Featured Land Speed Racing 2023

dammit things are slow

he s working on my wheels atm

and im trying to find time to get the rest ot the ignition installed

 

coil mounting is a problem as im using the fairly heavy emgo standard twin lead 12volt coils, instead of the little micro things that came with the pazon. not a lot of places on a stripped machine to put them, but i have just ordered a 12 x 12-inch piece of 5000-alloy aluminum (i think this might be the old duralumin stuff) quarter in chick. i can cut a 4 by 6 piece of this out and then fasten it to the spine of the frame behind the tanks, with U bolts, then mount the coils on top on either side.

that gets them close enough to the plugs that th emolded-in plug wires reach, and puts them in a place that i wont break them off lying down on the tanks.

after that all i have to do is mount the transistor box and we ll see where we are.

i have to do all of this in scaprs of minutes fitted in between driving two or three hundred miles every day and working every other saturday. sill schedule, but ive done worse

 

a full weekend!

ive scrounged metal to build a temporary mount for the coils, some old extrusion channel that has a 3 x 1 inch cross section. a bit thin, but i have some 1/4-inch plate coming in the mail at an exorbitant cost and i want to get this running to re-inspire my machinist to finiesh the wheels.

last time i ran with the cast wheels the bearings failed and spit balls out at 131 mph. the problem is apparently th ebearings-- im using 1988 katana wheels, two front wheels on both front and back, and the axle is thin.

this means that finding a bearing for the wheel that will fit is awkward,. the last ones were not very good and the inner ace collapsed.

more to come after tomorrow

 

t

the machinist has it right now. he says the problem looked like a cheap bearing-- the inner race collapsed and tbe axle siezed on a spacer.

hes looking for better bearings now. its a weird size-- the OD for the front wheel is not very big, so the axle is pretty spindly

 

in the meantime im trying to get a coil mount together. not so easy as it sounds, as there arent many places to attach them-- everything is squeezed tight to be as small as possible. no room under the tanks or up front, no easy spaces along the frame. im trying to place them behind the tanks, bolted to a bracket attached to the frame tube


i scrou ged a piece of aluminum channel from the junk piles where i work that looked promising, but mounting it has issues. its not wide enough to separate the coils enough to allow mounting fasteners under it, and the single allen bolt to the rear that could have gone into the rear tank mount isnt long enough. on this 1965 frame, its a british thread form and american SAE screws wont go in. i dont have any CEI/whitworth/whatever bolts that would fit.


[ATTACACH]

so attaching the bracket has to be done with U-bolts, which means i have to have a larger bracket than this. i have some 5000-series aluminum plate coming in the mail-- nobody here sells quarter inch plate, and i need a piece about four by six inches.

i looked all through my scrap pile but apparently my industrious sons made off with all my scrap for projects. who would have though building a simple bracket would take so long.

metal is super expensive these days. a 12 x 12 x 1/4-inch piece of mild aluminum eas US$84. 6061 in the same size was close to a hundred.

ignore tbese last duplicate photos. the forum software wont allow me to delete them.

 

well, the aluminum finally arrived. 12 x 12 x 0.25-inches. thicker than it needs to be, as 3/16 would have worked. the alloy is 5083, a medium strength metal that is good enough for me but not so hard to cut as 6061.




i puzzled over the coil mount for several hours yesterday, trying to figure out something that would work. there simply arent a lot of good choices for something that should be so easy. in the end, i think a simple tablet U-bolted to the spine is best. i may separate the coils far enough to put the transistor box there too, else it can fit easily under the seat.

living in the sticks is a problem sometimes, as there arent a lot of industrial suppliers. when i lived out in the ag in california, i could have solved this issue in about two hours.

anyway, once its in place ill install the wiring and see about the rotors. they need to have an exact 180-degree curtain to fire correctly (half speed cam drive, equals 360 on the crank). more than that means that the trailing cylinder will fire sooner than 180 after the first. less than that means that it will fire too late. i can correct the first with a file by removing metal. cant fix the second instance. so we ll have to see what ive got.

ive never worked with this ignition before on anything. hope it solves my problem. the pazon was a big disappointment.

 

well, its been 30 F here for too long.

but today its 60, and the warehouse door is open, and ive mounted the coils.

my hellishly expensive piece of 5083 aluminum:

 

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sorry about the confused images, folks. its a forum problem, and its not within my power to fix it.

 

somebody dumped her down at my shop. i live in the country and people from town dump their animals out here all the time. the coyotes get most of the cats, but this one was lucky. friendly and social. obviously the childrens kitten that the parents wanted to be rid of.

we re down to about 15 cats from a peak of 30 in the early summer.

sure would be nice if this forum would still display jpgs

 

it would be nicer if she wouldnt sit on my face while im asleep