2012-12-22

What thread is this

W7
35


Edit:
As it says 7mm, 35tpi, Whitworth thread

2012-10-29

FEM

A couple of years ago my friend Frank from Germany was investigating methods for lightening the valve rockers. Below a simulation of the original rocker.

Klick the picture to see the actual simulation


2012-09-28

Guess what

the cylinder head make is? The rest of the engine is pretty easy to recognize.

I did some detective work about 7 years ago, trying to track down one of the last persons alive (it seems), involved in the project. I came pretty close, so close that I got to hear the person I was searhing for had cancer and after that, nothing. The dream stopped at that point.


2012-07-17

Another Museum

Nice museum, bad picture.

2012-06-05

Field trip

No succes at work today. Fortunately, today it was close to the MC Collection...



Also upgraded my wardrobe with a T-shirt.

2012-06-01

Radiator

Since the Chinamus was to bright to use as a lantern I bought a radiator kit for it.

Installing the kit.




Tested with the mantle in place


With the mantle in the bottom of the radiator


And plain radiator


The last was the best heatvice maybe too hot


Look at the hat, the chrome is starting to fail after 15minutes

2012-05-30

Chinamus

Or actually a chinese made Optimus 1551 found a new home.
Quality is not perfect and it has some battle scars(?) although it's brand new.

Got it light after adjusting some damages.
The performance is bright & pulsating, it almost has X-ray strength (500cp). Hopefully the pulsating phenomena can be adjusted.


2012-05-23

Funkmeister

Was supervising my bids for Kerosene products when I remembered that I have an old IMCO Funkmeister somewhere. How cool is that name, Funkmeister, just taste it :)

I must have rescued that one from the family summer cottage. One om my only lasting memories of my grandpa is when he lighted the Primus Gas Stove with the Funkmeister.

In color the same as this one but not that good condition, but still working.

Now I suddenly also remember playing with an IMCO Petrol Lighter as a child, a blue one. Must have been my fathers, will make him give me that one - if it can be found.

2012-05-09

Brass cleaning

Bought an old kerosene camping stove that was dirty and corroded. Probably never cleaned since the 30ies.


Earlier I have used citric acid but thought I should try something new. Mixed up a solution of hot water, oxalic acid, soap, methylated spirit and ammonia. If you intend to do the same, do it outside and wear protective clothing.

As with the citric acid it works best as log as the solution is hot.

After a short time the the stove looked like this.

And with some light polishing

Using a polishing wheel would have made it more glossy...

2012-05-06

New adventure

Today I remembered the old Kärcher Pressure Washer that i got from a friend. The only thing he told me was "it's blowing fuses". I tested it and it did!

I suspected moisture in the junction box and it was... and more.


The junction box was full of moist and rust and when I opened the switch, a piece was broken loose.


Have glued the piece back with Super Glue and so far it seems to work.

The motor still did not work and after dismantling more parts I could feel that the motor was not rotating, at all.

Suspected a bearing failure but it was worse. The rotor and stator were glued togeteher by rust. Bearings are fine!


After de-rusting I put the parts together and it works!



2012-05-05

Kerosene

Due to lack of inspiration for my current projects I started with a new hobby today.

A Kerosene Torch Collection.


Or at least an extenson of the Kerosene Lamp collection I started last week...

The main idea is to buy some at every swap meet I visit this summer and fix them next winter, in between the other projects.

2012-04-26

Cross Heads

In an earlier post I mentioned that I finally bought the JIS cross head screw drivers.

To clarify the difference (to myself) once and for all I tried to find the JIS specification on-line but could not find it.

Anyway, the most common cross heads, in my life are:

But unfortunately the most common screw drivers (as for most people) are Phillips and Pozidriv. This has resulted in a lot of damaged screws. Where to get replacement JIS screws or at least similar looking Phillips, I don't know.

Earlier I have replaced the screws with Unbrako / Allen head bolts but that just don't seem right. For one of the Honda engines I used flanged JIS bolts (smaller head size and finer thread pitch for the larger bolts) but they were not easy to find either.



Hopefully I can soon start refurbishing used bolts when I get my home Zinc plating kit working.

2012-04-17

FARGO

Last summer I "found" an old Fargo Town Wagon in Canada that I "fell in love with".



I was allmost attempted to buy it, regardless of the state.

This is what it should look like. The only difference is taht my Fargo was a delivery van. I.e. no windows or seats in the rear. (Town Panel?)



Like this

2012-04-15

Next problem

Maybe these motors were popular in Holland?



The cylinder had some shelf wear...



After some light filing and honing it's better.



New piston rings adjusted.



The next problem is that the magneto seems to be faulty. Visually I detected one broken wire in the primary winding but the secondary windig also has a open circuit and that's bad... I have not decided if I should put any effort and money into rewinding the magneto.

2012-04-11

More Junk

Maybe I should start to build something instead of just piling junk.

Yesterdays "find".

Winter tyres not included

2012-04-10

Mosquito

For some reason I have not had any "go" lately. But yesterday I visited a Swap Meet and sice I always try to find at least one item to buy I bought some piston rings.

I have had an old Mosquito autocycle engine laying around, for about 30 years, that need two new piston rings.



Unfortunately these rings seems to be made from unobtanium so finally I bougt some that I maybe could modify to fit. The new rings, I was told, are for some Villiers engine.


Above the original

The new rings are cut 90 degrees but that is not a problem. They are also 35.5 mm compared to the original 35.0 mm but that is easily adjusted by filing.

2012-03-14

Screwdrivers

As a reaction to the recommendation from the Classic Honda Racing blog, I ordered a couple of original Honda Tools.

My Honda dealer did not recognize the given parts number KL1696 as a Honda parts number... But when I got it, the number was there.

In my Honda Tool Catalog from 1969 the parts no's are:
07776-99961 Cross Head Driver No2
07776-99962 Cross Head Driver No3

What I finally ended up ordering were:
07603-0050101 "driver no.2"
07603-0050201 "driver no.3"

When I picked them up the seller told me that I was the first customer in, at least, 6 years that had placed an order for original Honda tools...

2012-02-25

Chemistry 2012

The original zink plating experiment has evolved. To get the right chemicals (mainly the zink brightener) I surrended and bought them from Caswell.
I'm in the process of building the essential zinkplating rig at the moment. My intention was to start today but I did not have enough copper wires to complete it, maybe tomorrow.

This far I have made the rig for zinkplating the fork springs for the Fleetwood front fork (except the main zink anodes). In the picture below, at least the center anode...

2012-02-21

Dechromed

1/3 of the way. A lot of parts that have been dechromed.

Some are going to be rechromed and some are going to be zink-plated. I will have to decide, depending on the quality of the goods and how much elbow grease I want to put in.

2012-02-07

Antenna

After the second digital reciever broke in a couple of years I started to suspect that a too weak signal from my home made antenna caused the reciever to work "hard" (nothing that I know about electronics supports that assumtion but anyway).

Home made antenna, ver 1.0

Just a coax cable. I removed the shielding 40cm from the outer end.

Started a project building a fractal antenna from bits and pieces.
Studied the channel frequencies to find a good average lengt (for the channels I mostly watch) for the antenna.



Home made antenna, ver 2.0


It works (and why would it not). Maybe I should take a more scientific approach and measure if there is a noticable improvement in signal strenght? Maybe later.

If there is any ver 2.x it will probably have a backplane...

EDIT: Checking the signal strenght and picture quality: Very good 98/98% for Channels 23 & 42 (490/642MHz), good 80/96% for Channel 50 (706MHz) and not so good 45/50% for channel 56 (754MHz). At least it's a big improvement compaired to the earlier antenna.

2012-02-01

Did it again

This time working on the frame. Started thinking about other things while hammering ...

The major misshap was not hitting myself on the thumb. The problem was the damage caused by the cold chisel richosheting in the shop afterwards.

2012-01-21

Cheap battery

Today one of the battery packs for my cordless drill went for lunch and never came back.

Luckily for me I have a stash of cheap replacement batteries for a cheapo cordless drill for these avents, just in case.

Instead of buying expensive replacement packs I make a quite simple opereration of changing the cells.









Replaced and soldered, not the prettiest soldering but it works.

2012-01-15

D.I.D it!

One time only...


The cold weather only had one positive aspect, the rims did not get hot to handle.
On the other hand this probably affected the function of the polishing compund in a negative way. I'll have to do it all ove again with a finer coumpound later.

Anyway, I made some short cuts by not grinding with fine grit paper, that shows. But on the other hand they are old rims, full of nicks and dents. You have to draw the line somewhere...