Unobtainium

Looks like this is one of the bits made from Unobtainium, a 8 valve cylinder head for the CB450.

A decade ago I did some serious investigations, trying to get get in contact with, what I believe was, the  last man standing, that was involved in making this conversion kit. I have to say I came pretty close, but...

Last year I made another attempt approaching from another angle, so to say. Seems like guys that could help are not interested in helping at all. Ignorant is the word.

Anyway, this is what I was searching for.

Wonder

I wonder if they ever sold one of these?

Just imagine if someone has such a cylinder head in the shed...

What about that

Funkmeister

Was supervising my bids for Kerosene products when I remembered that I have an old IMCO Funkmeister somewhere. How cool is that name, Funkmeister, just taste it :)

I must have rescued that one from the family summer cottage. One om my only lasting memories of my grandpa is when he lighted the Primus Gas Stove with the Funkmeister.

In color the same as this one but not that good condition, but still working.

Now I suddenly also remember playing with an IMCO Petrol Lighter as a child, a blue one. Must have been my fathers, will make him give me that one - if it can be found.

Brass cleaning

Bought an old kerosene camping stove that was dirty and corroded. Probably never cleaned since the 30ies.

Earlier I have used citric acid but thought I should try something new. Mixed up a solution of hot water, oxalic acid, soap, methylated spirit and ammonia. If you intend to do the same, do it outside and wear protective clothing.

As with the citric acid it works best as log as the solution is hot.

After a short time the the stove looked like this.

And with some light polishing

Using a polishing wheel would have made it more glossy...

New adventure

Today I remembered the old Kärcher Pressure Washer that i got from a friend. The only thing he told me was "it's blowing fuses". I tested it and it did!

I suspected moisture in the junction box and it was... and more.

The junction box was full of moist and rust and when I opened the switch, a piece was broken loose.

Have glued the piece back with Super Glue and so far it seems to work.

The motor still did not work and after dismantling more parts I could feel that the motor was not rotating, at all.

Suspected a bearing failure but it was worse. The rotor and stator were glued togeteher by rust. Bearings are fine!

After de-rusting I put the parts together and it works!

Cross Heads

In an earlier post I mentioned that I finally bought the JIS cross head screw drivers.

To clarify the difference (to myself) once and for all I tried to find the JIS specification on-line but could not find it.

Anyway, the most common cross heads, in my life are:

But unfortunately the most common screw drivers (as for most people) are Phillips and Pozidriv. This has resulted in a lot of damaged screws. Where to get replacement JIS screws or at least similar looking Phillips, I don't know.

Earlier I have replaced the screws with Unbrako / Allen head bolts but that just don't seem right. For one of the Honda engines I used flanged JIS bolts (smaller head size and finer thread pitch for the larger bolts) but they were not easy to find either.

Hopefully I can soon start refurbishing used bolts when I get my home Zinc plating kit working.

FARGO

Last summer I "found" an old Fargo Town Wagon in Canada that I "fell in love with".



I was allmost attempted to buy it, regardless of the state.

This is what it should look like. The only difference is taht my Fargo was a delivery van. I.e. no windows or seats in the rear. (Town Panel?)



Like this

Screwdrivers

As a reaction to the recommendation from the Classic Honda Racing blog, I ordered a couple of original Honda Tools.

My Honda dealer did not recognize the given parts number KL1696 as a Honda parts number... But when I got it, the number was there.

In my Honda Tool Catalog from 1969 the parts no's are:
07776-99961 Cross Head Driver No2
07776-99962 Cross Head Driver No3

What I finally ended up ordering were:
07603-0050101 "driver no.2"
07603-0050201 "driver no.3"

When I picked them up the seller told me that I was the first customer in, at least, 6 years that had placed an order for original Honda tools...

Chemistry 2012

The original zink plating experiment has evolved. To get the right chemicals (mainly the zink brightener) I surrended and bought them from Caswell.
I'm in the process of building the essential zinkplating rig at the moment. My intention was to start today but I did not have enough copper wires to complete it, maybe tomorrow.

This far I have made the rig for zinkplating the fork springs for the Fleetwood front fork (except the main zink anodes). In the picture below, at least the center anode...

Dechromed

1/3 of the way. A lot of parts that have been dechromed.

Some are going to be rechromed and some are going to be zink-plated. I will have to decide, depending on the quality of the goods and how much elbow grease I want to put in.

Antenna

After the second digital reciever broke in a couple of years I started to suspect that a too weak signal from my home made antenna caused the reciever to work "hard" (nothing that I know about electronics supports that assumtion but anyway).

Home made antenna, ver 1.0

Just a coax cable. I removed the shielding 40cm from the outer end.

Started a project building a fractal antenna from bits and pieces.
Studied the channel frequencies to find a good average lengt (for the channels I mostly watch) for the antenna.



Home made antenna, ver 2.0


It works (and why would it not). Maybe I should take a more scientific approach and measure if there is a noticable improvement in signal strenght? Maybe later.

If there is any ver 2.x it will probably have a backplane...

EDIT: Checking the signal strenght and picture quality: Very good 98/98% for Channels 23 & 42 (490/642MHz), good 80/96% for Channel 50 (706MHz) and not so good 45/50% for channel 56 (754MHz). At least it's a big improvement compaired to the earlier antenna.

Did it again

This time working on the frame. Started thinking about other things while hammering ...

The major misshap was not hitting myself on the thumb. The problem was the damage caused by the cold chisel richosheting in the shop afterwards.

Cheap battery

Today one of the battery packs for my cordless drill went for lunch and never came back.

Luckily for me I have a stash of cheap replacement batteries for a cheapo cordless drill for these avents, just in case.

Instead of buying expensive replacement packs I make a quite simple opereration of changing the cells.









Replaced and soldered, not the prettiest soldering but it works.

Doldrums

Due to my lack of stamina and cramps in my grindig hand I have limited the visits in the shed to one hour a day. My thumb is numb...

This is one of the resons why the rims aren't ready yet. The factor that I'll have to do the last polishing outdoors might slow things down too, it's -5 degres Celsius at the moment, it's dark and the wind is over 10m/s. Maybe tomorrow.

Cirtic acid

I think it's a very good home remedy for the average Joe's workshop. Not a very strong acid and very easy to get, just 'borrow' from the kitchen.

I have now used it for zink plating, refurbishing of Amal carbs for my Norton and lately a rusty camshaft.

I just had to try it, but because of the New Years party and other things I forgot...
Anyway after a couple of days I removed the camshaft from the acid. And this is how it looked before polishing the surfaces.



I just put one end in the acid, this is how the other end looks like.

Chemistry 101

Sooner than later I'll buy an DIY electroplating set, Caswell for example.
But I thought I should try it myself first...

Using an old coffee brewer, Citric acid, Zinc sheet metal and a modified battery charger (made it a constant 1 amp source).

I started with a spacer to the rear wheel.


The result.

Well a rather thick coating on the outside, nothng on the inside. Don't think I could have done much better with a "semi pofessional set" - or could I?



And after some brushing

Flowchart

My projects need some WD-40, according to the flowchart...

Gone fishing

Went fishing last week, no luck with the sea trouts.
At least we had a lot of beer and some steaks to put on the grill.

Uggly duckling

Found pictures of a 'one of a kind' Baja converted CL450 on the internet. Can not decide if it's really cool or really uggly...