that's in it requires a balanced torque converter. When I bought this car I thought that I could just re-paint it, recover the seats and fix the steering box. The motor has such an odd vibration due to it needing the externally balanced converter.
I've acquired a 318 with a 727 transmission attached. So far I've pulled apart the 727 and replaced the clutch plates.

Now the motor work. The 318 was running and pulling it apart I used plasti-gage to check the clearances before making a decision as what to do. I was lucky enough that all the clearances were very tight. The bearings showed signs of wear, but not a whole lot. So the plan was, new rings, new main and rod bearings. I took a lot of time polishing the tops of the pistons to a finish that come close to a chrome look. Balancing these pistons at this point takes some patients, but if you work long enough, you can do it.

The re-assembly was planned so that I could have the motor in the machine before the cold weather came along. Then I ran into a glitch that I couldn't believe. I went on-line to order the bearings, and everything went very smooth. I'd placed an order for the stock size bearing, and within a week they were sitting on my door step when I came home on day. That weekend I spend a whole lot of time setting the bearings in the journals, using an assembly grease I placed the crank into the motor and started to tighten down the crank, when I noticed that I couldn't turn the crank at all. I went back to my order sheet for the bearings and everything looked fine. I spent the rest of the day looking to see what I might have done Wong. After no success I ended the day, cleaned up and to a longer look at the order that I placed, and checking it against the web site.

As it turns out the web site never showed the undersize bearings as a different part number, they just pulled what ever they could off the shelf and sent it to me. Well, when it comes to motor building you really need to have precision with those tolerances. $165.00 down the drain. I called these folks up, but like most businesses these days, you get directed to an operator, order taker, that know absolutely nothing about engines. Even the web development team have no idea that the differences in sizes will make a major difference when building a motor. After about an hour on the phone explaining how this is a major problem, and that I was sold the wrong bearings, I got now where. Maybe after many meetings with the rest of the staff they'll call the manufacturer to get an explanation why bearings are different sizes. At least these folks use English as the first language, well, er sort of. 8th grade English.

Taking time off from work to run to the parts store was required to get the correct size of main bearings. I went to a store where I know the people are mature enough to not only know that their talking about, but can speak in full sentences. A few days later, and the bearings were in my hands. Now that three weeks had past, it's to cold for me to be swapping a motor. At least the motor will be ready for spring!