First part on the motorcycle car is done

I have spent alot of time working on my motorcycle car lately, and have not had a chance to report. Here I am getting some pictures so I can get a handle on what the rough dimensions of my car will be.



bushings for the rear suspension in the making.



Here are the final rear suspension bushings. Eventually they will be welded into the chassis.



I made some updates to my chassis model. At this point I have a reasonable idea how I will capture the engine and rear suspension mounting points with the chassis.



Here I am making the rear suspension pivot pin. I rescued this metal bar from the Black Hole.



Here I am putting some 1/2-20 threads on the rear pivot pin.




Today this cat was pretty vocal about wanting to join the team.



I decided to give him a shot so he could showcase his skills. Unfortunately it turns out he was all talk. I told him he might be a better fit as a gopher killer on the farm.




Here I welded a nut on the end of the pivot pin so I can tighten it up.



This is the final rear suspension pivot pin. Part one down!



The final fit up of the rear suspension pivot pin and bushings. This went together very nicely. Next I am going to get to work on the chassis members that will capture the lower engine mounting points.

The plantation is planted

The plantation is in place and ready go grow - Something's going to happen.

Cradle Surgery

Last night I was going to go ahead, and get my motorcycle engine up on the cradle so I could see what I was dealing with in terms of size. Unfortunately, when I moved the cherry picker with the engine over to the cradle, there was no way I could get the engine in place without some gymnastics. The main reason for this, was that the legs of the cherry picker would not fit under the lower longitudinal beam that separates the upright beams on the cradle. I decided I was going to have to break down and do some modifications to the cradle. I decided the beast thing to do would be to remove the lower longitudinal beam on the cradle, and replace it with some rectangular tube placed higher up on the uprights so the cherry picker legs could slide right under it. I would also remove the two lower triangulation members, and I would flip them upside down so the would intercept the new rectangular tube longitudinal members.

At this point I was thankful for all the trips I took to the flea market buying tools.




This project took most of last night and a few hours tonight, but it is now done. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. The modified cradle also has improved torsional stiffness because before the torsional stiffness was only provided by the longitudinal channel member. The two rectangular tube sections display noticeably more torsional stiffness.




Once the cradle was put together I pulled out the cherry picker again and got the engine in place. The cradle seems to take the load no problem. That engine looks alot bigger when it is at working height.



Here you can see the engine, and the rear portion of an ATV I will use for the rear suspension. The legs of the cherry picker fit under there no problem. This is nice because now I should be able to align the hook of the cherry picker with the CG of my motorcycle car very safety and easily. I am glad I took the time to do this.

Maybe its a plant holder

I am getting closer to implementing my ideas from a previous post in steel. Here is my current product hanging from the garage door opener. This is mild steel that I cut and then formed using a tree stump and a piece of log. Then I MIG welded it all together. Originally I thought it might be a table but now I am thinking it could be a nice tool holder, or maybe even a chandelier. Time will tell. I am not done with it yet.

atomistic

I felt I needed some inspiration last weekend so I cut up my empty cereal box and started making these shapes. My hope is to implement some of these ideas in furniture or pinstriping. I did do some work on my truck and it is running nice, so it may be time to lay some lines down on it. First I need to come up with the right design though. I think this exercise might convince a muse to show up.



All these shapes are made up of combinations of this atom.

Building the cradle

I have been quite busy the last few weeks, but I decided I needed to make working on my motorcycle car a priority, so I went down to the Black Hole and bought this rolling steel frame to make a cradle to hold my car while I am building it. I had some 2"x1" rectangular tube that I would use to make the rolling cradle. This is me and my finished cradle.




At this point I had cut all the tube and started fitting it. The tube is attached to the rolling frame using 1/2-13 bolts. My hole hawg worked great for drilling those holes.




Getting the first longitudinal member welded in place.



I am now getting ready to weld the second longitudinal member in place.



Here is the finished product. Right now it is holding the swing arm from an ATV I bought at the flea market in San Diego for $15.00 I have the shock for it somewhere, but I'll have to look a little. I decided I would used this swing arm to try and speed up the initial assembly. I am glad to have this because everything should more or less be at working height at this point. I think it turned out pretty nice. Later I may add some more members to better triangulate it, but for now I am going to leave it as is until I see it is necessary. Hopefully next weekend I will be able to go get some more steel and start the chassis.

The Pizza Collaboration

One of the main reasons to have a farm is to eat it. All my herbs were starting to totally take over my table so I decided it was time to strike back. I asked my friend Tinh who likes to bake if she would be interested in taking part in a pizza collaboration. She agreed to be in charge of dough making. Here is the result.



Here is my farm pre-pizza. It is starting to get quite large.



These guys are about to become pesto sauce and tomato sauce.


Herbs


These herbs will soon be pesto sauce. Who needs pine nuts when you have sunflower seeds?



Tinh cutting up the chicken.




Here we took some tomatoes and boiled their skin off. Then we put it in the blender with basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, and Asian basil and made this tomatoe sauce. Here we are boiling the extra water off.


Tinh's first pizza crust - pretty good.


Attempt #1 - Pesto chicken pizza


Attempt #2 - Pepperoni and prosciutto pizza.



At this point we were starting to get better at making dough in pizza crusts.



This would later be two pizzas.



Attempt 3 or 4 (I can't remember) - This is an extra meaty pizza.



This is a gigantic calzone - its kind of experimental. This is what happened to attempt # 2 because I slid it off the pan wrong.



Here is everyone eating pizza!



Artisan - Round pizzas are for people with no imagination. (I think this is the third attempt) This meal put quite a dent in the farm, but that's ok. I just have more room to grow now. Makes me appreciate the herbs. I might make some pesto bread out of the remaining dough and pesto sauce.