from the twisted minds of snm
To catch up on the FX, Scat and Chucky came over Thursday evening after work to help me out with the tranny reinstall. After spending the morning in Maui for work, my boss told me to take off work early, so I got home early and started on trying to get the tranny in.
Here’s pics of the stuff that was going in. The Exedy clutch came with bonus stickers that aren’t quite as weak as the Magnaflow ones.
And here’s the flywheels:
No, this doesn’t have anything to do with BTK. Two Sunday’s ago, the 16th, we decided to do an afternoon ride at Maunawili. We meet at the usual parking in Waimanalo, and then this strange pale guy shows up and wants to ride. Fortunately he’s a cool guy, not some annoying freaky guy, and he can ride pretty good too. He’s been cooped up for too long and in need of some release. Weather’s cooperating and we have a nice overcast and windy day for riding. As opposed to last week, the bikes are decked out with some fair amount of tech. I’m riding the most retro bike as a hardtail with V brakes and an annoyingly clunky Marzocchi fork. Continue reading ‘CKH Ride’
Wow! I managed to break $100 while filling the tank in the work van today! Glad it’s not me paying the bill!
Windward side was sunny on Wednesday, and being a holiday there was little traffic, so I got home fairly early. Surprisingly enough, people weren’t driving like total fools (which is the norm for a holiday). I rode the regular training loop including the Chicken Trail. Almost cleaned the entire rooty climb in one go – maybe next time. I saw the two chicken families. All the little hyoko are now ugly, scraggly fledglings. One family is down to less than half-a-dozen, but the other is still at full strength. I did a little exploring at the top to see if any of the old singletrack is still rideable, but the old top traverse has some homeless structure built on it, so I couldn’t connect it to the old lower trail to the orphaned part of Kapunahala. There are a lot of surveying ribbons and pins up there – something is going to happen with that land soon. I turned in a few more laps than normal since the sun was out, then backtracked up the Chicken Trail. I cleaned the reverse climb.
D = 16.72 km (10.11-miles), Vavr = 16.4 km/h (10.2 mph), Vmax = 40.7 km/h (25.3 mph), T = 59-minutes
For people who wrench on their bike & car equipment, there’s certain parts that for some reason are just plain stinky. SPD pedal bearing grease is a famous one for us. On your car, differential oil is another one. Transmission oil is somewhere around there too. I just discovered another one today, removing the flywheel/crank bolts released some stinky funk. I wasn’t expecting that!
Anyway, to sum up progress on the FX, I finally got the crazy idle to stop for now. It turns out one of the new silicone vacuum hoses wasn’t tight enough and was “leaking” vacuum. What a pain. I took the “blacktop” 4AGE flywheel I bought of the net a few months back in to shop to have it resurfaced and it’s ready & waiting. Today I dropped the tranny on the 20 valve so I could get the bellhousing plate so i can relocate the starter when I change the flywheel and clutch. After that, I can change the header over. Whew, lots of stuff, being held up waiting for the new Exedy clutch to come. Sorry no, it’s only a “stage 1”, one step up from OEM clutch. It’s constructed like a normal OEM clutch. Their aluminum pressure plate one was nice and pretty, but at $1000+, yikes! Might as well go for the multi-plate clutch as long as your breaking the bank already!
This was quite unnerving to awaken to. No sensation. No vision-related issues. No prior trauma that would have caused it. Capillary just decided to break. Dropped by the Doc’s office, and he said it was OK and that the color would go away in a week or two. In the meantime I look like some anime vampire…
Find these. Eat these. Really. Maybe Wholesale Unlimited, Marukai, or Don Quixote. They’re green, but not “wasabi” flavored – they are sort-of like iso-peanuts but with a pistachio inside. Yes, Velcro, they’re shelled first. A buyer at an account gave some to me this morning.
Spun by Checker and bought a foot of 5/8″ Good Year heater hose yesterday. The leaky section was inaccessible from the engine compartment, and blocked from below by the front axle, lateral link, and steering telegraph rod. I managed to squeeze my arm between the axle and lateral link to get a 10mm ratcheting box wrench on the Toyota hose clamps and undo them. I knew very well that whem I popped the old hose off, the remaining coolant would spill on me, and as predicted, it went in my eyes, nose, and mouth. Continue reading ‘Hose’
On the way home from the Ditch ride with Chris and Root, my temperature gauge went up toward the “red” zone. At home, the reservoir hose was bubbling furiously into the tank. I let it cool overnight then checked around. There was a small puddle under the front axle. Orange coolant was dripping from somewhere mid-block. Oh no! Head gasket! The coolant was clear and the oil was not milky. Whew. A careful examination revealed a leak from a small hose section between the block-mounted oil cooler and the coolant pipe from the water pump (Land Cruisers have integrated oil-to-water oil coolers, not those sissy add-on mini radiators).
Hopefully I can get it fixed today. I dropped by Toyota Parts and Clyde got a new thermostat and associated gaskets rolling – I figure I’d just as well change those since the last time I had an overheating problem it was that component. It was not readily apparent if the thermo was dead and the overheating blew the hose, or the leaky hose dropped the coolant level to the point where the truck overheated. The FJ80 is 17-years old, so the current thermo is about 10-years old. I’ll spin by the generic car parts store and get some hose – the bad section is just straight, so I don’t need a proprietary Toyota part.
Oh, and Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
This past Friday, I rode the rooty climb up the hill up from the District park side. The trail was clear but a little indistinct at the bottom because of the fast-growing wedelia covering the line. The uphill was as heinous as I remembered it being. Along the way, there were two new chicken families, with mother hens and tiny egg-sized chicks. They had no fear of humans, as they waited until I was almost running over them to go cackling and peeping into the underbrush. Continue reading ‘Hyoko Ride’
