I was watching a couple of videos of Post Modern Jukebox, since I'm pretty excited about our anniversary trip, and they feature tap dancing on several of their songs. One thing led to another and I ended up watching several tap-dancing videos. Enough of them, in fact, that I'm considering dusting off my tap shoes and seeing if I can remember a few steps. I'd be pretty happy if I could learn the Shim Sham Shimmy and dance it to that Jimmy Lunceford tune. Be good for my balance, rhythm and cardio, as well as exercising my brain a bit. All things a guy my age needs to work on.
I'm getting some exercise now that I'm going back to the gym a couple days per week, but it's always hard for me to stay active in the winter when I can't get out on the bike and I'm too much of a candy-ass to bundle up and walk a couple of miles on a regular basis when the temps drop below freezing.
Besides thinking about resuming my tap-dancing career, I figured out what I want to do with the intake manifold on the jitney. I removed the broken fitting from the right side and then ground the top surface around the intake port. My plan is to make an adaptor plate that will bolt onto the intake using two bosses brazed onto the top surface of the manifold along with two spacers that will be bolted onto the surface using the two existing holes in the bottom of the photo after spot facing them. Whenever you need to braze cast iron, you need to grind off the casting skin. Depending on the grade of cast, sometimes you can MIG weld steel to it. It can also be stick welded. There are a couple of rods that work well, again, depending on the grade of cast.
The white pattern has the bolt pattern to fasten the adaptor to the manifold. I've got the lay-out dye on the piece of aluminum I'm going to use. I still need to do a bit of cipherin' before I do the layout for the carb. I want the adaptor to have a 3 degree taper on the top so the carb will sit upright rather than leaning downhill at a 3 degree angle like the engine is. Because the aluminum block is 3/4" thick, when I bore the holes for the carb throats, I'll need to start the bore a little off the center line of the plate to hit the center on the bottom. Time to do a little trig.
2 comments:
we did tap dancing at grade school once in the mid 70's. bunch of kids on the blacktop basketball court
click clacking around. teacher directing heel toe step heel toe step. I don't think kids today know what tap dancing is.
You used to see it on the variety shows, many of the old movies and late-night shows like Johnny Carson. There's still some great tap dancers out there, you just don't see them on commercial TV or in the movies. The group the wife and I are going to see for our anniversary, Post Modern Jukebox, has several videos with tap dancers. I don't know if that's a feature of all of their live shows, but I'd like to see it.
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