Itinerant Air-Cooled Greetings From California
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 8:36 am
The Portland OR-to-Eureka CA traverse was actually a bit horrendous in the realm of gasoline, gasoline towel baths, gasoline filter shot cocktails, gasoline fumes, and several highway escapes barreling into little pull outs, gas stations, parking lots, maintenance yards, railroad access driveways, for filter cleanings. I have a bucket of filter disgorgements now, and I plan to experiment with combustible chemicals to see what is best at dissolving the particles at a modest rate.
Head temps were awful in the 95-102* heat. Since I promised history and science not to muck with the essential AFM adjustments until I had fully measured the air/fuel ratios with the RandyInMaine loaner LM-1, there were few options to help reduce the readings from the high of 437*, average of 410*.
I blamed the stupid ring terminal under the spark plug here in Weed CA:
That is Mount Shasta climbing at that ridiculous angle behind me along the railroad tracks. I pulled the #3 spark plug and yes, the terminal was ovalized and leaking.
"This spark plug well needs a notch," I said to myself. Stuffed a grease-impregnated paper towel into the vacant spark plug hole and stuck a router bit barely into the dremel collet and went to town on the cylinder head completely completely blind. I would pull the dremel out of the hole and look at the most recent excavation and try to remember the feel of the bumps and resistances to grinding and map them out in my mind,
"that is the fin to the left just up from the well wall"
"that is the slippery slope down from the cross groove"
The router had such a small grinding surface, that all of the above had to be revisited in waves as I ground down to flush with the plug seating surface. Two hours later, I had a groove for the ring terminal.
See the groove for the ring terminal? Me neither:
Since I forgot to bring my two hundred gallon air compressor, I used Brake Kleen aerosol to get the grinding dust cleared from the area. The spare ring terminal was so very carefully installed, the filter was cleaned, and I did a little house-keeping in the back of the car:
Hit the road to Redding, hopeful.
435* Oh well. Called RandyInMaine in Willow Creek.
"Hey RandyInMaine, can I extend your LM-1 harness before I get killed trying to read the display that doesn't quite reach between the front seats?"
"Sure, are you going to use a trailer light harness or something?"
"No. It will be individual wires." Seven of them, in fact:
Did the harness extension right about here in the 90* sunshine with a view of the cold Pacific shrouding Eureka way back there:
Got too hot, so I went down the hill to a turn-out. Saw this peeking out from the brush:
Way over on the other side of the turn-out where I went to take care of some Diet Coke-induced business, I spied this down the hill a bit:
The LM-1 now reaches the e brake handle and I can start plotting mixtures with the original factory settings, then hopefully save the engine from those readings. Checked the valve adjustments yesterday morning, they are all FINE. Will report back as data is generated. Will also report the unbelievable "incident" on CA-299 involving a twelve pack of Diet Coke . . . .
Meanwhile, an excavator ponders whether or not to eat itself:
Head temps were awful in the 95-102* heat. Since I promised history and science not to muck with the essential AFM adjustments until I had fully measured the air/fuel ratios with the RandyInMaine loaner LM-1, there were few options to help reduce the readings from the high of 437*, average of 410*.
I blamed the stupid ring terminal under the spark plug here in Weed CA:
That is Mount Shasta climbing at that ridiculous angle behind me along the railroad tracks. I pulled the #3 spark plug and yes, the terminal was ovalized and leaking.
"This spark plug well needs a notch," I said to myself. Stuffed a grease-impregnated paper towel into the vacant spark plug hole and stuck a router bit barely into the dremel collet and went to town on the cylinder head completely completely blind. I would pull the dremel out of the hole and look at the most recent excavation and try to remember the feel of the bumps and resistances to grinding and map them out in my mind,
"that is the fin to the left just up from the well wall"
"that is the slippery slope down from the cross groove"
The router had such a small grinding surface, that all of the above had to be revisited in waves as I ground down to flush with the plug seating surface. Two hours later, I had a groove for the ring terminal.
See the groove for the ring terminal? Me neither:
Since I forgot to bring my two hundred gallon air compressor, I used Brake Kleen aerosol to get the grinding dust cleared from the area. The spare ring terminal was so very carefully installed, the filter was cleaned, and I did a little house-keeping in the back of the car:
Hit the road to Redding, hopeful.
435* Oh well. Called RandyInMaine in Willow Creek.
"Hey RandyInMaine, can I extend your LM-1 harness before I get killed trying to read the display that doesn't quite reach between the front seats?"
"Sure, are you going to use a trailer light harness or something?"
"No. It will be individual wires." Seven of them, in fact:
Did the harness extension right about here in the 90* sunshine with a view of the cold Pacific shrouding Eureka way back there:
Got too hot, so I went down the hill to a turn-out. Saw this peeking out from the brush:
Way over on the other side of the turn-out where I went to take care of some Diet Coke-induced business, I spied this down the hill a bit:
The LM-1 now reaches the e brake handle and I can start plotting mixtures with the original factory settings, then hopefully save the engine from those readings. Checked the valve adjustments yesterday morning, they are all FINE. Will report back as data is generated. Will also report the unbelievable "incident" on CA-299 involving a twelve pack of Diet Coke . . . .
Meanwhile, an excavator ponders whether or not to eat itself: