Australian Streamliner Bike Build

[Tman]

Must have been a Lucas Tig?

[Peter Jack]

If it's a brand name machine new or rebuilt boards are usually readily available. This is often the reason it pays to blow out the welding machines on a regular basis. The metallic dust created in welding conditions isn't conductive to long life of electronics.

Pete
(Who doesn't blow out his machines often enough.) 

[Tman]

Note to self, blow out welder when I get home.

[Peter Jack]

For those who are now going to do the dirty deed, and it is, the best way is to unplug the machine, take off the cover and then do a thorough job getting into all the little nooks and crannies. You won't believe the amount of dust that's worked its way in there.

Pete

[Stainless1]

Jon, back to firebottles, put a small (1mm)single nozzle in your small cockpit.  If you can design a manual shut off control in the loop as Max suggested it is a great idea.  Multiple nozzles will put too much agent in and run out quickly.  I'll try to remember to take a pic of Max's shutoff when I'm over there mid next week.
Scooter is looking good, keep up the good work.

[Rex Schimmer]

As Peter was saying on the newer welding machines that have control boards, cleaning them on occasion is a good idea. If you can take the boards out easily you can actually wash them with soap and water then dry with a hair drier. Another thing is to plug them in and out a couple of times to clean the contacts between the board and its holder. When I ran the maintenance dept at a big CNC machine shop washing boards was a standard operation on Saturdays when we were doing PM. The other way to prevent "smoking" welders is to own one that is so old that it does not have any of this fancy control board stuff, like my 1960s Airco 460 amp unit I bought from North American surplus in 1980! Weights a ton, literally, but just keeps laying the beads.

Jon, you build is really starting to take shape, and I have to say it is inspirational for my part as it is making me get off my fat a$$ to get my lakester started.

Rex

[oz]

Doin well there Jon I aint suprised smoke came out of your welder not many people work as quick as you do! a touch of hyper activity I reckon or very strong erm Coffee.

[Jon]

Thanks guys

It was no surprise to me the smoke came out of the TIG, it is one of the cheap fleabay 4 in 1 things.
I bought it a couple years ago cos i wanted to teach myself to TIG, for different reasons it just sat in the box until I started this a couple months ago, plugged it & nothing....
Pulled the cover off and was surprised how poor the quality control was, boards with big bows in them with an offcut of plastic wedged in to stop it vibrating, fan housing broken even though the packaging was undamaged.
I found the problem was a poorly crimped wire and new it was only a matter of time that it was going to die. When the smoke came out I pulled the cover off and decided to cut my losses, might fleabay it in case someone wants parts.
Bought a Weldmaster 200p from a shop a few blocks away, he uses one himself and it's got 3 years waranty.

Tman; I think it was made by Ruucas Ercectrical

Peter Jack; i think I might give it to the local night school for they're electronics class, used to blow gear out regularly when growing up, our shed was dirt floor and it was a weekly ritual.

Stainless; Thanks, for some reason I thought the rules said 2 nozzles in the riders compartment, it doesn't, I will go back to one. I was plumbing my fire system in a continuos loop so everything coul feed from both ends, will check with tech here if I'm allowed to run a tap.
Is much happening to Black Lightning other than the engines? Would be great to see a thread on it again, the detail and finish is artwork.

Rex; Just water with something like dishwashing soap?
I think I must have bought my MIG/stick in about 1982, to adjust amperage it's got a jump cable that you swap between plugs, it's a SAFMIG mono bl. I toasted the capacitors in it about 5 years after I bought it making a scrub clearing blade for a bulldozer, replaced them with some bigger ones and a couple diodes and it's done the job since, it's worth fixing if it dies.
Hook in, today may be the best "one day" you have.

Oz; Thanks, I'm lucky they hadn't discovered ADHD or whatever it is when I was a kid, they would have pumped me full of pills, this project has got me going again, I hope to do some test runs on Lake Gairdner next year, I recon moving it from late March to mid January is a conspiracy started by Dr Goggles 

Best go and do something.
jon

[Jon]

Hi

I'm confused, that's nothing new.
Ross's fault this time (he pointed it out to me anyway), I have the SCTA rules because the DLRA rules are same but a year delay. (yep were a bit steady down under but it's handy to have a years warning on changes)

So, Ross tells me "wait there's more" and mentions Bub and FIM.

Is Bub run under FIM rules?
If I build my bike to suit SCTA and Bub rules am I covered or is FIM a third set of rules. (I can't read French)
Are any of the rules mutually exclusive between groups so you can't comply with both at the same time?

Not saying I'm going to get to get to Bonneville or Bub but I want to build it so I could if I ever bought a lotto ticket.

I found the 2012 Bub rules this am and at a quick look couldn't find any showstoppers, appears SCTA is stricter.

Thanks
Jon

[stay`tee]

"But wait theres more", , BUB also run under the  AMA rules,,, all these orginisations with their differing eeffin` interruptions are a pain in the butt,

[wobblywalrus]

There is an English version of FIM rules.  The 2012 BUB website is up and running.  They usually have a link to the FIM rules.

[Jon]

I found the BUB rules Wobbly, their link goes to the FIM site and I couldnt find anything to do with speed trials.

Got my swingarm welded up and wanted to fiddle with the swingarm angle so I needed to get a wheel on an axle.

I had the front hub nearly finished but wanted to narrow it up to let me make the front axle caps wider to help support my bottom control arms.
Had to redo the bearing bores, I'm always winky about them but I have a system that works for me;

I set my dial indicator on the toolpost and get right on size a couple mm small then come up with light 1/4mm (1/2mm diameter) cuts on power feed, to keep the depth(length) right I put a Niko mark on the bed and remember what the longitudinal travel is on the handle, when it's near the niko mark I watch the longitudinal travel handle and pull out powerfeed when it's right.

First time I've used a rotary table, I got a 6" one with some dividing plates, there was a lot if double checking and was pretty happy when I counted back to the first hole from the last one and it lined up;


I'm running 2 x 6804 hybrid ceramic bearings each side, im using the same bearings front and back so I only have to carry one set of spares.

Bit of fiddling and I got the swingarm angle at 9.5 degrees, a bit less than I would run on a road/trackday bike but probably a bit steeper than I would have liked;


Haven't made the back hub yet, still working on a brake disk mount that will let me take the rim off, I want the sprocket and wheel to both bolt directly to the hub for KISS.

Cheers
Jon

[bucketlist]

Must have been a Lucas Tig?

Long ago I told the proprietor of a local restoration shop about a friend swapping a Chevy v8 into a Jaguar. He said the man should have kept the Jag engine and swapped in the Chevy wiring. He had a wall poster saying the reason the British drank warm beer was because they had Lucas refrigerators.

[SPARKY]

 

[Jon]

Hi

Glen and I have been talking offline about how to sheet my firewall and rollbars and have it so that it can be cut off if required, this what we came up with;

(at least I think it is, make sense to you Glen)

The corners will be radiused, about 20mm overlap all the way around for bolting and sealing flange, sorry for the crap pic.

My Pro Rage HANS eventually got shipped by Simpson yesterday & I have 3 sticks of Orange Aid rollbar padding on its way.
When it is all here I can put the rollbar padding in and all my gear on and finalize my seat and belts.

Will take HANS and Orange Aid down to Lake Gairdner if any of the guys there want to see if the Pro Rage will work in their vehicle.

Cheers
jon