ZMotorsports Shop Projects 2.0

[zmotorsports]

Excellent job on the axle stand!

What kind of rotator head is on your engine stand? Self locking worm gear?

Thanks for the comments.

You’re right on the geared head, no physical lock though. Just gear reduced enough that it locks in position if there is no input from the handle.

Thanks for stopping by my thread.


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[shortykorte]

A little work on those welds are in order. Lol. Stand looks great.


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[zmotorsports]

A little work on those welds are in order. Lol. Stand looks great.


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Yeah, I need to work on my welding skills. They've slipped a bit over the past year of being out of practice.

I'll get there someday though.

Thanks Shorty.

 

[C_F]

Whatever, those are great welds! If I could weld half as good as that, I'd be pretty pleased with myself.

The axle stand turned out great, looking forward to see it in action one of these days.

 

[zmotorsports]

Whatever, those are great welds! If I could weld half as good as that, I'd be pretty pleased with myself.

The axle stand turned out great, looking forward to see it in action one of these days.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

I supposedly have a couple of axles to build after the first of the year as well as my son’s axles for his WJ project, so I’m sure it will get used in the near future.

Thanks for following along.


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[zmotorsports]

Took a few minutes tonight and fabbed up a couple of wall brackets to hang my new axle fixture on.







Also while I had my TIG welder out, I made a couple of new hangers for hanging my snow shovels on in the attached garage. I left my old setup at my last place because I was nervous about messing the paint up on the walls in the garage if I removed them.

Thanks for looking.


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[zmotorsports]

Got home tonight and one of my old neighbors from our last place followed me in the driveway wanting me to take a look at his snowblower. While I wouldn’t have minded had he called and asked first, the fact that he was just planning on dropping it off without even checking to see if I had time to look at it kind of bugged the **** out of me.

I removed and cleaned the carb, cleaned and gapped the plug and she’s ready to go for the winter.

Next I cut and glued some rubber in the saddles of the axle fixture that I fabricated, then mounted the brackets to the wall in the storage bay and hung it up out of the way until I need it.







Thanks for looking.

 

[jackson1701]

So I just fell into a rabbit hole, after reading and following along for the past few years, I somehow missed your Youtube link at the bottom of your signature. Now I have something interesting to watch in my spare time. Great videos too! Thanks so much for sharing your work with us. I have been inspired by your latest garage build to get at mine and finally finish the inside and organize it a bit.

Steve

 

[fordkid88]

So I just fell into a rabbit hole, after reading and following along for the past few years, I somehow missed your Youtube link at the bottom of your signature. Now I have something interesting to watch in my spare time. Great videos too! Thanks so much for sharing your work with us. I have been inspired by your latest garage build to get at mine and finally finish the inside and organize it a bit.

Steve

Holy ****, thank you for pointing that out. I missed it too.

 

[zmotorsports]

So I just fell into a rabbit hole, after reading and following along for the past few years, I somehow missed your Youtube link at the bottom of your signature. Now I have something interesting to watch in my spare time. Great videos too! Thanks so much for sharing your work with us. I have been inspired by your latest garage build to get at mine and finally finish the inside and organize it a bit.

Steve

Holy ****, thank you for pointing that out. I missed it too.

Thanks guys. I appreciate you taking the time to follow along on my thread and especially for watching my videos.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a hi-tech video guy, so I don't want you to be disappointed. I'm merely a mechanic who thought about throwing up some projects on youtube so don't be expecting too awfully much in the cinematography department.

I will be doing a video of a walk-around on our coach as soon as I get the interior back and installed and the weather turns a bit nicer, I have had quite a few questions come up lately about some of the mods I have done to it and a few people have requested a video of the coach.

Thanks again guys, I hope you enjoy them.

 

[jackson1701]

I will be the first to admit that I am not a hi-tech video guy, so I don't want you to be disappointed. I'm merely a mechanic who thought about throwing up some projects on youtube so don't be expecting too awfully much in the cinematography department.

Mike, These are the perfect type videos, at least for me. I love how you describe the issues, your thoughts to remedy them, and how you go about making parts to fix or upgrade items. You have truly hit the nail on the head for gear heads and fabricators alike. Once again your videos are amazing. I just finished moving and setting up my dads mill and lathe. They pretty much have been sitting idle for the past 11 years after a sudden accident took him away from us. He was a amazing machinist and I now have someone new to look up to to get some tips. I wish he was here to see them up and running again. Thanks again for all you do to help the rest of us out.

Steve

 

[zmotorsports]

Mike, These are the perfect type videos, at least for me. I love how you describe the issues, your thoughts to remedy them, and how you go about making parts to fix or upgrade items. You have truly hit the nail on the head for gear heads and fabricators alike. Once again your videos are amazing. I just finished moving and setting up my dads mill and lathe. They pretty much have been sitting idle for the past 11 years after a sudden accident took him away from us. He was a amazing machinist and I now have someone new to look up to to get some tips. I wish he was here to see them up and running again. Thanks again for all you do to help the rest of us out.

Steve

Thank you Steve, I am flattered.

Thank you for the comments about the videos, that is an area I really struggle with. I have gotten comments from people saying I talk to much in them and then many more people like the amount of detail that I give so I get confused on what people want as far as content. I do feel on many projects that it helps to understand the project better and the thought process going into them if you know the "why" behind them.

So sorry to hear about losing your father, even 11 years ago it's still tough at times. I lost my father in 2002 and much of the time I'm fine but there are times when I think about something specific or it can be as simple as seeing something that reminds me of him that triggers emotions and feelings and it is as fresh as the day it happened.

Probably the best way you could honor those memories would be to get those machines operating and in use. I'm sure he would like that.

Thanks again for the kind words.

 

[sanddan]

Thanks guys. I appreciate you taking the time to follow along on my thread and especially for watching my videos.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a hi-tech video guy, so I don't want you to be disappointed. I'm merely a mechanic who thought about throwing up some projects on youtube so don't be expecting too awfully much in the cinematography department.

I will be doing a video of a walk-around on our coach as soon as I get the interior back and installed and the weather turns a bit nicer, I have had quite a few questions come up lately about some of the mods I have done to it and a few people have requested a video of the coach.

Thanks again guys, I hope you enjoy them.

I second the request for the video on your coach. Keep up the great work.

 

[customh]

I think it is more correct to error on the side of too much detail rather than too little.

There are few things that scare me more than losing my dad. He's had a 1957 Chevy Bel Air 2dr hardtop in the garage in pieces since before I was born and if we never get to work on that thing or at least some project like that together it'll ****. Just seems like there's never time, and he doesn't have space. Needs to either get a shed or move. Anyhow, I'm rambling- bottom line is I/we need to learn to quit making excuses and take full advantage of the time while he's around.

Thank you Steve, I am flattered.

Thank you for the comments about the videos, that is an area I really struggle with. I have gotten comments from people saying I talk to much in them and then many more people like the amount of detail that I give so I get confused on what people want as far as content. I do feel on many projects that it helps to understand the project better and the thought process going into them if you know the "why" behind them.

So sorry to hear about losing your father, even 11 years ago it's still tough at times. I lost my father in 2002 and much of the time I'm fine but there are times when I think about something specific or it can be as simple as seeing something that reminds me of him that triggers emotions and feelings and it is as fresh as the day it happened.

Probably the best way you could honor those memories would be to get those machines operating and in use. I'm sure he would like that.

Thanks again for the kind words.

 

[zmotorsports]

I second the request for the video on your coach. Keep up the great work.

Thanks Dan. That makes about a dozen or so requests for more information on our coach so it looks like a coach tour video is in order.

Thanks for following along Dan.

 

[zmotorsports]

I think it is more correct to error on the side of too much detail rather than too little.

There are few things that scare me more than losing my dad. He's had a 1957 Chevy Bel Air 2dr hardtop in the garage in pieces since before I was born and if we never get to work on that thing or at least some project like that together it'll ****. Just seems like there's never time, and he doesn't have space. Needs to either get a shed or move. Anyhow, I'm rambling- bottom line is I/we need to learn to quit making excuses and take full advantage of the time while he's around.

Thanks for the feedback.

I agree about not making excuses. When I was building my 1940 Chev coupe back in the early 90's I was kind of dragging my feet. Mainly because of funds and my wife and I had just gotten into our first home, however, I didn't realize my dad's health was starting to fail or at least he wasn't letting on about it. He was quite vocal when I would work on things other than the coupe and he would come out to the shop and hang out with me when I was working on it in the evenings and weekends.

My dad was then diagnosed with some heart issues and it hit me like a brick why he was so adamant about getting the car on the road. I put it into high gear and focused on the coupe that year and completed it the night before a large car show here in Northern Utah which was the same show we had purchased the car 5-years prior.

The smile on my dad's face that day at the car show was worth ALL of the sleepless nights and long days for the several months leading up to that point. When we were approached by an executive editor of Street Rodder Magazine at that show to do a feature article on our car my dad was ecstatic. That was one of my favorite memories of my dad, although there are many. I really felt like he was proud of me at that moment and I would give anything to have him back with me to see what I've accomplished since. I continued to show and race that coupe up until 2002 when he passed away. I put it into storage and it sat there for just over 3 years while I played with other vehicles. In early 2006 I drug the coupe back out of storage with the mindset of putting it back on the track and maybe a few shows. After about two weeks or wrenching on it and getting it ready for the racing season I just couldn't do it, not with that car. The car didn't have the same feeling without my father there and my heart just wasn't in it. I sold the car and moved on to other things. Although I would love to get back into racing again someday, I just don't see it happening.

Bottom line is, don't wait. You will never get that time back with your father.

Sorry to ramble.

 

[customh]

I might need to save that post and force myself to read it every week/day/...

 

[zmotorsports]

Arrived home from work tonight and my son was making chips with his CNC mill.




I then decided to make a new TIG torch holder that I’ve wanted to make for a while. I had an old piston & rod assembly from our Suzuki GS powered sand drag quad that we ran a few years back as well as a magnet that I found while moving stuff into the new shop.



Disassembled and cleaned in the solvent tank. I didn’t bead blast because I wanted to keep the original used appearance that it had.


Cleaned and ready to cut the rod cap and bend the con rod.


I bent the connecting rod in the press brake.


Cut the rod cap in the bandsaw.


Drilled and tapped the piston crown to accept the magnet.




Completed and ready for use. Kinda adds that “kool” factor to my welding table.


Next I threw together a new welder’s helper (third hand) using a wrist pin from an old Cummins N14 rebuild from years ago.


I also welded up the tips using some silicone bronze to aid in conductivity.


Thanks for looking.

 

[shortykorte]

That tig holder is way cool.


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[zmotorsports]

That tig holder is way cool.


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Thanks Shorty. I can't take credit for the idea though. I saw it on a youtube video, I think it was from retrowelds video channel.

 

[MP&C]

Mike, I need you to come to Leonardtown for at least a week to help with organizing and shop "trinket" making.


Nice work as always, thanks for sharing.

 

[WhiffySpark]

Mike, I need you to come to Leonardtown for at least a week to help with organizing and shop "trinket" making.


Nice work as always, thanks for sharing.

That would be awesome.

How far are you from the town area where Bank of America is? I do landscaping there along with Pnc down there.

 

[MP&C]

A mile out of town...

 

[BMW Rider]

I seen more than a few connecting rods come out of engines in that condition. Never saw one deliberately bent.

 

[zmotorsports]

Mike, I need you to come to Leonardtown for at least a week to help with organizing and shop "trinket" making.


Nice work as always, thanks for sharing.

Thanks Robert, I appreciate that.

As for "trinket" making, I put off way too many of these little items in my last shop that I never seemed to have time to get around to doing. When we were building this shop my wife encouraged me when the time came to move in and set the shop up to take my time and set it up the way I wanted it so I could enjoy it rather than just getting it done and stacking work in the shop as quickly as possible. I'm glad I took her advice and I am setting it up properly so I can enjoy working in it for many years to come without regrets that I should have taken time to do something different or make a little "trinket".

Silly little things like this TIG torch holder, the stand next to my press holding my hydraulic press accessories and my tool height gage for the lathe were projects that although may seem small and pointless to some people, they sure add to the enjoyment I feel when working on other things in the shop.

The other day I was turning a small part for my cousin and to be able to reach over and grab my lathe tool height gage and quickly set the height of the cutting tool sure made me smile and have a sense of being organized. It made the whole 5-minute job of turning the part a pleasure.

Thanks for following along Robert and I appreciate the comments.

 

[zmotorsports]

I seen more than a few connecting rods come out of engines in that condition. Never saw one deliberately bent.

I hear ya. Usually it isn't something that is "kool" to see, so this was definitely a change.

Thanks for stopping by my projects thread.

 

[slodat]

Mike, I completely agree about the satisfaction that comes from getting the details you want in the shop done right. I get interesting comments about some of the stuff I've built into my shop - one touch lighting controls, automation and so on.. I use this stuff every day. They never fail to make me smile. My shop is an extension of me, as I'm sure yours is of you! Well done! I always enjoy reading your updates!

 

[zmotorsports]

Mike, I completely agree about the satisfaction that comes from getting the details you want in the shop done right. I get interesting comments about some of the stuff I've built into my shop - one touch lighting controls, automation and so on.. I use this stuff every day. They never fail to make me smile. My shop is an extension of me, as I'm sure yours is of you! Well done! I always enjoy reading your updates!

Thank you Steven, that is a good way to put it. My shop is an extension of me. I like the sound of that and it makes perfect sense.

Thanks for stopping by my projects thread and commenting.

 

[slodat]

Thank you Steven, that is a good way to put it. My shop is an extension of me. I like the sound of that and it makes perfect sense.

Thanks for stopping by my projects thread and commenting.

People that know me well give me a lot of **** for how "ADD and OCD" I can be about things.. especially details. When they are in my shop it is different. They get to see how my personality comes out in my work space. I have been told many times they understand me better after seeing the shop. This is where the 'extension of myself' thing comes from for me.

Happy Holidays to you and yours, Mike!

P.S. I'm kinda pissed at your son right now.. currently eyeballing that little CNC mill he has. Looks perfect for my needs.. $$$

 

[zmotorsports]

People that know me well give me a lot of **** for how "ADD and OCD" I can be about things.. especially details. When they are in my shop it is different. They get to see how my personality comes out in my work space. I have been told many times they understand me better after seeing the shop. This is where the 'extension of myself' thing comes from for me.



Happy Holidays to you and yours, Mike!



P.S. I'm kinda pissed at your son right now.. currently eyeballing that little CNC mill he has. Looks perfect for my needs.. $$$

I’ll let him know Steven.[emoji12]

Merry Christmas to you as well.

Thanks for checking in.

 

[zmotorsports]

You know your getting old when on a Friday night after work all you can think about is getting home to service your vehicle and be in the shop. [emoji1]

While the Jeep was on the lift with the oil draining I decided to throw a coat of paint on my Swag Off-road finger brake. I’ve had it for a while but have never taken the time to paint it. After using it for the first time in the new shop the other night to bend the con rod for my TIG torch holder I noticed it had a light layer of rust on the surface from spending last winter in my non-heated attached garage. I decided to remedy that before putting it away.

Buffed the rust off, masked the areas I didn’t want painted and painted it the Hammered gray that seems to be my shop’s theme color.


Completed and reassembled.


Thanks for looking.

 

[C_F]

I seen more than a few connecting rods come out of engines in that condition. Never saw one deliberately bent.

No kidding!

As I scrolled through the photos of the soon to be TIG holder, I must admit to almost saying WTF to myself out loud, when I came to the one with the band saw. It turned out great Mike!

 

[zmotorsports]

No kidding!



As I scrolled through the photos of the soon to be TIG holder, I must admit to almost saying WTF to myself out loud, when I came to the one with the band saw. It turned out great Mike!

Thank you.

Can’t wait to get something to weld in the shop so I can use it.[emoji12]

 

[zmotorsports]

I had this roll in the shop tonight.


The hood is off an XLT but it is actually an Ultra which is a 680cc triple.

It belongs to a buddy of mine, the same friend who helped me with the electrical in my shop. I gave up working on sleds back when we sold all of ours in 2009 as well as sold off my carts, dollies and spare parts. However I kept all of my specialty tools, I’m not a complete idiot.[emoji23] He uses this to access his cabin in the Uintah’s during the winter months and it has sat for a couple of years and is not running. I agreed to help him out by getting it running for him as he was great helping me out on my shop.

I’ve built a LOT of these 90’s Polaris’ back in the day. From rolling chaincases, custom building chromoly suspensions, building engines, porting, etc. We then switched brands to Arctic Cat around 2000 and commenced building those as well. Sledding was a huge part of mine and my families lives from 1989 to 2009 when we sold everything. I’m kind of looking forward to tearing into this tomorrow.

 

[GRN96WS6]

You know for not running a business at the new digs, you sure have had a lot of side projects.... Haha

 

[C_F]

That sled looks like it's in great shape for it's age.

BTW, the proper pronunciation is; Polarass.

 

[zmotorsports]

You know for not running a business at the new digs, you sure have had a lot of side projects.... Haha

True. But a lot less than I had running my business. Besides these are for friends. [emoji12]

Also most of the projects have been on my own stuff.

 

[zmotorsports]

That sled looks like it's in great shape for it's age.

BTW, the proper pronunciation is; Polarass.

Agreed. The sled really is in pretty decent shape for mid-90’s sled.

 

[fordkid88]

You know your getting old when on a Friday night after work all you can think about is getting home to service your vehicle and be in the shop. [emoji1]

Ah **** if that's the qualifier for being old then I'm old as **** and not even 30.

 

[zmotorsports]

I had a pretty productive Saturday, despite having to shovel all of my concrete.

I started by finishing the LOF service and tire rotation on my Jeep that I started last night.

When the wife and I were in Moab in October I noticed when I was flexing the front axle out the front coil springs were popping in and out of the helical cut lower spring seats on the ProRock 44 axle. Even with the limiting straps on my Jeep the springs were relaxing just enough that they would make an irritating popping or “boinging” sound and it drove me nuts. On the OEM axles it’s not common as the stamped steel lower seats are quite rounded and the springs don’t get hung up like on the more defined and deeper helical cut cast coil spring seats on these ProRocks.

There are many aftermarket manufacturers that produce small metal clips that can be installed on OEM axles but the cast seats on these ProRock axles are a bit more restrictive on options.

I ended up just fabricating a couple of small straps out of 1.25”x.187” flat bar that span across the bottom coil of the spring. I drilled a hole in the center so they just bolt on under the poly bumpstop. At each end of the strap I bent about a 15-degree angle that will kind of wrap down over the bottom coil and therefore preload it into place and prevent any lifting out of the seat.

Lower seat with the poly bumpstop removed.


Flat plate measuring 3/16”x6” that will be cut down to two pieces measuring 3/16”x 1.250”x 5.5”.


Completed. It’s kind of hard to see in the picture but if you locate the very end of the lower coil then move back about 3/4” you can see the flat strap protruding between the lower first and the second coil wraps.


It’s a little easier to see in this picture.


Thanks for looking.