The past

This is all kinds of out of order, but I have faith that you can handle it. We were going to make this whole thing into kind of a time lapse deal... but for one reason or another that never happened. So I'm going to go ahead and throw a couple of the teardown shots up as they are.

Loudbike's broken. That's why several of the last posts have dealt with the rebuilding of her head. Some friends stopped by a few Saturdays ago to help me break her down so that we could try and find what all the trouble was about, and I think we did.

 Once we had the head off the bike we could tell that the cam chain was binding up, and was visibly stretched, so it needed to be replaced. Chris just happened to have one that he had mistakenly bought off eBay so we were good to go. Only problem is that to replace the cam chain you have to completely take the motor apart... and I mean completely.

 

 Also this is a tappet adjuster set screw... it had come loose and was bouncing around in the bottom of the cam chain chamber. This is what had caused the binding of the chain. I'm still not sure if it was the root of my problems though.

The half way point

Back together, sort of. The head is shot which you'll see soon enough, so I had to take one off another motor and swap it in which so far has taken a couple of weeks.

Lapping it up

This is after a real good cleaning. This head is from a motor that wasn't supposed to go on this bike, so I had been doing a bunch of cosmetic work to it which left it full of metal. Lots of carb cleaner, brake cleaner, WD40 and a full disassembly (minus the valve guides) later and I've got this:

 Not nearly 100 percent, but it's better than it was and for this bike I wasn't planning on modding the motor all out like my other bike. Also with gas at $3.29 and a full size van to drive I want this thing back on the road now.

Before and after (intake)

After cleaning each valve I lapped them all in by hand, I'll have to get one of those little suction cup sticks for the next job... but how will I hang it on the wall?! The intake seat pictured is not in good shape, you can see the pitting that could lead to loss of compression, I'll have to remember this when she's running so I can test it.

 ... and exhaust. This took a while with them chucked lightly into a cordless drill and a couple different grits of Scothbrite.

When I got done with this I was shocked to discover that it was almost midnight so I had to call it a day. With a little luck by the weekend (two days) I'll be able to test ride.

Project box is done

None of the projects themselves are actually done of course, just the big box that they go in.

(love that iPhone ISO huh? My wife broke our good camera, once we've got that back I hope to replace these pics with some nice ones)

 The little toolbox under the workbench actually stayed where it's been for a while now, but I took a bunch of plastic junk off it and hung it from the bench. I tried really hard to keep anything permanent from touching the floor.

I love me some pegboard! 

I like to have most everything on the wall so that I remember what I've got and where it goes. The tool box just kind of ended up a catchall for the stuff that wouldn't hang.

Bike table 2 (The Revenge!)

First thing on the garage agenda was the flooring. Important decision, in the old shop at work we had a white epoxy floor which was awesome for cleanup, but in the winter time the floor in my garage was freezing cold and I knew that whatever heat I was able to pump into or keep in the garage was in direct competition with the floor, like having the refrigerator door open all the time. So I was hoping to find something that would offer a little more insulating ability. After a discussion over at DoTheTon about out door carpet and hanging out in a friends shop where house carpet leftovers were put down I decided to check this carpet stuff out. This is what I found at Lowes:

and how could I pass that up? Bought 360 sq ft:

Also made myself another table, this is all you'll need to do your own (plus a wheel chock, and two 2x4' sheets of pegboard if you want to add that)

2 eight foot 2x4s

2 full sheets of 3/4 ply (I used one good and one cheap)

4 casters

16 1/2x2" carriage bolts and nuts

Box of 1" wood screws

Box of 2" wood screws

 Cut the two sheets of ply down the middle lengthwise and rip 24" off the bottom of each

 Laminate the larger pieces together using wood glue and the 1" wood screws. Then trim the edges to flush with another pass through the table saw (trim the small 24" pieces to match) Mount the casters 3/4" in from the outside.

Making sure everything stays straight, assemble the inner part with the 2x4s cut down to 1.5" less than the over all length.

 Use the remaining 24" sections of 2x4 cut in half down the length to create guides for assembly on the top of the bottom piece. These will be used later to mount the pegboard.

...and slide it together. Here's where the 2" screws come in, lots of them.

Garage remodel in a box

It's for the baby!

I worked a lot on the garage these last few weeks. What I hope will be my father-daughter bonding space :)

Added more pegboard and carpeted the whole thing... and cleaned... a lot.

Rise up!

I've spent too much time on the floor. Taking inspiration from a thread over on DoTheTon I came up with a couple of work table designs.

I like this, but I can't weld, and I don't have any steel

Next was this

Because I could actually make it with 3/4 plywood, I know it looks like a coffin which is a little weird. It was a function of the shape of the bike, I wanted them to take up as little space as possible and be able to nestle... to again, take up less space. I'm working out of a two car garage.

As I started to cut the wood for the coffin one it ended up being square because, that's just so much easier to do with our table saw. Might even be more stable in the end.

contact cement... too much contact cement

you never have enough clamps

These will form the top and bottom surfaces, I used too muct contact cement for it to dry in the 24 hours that I was able to give it, so I had to re-enforce each with 38, inch and a quarter screws.

Setting the carriage bolts for the casters. I really want to get leveling casters but that wasn't in the immediate budget, so these cheapie non locking 300 pounders will have to do for now.

Two sheets of 3/4 ply and two 6 foot 2x4s. All the strength will be along the centerline where it's needed most. This is one whole sheet less than my original design would have needed, much less waste, and you can directly access all the storage space, sweet!

Now I just need another, and I'm half way there because I've got a left over sheet of 3/4. I think I also want to add pegboard to the middle sections to hang small parts and parts bags.