Archive through December 11, 2009

[kmcconaughey]

Kent, I see your lift rod question got ran over by the electrolysis setup discussion. If you do a search for ramming speed you should come up with descriptions on how to measure for a lift rod, even though it is showing a dozer blade the same technique would be used for a snow thrower. Here's a LINK to one page I found. Click on the link and scroll down until you see Steve Blunier's 100 setting up on 2x4s.

 

[bjohnson]

I understand the difference between accelerator pump/ vacuum carb systems. My cubbies start great by pumping the gas instead of just fixxed setting upon start up. Like Richard says, this method works for me! Just replaced the battery on my 149. The faster crank also gets it started quicker too.

 

[stanner]

Kraig,
The phrase " do a search for ramming speed " ALWAYS brings a good giggle!!

Until I recollect the time the trip lock on the 149's blade vibrated to the lock position, then it caught the road pavement while at " ramming speed", shortly after that I was on the hood holding on to the wheel from between the legs... ouch...

 

[jmuncie]

It's been a productive day. My first run in the new electrolysis tank is underway right now. Bear in mind this is my tank's permanent resting place. I still need to build an overhead rack to hang parts from and clear a spot along the wall, but I'm anxious.

I brought home a power supply from work for the initial runs just to get a better idea of what's going on. This one can be either voltage or current controlled.

My electrodes are six pieces of 5/8" hot-rolled round bar extending the full 24" depth of the tank. My first test piece is a very rusty PTO clutch actuator arm from a narrow frame, so if something goes awry nothing is lost. I forgot to get alligator clips so it has a piece of 12 awg copper wire wrapped around a bolt and inserted in the hole for the fiber button.

I started out with about 12 inches of water in the tank before adding any washing soda. I turned the power supply up to 30 V (max setting) and it showed only 0.4 A. I dumped in 2/3 cup of washing soda expecting a big change but most of the washing soda went straight to the bottom without dissolving. The power supply jumped to 0.74 A and then settled back to 0.6 pretty quickly. I waited about 5 minutes and didn't see anything changing so I dumped another 3 gallon bucket of water in to stir things up. Most of the washing soda went into solution. The power supply jumped to about 1.4 A and then settled back around 1.2 A. It's been holding there for about half an hour. There's pretty consistent bubbling, but the part doesn't look any different than it did, yet.

More on this later,
Jerry

 

[stanner]

Jerry,
I really like your electrode holders... I may have to make a mod to my method of bailing wire....

When I ran my vat, it took a while to get going... try filling it up more... you'll get more electrode surface area under water...A big plus of this system is that it will also remove the paint...

It was a good thing to put the charger on you cub, to keep it more on topic... LOL

 

[stanner]

I found some pics of mine from a few years ago... I have been rebuilding my PC after the hard drive crash a week ago and finally found my cub pictures...

 

[jmuncie]

I started work on the supersteer front axle for my 126 today. Found a couple surprises, had a revelation, and made of change of plan in making the trailer hubs fit.

First off, I thought these axles were supposed to have some kind of wear bushings on the spindles. This one doesn't. I was surprised to see how much the vertical was worn where it contacts the axle bore and I was surprised by how much the spindle was worn in the stock wheel bearing locations. The worn area is very smooth like it's just compressed--not like the bearings spun. I'm amazed at how soft the spindles are. I haven't figured out how I'm going to deal with the wear where the spindle pivots in the axle beam, but I went ahead with the other mods.

The original plan was to press a 1.25" OD x 1" ID x 0.25" sleeve up against the stock flanges to create the seal surface for the new hubs and provide the step for the new bearings to register against. Then I was going to rebore and trim the back of the hubs by 3/4" to bring the bearings close enough together to fit on spindle. I think this is the approach everyone else has used so far.

Yesterday I realized that the spindle is long enough that I could turn the stock flange off and press the seal sleeve far enough onto the spindle to accomodate the unmodified hubs. That keeps the wider bearing spacing for lower bearing loads. It also gets the new inner race at least partially off of the area worn by the original bearing.

This lathe setup will make the real machinists out there cringe, but it worked. That angle with the boring bar was the only way I could reach to turn the flange off. The left side spindle was even worse because of the additional height of the spline.

The photo on the right is of the hub and bearings slipped into place to verify clearance round the spindle.

continued...

 

[jmuncie]

Here's a shot of showing clearance with a 3.75" wide rim. Both spindles are ready to have the sleeves TIG welded in place (not by me). I made the sleeves 5/8" long to have plenty of room to weld the back without messing up the seal area.

Jerry

 

[bbrigham]

Jerry..Very nice. A lot less fussin around the way you did it.

 

[jmuncie]

Scott,

Consider this before you copy my electrode holders... I think part of my problem with low current is that I didn't buff them before installation. It's not very easy to unwire and remove them for cleaning. If they rust up as badly as I'm getting the idea they do, I'll be modifying the design.

These are tapped 1/4-20 in the end to secure the wires. I'm thinking that I'll probably end up landing the wires between two more nuts at the ends of the U-bolts. That should leave space to loosen the clamping nuts and slide the electrodes out without disturbing the wiring.

My current has been steadily dropping. I probably won't add water until I move the tank to its final location. I'm probably going to go out and put sacrificial anode in the center and reverse polarity to try to clean the electrodes. If that works, the difficulty associated with my mounting is a non-issue.

Jerry