HACK A WEEK

This week was spent on the carburetors. From what I can, this bike sat out in the weather for some time parked on the kick stand. Both of the left side carbs had water in them which caused a strange slime mold to form. After removing the four carbs from the bike as a complete assembly, I put them in a 5 gallon bucket of water with some detergent added. This did a good job of breaking down the yuck! After a good overnight soak, I rinsed them with water and began disassembly. Nearly all of the jets were clogged up but with the help of a small wire I cleared them out. The float bowls were a mess with white powdered aluminum oxide which had to be scraped and brushed away. The good news was that the diaphragms at the top of the throttle slides were ok as were the needle and seat valves. Once everything was cleaned up I put them back together and installed them back on the bike. After filling the float bowls with gas I hit the starter button and it reluctantly started, warmed up a bit and took throttle! Awesome! It runs ok and I didn’t have to buy four expensive carb rebuild kits!

I made good progress on the seat blank as well. I built a hot wire foam cutter and used two templates shaped like the tank to cut out the blank from the blu foam that I had laminated together.

The whole thing is in the video below. It’s 27 minutes long so get comfy and enjoy.

Keep on hackin…

Carburetor assembly

The inside of the carbs before cleaning

The worst of the float bowls after cleaning

The Honda Civic is back in the garage for it’s first set of front brake rotors. In this video you’ll learn how to replace them on this car and find it useful as a guide to other cars as well.

Enjoy the how to and…
Keep on hackin!

This week I got my clip-ons installed and worked out a few electrical issues. I tried to fire it up but the carbs need cleaning. The good news is that it fired up and ran as it burned off the fuel that I squirted in the carb barrels. The seat build kind of hit a wall when the pieces of foam that I was gluing together decided to come unglued. I think I’ll be better of to find a solid chunk of EPS foam or just go with some floral foam and use polyester resin.

Enjoy the video and keep on hackin!

I think I’ll just let the video tell you all about this one. This will be a multi-part project that should be complete by Spring, or sooner

Keep on hackin!

I started building the Parallax Elev-8 Quad Copter this week! In this first video I do a step by step build of the motor and boom assembly.

The ELEV-8 quadcopter is a flying robotic platform that is lifted and propelled by four fixed rotors. There are no fixed wings; all of the lift is created from the rotors. Unlike standard helicopters a quadcopter uses fixed-pitch blades, whose rotor pitch does not vary as the blades rotate; control of vehicle motion is achieved by varying the relative speed of each rotor to change the thrust and torque produced by each.

The quadcopter uses a HoverFly board with a Propeller multicore microprocessor to electronically control stabilization of the aircraft. The benefits to this system are a stable platform, with no mechanical linkages for a small maneuverable and agile aircraft.

The kit provides an inexpensive way to get involved in the quadcopter arena. The kit includes; frame, mounting hardware, motors, speed controllers, propellers and the control board for flight stabilization. (the only thing you need to provide is the RC radio equipment, battery). We recommend a six channel RC radio.

The ELEV-8 platform is large enough for outdoor flight and has plenty of room for payload and attachments (up to 2 lbs).

NOTE: This kit is not for beginners, it takes a moderate amount of mechanical skill, for building and flying. The ELEV-8 quadcopter kit requires an average of 8 hours to assemble; RC experience is highly recommended.

Enjoy the video and…
Keep on hackin!