My Motored Bike

give a gift

I want to take a minute on my blog to write a little bit about something that is very important to me. I'm not a religious person but I was raised to believe in community, family and putting out a hand to help others in need. Growing up I did a lot of volunteer work and it was very influential in how I lived my life and looked out on the world. That is, I learned to look at the world not through a lens of pity for those who are less fortunate than I but through a view of how can I help and what can I do to make it better.

I was listening to NPR a few months ago and the commentator was talking about budgets. I have a very limited budget so I was listening closely. She started to discuss her own personal budget and how important charity is to her and her family and that they, in good and bad times tithe. While that's not my cup of tea I recognized that I'd been missing something in my life in terms of how I used to volunteer. I haven't done it in ages. So I figured I would do something about it.

I waited and procrastinated then in happenstance overheard a conversation about how a charity that was to pick up groceries was no longer able to follow through on the commitment. A light bulb went on in my head. The grocery store was on my way home from work and there was a homeless shelter on a slight detour from my house. I could do this as my part in volunteering.

I contacted the shelter, River St Shelter in Beverly, MA, made sure they would accept donations if I were to pick up and drop them off. I then contacted the store's marketing person and scheduled a day for pick up of bread, produce, canned goods and other assorted items. I scheduled for Mondays.

Some Mondays I have to bag the bread myself, or box up the grocery items but many times it is ready and waiting for me. Even when I do have to bag the items myself a bagger is willing to help me to do it, or someone is willing to help me to my car. It takes about 15 minutes out of my day and costs me nothing, the store and the shelter are on my way home from work.

It gives me a great sense of accomplishment. In one sense I'm helping take things out of the landfill and put them into hands that can use them; but I'm also helping to feed people who on some occasions go without. The reaction of the residents is fantastic, the majority are veterans with substance abuse or other mental health issues. People who have served the country in one form or another and the VA system has failed them.

All you need to do is call a shelter, ask them for permission and call a grocery store, caterer or restaurant and ask if you can pick up on a particular day. Call before you arrive to find out if the product is ready or if they have product that day and it's as simple as that. Of course not everyone is going to have a shelter on their way home, but you could ask if they have a charitable organization that gets food for them where you could drop off. It only takes 15 minutes to help someone in need. In this time of charitable organizations losing funding it is more important than ever that everyone get out there and help others.

Anyway. I often work 50 to 60 hours a week, if I can do it anyone can do it. I urge anyone who reads this post to pass this information on to other, feel free to copy and paste this and link to this post.

deal a bike

I love craigslist. I love it so much I would make sweet sweet love to it if it were possible. Sometimes I think about making out with my screen when I find a particularly good deal. I'm only partially kidding.

Two weeks ago my friend and coworker asked me to help her find a good deal on a bike, since i'm always talking about how I find good deals on clist and turn them over and sell them for more later.

So I found her a Gary Fisher bike in reasonably good shape that she can take the frame and turn it into what she really wants- nice stiff frame that she can ride on the road and on light trails.

And the price was right.

I'd also been looking for a nice project bike for myself. A bike I could repair and flip into a little hard earned cash with a little work. About 10 minutes after I found the Gary Fisher for my friend I found a sweet little TREK in need of love. I recognized the floor from the Fisher, one guy 2 bikes. I sensed a deal in the making. I emailed him again asking about them. I let it stew for a day that I was interested in both. Then I popped the question, would he take $100 for both bikes? It took him a full day to get back to me but yet he would, but he had a couple of tires he'd throw in for $15, I said I didn't want the tires.

When I got there today he threw int eh tires. All in all not a bad days looking on craigslist- I found a Gary Fisher for $50 and a TREK for $50 and 2 new tires for free.

adventures in craigslist land

I try to look at my purchases through craigslist as adventures. Sometimes I find great deals and sometimes I don't. So my trips are usually pretty well spaced out occasionally I get ripped off and mostly I drive very little for my purchases.

This time I found 2 bikes, which I won't tell you much about right now, for a good price one for me to work on and one for a friend of mine. the friend asked me to find her a bike she could convert to ride on the road. So anyway I found 2 bikes in a town 35 minutes from my work and 1 hour from home. I looked upon it as a good trip and a good price. For that I could deal with the Boston traffic.

So yesterday the guy never called me so I went back home.

So we finally emailed and called each other and talked  about when I would arrive today...

We emailed a couple of times. He tells me his roommate will let me in and I can give the roommate the cash for the bikes. Fine. I head out after work, letting him know I shoudd be there around 4:30pm... Makes sense. I hit terrible traffic. I call. I'm late I arrive there at 5pm. I ring the bell repeatedly. Finally after ringing the bell a half dozen times I call the guy again, he answers for the first time I tell him whats happening. I let him know I"ve rung the ll a half dozen times he says he'll call the roommate.

He calls me back and I let him know that the roommate hasn't rung me in yet. He sounds frustrated. He calls the roommate again. The roommate finaly came down, opened the inner door and came to answer the outter door. He turned to try and catch the inner door missed. Reached in his pockets and turned and said, "It locked."

He looked at me quite paniced and said, "I've locked us out."

All I could do was look at him, somewhat stunned. I'd driven about 2 hours in heavy Boston area traffic, gotten myself lost and turned around to find this place in the heart of college crappy apartments in Alston to find that the sellers idiot roommate had locked us outof the apartment. I was literally 2 stories away from the 2 bikes that were the ever elusive "Craigslist AWESOME deal." And this total pecker head LOCKS me out of the building. It's 25 degrees outside, roads filled with snow and I'm locked in an entry way with an idiot with whom I can't talk to and with whom I'm somewhat enraged.

The roommate calls his the seller, whom it turns out is still at work 45 minutes away. Seems hecan't really tell teh roommate what is going on. The seller calls me back an d I tell him what has happened. He's obviously furious with his roommate and refers to him several times as an idiot, which I've also been thinking.

We try and figure out a way to get back in the apartment but there is no way.

I turn around and leave, cash in my pocket and no bikes in my car.

This bike buying adventure has been one misadventure after another. I'm going to give the guy one more chance next week and we'll see how it goes.

Dave's Farm Small Engine

Dave's Farm small engine tips.

Gloves

Here is a total aggravation for me. I wear work gloves in the garage. It keeps some of the grease out of my nails and skin and also keeps some of the chemicals off. All in all it helps to keep my skin a little healthier. I'd suggest to everyone to wear some sort of work glove. Its been proven that doing so can help save your skin from pretty serious complications. That being said here is what I've been doing, I wear a leather and cotton glove with a nitrile rubber glove over the top. I don't always wear the nitrile glove, only when I'm working with carb cleaner and other nasty chemicals. Usually it's the straight up glove, padded leather palm, leather fingers and breathable back.

To get gloves that fit me I buy a Men's small or women's medium. I have a problem finding a women's medium. Home Depot only carries women's work gloves occasionally, men's small even more rarely and so I end up buying women's gardening gloves. Thing is they come in completely lame colors: purple, pink, baby blue and fuscia. Then add to it lame flowers. For some reason the companies think that to feminize the gloves they need to add flowers. It's bad enough they are lame colors but add to it flowers? Christ, it's no wonder the damn things don't sell.

Here is a tip for the manufacturers of these women's work gloves: pick one, lame colors or flowers, there is no need to mix the 2. I would buy a pair of black gloves with flowers, or a pair of baby blue gloves, but I will NOT buy a pair of baby blue gloves with flowers. Or better yet give me a pair of black gloves with no flowers in my size and I'll buy 3 pairs just so when I destroy a pair I have a back up pair. Because I work just as hard in the garage as the guys and I deserve to have sturdy work gloves that fit that aren't totally lame.

SO today on my way home from work I'm buying yet another pair of women's gardening gloves because they fit me. We'll see what lame color combinations they have this time.

I worked on the mounting system a little more today. It ended up being cooler in the garge than AI expected. I managed to get the other truck cut to size and the right size. Tomorrow on my way home from work I'll get the u bolts I need to mount the trucks. I may end up mounting using only 1 truck and some other way on the other side of the engine. So far it looks good. I used the dremel to really clean this truck up and make it look good, an it really does. IT took a really nice shine. I may end up painting it flat black. No matter it looks good.

I need to pick up bolts, nuts and possible a tap.

My internet has been weird since the storm we had last weekend. I was thinking that our service was rerouted through a new station o something, but I decided enough was enough and rebooted my 2 routers and modem. It seems to have done the trick, no more being booted off and other issues. My phone is now working too.

I didn't get the chance to work on the roadmaster. I'm thinking of just changing everything back after a good lube and tune up. It would probably work best that way.

Some pictures:

 

 

 

 

chilled to the bone

Its been cold as hell here the last few days and this past weekend the snow fell and didn't stop until we'd gotten 23 inches of the cold white shit. Its hard to think of bikes wen its 13 degrees and you've got snow up to your crotch. To make matters worse, starting tomorrow we are supposed to get some rain, they are predicting something like 3 inches. That means that it will be warm and wet, which I can only conclude that we will have flood watches because the drainage on the roads will be clogged up. Yeah happy biking. Just looking outside makes me want to hole up next to the pellets stove for the rest of the winter.

Between massive bouts of shoveling this weekend I managed to get out into the garage once when it peaked at freezing outside. Kid you not, that was the highest temp of the weekend 32 degrees. I measured wrong twice and cut my mount the wrong size by about a half inch, just less but still enough for me to want to kick my own ass. I'll be able to fix it easily but it's still annoying.

The mo9unt is a skateboard truck, with the legs cut to 3.5 inches on center. The bushing is tightened down so there is little movement and a screw will be put in to pin it further into place. IT should make a great lowered vibration mount.

The part f the truck that usually attaches to the bottom of the deck will be put onto the bottom tube, and u-bolts threaded through the holes on the mount. Some epoxy will be used to keep the mount from sliding around. Tighten that down and the whacker will be bolted onto the former axle of the truck. It should make for a rock solid and tight mount.

mounting ideas

I have been attempting to figure out how I'm going to get the whacker mounted on the bike. I want to mount it high up in the frame. Taking the stock gas tank off has caused some issues in that all the smooth surfaces that were once on the bottom of the engine are gone. It has left me with some great sturdy areas to mount, but at odd spots. It's also too damn cold right now to do anything in the garage. It's 14 degrees here right now and that means my garage isn't much different. I took a look at the engine yesterday when I was getting my snow shovels out and I came upon an idea. I can build uo layers of thin aluminum to create a mount. I can drill a hole the whole way through the stack secure it to the engine and then shape it how I would like with my dremel.

I've also considered getting 2 happy time engine mounts from BoyGoFast on eBay and using those to attach to the engine.

I was frustrated with the whole project It just seems to be taking longer than my other projects. Going from friction drive to gears drive with a whacker is a lot harder then just strapping a whacker to the side of a bike with a BMX peg on it.

IN reading some posts on the forum. I thought of epoxy. Someone else has made a mount of epoxy and I have a couple of tubes of plumber's putty, which is just a kneedable 2 part epoxy. It makes a thick moldable putty. I can use that to fill the weird shapes.

I was reading this thread specifically. The mount pictured there looks a lot like a skateboard truck. Good thing I didn't toss that skateboard last week when I was cleaning. So here is my plan. I'm going to use the trucks AND epoxy to create hopefully a sturdy mount. The axles for the wheels will come off, and the axle base will be trimmed to fit under the whacker. The mount for the trucks will be fitted tot he tub of the bike and epoxy will be used to form a curved surface. If I need to put some epoxy under the whacker I'll do that too. The idea is to turn the trucks so that the bolt for tightening the bushing down is accessible all the time this should allow me to tighten it down and diminish some of the vibrations. I will also have to figure out how to stop the truck from turning. It could be as simple as putting a pin in or more complex. I'll figure it out when I get to looking at it.

Kick it

I'm kicking myself right now. I had this bike in mind for my winter build. One of those late 70's early 80s mixte frames. Yeah it's a road bike but I won't be going over road bike speeds with it...So I've been looking on clist for ages now.

WEll this weekend one came up. I told myself not to call or email because I have the TREK, no need for another bike...

It was $10. Not in very good shape. But it was $10. Deacon told me to go for it, and I didn't.

Yeah, you want to kick me too.

I love the mail!

I ordered 2 11tooth sprockets from a business on eBay called TNC Scooters. I ordered them, I guess on Friday op last week and I received them today. Boy am I happy. Immediately changed into my garage clothing and set to work on the motor for my build an Echo Weed Whacker in great running shape. I chopped the casing for the whacker down, solid aluminum so that the shaft was sticking out enough for me to work with, about 1 inch, not a lot of shaft BUT enough for me to mess with.

First I headed to my vise. I had hoped that with some brute strength that I could manage to squash the square peg into a vaguely oval shape, it wasn't working for me. Instead I ended up with a rhombus. That steel shaft was stronger than it looked. So I whacked it a few times with a hammer... Still no oval, but I was able to make it rectangular, getting closer. I got it to about the correct shape and headed to the garage for my dremel. Oh my trusty dremel, it's so useful. I can't imagine doing one of these builds with out it. I used it to grind of just a smidgen from each corner, about half a millimeter. I was able to force the sprocket on to the shaft just a hair. I got it centered and used a #12 metric socket to pound it on there with my hammer evenly. It forced the shaft to the shape of the interior of the sprocket.

 

 

Tomorrow I'll grind a piece of ¼ inch all thread to the correct shape, mix some JB weld and force that into the shaft. Trim it to size and it will be good to go. I”m pretty happy with how the sprocket looked on the shaft and how the clutch ran with no load and the sprocket on there. We'll see how and if it pulls later.

I took a lot of pictures and even a video of the sprocket on the engine. I'm still figuring out how the heck I'm supposed to upload a video from this damn camera.

This kind of afternoon makes me so happy. I spent a warm (60 degrees) afternoon, about 2 hours working on this and it just came into place. So I suspect that  when a load is put onto this that it will fail misreably.