This past Saturday was chop day. Derek came by with his demolition saw. Tools of destruction are always fun. Anyway, to start cut the welds for the door skin with cute little Dremel. Derek’s got some skills, he was able to cut the two welds without that self-destructo cutting wheel exploding. That didn’t happen until after when I attempted a cut into the plastic door handle, whereupon it promptly shattered in two sending a piece flying into another dimension somewhere. The same place all spring clips go. That done it was time to graduate to the more serious tool.
Everyone’s favorite, the demolition saw. People call it sawzall, but that’s actually a tradename, like scotch tape. Continue reading ‘Cut! Cut! Cut!’
Published on June 12, 2007 in bike by risu. Closed
It was cooler than last Saturday, with overcast skies and a threat of rain, but still hot. There was a breeze to keep things cool, but it was also a headwind to fight at times. Chris was busy and Root didn’t respond to any of the ride mail during the week, so I thought it was going to be just Jeff, Sara, and myself again. Pulling into the parking lot, I saw that Paul and Danny were going to join us again! There was a brief discussion on the ride course, and we decided on the mystery hills since there was less climbing than the regular loop. Continue reading ’09 June 2007 Wailuna mystery hills’
Well that didn’t work. Tried to get the door off. Started with this:
Drilled a bunch o holes for the slide hammer dent puller. Have I mentioned for some odd reason I get a sense of satisfaction from this tool. I like using it.Â
Silly me didn’t take a pic of the actual hammer. Anyway, results were marginal and slow.
Not being very concerned with preserving the door, at least not the top part, things got down to yanking on it like a crazed monkey.
Which actually was fairly effective. Maybe body shops should keep a crew of chimps on hand. But if you didn’t give them all cake they’d go ape sh*t and gnaw on your genitals. That tends to make for bad crew morale, although if you watch any of those kustom car building shows, you gotta wonder. Anyway, this is how the door stands now.
In case you’re wondering, my objective here was to remove the door so I could install my old rusty crusty door. So what I was hoping was that by somewhat straightening the door & accessing the linkages, I could unlock & unlatch the door. No such luck. Although I was able to get things straight enough that the linkages moved, the latch itself is too messed up & out of alignment to open. I even resorted to climbing inside & kicking at the door from inside. Kind of eye opening that with damage of only this extent you can’t easily force a car door open. So it looks like it’s time to call in the big guns and bring in the boys with the demolition saws. I think we’re going to have to cut the door apart. I thought of attempting to unbolt the door hinges, but you need to remove the fender to access the bolts. And in order to remove the fender, you need to open the door to access one of those bolts. Besides, chopping the door up should be good for some entertainment value, and I think Dr. D hasn’t busted out the demo saw in a while.
Saturday was sunny and unbearably hot all over Oahu, except for Pearl City, which was cloudy and unbearably hot… Root and Chris were on the side due to car and baby issues (respectively), so Jeff, Sara, and I rode up to where Root and I had seen the little side trail a few weeks ago. Descending steeply, the trail turned right and went from the open grass to beneath tree cover. With a slight downward grade, it countoured the hillside, passing scratchy ferns and strawberry guava. A little ways in, the trail dropped down onto an old graded doubletrack. It was overgrown and had been continually disturbed by the piggies, so it was pretty uneven. It seemed to go both back uphill toward the houses, or ahead and down. We followed the doubletrack in and it narrowed to singletrack width with all the overgrowth. It was not unlike Bowling Pin at Mililani. Quickly, we reached a clearing at the valley bottom. The way ahead was open but without an obvious, worn path. There was, however, a very obvious swithcback to the left backtracking up out of the valley along the opposite wall. This path gently ascended to a grassy clearing, where the trail turned right around a head into the next little valley. The trail rose briefly, then descended to the valley bottom. There were some loose, pebbley sections and a lot of deadfall along the descent, but the course was wide and evident. Continue reading ’02 June 2007 Wailuna mystery hills ride’
I’m feeling sad right now. Poor little FX got smushed today. After finishing a job call, was waiting to pull out of Y Hata onto Sand Island Access Road. Big o Dodge Ram 2500 sitting to right of me on shoulder behind the cars that park along road fronting the Y Hata wall. Wondering what the heck he’s doing, is he waiting to pull into traffic? He’s not doing anything or signaling, so I finally pull forward to get ready to pull into traffic. Then he decides to back up. I lean on my pathetic little single stock horn as I watch the tailgate looming through the side window, get dark from the shadow cast, then the sickening crunch and the sudden whiteness as the safety glass crumbles into those little jewely cubes.
With 20/20 hindsight, I suppose I could have backed up, but I didn’t know if it was clear behind me and I know I didn’t want to go forward since I was sitting there because I was waiting for a hole in traffic. So all I could manage was to lean on horn and watch like a deer caught in the headlights.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen now. Got initial estimate from body shop. Verdict was its non repairable as they can’t get the part. I’m taking in my original FX door tomorrow, but pulling it off just a while ago, found it’s badly rusted.
Went straight home after work yesterday. There was a bit of a drizzle but it didn’t seem like it was going to last long. The artwork for the Rockabilly Surf Show was done and submitted, so it was time for a long-awaited ride. It took a while to get my riding s#%t together, but eventually got out and rolled around a bit. The new ’08 Fox 32 Vanilla RLC feels good on the bike – no geometry issues with the extra travel over the old 125mm Fox. It was the first time it was really ridden, so it feels a little sticky – I think it needs to break-in before it gets that buttery-smooth Fox feel.  I swapped out to the purple “light” springs when I installed it last week. I guess I could have gotten just the “R”, but the “L” and “C” functions parallel some of the functions on the DHX 5.0 rear shock, so I got the full-featured one. Granted I run the compression and anti-bob settings really low anyway, but “just in case”…
The mysterious contamination of the rear brake last week is still causing issues – it still doesn’t seem as grabby as before.  There is still some dark glaze on the rotor that probably has to be worn through before things are back to normal again, or maybe the pads need more heat-gunning…
I was just taking it easy since I haven’t ridden in a couple of weeks – I was just enjoying being back on the bike after the absence. Distance was 9.83-miles, 56-minutes, Vavr = 10.4 mph
Finished my pieces for the Rockabilly Surf Show this weekend. Had a battle with brain-fart trying to get properly sized frames… bought 16×20, thought they were too big since the working areas of the 12×16 sheets was 8×12, took them back and got the next size down which was 11×14, got them home and discovered those were too small, and went back to re-get the 16×20’s – that was $15 in gasoline I didn’t need to spend!  Dropped them off with Eric at the gallery this morning on the way to get my morning ITM at Lion’s cafe.
Three watercolors – two “pin-up girls” and one “monster hot-rod”. Originally was going to make two of each, but the second “monster” image, a turbodiesel chopper, didn’t resolve in time. Had to crank out the pieces in less than 2 weeks, but if I had advanced notice, I’d probably have procrastinated until the last moment anyway (like the upcoming Showcase 2007 at the HAA…)! I’ll put the images up on the gallery after the show opens.Â
Show opening and reception is Thursday, 31 May 2007 from 18:00 to 20:00 at the Chinatown Boardroom, 1160 Nuuanu Avenue (one door makai of the Pegge Hopper Gallery). Scat, Tracy (not Stacy), and Kris Higa will also have works at the show. I was a last-minute addition through Scats’ influence (thanks, Scat!), so my name isn’t on the manifest.
Published on May 24, 2007 in anime by taro. Closed
Leave it to Gainax to kill off a major character and inject some darkness into what’s been a pretty lightweight series. And leave it to them to have done a recap ep only six in with massive amounts of reused footage, but to appease fanservice make the new stuff an onsen.
Well, no surprise the FX has no A/C. Both the original & new one at one time did. The new one was striped of it & p/s, but in order to get p/s into the new one, I had to mount the compressor even though I have to suffer with no A/C. I found the bracket & pulley I needed on ebay to replace this, and amazingly got a really good price on it. From Toyota parts I was looking at something like $300. I got it for basically the cost of a work weeks worth of plate lunches.
 So here we have the compressor sitting in here acting as a big heavy idler.
Here’s the original bracket & compressor being removed and the new bracket & pulley that is replacing it.
Scale is kinda off, but this should save a good amount of weight & clean things up a bit. Here’s the arrangement now.
it seems like chainring spacers are some kind of mystical vintage part. I've asked at almost every shop in whistler with a service department. Quite a few didn't even know what it was and couldn't comprehend what I wanted to do. Finally found some at Fanatyk Co but only ancient crusty mechanics know about these and they have poor eyesight or something. I asked for 3mm and he even used a ruler, he scrounged up 4mms.
Derek came by with his demolition saw. Tools of destruction are always fun. Anyway, to start cut the welds for the door skin with cute little Dremel. Derek’s got some skills, he was able to cut the two welds without that self-destructo cutting wheel exploding. That didn’t happen until after when I attempted a cut into the plastic door handle, whereupon it promptly shattered in two sending a piece flying into another dimension somewhere. The same place all spring clips go. That done it was time to graduate to the more serious tool.
