Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Truck parts bleg - RESOLVED

Just concluded the drag of Petey the Pop-Up camper to the Hitchin on the Hill. After returning, I wanted to clean up Petey's permanent pad with a pressure-washer, so I put Petey on the apron to my bigger pad where the M35A2 sits. As I was backing Petey into the slot, I got him too square with the curb (the farging City of Gresham won't let me have a second driveway apron on my property, so I have to use this mounting system to jump the curb), and even though the 6" curbing is softened by a 4X4 timber laying along it, making only a 3.5" jump for the little 10" wheels of the camper, the shock of the mounting of the curb was too much for the stock Mazda B2500 bumper, and it bent somewhat. Didn't wrinkle any metal, or even bend the frame, but the middle section of the bumper, the part holding the trailer ball, bent about 20 degrees from horizontal and bent that part of the bumper upward about an inch. Still trying to figure out the physics of the upward bend, but I guess the mounting attempt (I had to do it twice) put a buckle-moment on the rig. The trailer's "A" frame wasn't affected, nor the hitch on the trailer, just the cheesy-but-dressy bumper.

Now I need to either repair the bumper or replace it. Since the light trailer will be used some more, and I might have to repeat this maneuver again, I want the truck's hitch to stand up to it next time (I have put this trailer in this same spot twice before with no ill effects, but something made a difference this time).

My previous light pickup, a 1974 Toyota Hilux, had an after-market bumper on it (there was no stock bumper sold with the truck in those days). IIRC, it was a Barden Bumper. I towed an 1800# Aljo 15-foot heavyweight travel trailer with it for 4 years and never had a problem with the truck or bumper.

Barden is out of business, but there appears to be another company selling another bumper for the LBT, bodykits.com. Do any readers have any info on the Fey Bumper (no jokes on your blogger getting a fey bumper, please!)? Looks like the total parts cost for the Fey arrangement (bumper plus mounting kit) will be about $440, which is reasonable. Toss in another Large or so for installation, and I should be ready to tow with no worries.

The other concern is cost. If I was made of money, I would repair/replace the cheesy one and add a receiver hitch below it, but that would cost as much as the truck is worth, and it would put the receiver too low to the ground as well. My ideal would be a receiver hitch IN a strong bumnper, but I am not in the mood to pay a custom welder to fab one up for me.

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RESOLUTION: I bought a new Fey #66000 bumper, locally, and had a local body guy install it. He charged me one hour of his apprentice's time. total outlay, $240 including a new ball and the $40 install kit. minor fitting was required and the LBT sure looks purty now!

Mower issue solved

The Garageineer threw in the towel (and followed the towel with $360 to Home Despot) and purchased a new Toro Model 20334. It assembled quickly out of the box, started on the first pull of it's rope (I needed to cut the lawn, so couldn't wait for the self-starter battery to charge overnight).

I got enough of the 30-weight high detergent oil to do 2 break-in oil changes, one after the next cutting, and one more before the end-of-season layup in November. Yes, I AM a geezer, and insist on break-in oil, even though it's not spec'd directly, but Toro tossed in a 20-oz bottle of their 30-wt and it says to run it 5 hours on that, so I guess it's a sorta-breakin procedure. Not listed in the breakin was spritzing a light oil into the cylinder before the first spin-up, but I did that also. It started on the first pull despite all that oil in the cylinder (not enough to cause a hydro-lock, probably 15 drops).

The Honda will now have it's 4-hp motor stripped out of it's deck, and I will rebuild it with a new cylinder and fresh top-end, machine-shop overhaul. I'll Plastigage the crank bearing, too, in case the lower end needs a rebuild. That motor probably has 750 hours on it. If, by the time I finish the overhaul, my youngest daughter follows through on her threat and gets a house with a yard, I'll present her with the rebuilt Honda HR214SM to mow that yard. If she doesn't, I'll fashion the rebuilt engine into a hi-cap'y DC generator set for my boat. It should run a 150-amp alternator behind it's former blade clutch, which would give about 2KW @ 13.2 VDC. It also has an interesting power takeoff, geared down to run the rear wheels in it's mower configuration. Do you suppose that will run a small capstan to winch up crab and shrimp pots?

Garagineering: Two wins, one defeat

Win: after running up against the Government ban of high-power incandescent light bulbs (I have a 13.5-foot garage ceiling, which has the lighting canopies I have always had 200-watt light bulbs in so as to have the correct intensity down on the floor). Because of the ban, I have to use the !@#%^&*&^%$# compact flourescent bulbs, which can't be installed by means of an extension tool. BUT WAIT, Acme Engineering Commercial Electric has a Bulb Changer that's DESIGNED! (hahahahahahahah) to do this. I bought one at Home Despot. It looks like this in it's packaging:

Don't buy it, it's a Piece of Shit. See that thumbscrew on the changer-head? It is a metal screw in a soft plastic base, and it will NOT tighten the changer head to the extension pole well enough to provide the torque resistance to unscrew the light bulb those 13.5-feet up. It's crap, despite the fact that the packaging AND instructions claim that it can be done.

What to do?

Call a Garagineer, we need to make a single-purpose tool!

Who do you call? Rivrdog, the Garagineer on Duty!

I had, in my  tool crib, a Mark One Mod Zero incandescent light bulb changer stout enough to overcome the corroded-in-place aluminum base of the bulb and remove it. I used it and the spent bulb was soon in my garbage cart.

The replacement was not so easy. Since the available )$#%^&^%$#@ Compackt-by-order of-Government Flourescent bulbs (Heil Energy Gauleiter!) are not only fragile, they are weaker in output than the 200-watt incandescent bulb, I had to twin them in the canopy to get the same light-cast on the floor. That called for the use of a twinning-adapter ("Y"-adapter), still available for cheap.

Problem: how to get the Y-adapter, with it's load of two fragile CFL 100-watt-equivalent units, up to the 13.5-foot high canopy, and screw it in with enough force to seat it to good electrical contact.

Solution: is in the back yard, where I have a Box Hedge. I went to the hedge, and eyeballing (Garageineer's Calibrated Eyeballs) the correct diameter, cut a branch with a decent "Y" on it, and went back to the garage, where I fitted it to my old Mark One Mod Zero, Old School Light Bulb Changer, which had a socket of about .70" in it's base (by accident of engineering design). Shimming with Gorilla Tape did the trick to seat the "Y"-stick, with proof against the necessary torque. The principle of two inverted "Y" units forming a snug universal-joint was the trick here. The "Y" of the hedge stick against the "Y" of the twinning-adapter sufficed to both balance (with the aid of a small strip of Gorilla Tape) and hold the twin-CFL setup up to the extension unit, and threading it into the canopy 13.5 feet up. The equipment and it's use:

Project accomplished! Repeat for the second canopy, which still held a good 200-watt incandescent,  (reserved now for museum display)...

Win # 2: Back to the TCBBB-94, Tidy Cat Bucket Boom Box 1994 project. It works, but had terrible reception on radio (fine on cassette tape), due to no antenna being installed. In scavenging my boat electronics locker, I came up with a standard "rubber Ducky" car radio antenna, with attaching cable and standard antenna-coupling. I installed it as a breadboard mount, and VOILA!, the TCBBB now has perfect radio reception. I have yet to mount the antenna on the side of the Tidy Cat Bucket, which might require the fabrication of a backing plate, but the music from KMHD, Mount Hood Community College jazz, plays with excellent base response as I blog. 1962, Kiki Hamilton on drums, now playing...

FAIL: Started to install the new Ignition Module in the Honda HR-214-SM mower, and all went swimmingly, until time to set the module-to-magneto gap. Not knowing the correct gap, I relied on the time-tested .018" gap of the end-flaps of the new spark-plug box. I was torquing down the two bolts of the module, very slowly, maybe 1/25th-turn at a time, when I torqued off one of the two bolts in the cylinder body. It was the metric version of a 1/4X20 machine bolt, and it was a soft bolt with no grade markings on the head, so I was using a 1/4" drive Craftsman socket wrench 5" long (10mm socket) with light force, probably no more than 20 foot# at the max, maybe less, but the bolt sheared in the cylinder body. I now have an easy-out job on a small bolt to do. )*UY^#$%^&*!! (Translates as: the God of Mechanics may bend over and kiss my Rosy Red bung-hole!). I will now convert this repair job to a total rebuild of the engine (compression is down to 80#, which is marginal anyway), and let the machine shop deal with getting the sheared bolt out. )(*&^#@$%^&*!!!. This mower may yet wind up, minus it's mowing parts, as a 4hp, 12VDC, electric battery charger/donkey engine surface mount for my boat with a 150-amp surge capacity, and perhaps the self-drive transmission might wind up as a capstan winch for pulling up the rear anchor, or carb/shrimp pots. It is perfect for that job, with a solid cast deck to attach the alternator/capstan to, electric start and a blade/alternator clutch to boot! I have a seviceable Snapper Hi-Vac mower to mow my lawn for the present, and room now to store the rider I've always wanted for my 4500-square foot lawn, so this Honda HR-214 may yet live to be the envy of the Rivr as a Garagineered Project Battery Charger.

 

 

Garageineer log

...may have fixed the meck-a-neck puzzle of the year, the problems with my 1982 Honda HR-214SM, which started stalling out after starting properly and mowing fine for 10 minutes. The carb had major internal corrosion from the infernal gasohol, CBUE - curses be unto Ethanol. I replaced it, no fix. Cleaned the fuel system up to the carb, no fix. Just yesterday, I ordered a new ignition coil, thinking the heat might have gotten to it after 30 years of hard work. $80 simoleans for that part. Today, I fired up a new bench grinder my son gave me and sharpened the blade on the Honda and the temp replacement Snapper, too. Whilst poking around the front of the engine, I noticed that an insulated heat shield was dog-eared over onto the plug wire, and there looked to be a carbon trail where the sheet metal was touching that plug wire. I set it right, and fired up the machine. It started right up and I engaged the blade clutch and ran it for a half-hour, no problems. Since I just cut the lawn yesterday, I have to wait to test my machine to see if this is the final fix.

I was on a roll then, and you don't stop a Garageineer when he's got his shit in one sock, so I built the X-TCBBB-94. That would be the Experimental Tidy Cat Bucket Boom Box, Model 1994. What would YOU build if you had, just laying around, an el-cheapo 1994 Roadmaster in-dash car stereo (AM-FM cassette), a pair of decent 6-volt, 12 Amp-hour AGM batteries, some speakers and a nice clean kitty-litter bucket with good lid to build it all into?

Next to the X-TCBBB-94 is the Ryobi drilldriver I got this spring. I've used it often, and have charged it twice in all that time. It has 2 LiON batteries, a rapid charger, and cost $80, $72 with my Veteran's discount at Home Depot. It just won't stall under load.

The concept of a TCBBB is now proven, it doesn't sound too bad. Only problem is that the Roadmaster stereo is crap, it has old-school vernier tuning, which seems to be frozen, so it receives one country station on FM and that is all.  It's up to speed today, dono what was sticking it. Cassettes work fine, though. I think I'll cruise some junkyards and see if I can pull a better unit than the Roadmaster. If I get one which plays CD-Rom, it has to work vertically, since that is the mounting position I chose, it sits in the lid to the bucket. All this unit needs now is an antenna. Get a ton of carriers, not much modulation in FM without an antenna.

What did YOU garageineer today?