FABRICATING SOME PARTS

Heading to the garage, (I live in there) I'll be working on making some parts for the race car. I'll post some pics so you can see the parts.

A WALK TO A VERY FAST MOUNTIAN BIKE TRAIL

FASTMOM and I had a very enjoyable walk to day. We decided that I should show her where I rode my mountain bike on the old mountian bike trail at Murphy-Hanrehan Park. On the old trail I had to ride about a 1 1/4 miles back into the woods just to g...et to the beginning of the mountian bike trail!! Legs were already burning just from all the hills getting there, then had to start the 6 mile loop with the insanely hard climb or hill right at the start. It was blindingly fast, A person could really hurt themself. My first time here I saw a guy being carried out on a gurney, he lost control and crashed, broke both collar bones when he went into the trees. I had my most serious crash here also. No broken bones, but I really hurt bad. Jeeze it was FUN!!

http://www.threeriversparks.org/parks/murphy-hanrehan-park.aspx

The drop starts to flatten out alittle here after a small rise. You can still see FASTMOM way in the back round, she's very little. Still going really fast at this point.

This is FASTMOM at the top of a very long hill. The drop is about 2 1/2 stories. By this time I was in top gear and I could not pedal as fast as the bike was going down hill. It's really steep!!!



I turned around 180deg and took this shot. It's another very steep drop, about the same as the first just alittle longer! The interesting thing is if you look very closely the trail curves to the right. At that point your traveling at break neck speed and you had turn turn to the right for another small down hill run. Because your going so fast the bike had very little traction on the dirt!!

This is the steep climb up to the top. Alot of the times I had to stop and give my legs a chance to recover to pedal more. Your muscles were burning, your heart was working so hard it was ready to come right out of my chest. It's not as steep as the down hill side but very close. Pedaling up hill on the loose gravel was really really hard.

This picture is taken where FASTMOM was in the last picture. This is still on the climb side of the hill, looking down, so about half way up. About here is where I would stop and rest if I had to.

This is still the trail leading into the loop. I'm on this to get to the beginning of the loop.

 

Believe me , in the summer long about July, August when it's really hot and humid, you didn't want to stop moving. The musquitos are very very bad.

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It's about 1 1/4 miles back into the park just to get to the trail beginning.

— at Murphy-Hanrehan

Absolutely beatiful in this park. A complete nature experience.

Ya know, flying through the trees is a real rush. It reminds me of the speeders used in the Star Wars movie where they're flying thru the forest dodging trees and such. Same thing but in real life!!!

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This is a map of the new trail. All the photos are on the old closed trail. All togther the new trail is about 9 miles. It's alot of fun but nearly as fast or dangerious as the old trail. Ther are virtually no long down hill runs here.

All together I would spend about 2 1/2 to 3 hours out here every time I went.  I really miss this trail. It took alot to not only go as fast as you could but it would test your indurance. The climbs were tough, the down hill was very fast fast and it was resonably long at about 5 1/2 to 6 miles in length, this is after riding about a 1 1/4 miles to get back into the trail. An excellnt way to stay fit!!!

MAJOR WHEEL REPAIR

Another wheel fix. This one is for a Lexus (I think). Anyhow this is a real process to get any near right. The other thing is it turned out more serious than originally thought. The crack had migrated further into the backside of the wheel than I first thought. We're going for it to fix it so it meant alot of filling and finishing. All done it took about 2.5 hours.

The crack is easily visiable, typical aluminum, the crack is longer than what you see here.aption

Tire side view of the crack. This is where the crack had become extended.on

By this time I ran a pass on the front side, went to do the back side and struck the arc only to expose a much longer crack. Stopped, had to V out the extended crack and clean again. This is where it's serious. Any longer and wheel strength integrity becomes a concern. I V'd it out as far as I could.

Ground the crack out, looking closely you can see the grudge in the crack. Need to get that crap out for a good strong weld. View from the tire side

Crack view from the back side.

Pre heat the wheel to about 300deg. Use a digital meter to measure temp.

When welding aluminum, cleanliness is absolutley crictical. To get no impurities in the weld preperation is extremely important. So nothing like using some HYDROFLUORIC ACID to get the impuities out. Be careful, this stuff will eat lots of things including your skin!!!

This is a first pass with filler rod. Tire side view, this is where the tire actually seals to the rim.

First pass back side view.

Close to finishing this wheel. This area needs to be very smooth for the tire to seal properly.

This is a second pass view. I filled and ground down a couple of times by this point. This was serious crack, thats the reason for a couple of passes.

I'm calling this good enough. The tire should seal properly.

I'm leaving the backside like this. Leave some filler on the crack to help with strength and weld integrity.

AUTO SHOW

So what did you people think of the auto show.  I worked it for two days and thought it was pretty busy.  I checked out the high performance Cadillacs, thought they were really nice!  They looked very quick and with 550+HP I imagine they are very fast!  They have a form of active suspension with magnetic dampers all computer controlled, pretty sophisticated stuff!  Over two grand in gas guzzler tax!!

MAVIC WHEEL IS FIXED

Went to the local hardware store and bought a piece of 1/2 in steel rod and machined and drilled it to fit the the wheel and spoke adjuster.  Trued up the wheel myself.  The hard part was making the fittment by hand with a hand held grinder for the curvature in the wheel.  This is a critical area since this is where the real load is carried by the spoke. There is a better discription over on my FB page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fastdad/132790816771142?ref=tn_tnmn#!/pages/Fastdad/132790816771142  I'll have watch this closely for awhile for any looseness in the spoke or further fracturing of the wheel.  Saved myself $530.00!!!!!!

MAVIC WHEEL REPAIR

Ok, so the weather's nice it's time to get the mountain bike out, check it out and service it. (I do all this myself)  My astute memory tells me it felt alittle different last time out last year. After checking I see the rear wheel has a whoopdee when spinning. Nearest spoke seems alittle loose. Now these are high end MAVIC ceramic wheels, very nice and light!  After close inspection I see the spoke has pulled thru the wheel alittle.  This is serious for a couple of reasons 1) a fracture usually renders the wheel to the junk pile 2) the darn thing is high buck at $530.00 to replace it!!! Remove the tire, tube, liner and inspect the spoke area and the rest of the wheel. After analyzing how the load is carried in the wheel, I have decided to fix it.  This goes against all proper thinking, until I look at my check book.  So here's the plan.  Since I have the skills and machines to make our own merchandise, I'm going to make a part for this wheel and see how it turns out. I'll post pictures and comments as I go so stay tuned!

CHANGES GOING ON

Fastdad is in the middle of some very important changes. Presently am  analyzing where we're at and where we want to go.  The tough part is choosing the right path to go down for profitability and happiness. Choosing people to work with over the Internet is a very hard thing to do because it is very easy to say "sure I can do that for you" only to find that's not possible or doesn't happen for any number of reasons. By then it's been weeks, months etc and you spent time, money and so on.  The fix is being thorough and patience, neither exists when you have no money and patience to start with and that my friends is the hard part!

PLANNING

Been planning out the parts for a 2liter Pinto engine for the race car. I'm going to build one my self.  The best way to do this is arm myself with as much info as possible. Then purchase the best parts available and assemble with care!!!! The tough part is spending the bucks!!!