Escape From the Prison Planet

[DRIVEN]

Swung by the little gun show on my way to grab lunch then rode over to my dad's shop. He'd been working on my nephew's CS for the last couple weeks and was currently fighting tail light bulb sockets.



He also said that he'd been running it and it really clattered but oil pressure gauge was pegged high. I had him fire it up then immediately told him to shut it down. It sounded like it had a Duntov 30-30 in it. Pulled the dipstick and the oil was still perfectly clear in spite of having around 30 minutes of run time on it. Loosened the oil filter and absolutely nothing came out. Can you spot what's wrong with this picture?



While he was messing with Mustang stuff I tore down the Indian and welded the broken tank mount bracket. Ended up being one of the ugliest welds I've ever witnessed. I'm embarrassed to show it.

Good news is a couple rattles are gone.

One more thing...

There's a new tire machine in there.

[DRIVEN]

Put an oil pump drive in the Mustang. I think it'll survive.

Opened the crates.





Cleaned somebody's grandpa's old rifle.


Finally got around to dissecting my unnecessary 455. Managed to turn it into a 4 hour job by only using hand tools.


Looks like #7 had some moisture in it at some point. I'm going to soak it for a while and hopefully it eventually frees up.

[DRIVEN]

[DRIVEN]

I got out in the hills today for my last ride of the season. My dad and one of his buddies rode along. We rode up Tunnel Canyon so they could see all the canals that come from the reservoir. Then we ended up overlooking the dam and the lake.



Near perfect weather and a nice, easy loop of about 30 miles. The last 8-10 was on the windy paved road along the lower river back to the trailers. Great end to the season.

This was the first time I'd really ridden the blue bike out there. Normally it's the loaner. Even though it's got 3x the miles that the white one has, it's a better running bike. A little more tread on the rear tire too. Maybe this winter I'll yank the carb and see what the jetting is. I know the white bike has stock jetting so I want to duplicate what the blue bike has.

[wayno]

Looks like that dam is to capacity and it has not even started to rain yet.
Is that a residence at the left base of that cone on the upper left?
There appears to be a road, some trees and a field of something across the road.

[DRIVEN]

Good eye. It's a small house that appears to be for a park caretaker. Right across the road from the day use park where the trees are. They park a small firetruck and some other equipment there. There are 2 campgrounds further down that road to the right. 3 boat ramps all together.

[wayno]

Well that reservoir doesn't appear to have been too popular that day as I don't see a boat on it, but as you mentioned it was your last ride for the season, maybe others have already done their last boating for the season.
It also appears to be out in the middle of nowhere, I look at the tops of all the hills in the photo and see nothing except rock and sagebrush, so you likely didn't see anyone else out there on your ride either.

[DRIVEN]

It is pretty remote. We met a rancher on one of the roads and chatted for a couple minutes. While we were standing on the bluff where I took the photo I heard a single rifle shot from way across the lake. It's pretty quiet out there.
I'm always really surprised (but not bothered) there aren't more people out there. Rarely see any boats on the lake although I'm told fishing there is great. Most of the action seems to be fly fishermen in the river below the dam.

[DRIVEN]

That photo I posted only shows about 4-5 miles of the 50. It's a pretty long body of water.

[wayno]

I see that it is in Oregon, so you have to drive a ways to get there.

[DRIVEN]

No, 40 minutes from my driveway to where we unloaded bikes. Takes about an hour to drive all the way to the dam because the narrow road follows the river for about 12-15 miles. As the crow flies its about 20 miles from my house to the dam but there are no real direct roads so you drive NW then head SW. The Or/Id border is about half way between. I could ride open desert in a pretty straight line but it would take hours.

[wayno]

Your view of driving a ways has changed since you moved, around here as you know 40 minutes may only get you 5 miles, sometimes less, while there you can likely drive the speed limit or more most the time, and don't get me started about traffic signals.
You drive so much now an hour is nothing, these days an hour is a long drive for me.

[DRIVEN]

I don't disagree with you. It depends on which way I go from my house. Most of the highways near me are nice two-lane with little traffic and 55-65 speed limits so it's pretty easy to cover some distance. Of course, as I head toward Caldwell, Nampa, Boise, etc, it sucks almost as bad as your area. Difference is, we widen roads and add lanes. Portland/Vancouver takes lanes away for more bikes and trains.

[DRIVEN]

Happy Fridaho, gents! Started my day by meeting with the bug guy -- girls don't like spider season. Went to the freedom spot.



Went over to my dad's shop and dusted off the barn find balancer to get an idea of whether or not it needs any repair.



It powered up and the pneumatic ram works fine. This model has the quick mount clamp instead of the big wingnut. Pretty cool. Of course, the cone that I need was missing so I couldn't really test it out. I ordered a set of 4 off Ebay.
I ordered a bunch of weights and misc small tools for it too and they've been trickling in over the last few days. Hopefully I'll be ready to use them in a couple weeks. SuperVibe is ready for new tires.

I cleaned up his shop a little bit, then came home and cleaned my garage for a while. Ended the day with some yard work. It's almost time to do some burning, then there won't be much outside work until spring unless I decide to start on my fencing early.

[wayno]

Wheel weights are kinda spendy.
I have a maybe hundred pounds or more of them I got with the spin balancer I bought, with the price of lead back then I could have sold the lead weights for what I bought the spin balancer for.
I also have a few extra cones, I don't know what most of them are for, I only use one of them myself, and I have no idea what the springs are for, something about centering the cone but mine self center, mine are Coats machines but it came with centering springs.

[wayno]

OK, this is how I balance my wheels.
The back of the wheel rest against this round flange/plate.



Here is the back with the wheel mounted.



Here is the face with the cone and the wingnut.



Is this wrong?
The only picture I found had the spring/cone on the inside and this doesn't make sense to me.

[DRIVEN]

That may be right for yours because it seems like they change things up a little with every model. Mine has the threaded spindle like yours as the standard arrangement but also an optional version with a quick release collar and a pneumatic ram operated with a foot pedal. This screenshot shows the two...


The spring is supposed to go between the face plate and the cone to push/center in the hub hole of the rim. The pressure cup has a void for the cone to poke through.
Pretty much the same as yours but backwards.

The balancers I've used in the past were threaded like yours and designed to put the cone to the inside but you could put it on the outside if need be. Really, either way is fine as long as the hub is centered and the mounting surface is seated flat on the face plate.

[wayno]

Neither of the pictures above show a spring, but I seen the spring in another picture.
I do have the rubber cup and I tried balancing that wheel doing it the way in the attached photos, but it is a lot harder and the wheel wobbles more but I did get it to balance with a 0.00 showing on the readout when I was done.









I then took the same wheel and balanced it my normal way I do it, it wobbled less and took less weights to balance it, I have been doing it that way for years, I believe that the guy I bought it from showed me that way, I have not had any issues so I will stick with the way I have been doing it.

At least now I know what some of the parts are for, I got a shit load of stuff with this Coats 1001 spin balancer and the Coats 40-40 SA tire machine, the tire machine has a bunch of stuff/parts that I have no clue what they are for.

[DRIVEN]

Yeah, that's the thing about buying used. Missing parts and/or extras that may or may not even belong to it.

Does that cone on yours even recess back inside the face plate? Almost looks too big which wouldn't let the wheel get flat against the face. If you zoom in on the pic I posted of mine with the wheel mounted you can see mine isn't flush either because I didn't have the right size cone yet. It's on order.

[wayno]

No it did not recess into the face plate but the cone is tight on the shaft so that cannot get angled, but that is likely why it wobbled more.
I have a smaller cone that does recess all the way in with the spring, but using that rubber cone on the front it just doesn't get as tight/centered.
The way I do it with the cone on the outside is the best as far as I am concerned, the rim rests on the face plate and the cone centers the rim from the outside while I turn the wheel and tighten the wing nut at the same time.