Old, Fat, and Happy

More new life for old parts

2011-10-17T08:13:00.000-04:00

Next I tried adding some saddles to act as "wind cups" (that's what they're called on anemometers) to catch wind and spin the thing

It had to be put on a fixed base, because with it hanging all the wind did was swing it back and forth

Even with that done, it still wouldn't spin like I hoped it would. I figure either the saddles don't catch enough wind, or the tubing is too heavy, or maybe even both.

New life for old bike parts

2011-10-16T14:46:00.001-04:00

Gina picked these tubes up from a local bike shop that had stopped carrying Cannondale. The tubing was used to show the different colors for some model year. My understanding is all they were good for was falling over and making a racket. Now they can just hang around and look nice.

The wheel came off an old rusted to death Huffy, and the whole thing turns around the axle. Other materials include some old chains, 1/8" and 3/16" rolled steel and a piece of 3/16" plate. Now I'm trying to find appropriate old junk parts to make wind cups with so it will spin with the wind. Maybe a couple of old saddles would work.

The diet, some background

2011-10-11T18:59:00.000-04:00

The "diet" for my car was enforced by Arlen Vanke's shop in Akron.

Akron Arlen was a hero from Ohio back in the day. He did some early work with Pontiac back in their swiss cheese phase, so he was a dietician from way back. But still, to me he'll always be a Mopar racer because that's where he really found fame..

Here's Arlen in recent times, same car, different paint scheme. The paint job shown here was originally done by Greg of Akron and it's a rolling work of art. I'm not sure about that East Town job above, it could be too.

I can't say I'm glad he cut on my car, but like he told me, they were just old race cars back then. The customers wanted fast cars, and light means fast. Another reason to lighten the cars up was to offset the weight of the roll bar that was needed to pass tech at the track. There's at least 100 lbs of steel tubing here left from cutting that thing out.

Speaking of the roll bar ... I found traces of life when I cut the roll bar out of the car. Apparently J. C. Heintz worked for Arlen's shop back in 1978 when the car was prepped..

My A12 fender tag

2011-10-11T17:58:00.001-04:00

I reckon the fender tag for my car went in the scrap pile just like all the other metal that was cut off to lighten it. Not having the tag affects the car value. But what can you do? Once lost, it's gone forever.

This is about what it would look like ... even down to the char count ... except there are things there I can't reproduce because they're sequences, etc. so I filled those in the best I could.

I think I'll print one, laminate it, and screw it down to the inner fender where the metal one should be.

Planning for my kick panel repair

2011-10-05T20:07:00.017-04:00

Here is a place that was cut out as part of the diet and wouldn't have needed to be fixed - but the nut for the dashboard to bolt to is part of the metal that was cut out. So I've got to do something to correct that.

This angle also shows more of the cowl pan modification that I'm correcting.

Also, looking at the floor there you can see the 1/2" holes where the roll bar used to bolt in. There's 4 on each side for 8 total that have to be welded up because they won't be used.

This is the driver's side of that same panel, which is plenty ugly but doesn't need a repair; note the bracket at center with the dashboard nut. Here, I may go ahead and weld in a piece to tie the two parts together at the very top there, but other than that, the work list for this side is clean, grind, clean, treat, clean, clean, and paint.

Returning to the side in need of repair, here it is with a kick panel in the correct place. See how everything would've been hidden?

Here is the look with the full patch lined up and clamped in place. There's a circle around the nut that went missing during the prep work.

(I didn't take a photo with that *and* the kick panel in place, but I should.)

This shows my draft cut lines. I'm replacing the minimum, there is no reason to do more.

Note how the line extends to the lower right so the alignment notch there will be part of the patch. That helps to ensure the patch goes back in straight. Line that up with the matching notch on the car, and it's easy.

The next steps here are to trim out the pinch weld (which has been the right edge of all the photos) on the car where the patch goes . Then I'll drill about 5 5/16" holes the patch along that edge, and plug weld those to the car where I trimmed. The right side will be welded to the existing metal in the same manner. That will provide plenty of support for the dash, and since it is hidden and there is no reason to make more work for myself, it's the best way to go.

Planning for my cowl repair

2011-10-05T08:18:00.031-04:00

The reason for my cowl repair is best explained by photos.

First, here's a shot that includes a clear look at the cowl on my car. Notice how nice and flat it is?

And here's what it should look like. (h/t to amd for the photo)

So I'm missing a group of louvers, and two holes that the wiper pivots come through. There is actually a reason that was modified. When the car was race prepped, they cut out the underside of the cowl to save weight. The metal they cut out is necessary to support the wiper pivots, and to keep water off the floor. Once that was gone, the louvers had to be smoothed so water wouldn't run straight onto the floor. Since wipers aren't needed on a race car, they also smoothed the wiper holes on the outside. One wiper pivot mount was lost with the metal that was cut out, and a stud for the remaining mount was damaged in the process.

This photo clearly shows where the lower cowl pan has been cut out while also showing what a mess the wiring is right now. The goofy switch and gauge mounting are there so I can start the car without the dash in it.

My current thoughts are to go custom with the repair, and leave the smoothed cowl and as much of the weight loss as possible. Since the car has mini tubs and other race mods, that wouldn't be out of place. Plus, it's been on the car so long I almost feel it'd be a shame to undo that part of it.

So what follows shows how I could repair just the bare minimum, adding wipers but leaving the factory louvers smoothed. The plan certainly has flaws - for example, the washer squirts through the louvers, so that is yet to be accounted for.

Now, more pretty photos ...

Here you see the draft cut lines on the donor part. Ignore the obvious mismarking there at the bottom. That was caused by it being in the rafters, and me being on a ladder, when it was marked. Not the easiest way to do it, but definitely easier than taking it down from there and then having to put it back (or have it in the way).

One thing to note there is the feature just to the right of the leftmost cut line, at top. That indentation will ensure that I get the part back in the right position at the windshield pinch because it has to match up with the same feature stamped into the metal I will be welding it to.

This shows the cowl marked with the basic cut line to just spot the wiper holes back in. It's about 1-3/4" square. The welding here is the only part I don't plan to do because it'd be easy to warp and it shows A LOT. So I think I'll hire it out to the best TIG welder I can find around here. All the rest of the welding will be MIG done by me.

Here, the blue tape represents the area covered by the replacement patch. The contours of the pan are not per the tape. The pan is deeper than that, which will give me room to reach inside it to weld it up at the firewall.

The patch panel will be cut from the donor part as was shown above and includes the missing pivot mount. Again, just to the right of the leftmost tape line, at top, you see the alignment feature I mentioned. The panel will be welded in at the windshield pinch and then to the lip which was left at the firewall. I'm unsure right now if the firewall side will be lapped and plug welded, or butted and stitch welded. Probably best to butt it, but OTOH, it should never get wet so there's no worry of having a place for it to rust. Also, since it's steel to steel contact, no corrosive reaction is expected from having the two overlapped pieces.

So ... am I crazy for taking this approach to "restoring" a real A12, or not? Remember, putting the louvers back on the cowl has an impact on what I have to do on the inside, to catch and direct any water that comes through them. Would there really be that much more value in going with the louvers, given the other race mods on the car?

Spot Longboard 9 Geometry

2010-03-18T09:42:00.008-04:00

Spot took down last year's Longboard-9 geometry page, so here's the data

Spot Longboard 9 geometry
	Small	Medium	Large	XL
STAND OVER (mm)	660*	713*	766*	806*
EFFECTIVE TOP TUBE	559	584	603.2	635
BOTTOM BRACKET DROP (mm)	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2
SEAT TUBE (C - C)	305	368	432	482
HEAD TUBE LENGTH(mm)	104	114	120	130
HEAD ANGLE	70.5	71	71	72
SEAT ANGLE	73.5	73	72.5	73.5
CHAINSTAY (C - C)	444	444	444	444
	*note: stand over height taken through the center of bottom bracket to top of top tube.

Dustpan

2009-10-22T09:23:00.005-04:00

This one started out like most did, as a slant-6. Now it's a 340, auto, with a 3.23 sure-grip rear.

I could start it up right now, drive it anywhere, no problems. I rebuilt ALL the mechanicals, brakes, bearings, suspension, I mean everything was touched.

Fall is here

2009-10-03T21:17:00.003-04:00

Relaxing

2009-09-09T09:27:00.010-04:00

It was nice to spend some time here over Labor Day weekend.

We forgot there is only a broadcast antenna - no government coupon, no digital converter box.

The road in

The downside

More geometry numbers

2009-08-25T13:04:00.009-04:00

I keep finding used Zion (Jenson) 29er frames, and when I do, I have to go hunt down the geometry ... so here it is, where I can find it quickly

Zion 737 Geometry
	S	M	L
Effective Top Tube	23.1"	23.7"	24.55"
Seat Tube (C-T)	16.75"	17.75"	19.75"
Standover Height	27.75"	28.75"	30"
Head Angle	71	72	72
Seat Angle	74.5	73.5	73.5
Head Tube	3.15"	3.54"	3.93"
Wheelbase	42.5"	42.75"	43"
Chainstay	17.3"	17.3"	17.3"

Nearly 50 now

2009-08-19T09:56:00.002-04:00

Irony - when you find a pair of reading glasses that work for you, but when you look at the frame leg to see if it's got the lens power marked, the print's too small to read without using the glasses.

singleator springs

2009-05-29T13:59:00.003-04:00

I now have a Singleator. The instructions warn of killing the spring if the wrong one is installed for the way you want it to tension, so here's the way to tell which spring is which.

Meep meep

2009-03-19T20:47:00.007-04:00

Homemade headbadge

2009-03-13T18:27:00.039-04:00

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned an idea of sticking a beer label on the trashbike's headtube as a badge of sorts. It actually took me a while to get a label off the bottle clean, and when I did, it was too big - part of it would be laying over a lug. So back to the drawing board.

Then today, while I was stumbling around on the web after work, I came onto this little gem of an image.

I like it, but something about it just isn't Sheldon - I don't think he'd have wanted anyone to OBEY him. So scratch that one. But, on the blog that came from, the owner signed out "Sheldon Brown, you have a posse", so I partnered up with google and hunted the next image down.

Usually, the "Posse" sticker has a little blurb with some fact about who ever it is that's posse'ed up. The first one I found for Sheldon didn't have that, so I googled a little more and found one that had 1944-2008 on it. The image quality was down, but the font was right, so I copied just the date text out and pasted it into the other image. Viola, I have my headbadge art:

I was so tickled with myself, I printed one out real quick and went to the garage ... but it was way too wide, just like the beer label was. I knew the lugwork would be no more than 1/2 the circumference of the tube, so I did a little math; c equals 2 pi radius, the radius is 1/2" since the bike has a 1" headtube, so c= pi. Half that is 1.57, so I rounded it down to an inch and a half. That width helps with the taping too, because my tape is 1-3/4 inch wide, so I get a nice border around the image using one width of tape. Next I fired the image up in Irfanview and scaled it to 1-1/2" wide while preserving the aspect ratio, which gave me a size of 150 x 184 pixels. After printing that version, I headed back out to the garage again.

After I'd trimmed the image off the page, and was sure it'd fit this time, I cut a length of clear packing tape at least double the height of the trimmed out image. Using what was left of the page I'd cut the image out of, I stuck the tape to it, sticky side up, with the ends looped back under it so they were stuck. That held the tape good and firm, and it was easy to line the image up straight and centered with the tape. Being sure to stick the image to the tape printed side down so it'll be visible, I stuck the image down to the tape. Then it was easy to just slip a pair of scissors between the tape and paper and trim the tape off so it left an equal border all the way around. All that's left to do now, is to place it on the headtube like so:

The only thing I did wrong, was I didn't clean the headtube before sticking the "decal" on. When that happens, the tape doesn't stick, and if you look real close at the bottom center of the photo, you'll see that mine didn't. Must have been a greasy fingerprint.

... but having said that, another thing I did wrong was to not ask the permission of the person that made the original image ... please forgive me but it's just so danged appropriate.

To make your own sticker like mine, click this image to full size, then print it, to make 4 stickers that will fit a 1" headtube

Obviously, this isn't limited to just Sheldon Brown posse stickers, you can use the same method to make whatever you can print into a new headtube sticker for your bike. Knock yourselves out with it kids.