Ol'fogasaurus black buggy

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Dry heat vs. more moisture in the air does make a difference .

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Its over 100° outside here in Western WA and Eastern WA is hotter.

Even the crows have shut up and are not flying around as are the bees and most other flying insects. No walkers and strollers, no outside parties or noises of people talking. The stores many miles around that sell portable Air-conditioners are empty of them and people who were slow to figure it out. Beaches on Puget Sound and the Ocean are full of people as are the lakes.

Oregon is even hotter from what I understand.

Lee

[chuckput]

Dry heat vs. more moisture in the air does make a difference .

Lee

When it is so hot and dry outside (that fabled desert dry heat) it literally sucks the moisture out of your eyeballs. Hot is hot!

[chuckput]

Stay cool, Lee!!

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I think we are just about through with it, one or two more days the weather guessers think. I went out to get the mail and the temp outside was over 101°. It does get that warm a bit later in the summer but the air right now is still full of moisture and so is the wind... a blast furnace for sure!

We have put cardboard on the inside of the windows in the house and have the temp air-conditioner set to max then backed up with several fans to redirect the cooler air through the house. It gets warm like this but usually a bit later as I said so there are new heat records being set now. We had to go over to my wife's special needs place this AM and do the same thing to her unit. Her inside temp went down from 100°+ to 80° in a very short time.

The guys in the normally hot areas, where there isn't as much moisture in the air most of the time, are having a hard time dealing with us'n woosies crying about it but it isn't what we deal with that much. Yeah, we do occasionally get temps up there but later in the year and for much shorter times. The weather guessers are thinking this might be a new norm due to several climate changes. Forest fires in both sides of the Cascade Mountains have become a big worry and that is where a lot of off-road riding is done. Add that to the cigarettes' butts being thrown out of car windows causing fires along the roads and highways.

Clonebug lives something like 80 miles north of us and is in the same weather situation we are in. Eastern WA where he says he vacation travels in is even hotter than it is here on the western side of the Cascade Mountain range that runs from Canada well into CA and they are concerned about the fire dangers.

Thanks for the 'put Chuck ( pun not intended) we are doing our best.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

According to the weather guessers it is currently 106° outside with the equivalent feel of 114°. The temp reading in the rear (east) of our house of the 104° with the west side of the house thermometer reading 125° (not in the sun), inside the house reading is 86°.

The temp on the coast now has dropped to 86° and it is looking like the cooler weather is coming in from the south. Glad to get this out of the way as soon as possible.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Finally, much cooler today... mid 80's.

I think one of the weather guessers said one of the coastal town had something like a 46° temperature drop yesterday. It's not over but not as hot as it was.

No garage time due to the temperature (just dropped down to 81°).

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Need some help. Years ago when I was working on the changing from the stock IRS trans to the 091 trans I was having problems putting the strap over the bell housing of the trans and connecting it to the flanges of solid mount and I may have bent one of the flanges. I don't want to re-bend it unless I am sure the one flange is bent. With the length of the mount even a small bend of the flange is going to move the top quite a bit.

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This shows one of the fuel tank mount that mounts off the solid trans mount flange. The arrow points to the length difference between the right side of the pan vs. the left side of the pan. The distance is ~ (a mathematical symbol for roughly) 1/2". Using a level this side's horizontal angle is close to the other side but it is measuring the vertical angle of the post is being very difficult with me as the tack welds are in the way.

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If someone has a pan that is open what I am trying to find out is if the two trans mount legs, measured from the pan flange, are the same distance. The body lift and other parts of what you see is giving me some access measurement problems; e.g., getting a constant fairly accurate measurement.

I think the distance of the mounts would be the same with either a swing axle or an IRS trans and all I really want to know is if the two mounts are the same length/distance from the flange on the pan. I think they are but I could also see a reason for them not being so.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I was finally able to get a good reading and the angle is 2° to 3° off meaning I did bend the flange for the cross strap on the solid trans mount. Now it is how to get the bend correct w/o creating other problems.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

When blue prints are drawing up (full size usually then reduced to blueprint size) there are tolerances given for both angle and dimensions. Bends are usually given a tolerance of a couple of degrees and the angles and radius(s) of the bend are usually checked via. a jig.

Since I did draw parts for a living I usually assume that they have been checked per the tolerances so I did not checked this as the design was elementary and it's use was also that way.

By using the tabs on the solid trans mount for things I needed I should have checked the angles better to ensure that how I wanted to use them and how they turned out to be both would work together.

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Also my putting a load on the one side using a bolt and the (supposedly) appropriate strap and then not fitting so I yarfed; e.g., over tightening the bolt, possibly bending the flange. Now I have to figure out how to re-bend the flange to 90°, if possible, without bending the flange straight face so my mounts wouldn't work .

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I also have cut the two end pieces that will tie the flanges and the rest of the mount together so they will carry the loads of the fuel tank and the sloshing around the liquid could do which can change the weight distribution. I will have to check the fitment again after some re-bending of the flange has been done.

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I am also going to add a couple of filler pieces to join the main part of the mount to the end pieces I am going to add.

Over design... maybe but I don't want to end up having it fail when I am a long ways from camp either. The mount's gauge is I think going to be OK but remember this is a bus trans with a 2.8 Ford V6 in it so some extra work is/was needed. The new part of the mount is in 3 pieces with the middle piece being a custom made spacer.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

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Well I found the problem and it was me!

This is the assy for the mount also showing the spacer that is in-between the flange on the trans mount and the mount for the tube (the assy is not adjusted to be square right now, just holding it in place so I don't loose anything). The two pieces shown in my last post will be welded to the mount shown above and the lower flange on the solid trans mount. The spacer will remain loose.

Apparently when I cut the square tube to length and checked it with a square I missed that the foot of the square tube was not cut square so I must have used one of my old worn squares so I guessed as it said everything was OK when it wasn't. Luckily I only tacked it in place so the clean up should either require squaring off the bottom of the tube or cutting a new one to the proper length and the top and bottom cuts BEING SQUARE!!!!

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I un-welded the post with air-tool grinders and it turned out that the bottom was cut square but there was a slight tip/gap in there. I have one 90° magnet that I have suspected as being slightly off but while the upright was off I cleaned everything up, tacked it back in place and it reads roughly/pretty much 90°. It did move the top back towards where the other upright location is but not exactly. It is looking like the tolerance of flange off the trans mount while within tolerance is off enough to cause the problem.

I did clamp things up tight and smacked the mount with a big hammer and got some angle back but I also have another problem come up with the new mount for the upright that is going to require some other tolerance work (one of the stiffeners is too close to the trans mount and stopping any more movement. Also I need to protect the flange itself so it doesn't get bent around the hole but the bend is to be located in the bend area where it should be (I hope this makes sense anyway). Back again to "cause and effect".

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Well... I got the flange bent to shape doing what I didn't want to do. I left the stack of the mount for the fuel tank all bolted tight together including the adapter flange, on the trans mount then using a vice grip type of plier I grabbed the whole stack with the pliers( upside down) with the nose of the plier against the underside of the stack of parts then carefully and slowly applied down pressure on the assy.

The vertical post then slid back to the upper piece of the mount and I am now waiting to see if there is going to be any movement by the trans mount's flange. Just went out to check on it and so far... so good. The reason for using the stack of material (thick material too) was to keep the flange tab from bending rather than staying straight and the bend ending up in the original bend itself (there is no imogie/smiles of wiping the sweat off one's forehead with the back of their hand and having a happy face ).

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I've been getting antsy about the fitting of the fuel tank on the mounts so today on a whim I removed the clamps (as I tacked anyway) and magnets and tacked the joints together. I didn't have enough scrap square stock to do the cross piece so I used a smaller piece of square tube and clamped it across. Joint joining pieces will be added when needed.

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The fuel tank should sit farther forward but for ease of putting the body on I set the tank towards the rear. I put bluing on the top of the square tube so I can mark the hole location.

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Not sure just how far forward the tank will sit as it has to center on the hole in the body the picture of which I have posted before. One other reasons for the tank sitting so far to the rear is the sides of the area of the body where the tank will sit tapers in and the forward area will be less than an inch per side as I remember.

Now to see if I can get the neighbor to help tomorrow to set the body in place assuming there being no rain anyway . Been hot here and the smoke fog being heavy but a heavy fog like situation was this AM... you walked outside and didn't feel the tiny drops of moisture but you got wet real fast. Maybe some more of the same or even some rain tomorrow.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Got the garage cleaned up or at least moved stuff around so I could get the pan outside and the body outside and, with the help of my neighbor across the street, we carefully put the body back on the pan. I did remove the fuel tank because of the closeness of the tank to the walls of the body in that area. It turned out to be a good idea for two reasons, the closeness is about a finger's width on both sides. Also I found out that with some care and a empty fuel tank (and no engine in place) I could wangle the tank in place.

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Two separate photos showing what the setup now looks like with the lower pix showing the mount on the trans adapter better. I also put the truss/kaffer bars in place and that was a learning episode to say the least. The angles of the mounts vs. the length of the tubes was very interesting trying (and accomplishing) by hand with the tank mount in place.

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This is a reach over and do the best you can pix but it gives some idea of how the tank is located.

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This shows the access cover over the tank.

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A redundant pix but it does show the truss/kaffer a bit better. To take a better pix requires going under the car and probably putting it on stands also .

Lee