Indy Cars

Frankie Flood posted a ton of pictures of the Millers at Milwaukee event from a couple of weeks ago. I thought about going up there. Looking at the photos I definitely should have. Not only were there beautifully restored roadsters like you see here, there were also a ton of cars from way back when. It would have been extra nice to meet Professor Flood if I could have been fortunate enough to run into him before he leaves town.They're going to miss him when he's gone. 

Big Mack

Surly went to the vintage truck and farm equipment show over the weekend and snapped a photo of this baby. B-61 Mack, my favorite. While Cuzzin Ricky and I were driving through the beautiful Indiana countryside Saturday on the way to the Sprint car races we talked a bit about me getting a farm truck one of these days. God willin' and the creek don't rise, I'll have myself one some day - wouldn't have to have the chrome radiator shell. Wouldn't hurt, though.

Monday

Do it yourself dash board - at least I think so. I haven't even opened up the box yet.

Cuzzin Ricky and I went to the Sprint car races Saturday night at Kokomo. Great racing but I didn't get home until a little after midnight. I ran the gym for Jimmy earlier in the day and was pretty tired when I finally got to bed. Slept late, had a little breakfast and headed out for a eight mile training ride. I took my touring bike since I didn't want to transfer the saddle bag with the tire patch kit and all that to the racing bike. I got about two miles from the house and sure enough, I got a flat. I just put my last new tube in the bike last week but since I had the pump and the patch kit, just pull the wheel off and fix it. Only problem was the glue in the patch kit was so old it was pretty much useless. I ended up walking home. I had my phone so I could have called the Missus but I was looking for exercise, right? After I got home I jumped on the other bike and put my eight miles in. Actually made pretty good time - a solid 15 mph average speed. Legs and lungs both seem to be coming back around. I did order some new tubes and a patch kit when I got home, however.

After coming home and cutting the grass I headed out to the shop to see how the patch panel was going to look on the VW. Pretty good, actually. I shortened up the top edge and put a joggle in it so it will slip under the panel on the car and line up well. Took me a bit to find the tool for offsetting that edge, however. I think I've finally got all of the sheet metal/body work tools where I can find them when I need them now. 

I've got some things to do this morning but I'll work on the car some more later today. It's supposed to get hot and sticky again the next few days. That might slow me down some but that's OK. Every time I close the doors to the shop at the end of the day there's visible progress. That's worth something. 

I measured up the piece for TVI's golf cart dash and made a couple of templates. I'll make the end pieces first and see how they look and then make the piece or pieces in the middle. No hurry on this one but I want to keep the docket cleared of all outside work. I don't want to loose my momentum on the VW and I want to get back on the 900 project soon. 

Have a good week.

Cool Stuff

I should have dug a little deeper into the site where I found the photo in the last post. While the site is mostly VW stuff, apparently they've got a soft spot for the old and unusual trucks/vans/buses as well. 

Photos From Here

However, here's something that may help with the BSA project. SR500 Yamaha with custom sidecovers that look very much Italian in design, meaning they might fit right in with the European style tank on the BSA. Don't know when we'll get around to that project but there's isn't too much to do once we get the sidecovers and the air cleaners sorted. Send the tin out to get painted and sort out the mechanicals. As far as I know, most of the problems will be the typical things associated  with having sat around too long without running.

Not much new to report otherwise. Spent most of the day yesterday just doing chores - bank, feed store, library, cleaning gutters, crushing cans - all the usual stuff that when the day is done and you look back, you got a lot done but there's very little visible evidence of it. Could be worse though - just watch the news.

And if you think now might be the time to start laying in provisions, how 'bout some water? 50 year shelf life, which is probably going to be at least thirty more than I'm going to have. $30.00 for a case seems a little stiff for water but about the same price or cheaper even than a drink out of a vending machine. It'll look like a helluva bargain if the grid goes down and the faucet runs dry. Besides, you'll need something to re-hydrate all those emergency rations.

Have a good weekend. Looks like beautiful weather around here. 

VW Update

Photo From Here

I've been looking at a few VW sites of late to get a little inspiration and came across this thing - not sure what it is but I like it.

Not much going on with mine the last few days. I did order in my aluminum for the dashboard. I also ordered a patch panel for the bad spot between the door and the fender on the driver's side. With the panel I can eliminate the rust and get everything lined up properly for the fender even though I still don't know what I'm going to do about getting fenders. I ordered the patch panel from an outfit in Rhode Island. The prices were good and for the patch panel and a couple of other things, shipping was only $8.00. Cheap enough. However, when I threw a fender in the shopping cart the shipping went up to $90.00 and that was for just one. There has to be someone within driving distance that has the fenders I want. I'll keep looking. In the meantime, start on the dash, patch a panel and keep working on the brakes.

Happy 4th

Celebrating Independence Day around here by being increasingly more independent. Seems the older I get, the worse it gets, too. The political climate this year is certainly not helping. The giant meteor solution looks better all the time. Until that happens, I'll keep working on the projects and training for the bicycle race.

I went out on the bike yesterday morning and rode a bit over eight miles, which is pretty close to the length of the race I'm planning on competing in at the end of the month.  It was a bit breezy and that's the longest ride I've done this year. I averaged about 13.4 mph. That's super slow in most anyone's book but I don't need an injury first thing. I'll try and get out most every day adding miles and doing some wind sprints. Whatever kind of shape I end up with, that'll have to do. It's good to get back out on the bike though. I've been riding the touring bike but I'm planning on getting the "race" bike out this week and switching over to that one at least until the race. There's a real good bike speed calculator here along with some other useful things, by the way. For me, it's easier to plug my numbers into the calculator there than it is to fiddle with the buttons on my speedometer.

Making a little more progress on the VW. Still working on the brakes but I've got the driver's side buttoned up - with one exception. The speedometer is supposed to get hooked up to this one but I should probably get a new cable. It's a rather interesting set-up. The cable runs through the front spindle and is driven by the dust cap. The dust cap has a little square hole in it, the inner speedo cable goes through the hole and then is held in place with a little clip. Clever idea, but those Germans are nothing if not clever.

While that side was jacked up I made a patch for the hole next to the master cylinder. I welded it up and shot a little primer over it. After I've got the master cylinder installed I'll smear some tar over it to make sure it's leak proof. The master cylinder bolts to the bulkhead and there's about 2" of space between the inner and outer bulkhead walls. The cylinder bolts have spacers in between the walls to keep the bolts from collapsing the bulkhead when you tighten it down. When I took the old cylinder off, one of the spacers fell down in between the walls of the bulkhead. Trying to fish it out of there was kind of like the monkey trap. I could get two fingers in the hole but as soon as I got the spacer in my grip, I couldn't get my fingers back out. That was fun. 

I got the mirror brackets all done. Kind of hard to see what you're looking at with the "busy" background but it looks like it'll work. I need to go through the boxes of parts and see if I can find the parts for the sunroof. I'll need to bump out the big dent in the roof as well. The theater group at the high school used the car when they put on the production of Grease and one of the stars jumped through the hole for the sunroof and sat on the top of the car and put a big ass dent in it. In this case, literally a big ass dent. I think I can get it to pop back out with out too much trouble, however. Just one more thing on the list.

I got the faux air cleaner made up. I got lucky and found a plumbing fitting that's a snug fit on the BSA carb so it was just a matter of cutting a 2x6 to the proper diameter and drilling a hole for the fitting with a hole saw. Should let us see what we need to get air cleaners and gas lines in sync.

The Missus and I went to a graduation open house for one of the fighters at the gym. He's been coming since almost the beginning and his dad has helped out coaching and he fought a bit as well. Good people - helped me out when I had the heart attack. I also saw several other young men that were either former students or fighters while we were there. It's good to see these guys making good with jobs, wives and children. As a teacher or a coach, you touch a lot of lives. Need to always keep that in mind and give them your best. Not always the easiest thing to do but they deserve your best just the same.

Things To Do

I went out to breakfast with Cuzzin Ricky and TVI the other morning. TVI asked me if I could make a new dashboard like this one for his golf cart. Nothing too tricky here, nor is he in a hurry for it. I can probably knock most of this one out on company time. It's pretty slow in the lab this summer.

Later that same day Surly came down to blast a part for his Sportster and to test drive his new beater pickup truck. He brought the outer piece for an air cleaner along with the measurements of what a good one would be. The idea is to mock something up so we can try it out on the BSA to check for a clearance issue. I was hoping to be working on the BSA this summer but it looks like he wants to finish his Sportster before we dive into the BSA. That's cool. No shortage of things to do.

Like this job. The lab tech in the Weld Shop at the college built a pipe beveling machine out of bits and pieces of junk that's been tossed out of the lab I work in. He needed a pulley for a small flat belt and came up with a plan to use these things. I drilled, reamed and turned the OD for him. He still needs a little more machine work from me but the machine will bevel pipe. Still hard to beat good old American ingenuity.

Looks like we're going to have some good weather for the holiday around here. Have fun, be safe.