Sometimes there's not too much reason

Well, more like excuses.

I spent the afternoon yesterday playing with my remaining air compressors. I have now got them set up so the working compressor head which is only rated at about 150W pumps into about 60L of storage. Once I get the un-seized compressor head wired up and working I will also be able to pump into that 60L of storage with a 2.5HP compressor as well.

This is where I started after picking up the parts I thought I would need for setting this all up. The little blue GMC compressor works and I have been using it for running the oil burners and such that I have been experimenting with. The lighter blue compressor is one of the ones I got from the Junktion and doesn't currently work. It has now on/off regulator, no plug and the starting capacitor is not connected. All I am using this one for at the moment is an extra reciever so the little compressor doesn't need to cycle as often.

Hmmm, looks like I guessed the wrong size. Ahh well. Trip 2 of the day to the hardware store.

Did I get the right part? No... Bugger, third time lucky?

Finally. It felt like a bit of an ordeal just trying to get these adapters. Perhaps I need to start planning these things out a little more.

But this makes it all worth while. I now have a proper oil filled gauge and it is nice to read.
One trick with these gauges is they have an equalzing port on the top of them to ensure they are accurate. However these are blocked off during transport so the oil doesn't run out and get lost. These need to be opened up before the gauge can be considered accurate. This one you have to cut the nipple off the top of the plug in the port.

Here we are all working now. I did a leak test of the whole system and it seems to hold pressure plenty reasonably so overall I am quite happy with this arrangement.

Cheers,
Rex

On with it's head, then off again. And a return to normal viewing

So I haven't posted for a while, mostly because I have started to use a camera and have since lost all of the photos.

So the long and the short of it is, that I got the head back on, the engine running and everything good; even booked in for rego. Then the welch plug in the back of the head that I hadn't seen while it was off began to leak. Badly. Eventually I managed to not get it out with everything in place so I ended up taking everything off again including the head. With the head off it took all of around 10 minutes to remove and then install a new welch plug. With everything back on I got it started, no leaks. Phew.

From there I got it registered, drove it for a few weeks, took it to Sydney. Took the old oil that I'd put into it out and replaced it with fresh stuff. and gave it a good clean inside, still needs one outside though.

After Driving it for a while I noticed a strange noise from the front end while in 4wd mode. Solution 1, change the oil in the front diff and check what it loos like inside. No dice. Next, start researching online. One option seemed to be that it was "Angry Sparrows" or a squeak from something potentially worn in the front drive shaft. So off with that. It turned out to be a piece of cake, just 8 bolts to remove. Upon inspection I discovered the the apparent reason for the noise was a lack of grease in the ball in the middle of the double carden (CV) joint near the transfer case.

After pulling the double carden apart and damaging(?) one of the universal joints grease was worked into the ball because a replacement kit was around $100 which is somewhat more than I was willing to spend. Everything got re-assembled and then a short drive was taken. Silence, no more angry birds for me.

With that fixed I started to think about the trip I am leaving on tonight and the fact I will be towing a trailer ~1000km each way in an automatic of less than ideal status. I looked into a transmission oil cooler and discovered that there was already one installed. I also wanted to be able to measure the oil temperature so I installed a SAAS oil temp. gauge as a transmission temperature gauge. The install was very straight forward and didn't take too long except for the cutting of the hard line. That had to be done by hand with a hacksaw blade as we had nothing else that would fit in the small space.

So from here I have a 3 new projects all of which are exciting and I am looking forward to all of them. One involves a road trip this weekend, one involves rainwater and the last involves my wreck, EFI, turbos and someone else's car. All will be exciting and lots of learning will be done in all 3 new projects.

Until next time, Cheers.
Rex