Vehicles

Three layer carburetor? REALLY?!?

Posted on January 23, 2022 by akadventurer

Pulled and repaired the carburetor on my truck last night.

Some yutz at Carter/Webber decided that these single barrel carbs should be made in three pieces(which, I’m told was/is common!) Having an extra layer for the bottom flange/main butterflies as compared to Any 2 or 4 barrel I’ve ever seen, where the flange and mains are integral to the bowl..

Anyway, as odd as a 3rd layer is, the assinine part is having all 4 screws go UP through the flange into the body… All the spaces but one are exposed flange on the body section, NO reason they couldn’t thread down into the lower piece. But No!

SO, it the ever vibrate loose, you not only can’t get at them to tighten them with the carb installed, they can fall the frack out!

Thankfully none of these came all the way out, but 3/4 were backed out a long ways.

Ran interesting with the carb loose above the mains! Way too lean, but not consistently.

Couldn’t get at more than one to tighten it, so I pulled the whole carb. Easiest carb removal and replacement I’ve ever done. Including the drive to warm it up first(no heat in the shop) for working on it, and the test drive after, this took 1.5 hours flat! Found the main mounting stud nuts loose as well. (and two different sizes of nut lol) But side intake on a straight 6 sure makes it easy to get at!

I checked the threads, they all went in fine, seated good. I fully removed all 4 and put them back with blue Loctite! Not usually advisable on such small screws, or on carbs, its just asking for broken or stripped screws… But I didn’t want to have to deal with this again anytime soon, and since I did it, I’ll know its there, shouldn’t get into trouble. AND the blue is designed to be removable… using Red loctite would be suicidal here..

Fixed a lot of issues I’d had since mid summer, and a few that were new.. Got rid of the hard miss it’d developed in Aug. Hopefully it fixes the tank my milage developed then too! Recent rough idle/dieing/lope smoothed out, and having to pump the hell out of it to get it to start was new, that went away too! More power than its had in months, and none of the recent dieseling on shut down.

Looks like this is a remanufactured carb in recent history, or else I’d have done a rebuild… Its actually a made in USA Carter made for Motorcraft, so a stock Ford part… With a rebuilt by Holley sticker on it.. Stock carb that was sent in as a core and came back somewhere in its life. Up until mid summer it really did run great. Assuming the carb itself is fine. It did leak a little at air horn to bowl/body, but I tightened those screws too. If it continues to leak noticably, I’ll put main body gaskets in it this summer, won’t touch the rest..

Categories: Automotive, Automotive Work, truck, Vehicles, Wrenching

Selective hearing protection? Alpine MotoSafe ear plugs, part 1.

Posted on June 3, 2018 by akadventurer

One more new item, that came in yesterday, arrived all the way from the Netherlands. (Couldn’t find a stateside dealer that had the model I wanted, so I ordered direct from the manufacturer. Could actually only find two dealers in the USA anyway! )

As part of my healthy hearing concept, along with adding the face shield onto my motorcycle helmet, I started looking for better, more active hearing protection.

The problem with foam ear plugs is the constant outward pressure they use to seal, it’s uncomfortable and makes my ears sore after a days commute both always.

But I didn’t want to jump in and invest in the full custom molded ear plugs.

And both styles tend to be full sound suppression, so you end up sealed off from your surroundings, with all sound deadened. There are rubber plugs that only filter out harmful sound, leaving conversation or traffic hearable, but I’ve never found rubber plugs that seal worth a damn, or that aren’t like the foam, and too tight. (For instance ear buds tend to drive me nuts and make my ears sore).

Anything that has custom molding and also let’s through lower conversation type sound frequencies are really spendy.

Then I found a half way product;

https://www.alpinehearingprotection.com/product-category/motorcycle/

They are a sound filter, supposedly they cut the frequency of wind noise, but allow traffic and conversation sounds through. Also, the rubber tips are semi-custom forming, in a thermo form rubber; Every time you insert them, your body heat softens them and they custom fit to your ear canal, sealing without outward pressure.

I figured why not, if they work then great, if not, then I’m only out around $20… A risk that I thought was worth it.

They have several variations for different activities, and two specifically for motorcycle riding. A “Tour” version, and a “Race” version that is a little stronger/higher decibel rated. I opted for the race version. At only a few decibels difference, I figured if they work as advertised to cut only wind noise, and leave other sounds, I still wanted as much protection as possible.

So far, in limited fit tests I find them a LOT more comfortable than foam plugs, and more than a lot of rubber plugs and ear buds I’ve had too. I won’t say they “disappear” to where I don’t know I’m wearing them, but I’ve only had them I for 5 to 10 minutes so far.

Have not gad a chance to ride with them yet.

Bug I can say that they let in conversation level sounds really well, and actually without loud sounds, seem like they do very little. But they did cut out the sound of my truck exhaust more than they cut out talking.. Not a lot more, but more.

I’m reserving and conclusions for after I test them with the noise they’re made for; wind.

They come with a little zipper pouch for carrying, and I sprung the few dollars for a hard key chain style carry case, and a safety cord that keeps them tethered together.

My only complaint so far is that the insertion tool they come with, a little plastic thing that’s supposed to grip the plug, and you use it as a handle to insert them, then turn them slightly in your ear to help them seal; It doesn’t snap onto the plugs, it’s far too big, and thus can’t be used… So I can’t really grip them to rotate them upon insertion.

Not sure how much, or if this effects how they seal/work. Will find out either way how they work though, as soon as I can.

Will let y’all know how it goes. 🙂

Categories: Adventures, ATV, ATVing, Field gear, Motorcycles, New Gear, Preparedness, Riding, Vehicles

ATV plow, first use.

Posted on November 5, 2017 by akadventurer

Got 4″ of powder last Thursday night, finally enough to try out the ATV plow!

I built the mount, and had it all ready in early October of 2016. But the night I finished it, and went to test ride with it mounted, is the night the clutch went out. I didn’t know what to do with the clutch until spring of 2017, so the wheeler and plow sat unused all winter. I never got to try the plow until this weekend!

SO, Anyway, I used the Prairie to plow my yard and driveway Friday. Works great!

One small section of drive plowed;

Took about the same amount of time as it does with my truck… Truck moves more in one pass, but takes more time to maneuver…

The wheeler is smaller, easier to turn and has better visibility. But not as much power or blade size to move a lot at once. 50/50-90 kinda thing. I’ll break it up from now on, truck for large bulk areas, wheeler for the tight spaces, trimming up.

Did have one problem. The plow doesn’t have an upward stop for lifting the blade… Just where you stop the winch. So if you go too far, it just keeps pulling. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you have it all the way up or not.

Broke some welds on the mount pulling it up too far. Will need to re-weld that, and make some sort of positive stop that hits the bumper or something, so I can tell for sure when to stop the winch..

I’m thinking just a upward angled bar braced off the plow, that would hit the bumper, and be a solid stop I’d feel. Maybe have it high enough that I could see it… Something like that.

Got the main mount piece with the breaks inside melting/drying out now, will get it done and back on in the morning, so I can plow the new 2″ or 3″ tomorrow afternoon.

I’m really not surprised it broke… I’m only semi professionally trained at welding, still not real good at it, and this was done with a rather light welder for steal this heavy…

And it was being torqued at this area by a 2000# winch, with about 3′ of leverage added… It simply tried to hinge on the welds and sheared them, and is now hinging/flexing others.

Looks like I missed welding straight across the back edges too, which would be a lot of loss of strength against pull in this direction.. Whoops.

I’m actually happy it broke where it did. This piece is a 2″ receiver hitch mount, that goes into a 2″ receiver tube mounted on the wheeler. Breaking at the female side on the wheeler would have been a Lot bigger of a pain to fix!

And the plow itself hinges onto this piece. Breaking the plow side would have been worse too, mainly for being able to get it into my heated shop where the bigger welder is set up, and I’d probably have gad to do a lot more re-engineering if part of that broke.

All in all, if it was going to break, it’s the best area for it.

This time I’ll full box all 4 edges where the two pieces stack, maybe drill a couple holes in one and plug weld it down to the 2″ square tube… Maybe add a cross plate above the tube. And use a much bigger welder for more penetrating heat.

Yeah, apparently forgot to paint it against rusting before I parked it last year too…

Anyway, onward to custom plow mounting 2.0!

Categories: Adventure Metal Works, Alaska-Life, ATV, ATV Accessories, ATVing, Automotive Work, Custom, custom-made-tools, Damages, Fabrication, GetOutdoors, Modifications, Outdoors, Scrounging, Vehicles, Welding, Winter

Got a new wheeler!

Posted on September 1, 2017 by akadventurer

Did some “horse trading” as its called around here, got me a new toy! 2012 Polaris Sportsman 400 H.O. 😎

It was stolen last spring, then recently recovered by the Alaska statet roopers a few weeks ago. I’ve had to fix a few things the thieving jerks broke, but overall it’s in great shape!

No, I don’t know what I need two 4 wheelers for… Just couldn’t pass on a cool deal. ☺

I’m planning to keep it for the winter,

1 to avoid having to sell it now,

2 it’d be harder to sell now that hunting season has started anyway, and

3 I get something else to play with… 🙂

IF 😉 I can’t find a way to justify having a second wheeler next spring, I’ll swap the better tires off it for my worn set, and still easily sell it for $2K or more. 😎

Categories: Alaska-Life, ATV, ATVing, GetOutdoors, Horse Trading, Hunting, Outdoors, Riding, Vehicles, Woods tools

First time for everything…

Posted on August 20, 2017 by akadventurer

First time I’ve ever UN hot wired a vehicle! 😉

Back story is as follows; A buddy had his ATV stolen out of his yard in May. Insurance payed off and he got a new one… 3 weeks later, the troopers said “hey, we got your wheeler back”.

He’s run out of time for projects this summer, but would like to sell it to cover the difference between the cost of the new one and the insurance paid.

So, I’m putting it back together and selling it for him.

If it was a horse I’d say rode hard, put up wet… They didn’t baby it, but I wouldn’t say they thrashed it.

Needs a few things cleaned up, and put back together since they had started to strip it.

First up was fixing the hacked hot wire job. Then test ridding to make sure they didn’t screw the driveline etc.. It all works great!

Wiring like this isn’t too hard when you have a full wiring diagram to start with (free download of full factory service manual!)

And, your supplied with a new switch, and the proper plug for it. Got wire extension colors close on a couple…

Scrounged and shortened the harness wires for an aftermarket switch pod I’d bought for mine.

The harness wires to the switch had been cut so short I had to add something, but having them all one color would be a pain.

The next guy is going to wonder what the heck, but at least he won’t be fighting to track a wire in a bundle of all red or all black wires..

Voila;

😆

Couple days work on a few little cosmetic details and rewiring a winch, and then you should see it on Craigslist Fairbanks. 🙂

Categories: ATV, ATVing, Automotive Work, Damages, EDC/MT use, Improviser, Modifications, Outdoors, Vehicles, Wiring, Wrenching

ATV Clutch repair! (Part 4)

Posted on August 19, 2017 by akadventurer

The previous parts of this saga, were;

The clutch going out.

A weight bushing and shaft worn, and a broken weight roller on the spider, jamming between weight and roller, late last fall.

Parked it for the winter.

Then this spring, I decided that if I took out the pivot shafycfir the weight, and that the weight couldn’t come out without disassembly of the clutch, it wouldn’t bind and jam, and should work on 3 weights.

Which it did, flawlessly.

For about 3 months.

Then it managed to get the magic amount of rpm, clearance, and weight orientation to throw the weight. About 3.5 weeks ago.

Turned out at that point, that when still “floating” in the clutch, even though the weight wasn’t helping engage the clutch, that it’s trapped weight/mass was balancing the clutch!

Horrendous vibration ensued, causing engine over heating, a high pitched hum, and increasing belt slipage. And eventually would no doubt eat engine bearings…

I rode it some for work around the homestead, but I’m the clutch slippage was getting worse every time I ran it.

So… part 4.

I decided to replace the weight shaft, and bushing, making both myself to save cost.

To add back the weight, but held in this time as intended to be, and eliminate the play that allowed it to bind up. The broken roller on the spider could wait a little while.

Being lazy won out over being broke. Twice. First time about 3 weeks ago, I was going to lathe turn a new pivot shaft.
Was easier to buy a new one.

This time I was going to make the bushing for the weight … Never had the time or drive to do it for over a week.

Found a atv/cycle parts place with amazingly reasonable shipping rates to Alaska (bikebandit.com).

Few days later I have shiny little parts!

Got 4 since everything online says you’ll crush a couple learning to press them in.

Uhuh.

I used a new bushing over the old shaft, slid through the old bushing/weight, nut on top to act as a stop, and drove the old one out while seating the new one…

Slight bur created on end of new one trimmed out with a drill bit by hand. Took 5 min total, if that. And I have 3 bushings left!

If nothing else I have the bushings to later do the other 3 weights.
Then came instalation in the clutch.

REALLY wanted to do this without pulling the clutch off the engine. I bought a puller last winter, but there are a lot of horror stories about broken clutch pullers, and having to then cut the clutch up to get it off. If you got a cheap puller. I did get a cheap, but not the cheapest puller…

Yeah.

Couldn’t compress the clutch into the belt loop (as it does when the clutch is working, to open the area around the weight) as I had hoped I could, with clamps.

Suddenly realized I could enlarge that belt loop, and clearance in it, by letting the belt tighten on the secondary clutch!

Pry open secondary clutch, pull belt foreward, press primary clutch half inward, hold in place with clamp, insert weight, drive in new shaft(light press fit in clutch), install nuts, tighten.

Voila! That was amazingly easy. Not sure why, but God sure does like me!

plugged in the belt safety switch in the cover, wired the cover to the rack as high as possible, kept my leg out of the clutches for a short test ride in the yard (don’t try this at home kids).

NO MORE VIBRATION! Works like a DREAM!! Took less than an hour total! $50 max total spent, used a whopping $11 in parts!

If I’d known that could go that easy, I’d have gotten the parts and done it months ago!

Bolted cover on and rode it 10 miles; perfect! No vibration, no high pitch buzz, no belt slip, no motor over heating, good clutch engagement!!

Back to the way it was last year(yikes, hard to believe its been 10 months it first messed up!) before any of the clutch issues!!
Now, technically I still need to replace the clutch center spider, that houses the (broken)roller that the weight runs on.

But given how little wear there is on the weight compared to the rest of the worn parts, I think it is causing very little damage, very slowly.

I’m pretty sure it can wait a month or two of reasonable riding, for me to save the funds to get the spider, and build the tools needed to disassemble the clutch to change it.

I will also be periodically checking on the play in that weight on the shaft–

(and, as a side point it’s now the tightest of all four… the other 4 bushings could use done within a couple years m, I’m sure.)

–because, there is a section where the wear had eaten into the weight, that the new bushing is unsupported.

Probably be fine for a long time, but I’ll check it from time to time just to be sure.

Might just weld up that spot when I have it apart to do the spider. Or spring for a new weight. But unless it starts to bind again, I can’t see this causing any wear being a problem, for a while anyway.

I’ve also decided that even though it still looks great, this couldn’t have been good for the belt, and I gave no idea how old it is anyway. I’ll put a new belt on it as soon as I can afford it. Hopefully when I replace the clutch spider; Since the clutch has to come off to change the belt (what idiot thought that up??!?), and I’d like to minimize times I have to do that…

Categories: Adventures, Alaska-Life, ATV, ATVing, Automotive Work, Damages, GetOutdoors, Improviser, MacGyver, Modifications, Outdoors, Riding, Vehicles, Wrenching

Motorcyclist/Bikers; Tire Pressure!

Posted on August 11, 2017 by akadventurer

Hey guys/gals, just a heads up type thought; go check your tire pressure!

Last week I got ready to go for a ride, and did what I always do, always have; get on bike, and rolling forward hit the front brake hard; front shock compresses, and weight hits front tire hard. Watch front tire, and if it deflects/bulges, I check air pressure.

I started that years ago with dirt bikes, and then my Rebel 250 street bike…

As i recall, several pounds low and they’d show it. Apparently the tires on my V-Star are a lot stiffer of a side wall!

As I said, I did that test this last week and had the tire flatten a little. So I checked them.

Rear was 10 psi!

Front wouldn’t read at all!!

Zilch. Nada.

So, I’ve been ridding on basically FLAT TIRES. Thankfully God is gracious, and it hasn’t killed me!

Aired them up, and the bike rolls better by hand than it has in a LONG time. Now when I clutch to shift while moving, it will roll faster, where before it would slow/drag. (Be interesting to see how much this improves my gas milage!)

Talk about stiff side wall tires! Run flat is an understatement! Apparently they’re just so stiff my little test has never really worked on this bike.

Lesson learned. I’ll now gauge check pressure every month, and seasonally when the bike comes out of storage(yeah, should have been doing that anyway).

Can you imagine a tire run too low suddenly shifting or rolling sideways on the rim at highway speed?

Eek.

Or for instance, a couple weeks before this, a moose ran out in front of me. I locked front and rear brakes and slid 20ish feet in a basically straight line at 60mph (didn’t know I could do that!).

If the tire had flattened then, or rolled sideways?

Option on hitting moose; bad enough…

Tire coming off rim binding up the wheel and cartwheeling me and the bike through the moose; uhuh…

So…

GO CHECK YOUR TIRE PRESSURE!!

Categories: Alaska-Life, Automotive Work, GetOutdoors, Life-Philosophy, Motorcycles, Summertime, Theory/Thoughts, Vehicles

motor boating!

Posted on July 28, 2017 by akadventurer

A buddy of mine is converting his outboard river boat to an inboard. Going from a outboard prop to inboard jet.

The motor is a GM made Ecotec supercharged in line 4 cyl 2.4L. Mostly stock Except some EFI, exhaust, and cooling components. 240HP. And the super charger is off of a 2.2L Ecotec… the 2.4s didn’t come with them.

The outboard that came off was 80HP.

He had a custom boat(among other things ) welding shop that another buddy works at chop, channel the boat and build the motor and jet pump mounts in the boat. Then he’s done all the install, wiring, tuning(most of it) etc himself.

There is a lot of custom stuff done with this motor, it’s a popular one to swap into things, but this is the only jet boat, and IIRC only boat of any kind in the world with one!

I was out with him on Monday the 18th for the first ever in water running and tuning. We spent 9 hours on the water, only about 45 min running it. The rest of the time was chasing fuel supply issues, mostly mechanical, but also in tuning the computer control of the EFI..

I’ve learned an Epic amount of stuff that I didn’t know about how EFI systems work.

There is a lot of his builds details posted on a couple forums;

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/2-4…5-supercharger-2272-mv-jet-boat-build-322969/

http://www.meanchicken.net/webmain/forum/viewtopic.php?nomobile=1&f=69&t=19737

Apparently jet boats are Really popular in NZ? A lot of the info hes using came from down there!

http://www.nzjetboating.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=30216.0
It just amazes me, the new motor and jet setup is only about 100lbs heavier than the old setup, if that much, he’s still only drafting 6″ under this thing,(on step it has to be 3″ or less!) With selling the outboard motor off it, he’s almost broke even, and gained 100+ HP ( 80 to 240, but ya lose some to the jet pump).

Unfortunately I lot all my video and pics from that day except one shot;

Yeah, the scenery is pretty epic too! 🙂

That lake is unique in the area, and relatively new, only been there a couple years. It’s only about 1/2 mile, maybe a touch more across the London way, 1/4 the other way I’d guess… BUT It’s within 2 minutes of the industrial part of town, and 5 minutes from metro/downtown, a 10 min max from just about anywhere in Fairbanks.

It’s Deep, has a great launch and floating dock, picnic areas, bathroom facilities, and allows power boats. That last one is the big thing… Otherwise it’s a 1.5 to 2 hour drive to a lake that allows powered craft. Otherwise it’s the rivers… But playing in a current can get old, and these are shallow water rivers… Can be less than fun at times.

It’s perfect for this project, as shallows and a current could be killer for testing a new motor!

As a bonus, this lake does outlet into the Tanana river, so it has options. And fish.. 😉
So, onto the next time we were our with it, last Saturday;

[IMG]

Junk yard GM ecotec 2.4L with a supercharger from a 2.2L. Full custom setup for fuel delivery and injectors( the only GM part left is the rail itself). The jet pump unit is top of the line made by Scott.

[IMG]

Our day out the first time that Monday, 9 hours on the water, 45 min run time mixed with problems…. But it did run all the time… or would run for short times.

This last time out on Saturday, boat was in the water 6 house before we got it to run at all… uhuh.

First 3 hours it would fire over but not stay running. We were trying to run it without an O2 sensor (which technically it should do!) since the machinist that’s making the O2 adapter for the marine water jacketed exhaust had the sensor.

No go.
We had his spare sensor, but different plug/wire harness and colors. Tried unsuccessfully to hot wire it in.

Drove the 40 miles(1.5 hours) round trip and picked up the right O2 sensor.

Installed.
Then it wouldn’t even fire!
Checked and found no spark.

Serriously turning into a rough day at this point. After over an hour of checking everything, I found a main fuse blown. We’d shorted out something and blown power to the whole setup when hot wiring the first O2 sensor! Oops!!

Them it ran great! Other than a hick up or two at about 3200 rpm, where it would stall out, and if you pushed it, the compute would kill the electronic throttle…

We found out later that the tuning/computer fuel tables transition at that point to a higher rpm/load setup, but it not set right and it leans out too far– enough to cook the motor fast– computer was doing right to protect the motor when it was cutting off.

So that will need chased in the programing, to richen up that tables’ mixture curve.

For the rest of our testing we kept it below 3K without a hitch.

Its a non issue for general run though. We hit 50% throttle and 25 to 30 mph at 2800 rpm or below depending on load in the boat.

And there is the big point; load in the boat.

First run with around 900 pounds in the boat and it went “on step” within a boat length, and ran like it was empty!

So we bumped up to all we had.

Two 50 gallon drums, two 20 gallon drums all full of water, my friend and I, and we had 1800 pounds in the boat.

With the full 1800 in it, it took maybe 40 feet to get on step, then ran 40% throttle to 25 mph, at around 3000 rpm, ran fantastic, circle after circle in the lake, without a hitch.

Never bogged, never pulled bad… was almost like an empty boat!!

Technically, the hull itself is only rated at about 1800 pounds, so add in motor, jet pump, and gear weight etc, we were a good 500 pounds over that. Ha!

So the most weight you could ever safely have in there, and more than you’d ever really need to, and it ran basically like the loaf just wasn’t there.

100% success to the project! (A single 66″ moose, 2 guys and their gear last fall with the 115 hp outboard, he couldn’t get it on step, and they got back with less than 2 gallons of gas to spare. Almost didn’t get back, basically!) The point wasn’t a speed demon, but a super weight hauler for hunting. I think he’s got it.

A bonus too, on about the third loop around at constant rpm/speed, the fuel ratio suddenly improved by dropping on air percentage.. anything over 15% is bad, and 17ish on up will cook the motor.

We were running between 14 and 14.7 to start, at cruise speed. OK but not great. It suddenly dropped to 12.5. The computer is learning what it can do, and what the motor needs, and is tuning itself.

At this point, the more it runs, the better it should run the mixtures as it continues to learn. Shouldn’t have to worry about it as much.

Anyway, our last two runs of the day, part one and two from in the boat. And part three from the launch, while we waited for some kids to get out of the way of loading on the trailer.

Slight hitch at the end of this next one… lol.

Sorry you don’t get to see me.. (lucky you actually! ) we started out both filming, but he ran out of hands between throttle, steering wheel, and phone… lol.

So, anyway, this has really been a lot of fun for me, I’m super grateful he’s included me, and allowed me to be a part of helping with this.

As you all know, I Really enjoy custom work, things out of the ordinary. Along with my automotive interests, growing interest in boats, and absolute (if probably a bit weird)love of troubleshooting, improvising and chasing a problem, I really am loving this project.
As I type this, he is mounting the marine water jacket exhaust(last few days anyway), and custom O2 sensor mount. Be interesting to see how, or if, that changes the run of the motor.

All things stay good, and God willing, on the 3rd of August this boat is one of three going on a church group fishing/camping trip. 3 days in Minto Flats, one of the biggest and most remote norther pike hot spots in the state. Yes, I’m going! 😉 😀

Categories: Adventures, Alaska-Life, Automotive Work, Custom, Fabrication, Fishing, GetOutdoors, Improviser, Modifications, Outdoors, Summertime, Vehicles, Wiring, Wrenching

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