Michael Richard's Journal

Fabbed up the pedal mount and pedals today. No bellcranks yet as I need to have the rear built before fabbing linkages.

I fiddled around with seat placement, rear frame parts patterns and such. I scrounged three pieces of long plastic and clamped then on the rear just to get a feel for how much room I will have to play with for drive-train. As a public service announcement if you have one of the cheapo chinese parts washers and it quit on you, it was probably from using a petroleum distillate as cleaning fluid. They didn't but now do have a warning that it will eat up the pump. Hooowever...I got one for free that had quit and decided to give it a whirl today. Motor ran, but no flow. So I tore it apart and what had happened was the filter, and the bottom of the intake grill had dissolved clogging the pump. Cleaned her out good, Turned the filter grill upside down and put a scotchbrite pad in for a filter. I had to clean out the wash nozzle tube with a coat hanger, but she runs like a new one. I've heard a strong mixture of simple green works great and won't kill the pump and motor so here we go. A lazy day, but turned out good.

Finished the pedal return and spring mounts, fabbed up the travel stops and adjusters and installed. Then proceeded to get heat sickness and am laying low in front of the air conditioning vent. Cats seem to enjoy my company on the floor. LOL

Fabbed up the axle mount plates in rough. Final trimming and drill for axle bearings and flanges to come. Still fiddling with the wheelbase though. Will definitely be 66 inch or somewhat less. Depends on engine and tav mounting clearances. So I guess I need to order a TAV. Did I mention it's hot?

Well now I have a pred. 212 and oiled it up checked it over gassed her up and ran her with no problems for about 30 minutes at various throttle settings. I'll run her some more so I can get her through some heat cycles then change the oil and do some innards exploration. Throttle was pretty stiff, but I surmise that this is in the design for use on various and sundry equipment. It all goes away eventually anyway. Started fabbing up a dead pedal, and sat the engine up at the rear of the frame to get an idea of how much room I have. Looks like plenty, but have to wait for the TAV to arrive to make sure. Now back to the festivities.

Well I had high hopes today. Got my TAV in started fiddling with it and have two missing parts. So I got it mounted the way I want it and put her away. We'll see if I have any luck with the supplier. And something is amiss with the install so need to work that out. However on a positive note, I did get the half hoop and center spoke formed for my steering wheel. It came out nice so far, but thunderstorms moving through doused my light so I couldn't get pix of that. Try again tomorrow.