"Turn Key" Is Not An Option

[drogg1]

Looks like a great time. Not too many parks like that around here but they look like they'd be fun. I hear you on the getting off my *ss and going out and doing stuff. I try to at least get out and do something to raise my heart rate a couple times and biking happens to be one of my favorite ways.

 

[Oldsmoletick]

It's a blast, we used to have to travel about 2 hours to get to the nearest indoor park, this one is about 35 minutes away 😀 . Keep wondering, where was this 15 years ago when we were in better shape, had less fear (I've turned quite chicken sh*t over the years, lol), and had nothing but time to ride. From what I hear, in the nice season, there is a dirt park out back of the building , that's more my speed, much more forgiving than wood and concrete :lol: .

 

[DRIVEN]

Looks fun. I've notice quite a few parks opening up in the last 5-10 years. Sadly, I'm too fat and old to enjoy them. What are you riding?

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Yes they seem to be springing up everywhere, there were none within a 100 mile radius of me before, now there's multiple less than a half hour away. The bike....lol. Like everything else is bits and pieces thrown together, but the frame is a 2-Hip Soul (early 2000's), the rest with the exception of the rims is from various companies that manufacture their parts here (my fixation with american products started with bikes, ). It's outdated by about 10 years, heavy as hell, and battered, but has yet to let me down :lol: .

Oh, and I forgot about the videos, lol, mostly foam pit assaults .

 

[Oldsmoletick]

It would help if I posted a link

http://www.youtube.com/user/SHAGGIMO?feature=mhee

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Keeping fairly busy, swapped to some different wheels on the 4 door, replaced strut rod bushings, and got the 4wd working as the factory intended (oh yeah and bath day today, haha).

So much nicer than the hubcaps.

The gf called me the other day stating that he jeep died on the side of the road, and wouldn't start, long story short, she got it running and back home. Later that night I went to investigate, since it has been over a year, I figured I may as well throw a set of plugs at it too. I found nothing wrong, leads me to believe that I picked up some water somewhere :x , has been running fine the past few days.
I was however pleased to see the plugs looked decent.

Not bad for an engine with over 200k on it, and with bastardized fuel/ignition systems :lol: .

 

[DRIVEN]

Decent? I'd call those perfect. Way too good for 200K. Has someone actually been changing oil on a Jeep?

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Kind of ironic, that engine is the only one in the fleet that I don't have to add a drop of oil to between changes, yet the milage on it exceeds the next highest by 120k :lol: . Yes I am very "fussy" about my oil changes, I only use a certain oil and specific filters, and I don't keep track of milage, just oil color .

 

[Oldsmoletick]

I got a little bored last night, the barn was warm, so I decided to pull the jeep in for a little experiment. As I've mentioned before, the jeep has a vacuum actuated front axle for 2 and 4wd, my method of controlling that has been less than desirable. Open the hood, uncap the actuator hoses, hook one to vacuum, get in jeep, go forward, the reverse so the collar can lock or unlock the axle, get out, cap the vac line not hooked to vacuum, unplug the line hooked to vacuum cap it off, then cap off the vacuum leak . Eagles, have a vacuum shifted transfer case, I happen to have a parts eagle for some unknown reason . The wheels were turining after successfully getting the red car's 4wd working properly, wondered if I could use the eagle switch to operate the jeeps front axle.

First had to figure out how and where to mount it.

Almost too easy, it almost seems like it was made to go there, no cutting, trimming, or drilling of any sort, the switch has a clamp retainer in the back of it. All I had to do was put a piece of sheet metal behind the bezel, tighten the screws, which clamped the sheetmetal to the bezel holding the switch firmly in place. The hole was already in the bezel, there was an inop dash clock taking up space, with removal of the clock (3 screws) it left a deep enough hole for the switch to sit in. There was a perfect gap between the cluster and the dash to run vacuum lines down through, along with a hole in the firewall in an almost too convenient place :lol: .

There you have it, I hooked up the vacuum lines (wrong the first time of course), and it works perfectly. Now I just have to take it back apart and paint it to match the rest of the interior,hahaha.

 

[Oldsmoletick]

Little car work going on, little bike work, and a little goofing around to top it off. Right front wheel bearing is on its way out on the red eagle, so for a temporary fix, I figured I'd just grab one from the parts car (they have rebuildable hub assembly). Since I can't afford downtime on the red bird, I can swap the one in off the parts car, rebuild the original when I can actually find the parts to do it (bearings no prob, correct seal is another story), install it on the driver side, then rebuild that one, and install it on the passenger side to replace the temp. Confused yet? Yea me too, haha.

Ah, the joys of working in the backyard, out in the snow.

Kind of a pain in the *ss to do but, oh well.

On the other note, I decided to tear down my bike for a new paintjob, oh and I set my attic up as a little bike shop .

I figured I'd throw one of my old frames together for a temporary ride.

Yeah I collected bike parts at one point too, :lol: . The winner: A locally made prototype frame I bought dirt cheap ($35?) off the maker, with the agreement to thrash the hell out of it and report any issues. We rode together every now and again and knew I was rough on frames back then. Anyway, all assembled.

Rides well, but I was feeling ambitious last week and decided to see if I could scrape together enough usable parts to build a back up bike (ok so I was bored). Same deal, with this one, from the same maker, test specimen.

Assembled with my old junk. The verdict, sometimes old junk is better, this clunker I threw together crosseyed rode like a dream. I haven't been so comfortable on a bike in years :shock: . I liked it so much, when I rode it last night, I decided to try something new.

[youtube]WltYloBCMb0[/youtube]

This was after a few attempts, not bad for first day trying, next week I'll get it, well, maybe...