rattle_snake's random shop projects v0.1

[OutlawDrifter]

Definitely easier with a lift!

My Level 3 Monster chatters too, that just lets you know you've got to take it out and beat on it. It doesn't have the nice soft effort that your's does however. Stop and go traffic ends up being, take a different road, or pull over and wait...unless you want a sore knee.

TOB anti-squeek spring looks like a decent solution.

 

[lilscorpion]

That’s Fn weird. Musta just failed (as in junk). I’d expect you’d be able to see it coming (frayed or kinked). That happens again, you got bigger problems I’m thinking.

 

[ntsqd]

I never, ever had these kinds of clutch cable troubles in my '72 2.0L EAO hot rod Pinto wagon.

 

[rattle_snake]

Well as I figured from mis-alignment the cam was chewed up on the one side. I moved all the shims to one side to move it over as far as possible, and radiused the edges of the cable groove. So the cable failed from chafing on the sharp metal edge. Resolved now and shouldn't be an issue going forward.

 

[rattle_snake]

Put a different body on my RC crawler, that it a little more my 'style'. 89' F350 single cab, narrowed both ends.

Paint can failed and dripped inside so f'd up the job but oh well. started with a translucent candy blue but could not get can to dispense 1/2 way through first coat. So ended up using a solid blue that didn't cover that well either then silver base.

 

[rattle_snake]

I was commenting to my wife that I hadn't had to fix on hot tub for some time and that we should go in it that night. Jinxed myself as I noticed it leaking out the bottom. One of the pump union nuts had cracked. I was prepared to replace whole pipe section but my buddy recommended a split nut. I found one locally but ID was off 0.500, so I fixed it.

 

[rattle_snake]

It was hot outside this weekend (hundred & teens) so while digging through lathe tooling for boring stuff I ended up sorting and cleaning everything. Now that I have some clue I can identify what belongs and what was just junk. Emptied a few containers including this old SK socket box. Hammered it back flat and put a piece of rubber in the bottom.


Not sure end use but for now has safety glasses in it and lid can close to keep them cleaner.
Color and finish Reminds me of my dad's old and very beat up Stanley Thermos.

 

[plain2car]

Justin nice job on the pipe fix... glad the "heavy load" didn't get ruined... is that a SCX10.2? as soon as I get the '86 finished I am planning on getting batt. for my traxxas K5...

 

[rattle_snake]

Yes a Axial SCX10 (II?). Fun little toy.

Came home to a multitude of problems yesterday. LM888 wall controller for 8500 opener was beeping continuously, appeared to be restarting. Unplugged.
Water feature pump wouldn't run. GFI tripped. ohm'd motor, OK. Old wiring is cracked (ghetto cut off extension cord) so one leg was intermittently grounding out. Needs new wiring.
Hot tub was leaking again, but from different place. Drain line valve is cheap plastic glued onto OD of hose. glue failed. Made a plug on the lathe, worm clamp and done.

I found an article on LM888 capacitor replacement as possible fix, so I inspected and found one electrolytic cap was budged. Swapped it out but only had one a home in that capacity of the two. No more beeps but still no worky so brought it to work and put in a new pair. The other original cap came out in pieces so it was done too. Will see what that does. My garage has same wall controler so swap is next step if needed.

Can see it was getting hot in the area, probably from resistor.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Well, sounds like you're due to hit a lick...better buy a lotto ticket.

 

[rattle_snake]

I may be due but no how today is going. oh well

Cap swap didn't solve so I called Chamberlain CS and they are sending me a 889 wall unit. 2 weeks back order. CS is actually pretty good, real, competent person answers phone and sends free stuff.

 

[rattle_snake]

Started a father/daughter knife project with my younger. She picked out a large, Damascus, coffin style bowie. Mom was not thrilled.

So we looked at some examples of finger guards & handles, and choose a chunk of walnut to hack up. Plan is a 3 piece, so we cut a slice to tang thickness and sanded it down in steps to get 0.007 clearance. She was doing QC with digital caliper. I tried to keep technical process rambling to a minimum and pointed out that there are lot of way to accomplish a certain task. Long way to go looking forward to shop time with her.

 

[ntsqd]

Very cool! Brass hilt or?

 

[rattle_snake]

Puttered on the crawler a bit.
Rewired and moved things a bit, move on/off button to have easy access with body on.
After some testing the rockers drug a lot, so cut them off some more up to next body line. Makes a big difference. Still plan boat sides.
Also cut some flat black vinyl for hood and bed.
Deep look revealed that most of this thing has been modified. Has upgraded motor, controller, all metal servo and so on. Not much left of the original.

 

[rattle_snake]

Very cool! Brass hilt or?

Thanks!
Current plan is wood handle with a thick contoured finger guard. Maybe aluminum.
The tang is tapered so blade won't be removable once I glue the wood. Considering removing taper and using pins to secure. First knife project for me, enjoying the learning process.

 

[rattle_snake]

Continuing with organization in the shop/garage/house of plumbing/wiring/random materials and remnants. Consolidation and just throwing out stuff that hasn't moved since shop build. I have enough storage just need to use it better. Or I have to much ****. All the bins that were over stuffed are now half empty.

Made a simple shelf for steel remnants that are useful as spacers for press or other jobs. Also included a lathe tooling holder on the side.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Consolidation and just throwing out stuff that hasn't moved since shop build.

I need to do this...again...also.

I dig the remnant shelf, it's got character

 

[rattle_snake]

Thanks Marc. Remnant shelf made of remnants I no longer what to move around.

 

[rattle_snake]

Took the truck out in the desert just to screw around and do some testing. It was over 100* so a workout for cooling and A/C systems. Both did fine. Cruise at 70 is loud in cab even after all the sound control, mostly wind noise even with everything sealed up tight. Turns about 2700 RPM at 70.

Was getting a lot of banging noises that I thought was front bump stop contact. So I removed the lower bump spacers to make sure that was not the case. Noises persisted. So decided not to beat on the truck, no 2nd vehicle and pretty much no one else out in the area. So played with R/C crawlers on some large rock formations and called it a day.

Picket post mtn


Racked the truck and did a thorough inspection of the entire front end. Bushing, heims, brakes so on.


What I did find is that the cab is contacting the transfer case. I had moved the engine down and back for A/C, and the pocket I had sectioned out of the cab floor crossmember is no longer sufficient.
Have a few options to resolve. Can't drop trans mount much as front drive flange and yolk are already tight to the trans crossmember. Cab does need to go up at the back a bit so might as well take care of that now. Grind the rest as needed.


The good news is that I'm not hitting the bumps like I thought and uptravel limit is not that bad. Still going to do out-boarded bump cans and improve the setup, but probably don't need to cut up the fenders to get the performance I want.

 

[rattle_snake]

More org stuff underway. Cleaning out all the wood remnant out of south wall cabinet. Was mostly small pieces, shims and hardwood. I had made a 2',3' and 4' vertical storage bays. Anything longer was on north wall material rack, but over time small **** was tossed on over there. So time to consolidate. Well time to purge.
Not sure why I felt the need to keep so many pieces of shim stock. So I tossed all of it except for one piece in binary or common sizes. 2^-2 through 2^2 to allow stack up increment of 0.250". Made a box to store them in





Cleared all the the non-round stock items out of lathe cabinet, as it seems non-round thing just don't belong. Had a box of aluminum remnants in there and was a pain to access so they got moved to a new home too.


Still have sheet storage to thin out. Started that project. Then on to the rest of the material rack.

Finally got around to cutting down my press arbor so the brake would fit in easily. Should have done this on day one, but that is how it goes. Re-vamped the rack on the side, shortened all the hooks as they stuck out enough to be a hazard. Moved the rest of bar stock to new shelf so everything is handy for press ops.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

You are turning into the shelfmaker ever!

Glued and nailed?



These constant reminders about how much attention my shop needs aren't going unoticed. I have 2 stacks of assorted lumber that need some thinning, one in my shop and one in the wife's garage.

 

[ntsqd]

A hack for that press brake:
I used a piece of 1x1x.188 angle steel and welded some 1x1x.083 square tube to the outside flats of the angle. This assembly drops into the angle of the base and narrows the 'gap' across the bending edges significantly. I can now bend thin(ner) stuff and get a nice, tight bend line instead of the vague bend without the spacer.
I did need to make some ~.6" tall spacers that sit under the lifting springs so that the blade (?) assembly sits high enough to slide my work pieces under it. In retrospect I probably should have used some .75x.75 square tube if I'd had any.
This: https://www.swagoffroad.com/product...-die?_pos=1&_psq=20 ton flat top&_ss=e&_v=1.0 might be more adjustable, but mine was made entirely from remnants and free.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Justin, I don't recall what your steering linkage looks like; can you take a pic for me? Any bump steer so far?

 

[rattle_snake]

You are turning into the shelfmaker ever!

Glued and nailed?

These constant reminders about how much attention my shop needs aren't going unoticed. I have 2 stacks of assorted lumber that need some thinning, one in my shop and one in the wife's garage.

Haha yes been whipping up 4 or 5 sided boxes out of junk to keep from tossing it out.
Just glue and clamps for the nicer walnut stuff, and glue+ brad nails for the shop quickies.

A hack for that press brake:
I used a piece of 1x1x.188 angle steel and welded some 1x1x.083 square tube to the outside flats of the angle. This assembly drops into the angle of the base and narrows the 'gap' across the bending edges significantly. I can now bend thin(ner) stuff and get a nice, tight bend line instead of the vague bend without the spacer.
I did need to make some ~.6" tall spacers that sit under the lifting springs so that the blade (?) assembly sits high enough to slide my work pieces under it. In retrospect I probably should have used some .75x.75 square tube if I'd had any.
This: https://www.swagoffroad.com/products/swag-20-ton-flat-top-adjustable-bottom-v-die?_pos=1&_psq=20 ton flat top&_ss=e&_v=1.0 might be more adjustable, but mine was made entirely from remnants and free.

Thanks, that is essentially the contraption that is hanging on the side, at the bottom. I used just angle, but allows a much smaller gap between the edges. Can bend light stuff 1/2" from edge.

Justin, I don't recall what your steering linkage looks like; can you take a pic for me? Any bump steer so far?

There is a current pic just a few posts up of linkage. Bump steer is canceled by track bar position so it works pretty well. The axle does have a lot of side motion but steering wheel stays put over large height changes (like road crown in intersection).

 

[Bears Fan]

The truck looks great! Nice job on all the organization

 

[rattle_snake]

The truck looks great! Nice job on all the organization

Thanks Tony. Got 7 shelves installed in the shallow cabinets last night. I bought a 8' 1x8 as that's the longest board that will fit in the cobra. Then I found a piece already stained cleaning out sheet material, as it shouldn't have been there anyhow.
Moved some stuff around, but now I don't have enough stuff to fill all the space.
I think this will snowball into further re-org of tool boxes. I'm not using the deep drawers very well, can't see what is at the bottom. Need to move some of the random materials to cabinets.

 

[rattle_snake]

Swapped in the new (and free) LM 889 wall controller. Solved the issue and all is working again. Limit issue hasn't re-appeared after re-torque of collar.

Tried dropping down transmission and transfer case on the 72 ford to get a better look at contact area. Exhaust is in the way, needs to come out. But re-doing the back half of exhaust is on the list so afraid this may snowball into a bigger job. The right collector is really close to floor so I kind of want to re-do that aspect also.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Swapped in the new (and free) LM 889 wall controller. Solved the issue and all is working again. Limit issue hasn't re-appeared after re-torque of collar.

Tried dropping down transmission and transfer case on the 72 ford to get a better look at contact area. Exhaust is in the way, needs to come out. But re-doing the back half of exhaust is on the list so afraid this may snowball into a bigger job. The right collector is really close to floor so I kind of want to re-do that aspect also.

That snowball effect will get you every time!

One of the reasons I haven't done the AC on the '49 yet, when I do pull the front off, all of the front wiring is getting reloomed with nylon instead of plastic...and whatever from there that it snowballs into!

 

[rattle_snake]

Well you could add a blower or nitrous setup to the '49 while your in there.

Or both

 

[rattle_snake]

Pulled the exhaust to access bottom of the cab. I see that on the right side the pipe right after header collector has been making contact with cab floor pan. I had built the exhaust system without body so it was all a guess. Moving drivetrain back didn't help.

Cut up the exhaust and started making a zig zag out of mandrels to clear floor. Adding another v-band downstream so muffler can come out separately from tail pipe and collector extensions.


A further look at cab to transfer case interference showed that the TC is hitting in multiple places on floor. So no easy fix to leave drivetrain where it is at. Driveshaft is already close. Contemplated sectioning trans cross member with some large pipe to add clearance to drop down. Ended up trying different sized shim stacks in trans mount to find a good balance of clearance on both driveshaft and cab. Given the geometry, a small change is shim moves the end of TC by a larger amount. Also going to shim back of cab up a bit to offset saggy old bushings (shoulda replaced them Dooh!). So I think this will be enough and no major surgery is required, well other than the exhaust.
Popped the trans mount spacers in the lathe to removed 0.125", and hit with Ford blue paint.

 

[rattle_snake]

Whipped up some crude boat sides out of scrap 26 ga sheet.


crude trim with sheers. Didn't really need a brace but added one anyhow. 4-40 machine screws fit in 3/16 brake line.

 

[rattle_snake]

I've had a vinyl 'Speed Metal' sticker sitting around for a few years needing a cool application.
Picked up some rusty scrap but wasn't quite the right size/aspect ratio. Tried to integrate some engine type parts but didn't go.

Ended up using a 520 chain off my CRF 450 as a boarder. Was a sand-only chain and the constant high power applied in the dunes stretched it way past wear limit in a handful of trips. Cut sheet down to chain perimeter length. Welded each outer link to sheet and a hanger.


After a good cleaning, centered vinyl mask, weeded letters to get negative. Taped off for paint.


Hit with rattle can and done. May go back and scuff to give an old look.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

I dig the sign Justin, that's pretty rad

 

[rattle_snake]

Finished exhaust modifications to clear right side floor pan. Took a few sections to fit pan contour with <1" gap. The header extension is pretty short, but the added v-band make removing muffler section much easier. Plan to swap out the 2-into-1 muff and series 3" for a pair of 2.5" muffs in parallel at some point.




All the sections can be clocked easily with the v-bands.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Going to the two mufflers for more quiet noises?

 

[rattle_snake]

More noise actually.
With just the 2-into-1 it was obnoxious at WOT. So I added a short 3" bullet muffler behind it, which makes it a bit too quiet and boring.
A 3" single pipe is about 28% less area/flow than dual 2.5, and with the second muffler in series there is a somewhat significant flow restriction compared to a regular dual 2.5 system. So I guess it evolved into something I'm just not quite happy with, and I like to change up my exhaust looking for the perfect note under all conditions.

Plan is to use a pair of long case 2.5 in/out mufflers of same brand/type to double the initial muffler volume. Hopefully that gets me what I want. Can still add a short resonators if needed, and system will still out flow what it does now. Also want to redo 'temporary' tailpipe that is close to fuel tank, to reduce heat transfer.

But for now it's back together and getting front suspension mods

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Well good luck in your search!

Exhaust is a difficult one to pin down at times.

The 20" case Dynomax Ultraflow is a favorite of mine. I've used it on 4 different pickups with good results, without cats it has enough volume and always has a great tone, nice and deep. Even though the construction is similar to the Magnaflow, whatever the difference is in packing, makes them sound "cleaner" and less blatty.

 

[ntsqd]

FWIW, this is the muffler that I use on all of my 350ci and larger project engines: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/wlk-17698
With a stock cam they're rather quiet at idle and get throaty at WOT. Same is true for those engines with a mild cam lope, but there is some throatiness to the idle that the stock cam'd engines don't have. Mild cams with this muffler have a nice "Drive-In" idle as a former employer used to call it.
I first used a FlowMaster in '93 and that was the last one. It was so loud that I ended up using the Supertrapp's that I took off as resonators.

 

[rattle_snake]

Working on front suspension improvements and modifications. Mainly bump stops v2.0.

v1.0 had stops under frame. To keep tire out of fender when flexed, they needed huge spacers and severely limit up travel.

v1.1 I moved them outwards as much as possible, where they can be higher up because Sine function. But coil over hit right side due to track bar movement and had to trim it heavily.

v2.0 is start over. Bump cans behind coil over, outboard of frame. Contact radius arm brackets.

But limit straps are there so step 1 was to move the straps in front of the coil overs. I made a set of tabs and tacked in left side. Right side had track bar bracket brace in the way, so cut that out. While fitting right side decided to change up mounting scheme from **** joint to a overlap which also gave a bit more room for fasteners.


Better weld, no grind. Also welded other side of inner tab. I decided to go double sheer as there is some side loading on left side due to track bar moving axle left at droop.


Located holes such that droop limit was same as before. Upper is just a simple hole through frame. Hit with paint, put on lift to measure and test.

 

[rattle_snake]

Next step was the bump stop striker pad for the top of the radius arms. The grease zerks were in the way, so pulled arms to weld hole shut and move to a different location. Could have built something right on the arm itself but it would impact bushings, so chose to mount pad to axle brackets. The addition of the pads hold the width of bracket fixed, so had to be careful to shim slightly over.

Used some 3x6 3/16 rectangular tube to utilize the radiused corners. Then attach with simple flat bar and overlap welds.
Used some washer with a flat cut to locate pad height and make sure socket still fits on fasteners.


Then on to the upper bump can mounts. Spent a few hours making cardboard templates until I was happy and transferred to 3/16 plate. Used table to build the shape and test fit.


Axle moves forward and right as it goes up so have to account for this in placement. Can is angled out and back a bit to match the coil over and make everything more complicated. Have one side tacked in so will start on the other and see what has to be redone again.
Looks like I have created a pinch point for the brake line, so may have to redo all of that too.