New World Datsuns...

Well I made some progress today.




I am just trying to get everything to work right, once I figure out how to get the water wheel to spin without losing water out of the pond, then I will lean it up a little, meaning hide pipes, tuck the liner in so it's not just hanging out over the sides, and such things like that.

That water tower makes me have to pee.



Awesome work Wayne. Looks nice. Are you gonna cover the legs of the water tower or leave it open? Personally I like it the way it is.

The water tower legs are the way they are going to be, in the open, they do have water repellent on them also, I ran out of the cedar color, so I went with what was around, clear, the water wheel also has clear.
I am building a small building that will lean against the tall building, I need something that will keep the water in the pond around the water wheel, it keeps splashing on the ground, can't be losing/wasting water that way.

I made an addition to the main building to try and keep the water from splashing out of the pond, it seems to be working.



After I figure everything out, and the water stays where it's supposed to, I will hide the pipes with something that makes it look like it's supposed to be there, then I will make window frames and doors and such to make it look real.
These last things will take time, as I need to bring the fish back to the front and install the filters in the pool in the water tower and the addition, I am thinking about trying a double filter, one filter dumps into another filter, then it dumps into the pond, it might work better.

How is your water feature(s) holding up? I know the temps are pretty cold up your way as well.

draker » Thu Jan 01, 2015 3:58 pm wrote:How is your water feature(s) holding up? I know the temps are pretty cold up your way as well.

The first cold night the outlet to the filter froze up, and it pumped the pond almost dry.

I don't dare fill it back up again with city water, it will kill all the biological critters in the filters, and right now is when the city figures out what my sewer bill will be for a whole year, the more water I use right now, the higher my sewer bill will be for a year, so right now I don't hardly use any water at all.
If I want to transfer the fish to the front pond, I will just pump the water in the pool to the front pond and then move the fish, it will be easier to catch them in shallow water anyway.

I worked all day on the mini today.

This is why I have not driven the car in 2 or 3 years now, I was getting onto the freeway and the car made a snap sound and did a one and a half lane change all by itself and was vibrating, so I pulled over and checked all the wheels, lug nuts were tight, all the wheels were there, so I started again and the vibration was gone, but I got about a mile down the freeway and it started squeaking and then it would snap again but I kept it in my lane, I finished the errand and was on my way home and it did this squeaking and snap several times before getting home, I tried pulling it apart, but the weather was awful so I gave up and parked it, it's been parked since.
Well I ordered new front bearings at least 6 months ago, when I got up today, I decided to fix it or fail trying, I started on what I thought was the bad side, everything was good but I changed out the bearings anyway, I pounded fairly hard to get this thing apart, but as I said, I was going to succeed or break it trying, I then did the other side, well I guess this was the bad side, as when I pulled the hub assembly off the shaft(front wheel drive ), this is what I found.

I never did find all of it, that thin ring is all that is left of the cage, I also had to cut off the inner race, it had welded itself to the axle shaft, I also had to smooth the axle shaft out to get the new inner bearing to slide all the way home, but I got it back together and it seems to drive good, now I can start driving it again.
After I fixed this issue, I had another issue, I could not get the turn signals to blink, I tried everything, the flasher had power, but the turn signal assembly did not, I worked on this issue for half the day before I jury rigged the damned thing and made them work, I pulled power off the headlights on the headlight switch on the column, put a flasher between the power source and the input power to the turn signal assembly, now it blinks even when the key is not on, but I remove the battery cable every time I park it over night anyway, so I am not going to worry about it right now, it drives again.

Love that car!

I love it too. If its like a bug at all, all the convertible guys store them for the winter, and come spring none of the electricals work. The fix is to simply sit in the car for up to an hour working all the switches and buttons.

That is a nice Mini you have Wayne!

510freak » Sun Mar 08, 2015 8:47 am wrote:That is a nice Mini you have Wayne!

Thankyou, I bought this car though, I didn't make this one, I have no real attachment to it other than how much money I spent on it, I was sort of attached to that.
It's a very noisy car, the muffler is a joke, people hear it coming and look/watch me drive by, but when I drive by again is when I really get reactions, they know what is coming and are ready and give me the thumbs up, wave, or most the time they don't stop staring at me till I am out of site, what is sad is that I would rather people notice me in my Datsuns instead.
It's really cool when former Datsun owners come up to me in gas stations and talk about the Datsun they owned in the past, but 95 percent of them don't know what model they owned, it was just a truck to them back then, sometimes they know the year, but when I tell them the model, there is no reaction/recognition, they never knew the model the whole time they owned it, but when I gas up the mini, I almost always end up talking to someone about it, as it looks like the mini they have seen on TV or in the past, they want to know the year mostly, I have never been approached by a classic mini owner to this day, I once was by a new mini owner, the new minis get crappy mileage.

They are neat,a friend had a yellow one back in the 90s,Pretty simple cars to work on from what I can remember?
I always have to allow extra time,when driving one of the Datsuns,for the added conversations along the way

I blew a pipe connection apart a couple days ago, it pumped three quarters of the water out of the pond, that's 1500 gallons, the fish were not happy.
The pump ran dry for an undetermined amount of time, it broke the drive shaft in two, I put another one in it made out of a brass tube from my model airplane supplies, we shall see how long that one lasts, the original one is not metal, not sure what it is other than it not being magnetic.
I went to home depot and lowes today and bought chlorine neutralizer(filled pond today) and a float switch which will turn off the pump before it pumps all the water out, and I made my strainer go sideways near the surface now instead of strait up, so it can only pump 4/6 inches of water out before it goes dry, I hope the float switch shuts it off before the pump goes dry, it's not really a hi tech float switch.
You can see that the tube with all the small holes in it goes sideways now instead of up and down, when it was up and down it kept pumping water out till the water was below the bottom holes.

It's adjustable now also, I can tilt it to whatever level I want it.

Greedy-ass fishes.

I messed around with the pond yesterday and today, I tried to make it look like a building complex, I added walkways, stairs, and water chute to turn the water wheel instead of a pipe.

Cool details.

Very cool indeed!
Props wayno

My computer crashed today, it got slower and slower till it basically stopped, the little wheel quit turning for a little while and then it just turned off all by itself without warning, so I thought that it likely had just overheated from being dirty inside, so I took the side off and blew it out with air, right in the middle of cleaning it out, the thing turned back on all by itself without any warning.
It seems to be fine now, I hope it stays that way.

The fan in mine has been working ot the past few days,need to take it out and blow it out too.

It's a lot cooler now, and the computer is running cooler also, about 50 degrees cooler, the intel core is about 150 degrees now, I would imagine that it was over 200 degrees when it crashed, it has done that once before and crashed, that's why I figured it was that again.
It's back to it's speedy self now, for a while it seemed like dial up speed again.