Dipstick

I was little sore Friday after crawling around under the little truck, so I didn't do much. Saturday was a little more productive. I cleaned up the shop, got all the tools put away and then started thinking of where to resume on the jitney. While I was thinking about my next move, I pulled the dipstick tube and bent the bracket so it would line up with the bolt hole in the block. The bracket looks like it has three projection welds holding it to the tube. Of course, two of the three broke loose so I'll have to braze the bracket back on. I'd like to shorten the tube by about three inches. That's easy enough but shortening the dipstick will require a bit of thinking.

And speaking of doing some thinking, I dug out my old bike repair manual from 1972 to get a formula from the shop math section in the back. I bought this book brand new, so I've had it fifty years now. Much of the material is outdated since it's a '72 manual, but other than the Himalayan and the everyday vehicles we drive, all my stuff with wheels is '74 or older. However, the section on lacing wheels or tuning your engine using an oscilloscope, is still valid. Anyway, here's what I was looking for:

MPH = rpm x effective rear wheel radius / overall drive ratio x 168

MPH = 5500 x 15 / 3.78 x 168

MPH = 129

The quick change comes with a 3.78 ring and pinion. With one to one change gears, that's what I'd be looking at. There's a lot of ratios available for the change gears. One of the options gives a 4.11 overall. Flip the gears around and I'd have a nice street gear with more mph. With the tall rear tires, might want to go a bit lower if I take the car to the dragstrip. The change gears are relatively cheap and easy to swap, that being the main advantage of a quick change rear. That, and they just look real cool under a traditional hot rod or boy racer.

I just pulled the 5500 rpm number out of my ass. I'm not sure if that's the number to use for an old long stroke engine with very little modification. I'll look into it a bit more - it's easy enough to swap the numbers around once you've got the formula. 

Made it out on the Himalayan on Friday - fired right up after its long winter nap. I put in about 40 miles on a beautiful sunny morning. Felt good to be out on the motor bike. Put in six miles on the pedal bike on Saturday. That felt good too. Just not as good. Going hiking today, weather permitting. Hot weather on tap for this coming week. Not looking forward to that, but that's how it is around these parts - you never know what's on tap, one day to the next.