Thursday, July 24, 2014

The Thrash in Miltucky- Part 1

Simultaneously while building the engine for Brando, I was also building myself a Yamaha twin for vintage dirt track racing this season, as well as updating Eddie Van Haulin to truly live up to the namesake...Here's the last nine months of some shop life in pictures.

Now back to some regularly scheduled programming and update on EVH- The front seats were replaced with a set of black leather "stow and go" captains chairs from a late model err, um, (dont really want to say it) minivan. They rock to say the least, super comfy, have seat belt receivers, they fold up, have armrests, headrests, slides and the recline. Super upgrade, they were brand new out of a medivan conversion place and were a steal. Also I updated the swivel pedestals to the leter model wide tube, lever detented style and made up some brackets to adapt the metric seats to the imperial pedestals.
 






 Next up was the miserable task of wire wheeling the floor of all the liquid nails. That dust got everywhere, the sheet was really doing nothing. Next was removing the paneling and finishing the floor, sealing the gaps to keep the exhaust out as needed and building some wheelhouse lockers.

The doghouse was also wire wheeled to get rid of the liquid nails on it. My original intent was to cover it with speakerbox carpet, but I couldn't bring myself to coat the damn thing with a different type of adhesive all over again, so I shot it with rubberized underbody coating.

Lockers. I wanted to have as much space utilized for storage as I could, plus I had a harebrained idea for a bunk set-up at the time.  (more on that later)
The lockers were framed out of 3/4" angle and are fully welded, but are bolted to the chassis for relatively easy removal.
Piano hinge- go buy it from Speedway. Its a great and affordable product-"Put racecar parts on everything,"
I always say. Plywood inserts that are upholstered in speakerbox carpet. 





Right side was the easy side, drivers side I made longer with two seperate lids, but the rear lid opens both and the front lid is independent.











 Welded some hardpoints to the bulkheads for anchoring D-rings, and also made the front panel in each locker a speaker carrier so the boxes double as enclosures.





The seats were a little low, so the easiest thing I could think of was to just use some rectangle tube and raise them up a few.






Welded in a gang-channel under the floor for the condor-style front wheel chock, easily removed by four bolts and it is the paddock stand in the pits as well. Fully rigged out with room to spare.


Vans look better when there's a racebike in 'em.
I will do a dump on the racebike build sometime soon. Thanks again for stopping by.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

The Thrash in Richmond

Shit got real in Richmond.
I am amazed and humbled by my friends, even more what they are able to accomplish with the tooling they don't have.
Silicosis. Sleep deprivation. No such thing as a coaxial indicator. ZZ-Top. Becky making us coffee in the morning and sending me off with veggies and hummus. Mechanical Injection. 3 am stories. Backwards fuel pumps. Putty knife spanner wrenches. In-house wound stitching. Used asswipe in a box. Hasselgrens letting me walk out of their shop with 5000 bucks worth of Brown& Miller fittings and I-core hose. Marie from Nor-Cal Supply getting all googly eyed as I talked to her the AN/MS/NAS language. The refrigerator squeak and the persistent air leak.
A complete symphony of nothing and everything being said at the same time.
Punch lists on beer boxes. Wiring schematics on a metal table. Eddie Money. Plating stress. Hands beyond dirty.
Oil tanks that dont leak oil. Float bowl welding.
Those moments when it all just works right out. Cross it off the list; charge after the next one.

I sincerely apologize for the pics being on their side, maybe some of my more experienced blogger friends can come over someday and help me out with that. Till then I'm sorry, just tilt yer head or something....
Jays 115 inch, magneto fired, mechanically injected monster




Oil tank inside view

'lectrical

potato chip

lightnin' wire

breever



the dude that can weld wood

Icore hose

Started life as a fuel filter.

Deep throat

The shrink bushing







NorCal Supply

what happens when you install pistons incorrectly

The crusher










Make everything have two jobs

Or three jobs....
war torn bosnia

gaza strip

transformer






By any means necessary



Veggie peeler

down is ground, up is ON


3:28 am

Becky



Terrible human beings