Australian Belly Tank

[Dr Goggles]

years ago a girl I know came back from Burma, had what she said was a boil on her leg, looked unusually angry( the boil)....she got really ticked off when I said ....

"you better get that checked out, it's probably got a grub in it".... she thought I was trying to gross her out, fair call.

She turned up a week later after a visit to the Quack, yep you guessed it.

[Lynchy]

Worked with a bloke many years ago who went for a swim in a lake in India.... he ended up riddled with parasites and had to go through hell to get rid of them - beware dodgy flooded lakes!!

[Reverend Hedgash]

I now am the proud owner of a doctor's appointment.

[grumm441]

You got an appointment?
My Doctor just turns up every Sunday at around 4pm
My girl is thinking of putting an apple tree in front of the front door and see if he gets the hint
G

[Nexxussian]

G, that only works if it completely obscures the door.

[Dr Goggles]

.

You got an appointment?
My Doctor just turns up every Sunday at around 4pm
My girl is thinking of putting an apple tree in front of the front door and see if he gets the hint
G

one might fall on his head helping him to solve some great Newtonesque mystery of the universe.......

" thunk!....yes Reverend , you have the clap"

[Dr Goggles]

 I went to the shed this morning with the express purpose of tidying up before the Colonel and I had another shot at the diff transplant tomorrow.

I lasted about five minutes before the draw of the job became too much. I'd picked up the piece of Ford axle tube that I had taken to the machine shop when they made the inserts, it was just what I needed to space the housing to prevent the "leg" from pulling in rather than the insert being forced through the housing, I measure the gap and cut accordingly. I cut about 90 degrees out of the ring I'd made and whacked it over the span where the insert protruded from the housing before disappearing into the axle tube. I set the long bolt puller up again and got winding, it felt a lot better.

I kept going, one of the details I'd been a little worried about was that we'd cut the holes for the plug welds in the axles tubes too wide, nope, they are now both covered.

I put the bearing seats in and popped the centre in.... from a quick examination it looks like the short axle is just right but the long one is about four inches too long . I had to pack up but I have an inkling we might even be able to use two of the Ford short sides. There are a bunch of lengths that vary very slightly within a range so I'll be doing my research on them in an effort to avoid having to get one shortened/re-splined.

[SPARKY]

   

[Milwaukee Midget]

   

I agree with Bill.

    

(Well, maybe I drink more than him . . .)

[SPARKY]

lol

[Dr Goggles]

(Well, maybe I drink more than him . . .)

Well, right there folks is proof that it doesn't stunt your growth !

Now, the Colonel turned up today and we got cracking .....He brought over a piece of 7/8 all thread which was an improvement on the 5/8 stuff I had....but he also brought the socket wrench of DEATH !..........sadly I didn't get a shot of it but it had a handle like a baseball bat...but wait ! there's MORE......it telescoped out to about twenty feet long...OK I didn't put a tape over it but it was pretty long.

we pulled the inserts out to where they covered the prepared holes for the plug welds at one end and cleared the reliefs for the bearing seat inside the housing..



You'll notice here we put a pinion in, but the point of this shot is to see where we pulled the insert through...and how it needed to be touched up with a burr because it didn't line up exactly with the hole bored for the axle tube....



Here's one of the centre in place so we could measure the axle lengths accurately.... it turns out one is 40mm(inch and five eighths) too short and the other is about 40mm too long.....we'll be checking all available stock lengths before we get too carried away and get one shortened.......



After that we thought we'd see how other aspects had panned out, like the tailshaft.......oh I forgot to mention yes, the Ford yoke fits the GM pinion spline so we can use the same universals we already had... our tailshaft was GM/Ford to get the M20 hitched to the BorgWarner Yoke.....as it now sits it seems that each part connects to one from the other manufacturer...GM box to Ford yoke to GM centre to Ford axles.....Anyway we bolted in the gearbox crossmember , put the tailshaft in the back of the box and bolted it up...fit?.....it's spot on.....



.and from the other side.....gee whiz she's lookin' pretty rough and ragged...



We stood there and stared at it a bit and then agreed that we should probably get the frame blasted and give it a proper paint. It was painted in a hurry in Jan 2007, since then there were a heap of changes and additions and then it went to the salt twice...more changes to the frame. I am the first person to praise the Reverends abilities as an artist but they don't extend to a 2 inch brush and some half expired enamel gloss. Every touch up since has been with a scraggy old brush , though really you'd think someone had done it with a broom.... Yeah , i've been guilty of some of the atrocities too. So , the Colonel and i thought "yep, time for a blast".....

gee , this seems like a lifetime ago.... I look a little younger, wiser and holey-moley look at that yellow paint! you may notice I have my fingers crossed? that's because this was during one of the first attempts to start it..........

[SPARKY]

A remark of Fast Freddy D.  comes to mind---"Metal is dumb, it just lies there untill untill you are smart enough to make it do what you need for it to do."  way to go guys

[Milwaukee Midget]

Astounding.

[Reverend Hedgash]

Doctor's report:

It is not a parasite, it's a cold. But it's a man-cold dammit!

I am now on the antibiotics which I think has done wonders for some other things I may have picked up in life's wonderful journey... at least the gland in my neck doesn't feel like a claw toeing my ear.

And I don't have the clap!!!

Excellent work on the weekend Dr and Colonel and excellent results on the yoke lining up. The God of Speed was shining on us there.

I don't think I mention enough here the idea of Dharma and this build diary. Sure we are playing with parts from a set group of manufacturers and so there are only a finite number of permutations and combinations, but there still is, I am glad to say, a great deal of lucky breaks or things working just right, (or broken pieces of tube missing ones' nads) that keeps the faith that we are somehow on the right track in a cosmic way.

The book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" gives me the idea that maybe I should write the "Dharma of Landspeed Racing."

On that note, I just saw "Senna" the movie (who my mate Mark Fogarty asks Senna the question which he gives the "pure racing" answer) and there are elements of this beauty and art of the sport, of the spititual side of following your dreams. In it Senna mentions his most fond memories of who he raced against were from his karting days, before the politics and money of GP. The Spirit of Sunshine ineed.

I think Landspeed maintains this amateur quality admirably, where there is a single clear objective and that anybody with a will can compete.

(Also the Isle of Mann TT of course, and I cannot wait to see it in 3D when it comes out in a few weeks!!!)

Reverend Hedgash

[ben james]

hi Dik, you're such a trendy wanker,i love it .
 am going to see senna as well when it comes here on the 11th august.
he was the best.
 looking forward to catching up .
regards
ben