dirk1984
Active member
Awesome thread! Real inspirational!
Awesome thread! Real inspirational!
Here's a quick recap of our racing adventures last weekend. Perfect weather for racing, both Cameron and I got personal best times ever in our respective cars.
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I also got to run Bob Telpe in his beautiful '69 Camaro a 396/375 hp 4 speed car......twice. On the first round I ran a 13.100 vrs his 13.316 and on the second match I managed a 13.266 vrs the Camaro's 13.410. We both had huge grins returning to the pits. Lots of fun running against friends, win, lose or draw. Bob you might remember is the gentleman who refreshed my Sun distributor machine which I get to pick up this weekend.
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Cameron qualified against this very nice '70 Cuda but couldn't bring home the bacon. He still ran his best times ever in the car, 14.581.
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I was up against a quick 1970 Buick GS 400. We were 1-1 going into the third round but I spun and he won. I'll get him next time!My best was a 12.915 @ 108.52 which is the quickest ET (Elapsed Time) the car has run to date. I should be able to get the car to run 12.8's....next year. I'm going to change the gearing somewhat and see what that does.
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So the Impala is in back in the shop waiting some post race adjustments. Note the famous "stain" in front of it on the floor.
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See how almost square it is from that 4"X4" wood post? Hey, it's a working shop, warts and all.![]()
Up next, tomorrow I'm moving a couple of the Blue Spruce trees I planted last year and then in the afternoon my neighbor and I are taking his Piper Tri-Pacer airborne to get some aerial pictures of the shop and property to compare with those taken in the late 1930's/early1940's, and the one from the mid 1970's. I'll try to get it on here shortly. Should make for an interesting comparison. Thanks Joe for being so patient. Tools are coming!!
Thomas
Hi all,
You've may have come across the picture of Thomas' Sun distributor tester earlier in the thread. I have been asked to perform a full mechanical restoration of this machine. The original finish will be preserved as much as possible in order to maintain the 'patina' of the era.
As you can see, this machine is complete with lower cabinet. It has a nice touch -a scroll at the top showing distributor specifications.
This particular model is a 600, circa 1960. It features a tachometer, dwell meter, condenser tester, and an electric vacuum pump and gauge.
A cursory look at the tester showed that the motor and turnable rotates and the vacuum pump turns on. However, there is no strobe flash.
The order of work will begin with the center unit, which consists of the motor, turntable, and strobe. The meters and vacuum pump can then be attended to afterwards.
The center unit was removed and inspection begun.
It wasn't too long before the sights and smells (smoke) pointed to a bad choke in the power supply. The infrared temp gun points to the culprit. Look closely for the red dot.
The chuck cover was removed for a look at the strobe on the left. It would be hard to expect even a good strobe to penetrate the gunk there. Fortunately, the strobe itself appear to be OK in preliminary testing. It is an expensive part to replace. Hopefully, it will pass final muster once the power supply is refurbished.
We'll continue with disassembly and cleanup at the next post. Stay tuned.
Here are some pictures of interest. This is from last year. The tester is a Sun 500 from around 1965 or so. It was purchased from a university and fortunately, did not get the amount of use (and abuse) a shop might inflict on it. As a result, it is still wearing its original paint and lettering.
This particular tester and lower cabinet was sold to a gentleman in the UK.
Hopefully, it is hard at work spinning Lucas distributors and the like
All troublesome and suspect parts, such as capacitors and other components, as well as the bearings, drive belt, etc. were replaced. I had a new drive wheel custom manufactured for me. This is the rubber tire that drives the turntable and develops the dreaded flat spot and subsequent thump-thump when the user does not heed Sun's advice to return the wheel to the low stop after use!!
Also, a power supply was added to eliminate the need to periodically change batteries which power the tach and dwell meters.
Note to Sun users: the original battery for the tach was a 1.35V mercury battery, which had the virtue of maintaining a near constant voltage throughout its life. If you use a standard AA 1.5V (closer to 1.6V), your tach will read too high, and will drift lower as the battery gets exhausted. So, your other options are to find a 1.35V battery, or purchase a power supply. I am working on a simple drop in. Hopefully, it will be available later this year.
At long last, here is an update on the Sun distributor tester refurbish. Way back on page 145 my last post showed the center turntable and power supply, which had some issues that prevented the strobe from firing. The next pictures show some of the progress of getting things whipped back into shape.
It can be a real challenge to clean the existing paint and screen printing without watching it go down the drain. A citrus based cleaner can be used, and either Go Jo or Fast Orange hand cleaner judiciously used will work well on the tough spots. This is followed by fine rubbing compound and polish.
The clamp arm guide rods, being uplated, froze to the sleeves, and the force required to press them out was just amazing. Fortunately, they did come out, and after fine sandpaper, steel wool, WD40 and #2 elbow grease, they now work very smoothly.
Here is the strobe, all nicely cleaned up. The strobe is filled with neon gas. About 600V from the power supply is applied across the leads coming out the ends of the tube. The fine wire wrapped around the spiral section of the tube is connected to the secondary of a miniature ignition coil in the power supply. When the distributor points trigger this coil, the high voltage pulse causes the neon to fire a flash of light.
Once the rotating assembly is back together, it must be balanced. Here a fixture is set up to perform this task. The balance is adjusted by changing the position and number of washers in the stack (located at about 9 o'clock).
The original capacitor has been replaced by the smaller rectangular one, but is kept in place so as to facilitate balancing.
More posts to follow.





While I don't fly Boeing 787's....yet, for those of you concerned that the composite wings on it might break during turbulence, take a gander at this.
http://787flighttest.com/hanger/wp-...t/ondemand/tpn/firstflight/&file=TestLog4.flv
Cudo's to all you engineers out there.
Thomas
While I don't fly Boeing 787's....yet, for those of you concerned that the composite wings on it might break during turbulence, take a gander at this.
http://787flighttest.com/hanger/wp-...t/ondemand/tpn/firstflight/&file=TestLog4.flv
Cudo's to all you engineers out there.
Thomas
Welcome Back Tom ! looks like you had fun at the races.And that seems like a real good ET for what you are running ! I am down right impressedwith that..
Well naturally I have to hammer them senseless on the track to try and restore their own personal pride. It is a heavy burden but I do my best to bare up under it. It just goes with the reputation of cars coming out of that shop over the years. Who knew??
Hello Thomas and Chris.
About the earliest pic. Three of the cars around the shop are late 20s to early 30., the other two near the right front are not identifiable at least to me.
The car in the house driveway looks to be late 30s, say 37/38 or so.
You might post a higher resolution scan of that photo someday and we could tell a bit more about it.
Nuts aka Doug
Thomas, did Weldon let you fly a real airplane, and more importantly, did he critique your performance? (heh-heh)
Seriously, happy 40th Anniversary. You are indeed fortunate to have such a career and long-time friend Weldon.

Thomas
I know what will get that stain off the floor in your shop. SALT , I got a 3 pound bag of it we cleaned out of the undercarriage of Mikes truck when we got back from Bonneville.We power washed that truck every day at Wendover. But there was still salt hiding in every nook & cranny under his truck....
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There was a discovery channel show on the making of, I think it was the 767, which was the first Boeing plane that was entirely built in a computer, right down to the wires and valves, before they started building it. It was also unique because the wings (if my memory serves) were partly composite and glued rather than riveted. Anyway, they showed a wing break test, and it was a spectacular thing to watch.
I found this on youtube:
it is the wing break test for the 787. Its a little different thant the 767 that I saw years ago was with fully finished wings and was a bit more entertaining to watch.
Thanks Thomas for continuing this wonderful thread!
Game over, man, game over!
Y Manifold Gang
Thomas
LOOK WHAT I FOUND.
14 1/2 foot long , 30 inches in diameter.
I could most likely get it for a few hundred buck.
It is 1500 miles away from Jacob & I.
We are figuring the logistics of getting it to San Diego already.
If this works out , we may have our Belly Tank......
Look out Bonneville , Bagnell & Chenowth may be back soon.
Randy
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Can Jacob fit into something 30 inches in diameter??????
Is all of this because of something called the "Butterfly Effect?" See below for a mathematical definition/explanation:
A dynamical system displays sensitive dependence on initial conditions if points arbitrarily close together separate over time at an exponential rate. The definition is not topological, but essentially metrical.
If M is the state space for the map ft, then ft displays sensitive dependence to initial conditions if for any x in M and any δ > 0, there are y in M, with 0 < d(x,y) < δ such that
d(f^\tau(x), f^\tau) > \exp(a\tau) \, d(x,y).
The definition does not require that all points from a neighborhood separate from the base point x, but it requires one positive Lyapunov exponent.
Don't ask me to explain it, I just fly big airplanes for a living.
Nice score Randy, keep us posted.
Thomas
Man, that's mighty fancy! I don't understand any of it, but it sure looks purty! I'm just a dumb mechanic, you know we can't even read (or so our customers would believe)! lol


WOW!!!..... I don't even know what to say.... but... WOW, Awesome, Crazy, Great Job!

My first post in this forum , and is just to say that you have done an exceptional job restoring that building, and restoring what was inside. I have been 3 days in a row reading your thread, and it was like I was there throughout the restoration.
Keep the good work!
Greetings from Spain
Can Jacob fit into something 30 inches in diameter??????
Is all of this because of something called the "Butterfly Effect?" See below for a mathematical definition/explanation:
A dynamical system displays sensitive dependence on initial conditions if points arbitrarily close together separate over time at an exponential rate. The definition is not topological, but essentially metrical.
If M is the state space for the map ft, then ft displays sensitive dependence to initial conditions if for any x in M and any δ > 0, there are y in M, with 0 < d(x,y) < δ such that
d(f^\tau(x), f^\tau) > \exp(a\tau) \, d(x,y).
The definition does not require that all points from a neighborhood separate from the base point x, but it requires one positive Lyapunov exponent.
Don't ask me to explain it, I just fly big airplanes for a living.
Nice score Randy, keep us posted.
Thomas
Hello Thomas
That machine is just beautiful !
Is the old stick welder up for a spit and polish too ?
Craig
Thomas,
I worked with one of those Sun Distributor testers every day.
I worked at Boland Ignition Service in Cleveland Ohio.
We pulled the distributor on every tune up and it
got tested and set up.This was in the mid 60's.
Your machine brings back memorys,some good,some bad !
Thanks for your thread Roy