Speedo mockup

One of the things I’ve never really liked about my XJ (check out the red/white ones) is the gauge cluster. Like a lot of bikes built in the 80s, it’s huge! It’s like a black, plastic lunch box bolted between the handle bars. With the stock bars and bikini fairing, you can’t really see it, but I’ve got the fairing off and short bars. In fact, I’m toying with the idea of switching to the set of clubman bars I’ve got gathering garage dust. The long an the short of it: I need to replace or rebuild that lunch box! With the bike off the roads for bit, now is as good a time as any. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I'll be rounding off that left corner

The “tab” on the right will house the various indicatiors. I’m planning on adding either all 5 (2 directionals, oil, neutral, brights) of just 3 and leaving the directional indicators off. Either way, I’m planning on using some round, low-profile, 12v incandescent dashboard lamps. I’ve got some 20 gague steel that should work for this and be thin enough to allow me to use the handle bar clamps to hold it on (hence the 2-holed mounting setup).  The whole thing will sit reasonably flat, and even with the clubman bars on it should look good.

I’ve got  a whole assymetrical thing going with this bike (stemming from the offcenter gass cap, really) and I’m digging how this layout fits with the rest.

Mechamo Crab

Last year I got this neat little robot kit for my birthday. The Boy and I had already built a number of small simple kits; Ones that The Boy received as gifts. This was a grown up project, no doubt about it.

It took us the better part of  a Saturday to get the whole thing put together, and we only had to back out of it once. We spent hours putting it together, and then played with it for maybe 40 minutes. Since then, we’ve had it down off of the shelf a handful of times. I think it’s lovely in its mechanical complexity, and it has a reasonably prominent place on Molly’s “Precious Things” shelves (another post), but having the thing wasn’t the point. Building that kit-bot may have been the first time The Boy and I talked about the idea that the process is where we find the best part… That the making is what matters most.

Since finishing it, I’ve been meaning to post about it, but Mike insisted that I include a video. Well, I finally got around to it:

Pretty sweet, right?

Here comes Rockerbox

So, I’ve talked through the leg design with Michael, and I think I’ve got something doable. I’ll update the sketch as soon as I get some free time. Right now, I’m trying to get my bike put back together for Rockerbox!

This is the first year I’ll be in town for this event and I am excited! In preparation, and because  I had a growing list of things that needed to be done, I have done some work on my bike. I started with taking off these side covers:

The actual work was an adjustment of the cam chain, which only required removal of the left cover, but I decided to take them both off and see if I could clean them up a bit. I sanded and sanded and sanded, and polished, and painted and:

Not perfect, but not bad. That picture is about 10 minutes after i smudged the black on the outside, and dirtied up the YICS part in the center. Both of these ended up getting some additional attention before putting them back on the bike. Getting these off was a challenge. The screws that hold these panels on are regular old phillips screws, which means that everyone who has owned this 30-year-old bike has tried to take them out and they are more than a little stripped.

So, How did I get them out? Poor man’s impact driver.With the screwdriver seated nicely, and reasonable pressure on the screw driver, I gave the screwdriver a few taps with my trusty hammer. Really, it took more than a few, as I was being pretty gentle. It was an extremely satisfying moment when that first screw finally came loose.

I painted the tank as well… made a bit of a mess, actually… but I haven’t taken any pictures of that yet. I’m learning a lot as I go, though.. for example, good masking is REALLY important, and color matte finishes are really difficult to maintain. Also, it’s really hard to photograph shiny objects (That second picture above is mirror-like (sorta)).

Sketch: Leg 1

Ok. Here’s the promised sketch:

Leg

You can see in the sketch the two locations on the upper and lower beams. One attaches at the side of the frame, and the other connects to the sprocket. The paralell beam approach will keep the lower leg perpendicular to the ground. There are some alignment issues with this, and the pivot for the top beam neads to be sorted out, but it’s pretty close.

The heart, and femur, of the beast

This weekend, after a long Sunday that included my first aluminium anodizing experience as well as my first powder coating experience, I started the disassembly of the old snow blower. This will be the heart of the beast… assuming I can get the damned auger off of it.

I started with this ugly pile of plastic:

Before...

And ended up with something else entirely. I have to say, I was surprised at how small the actual engine is. The case could shave been much smaller and less “bulgy.”

After...

Eventually I’ll get the auger off, but my frustration with it was getting the better of me and I decided to call it a night. Before I did, however, I discovered the perfect joint for the upper portion of the legs:

Universal joint

This universal joint was part of the deflector assembly on the snow blower. The original plan called for a series of ball joints and pins (thanks Frankie) to move the legs, but this should work better, particularly considering the significant weight I want to support. The universal joints will be attached directly to sprocket for each leg… This is getting too cumbersome to describe. Look for a sketch in the next post!