Stuff you have fixed today

[Guineafowl]

Here’s a good one, from the Phantom Tinkerer.

Kawasaki strimmer, very hard to pull over. The spring holding the centrifugal clutch shoes had broken, so the crank was effectively locked to the rest of the drivetrain, hence the difficulty in starting.

But… the chewed screws and stripped threads suggested someone had been in there. And the second piece of spring was missing.

Conclusion: someone had opened up the clutch, seen the fault, carefully removed the broken spring bit, and closed it all up again. Talk about sweeping dirt under the carpet, for the sake of £4 for a new spring.

 

[Ubique]

Not my fix (mug is far to small for a proper Yorkshire brew!)
but it is the sort of thing I'd do with my own stuff....

 

[indy4x]

Not today, but this week the wife Sandero had 2 new front springs and drop links, youngest daughters Mazda 3 had a NS lower suspension arm, track rod ends and front pads, just rear discs, pads and front drop links to go

 

[northwest]

Fixed a broken casting on my old gem air rifle View attachment 495569
This was made of a dubious cast material so welding was not an option so i made a plate and epoxied it across the broken casting.View attachment 495572View attachment 495573
It worked out well i cleaned everything thoroughly with meths and emery cloth.
Its now back together and the stock is rock solid
Good for another hundred yearsView attachment 495574

Very nicely done that, a simple repair that actually works and doesn't detract. I would have made a meal of the job getting my rotary table out and allsorts!

 

[dobbslc]

Fixed two torches that had a combination of flat batteries and dirty contacts and the boys spare Mazda key fob that also had a flat battery.
Half an hour of peace on my own doing a few easy fixes, does it get any better than that?

 

[magnet]

Very nicely done that, a simple repair that actually works and doesn't detract. I would have made a meal of the job getting my rotary table out and allsorts!

Coming from you, a compliment indeed. Thank you.

 

[Stueeee]

This one is actually 'today I partially fixed'. Some time ago my partner Sue, bought a vintage trike with the intention that I convert it to electric for her. The first issue I could see was the lack of any rear end braking; in fact there was no sign of there ever having been anything but the front wheel brake fitted. So I bought a cable operated disc brake setup from ebay and got to work. Sue bought the trike for minimal money as the 'free wheel' -the axle doesn't have a differential fitted, so like most trikes, only one rear wheel actually drives- kept coming loose. I could see that the original thread had been (badly) recut with a Right Hand thread; from the side and rotation it was obvious that the thread was originally left hand. Stripped the axle, put it in a lathe drilled and tapped the axle end LH M8 and screwed in a length of LH studding with a gob of high strength retainer to replicate the original studded axle end.

The other end with a RH thread looked pretty carp, so I redid that at the same time.

The axle bearings were knackered, thankfully they are standard metric rubber shielded ball races that I could just press into the Plummer Block type housings. In order to mount the disc to the axle I needed to turn up a hub from a lump of 70 something MM diameter Ali stock, it was a pleasure to do this bit of work in my DSG as a fair length of round just fitted up into the chuck and spindle bore, thereby drastically reducing wastage as I could just part off the finished job once I had turned, drilled and bored it to finish size. Put the hub into the mill to pitch out the six M5 tapped holes on the rotary table.

Fitted all the bits to the trike, and cobbled up a suitable mounting for the brake caliper. The next job on this is to install (I hope) a mid mount motor kit; the bottom bracket looks quite small by bicycle standards so I might need to do some more engineering yet if a 'standard' conversion kit won't fit/work on the trike. Anyway, I've just parked this particular job for a bit as the trike was taking up a bay in my garage which I need to use for some fabrication work over the next few weeks.

 

[OJCar]

^ After the motor, on goes Wheelie Bars ...

 

[DanZac]

Some time ago my partner Sue, bought a vintage trike with the intention that I convert it to electric for her

Nice work. Has she ridden a trike before?

If not you might want to suggest she has a go and gets used to it at slower speeds before you fit the motor as its a lot harder than it looks. Although you don't have the balance problem of a normal bike, the handling is totally different and they tend to want to follow the road camber, constantly trying to drag you into the kerb or road edge. And then try to tip you off when you corner, if your a bit too quick.

It's a bit like riding a motorbike with sidecar. A completely different animal to a bike on its own.

 

[Stueeee]

Nice work. Has she ridden a trike before?

If not you might want to suggest she has a go and gets used to it at slower speeds before you fit the motor as its a lot harder than it looks. Although you don't have the balance problem of a normal bike, the handling is totally different and they tend to want to follow the road camber, constantly trying to drag you into the kerb or road edge. And then try to tip you off when you corner, if your a bit too quick.

It's a bit like riding a motorbike with sidecar. A completely different animal to a bike on its own.

We both have a bit of experience of trikes via a previous purchase. Your motor cycle and sidecar analogy will be even more appropriate on this one as it's effectively one (rear) wheel drive. This is actually Sue's second electric trike. The First one was a brand new Jorvik, which would have been a comedy of errors (in terms of build quality and after sales service) if there had been anything funny about a £2k plus machine that was so poorly realised. The seller's attitude was pretty much 'if you don't like it you can just go and spin on it' until Sue published a number of factual reviews on the internet, when suddenly a full refund (dependent on the reviews coming down of course ) suddenly became available.

 

[sako243]

Levelled out a previously very rutted bit of the kitchen gardens with some top soil. There was several hundred tonnes of shale there previously.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

Finally received and fitted the chain for my little top handle chainsaw.

I did this as a distraction whilst waiting for the socks I forgot to launder until two hours before leaving for a week to tumble dry.

Chainsaw maintenance in chinos and a linen shirt was probably unwise but I got away with it somehow.

And the saw runs lovely with the new chain tensioned up properly.

 

[jmp49]

Finally got round to the 207 door pillar vinyl wraps with daughter on her car. We'd peeled the old stuff off a bit back but there was residual glue so used a toffee wheel to get the last of it off and sanded out some chips, then put wrap cut on the straight lines. This is very very fine but strong thread bound to a red tape, that when you pull cuts through the vinyl cleanly that you can see across the door pillar line here.


Then I made daughter do the vinyl wrapping because she's done a bit of this sort of thing before with cricut etc. And its her car, so she gets the satisfaction of looking at it every time she uses the car.
Car's same age as her, 17 years old, and she's happy with how it looks. Ignore the grubby handprints all over the paint, I dont claim to ever have hands clean enough to work on painted cars without having to wash them afterwards.


Came out alright

 

[sardine]

Not quite fixed yet but 'FIXING' !

(Welding content as I'm using welding clamps on the wood

We have a 'curved bridge' over a stream (yes the wife and daughter went to Monet's garden and wanted one ) and when built the curved handrails had to be laminated from shorter pieces as at the time I couldn't source 16 foot lengths of 6" x 2". Over the years the weather hasn't been kind to it and the rail is rotting but I have been able to source two 16 footers to replace them. Original 'curve' - more a series of straight lines wasn't ideal so this time I'm trying to get the replacement 'set' into a proper curve before removing the original (otherwise there'd be nothing to fix it to.

Now I've had it clamped into the curve for a couple of weeks - ideally I'd steam it but no suitable steam generator or tube to put it in - but then I thought of my Karcher steam cleaner.
View attachment 493461

So with the wood clamped in place I gave it a really good going over with the pressure set low to avoid raising the grain, and the temperature high. I've done this several times now but will it work ???

Have some pictures:

View attachment 493462View attachment 493463

Place your bets and answers on a post card please

If you chuck it in the stream for a few days it will bend to that curve just fine.

 

[Blobber]

The lower lifting link with the height adjuster on the tractor needed a bit of work, the adjuster was seized and there was a lot of play in the holes

The seized bit is the big threaded rod/nut, the nuts pretty well hidden in the cast normally but you can just about get to it to kill it with fire, ive not got any oxy but got some pretty good heat cycles into it with my blow lamp

It didnt loosen off but What helped was you could just get a club hammer between the casting to use as an anvil and belt the nut on the each face, did that on all sides of the nut
and with the help of 36inches it came free pretty easy

Just got to clean everything up now

 

[My Old Landy]

The lower lifting link with the height adjuster on the tractor needed a bit of work, the adjuster was seized and there was a lot of play in the holes
View attachment 496061
View attachment 496062

The seized bit is the big threaded rod/nut, the nuts pretty well hidden in the cast normally but you can just about get to it to kill it with fire, ive not got any oxy but got some pretty good heat cycles into it with my blow lamp
View attachment 496063

It didnt loosen off but What helped was you could just get a club hammer between the casting to use as an anvil and belt the nut on the each face, did that on all sides of the nut
and with the help of 36inches it came free pretty easy
View attachment 496064

View attachment 496065
Just got to clean everything up now

It is good to see you using the stilsons!

 

[Blobber]

It is good to see you using the stilsons!

Probably the one and only time, but at least they got used thanks very much!

 

[awemawson]

edIf you chuck it in the stream for a few days it will bend to that curve just fine.

That was given serious consideration. Anyway it’s now fixed and the old rail converted to kindling, just awaiting screw holes to be plugged and a few coats of good old creosote from my stash.

 

[addjunkie]

It is good to see you using the stilsons!

They have a real nice thin handle….ideal for the scaffold tube help.

 

[Dcal]

Today I fixed my sandblaster.
It stopped delivering grit into the airstream.
I suspected a blockage in the metering valve so emptied the pot and checked.
All looked good, the grit was flowing freely and the valve seemed to be working as it should.
I sieved and refilled the pot but it made no difference.
The only way to get grit was to divert the air through the pot and this delivered far too much grit. (And not enough air)

Checked everything again and I found a small air leak between the two parts of the valve.

I made the valve six years ago and it's been faultless until now.
I couldn't see an obvious leak but it is just a metal to metal joint.

Made a gasket

Put it back together and checked for leaks.

It now works great again.

I think the leak was enough to blow the grit back into the pot instead of it dropping or being sucked into the airstream.