1960 Onan 305 CCK Quit Running - Hmm

So my fairly-new-to-me propane-fueled 3.5kw Onan CCK was purring along nicely last week when I was test running it for fun. All of a sudden it just up and died after about 20 minutes of run time. I pulled the spark plugs, which revealed there was no spark. Where do I start looking?

1953 Kohler L600 Propane Powered 3.5KW Generator - Various Projects

I've been working on my new-to-me Kohler L600-powered 3.5Kw generator. It is both hand-crank start and electric start. I much prefer hand cranking because it is just that much more satisfying to me to hand-crank an old engine to life. Only problem was, I couldn't get it to start by hand on propane unless I used a starting aid. That wouldn't do. Nope, not at all.

Fortunately I ran across a photo of a propane mixer on a guy's generator that is the same as mine. Well, almost the same. These next two photos are of a piece from his propane mixer and the same piece out of my mixer:

How Many Generators Is Too Many..... Oh, Wait.

I guess I already titled a blog post with those "How Many" words. But wait, there's more, as the TV commercial says. Yes, since that posting, I've acquired two, yes two, more generators. Another green Onan and a blue Kohler.

1969 Cub Cadet Model 105 Hydrostatic Drive Garden Tractor - Part 2

Grab a warm cup of cocoa, sit down in your favorite chair, pull a warm blanket over yourself, and get comfortable. This may take a while.

I had no idea it would be so difficult to get a small engine crankshaft reground. I took my crankshaft to the local NAPA machine shop, the only place locally that does this sort of thing, and left in their capable hands.....

Current Transformers In Parallel - Lister Generator

My Lister/Lima generator has the two usual 120-volt legs to create its 240 volts. The power meter I bought came with one current transformer, so I could only read one leg through the meter. Here is a photo of the meter:

Old Hobbies Die Hard - Pfaff 1212 Garage Sale Find

I thought I was doing pretty well in keeping my sewing machine purchases pretty much non-existent lately, now that I'd cleaned out the basement of 100-something sewing machines. Alas, a garage sale did me in. The sticky note on the sewing machine said, "Needs Service $15." I'm a sucker for a good deal, and even more of a sucker for a good deal that needs some tinkering.

 

1969 Cub Cadet Model 105 Hydrostatic Drive Garden Tractor - Part 1

I purchased this 1969 Cub Cadet garden tractor in 2011 from a good friend who had purchased it used in 1972. They put it to good use up until the time I got it. It was garage-kept throughout their ownership, so it was in fairly good overall condition, including original paint on the hood and most of the body/frame. The seat also looks like it is original to the tractor. A rear-mounted Model 1 rototiller came with the package. The seller was in her late 60's when she finally decided to part with her baby.

How Many Generators Is Too Many?

When I bought my big diesel generator last month (click here), I had no idea what it would start. I have a Generac 5000 watt generator that I'd use during power outages, as it was 120/240 volt, but I also had buried in the depths of my garage two ancient Onan generators of the 120 volt variety. These old generators worked but they weren't powerful enough to run the things in the house, thus the Generac (and more recently, the diesel Lister). Once I started tinkering with the Lister, it got me thinking more about the old Onans, so a few days ago I un-buried them, dragged them out of their cozy hole, and hoped they still ran. Both generators are rated at 2500 watts.

Here's one:

Lister Generator Fuel Dipstick

The fuel tank on my Lister generator has a fuel gauge sender but no gauge is present on the generator. Turning to that age-old standby, the dipstick, I decided I'd make one out of a steel rod. A rusty steel rod to be more precise.

Lister Generator - Making A Camshaft Extension Safety Guard and Repairing The Air Cleaner Stud

The old Lister workshop manual I found online showed a guard for the camshaft extension that pokes out the front of the engine. I thought that was a very good piece of gear to be at the top of my list of things to do to this generator. Here's the finished product:

Lister Generator - New Electrics

When I got this old Lister generator, it was wired for 3-phase, and it didn't have much in the way of overload protection. The previous owner said the generator came off a boat, and I'm thinking it was a commercial vessel of some sort, as the generator is quite loud. The outlets on it were also on the sketchy side.

Lister Generator Hand-Start Crank Handle

It didn't take long for me to decide to attempt to make a starting handle for my new generator. I looked online and saw that the handles are still being sold in the UK, where Lister engines were originally manufactured. It would probably be $60 or $70 to have one shipped to my door so I figured it wouldn't be too terribly difficult to make a handle. And, bingo, here's a photo of the finished product:

Lister ST3A Diesel Generator

I picked up a new toy. Most folks probably wouldn't consider it a toy, but to me it's something to play with. Ok, maybe "tinker with" is more accurate than "play with". The new acquisition is a 15KVA/12KW 3-phase diesel generator. The engine is a Lister 3-cylinder air-cooled direct-injected diesel of about 21 horsepower at 1800 RPM.

Shoe Mender / Leather Stitching Machine

Several days ago someone who's channel on Youtube I'm subscribed to posted a video of a leather stitching machine he bought for $115. If you're interested in watching the video, here is a link (Chris Zeppieri of Make Everything):
Leather Stitching Machine

Intrigued, I went on Amazon and started doing a bit of research into these interesting machines. Well what do you know, there they are, with many different names and prices. I happened to find one for $99 plus a 5% discount, totaling $102 and change including tax (free shipping). After a week or so of patiently waiting, it arrived today on the UPS truck. Below is a photo after I assembled the contraption.

1966 Barracuda Clutch Z-Bar Installation

Continuing with the Z-bar refurbishment, I purchased some new bushings, clips and seals for the Z-bar from Brewer's (seals aren't in the photo), a company that specializes in MoPar manual transmissions. The parts were about $40 shipped to my PO box.

1966 Barracuda Clutch Z-Bar Repair

I just couldn't seem to get the clutch in my Barracuda adjusted right. I'd push the clutch pedal to the floor and there was still a little resistance in the shifter handle when shifting into gear, which meant to me that the clutch wasn't releasing fully. It was almost there but not quite. And I had the adjusting rod to the point that the throwout bearing was just clear of the pressure plate fingers when the clutch pedal was all the way released. Another issue was when I released the clutch, there sometimes would be quite the shudder. Something just wasn't right. So I delved into the problem, and found that the Z-bar had a lot of play in it. And it had been repaired at some point in its past.

More PETG Printer Settings

Something doesn't look right in this photo. I just can't put my finger on it.....

3D Printing With PETG

When I bought my 3D printer I knew I wanted to print with something more durable and heat-resistant than PLA. PETG was the obvious choice, as that was what many folks on the internet said was becoming the new PLA. One very real downside with PETG though was the fact that it was a lot more finicky to print with. The first photo below shows how a skirt came out, not sticking to the bed at all.

The next photo shows the globby infill.

Can You Say, "Layer Shifting"?

Yeah, I'd never heard the term before either. Apparently it's a thing with 3D printers.

My Very Own 3D Printer - WooHoo!

My dear wife got me a 3D printer for Christmas. She let me pick out what I wanted, and I went with a Creality CR-10S Pro. Here's my first try at making something, some soft jaws for my Columbian 603 vise:

1994 E350 Club Van PCU Fix

Our church van's engine recently started missing occasionally, so I delved into the problem to see what I could find out. It's a 1994 van with the 5.8L (351 cu-in) engine, and has only 95,000 miles on it. First thing I noticed was that the Check Engine light wasn't on, which means the van didn't know there was a problem. Hmm. So on to the internet. One thing I noticed when researching was that it was a fairly common problem. People would replace a myriad of parts, only to have the issue persist. Among the parts people would replace would be spark plugs and wires, cap, rotor, coil, distributor, Ignition Control Module, fuel pump, fuel filter, along with vacuum leak checks, fuel injector cleaning, and so on. Wow. I wasn't about to go down all those rabbit holes. Well OK, so I did replace the cap and rotor, but they were well pitted and corroded anyway, so it was a good idea. Anyway, where to start? Not much room under that hood, is there.

Angle Grinder Flap Disc Modification

I've got an old 4-1/2 inch angle grinder from Harbor Freight that just keeps on chugging away. It has a 5/8-inch arbor and most discs these days seem to be made for a 7/8-inch arbor. Fortunately it should be an easy fix to get discs with a larger hole to work with my grinder. I figure I'll just put a 7/8" diameter shoulder on the round nut to hold the larger-holed discs, and just flip the nut over to use smaller-holed discs.

Sheldon 11-Inch Lathe Reversing Tumbler Repair - Again - Arg!

Sigh. Sometimes old machinery is a bit of a bother. Take for instance my Sheldon 11-inch metal lathe from 1941. I got it a year ago and the lead screw reversing tumbler casting was broken. It had been repaired previously any number of times but was broken again by the time I bought it. I fixed it shortly after I got it but noticed when the left quick-change gear selector was in position B, the gearbox would lock up tight. I looked into the issue a few weeks ago and found what the problem was. A pin inside the gearbox was too long, which would contact a gear when the pin came rotating around. I didn't want to pull the gearbox off so I tried to reach in with a cold chisel and knock off the end of the pin. I was somewhat successful, or so I thought. I rotated things by hand and the problem seemed to disappear. I put the lathe in gear, turned it on, and it seemed to run fine too. Shut it off, turn it on, shut it off, turn it on, shut it off. Cool, it's working. Turn it on again and whang! The braze broke. Again. Sigh.

1966 Barracuda Sun Visor Repair

The preferred fix for a sun visor that has lost its stitching is generally not to drill holes in the thing and use rivets. Someone previously decided to do just that though. And it didn't hold up all that well to boot.

Dash Circuit Board Pin Repair - Barracuda

A few nights ago I was driving my 1966 Barracuda and decided it was time to fix the wiper motor issue, and it was also then that I happened to notice a couple dash lights weren't working. Then my high-beam indicator light went out. I tapped on the instrument cluster and the dash and high beam indicator lights all came back on. So since I had the dash out of the car to work on the wiper motor, I also did some detective work to fix the dash lights. Here's what I found:

Sluggish Windshield Wiper Motor Repair - Barracuda

Living in Washington State comes with certain things deemed necessities that may be considered optional in some states. Windshield wipers come to mind. Yes, I know wipers are mandatory equipment in all states but if you lived in SoCal for instance, you could probably get by most of the year without needing them. Not here. We may need 'em any month of the year.

So here I am, driving the Plymouth Barracuda home the day I bought it from my brother earlier this year and it starts raining lightly. I try the wipers and they swipe up, then stop. Hmmm. My brother was right, the wipers do need some attention. So a couple days ago I pulled the dash out of the car and removed the wiper motor to see what's up.

Farewell To Another 40-some Sewing Machines

Today was a big day. Forty-plus sewing machines left the building. The new owners had to make two trips to get them all hauled off in their minivan.

AMMCO (Not AAMCO) Metal Shaper - Reunited

When my mother-in-law decided to clean up her basement 30 years ago, she had a few metal working machines there that her late husband had acquired during his all-too-short years on this earth. Among them was this AMMCO (two "M"s) 7" shaper, circa early 1940's. (For those that may not know, AAMCO (two "A"s) is a transmission rebuilding company but I've seen people refer to AMMCO shapers as AAMCO.)

Vises........ Vices? No, definitely Vises.

(2018) One of the definitions of "vice" (with a "c") in the Oxford English Dictionary, and probably the one that most folks associate with a hoard of items, is this: "a bad habit." In a lighthearted vein, a lot of guys (and gals) have 'vices' in which they collect things. I am one of those guys. Take my sewing machines. Please. (ha ha) Seriously though, I have way too many sewing machines. A lot of people would say I have a bad habit of buying old, decrepit sewing machines. It's one of my vices. I am trying to thin the herd though, and have made progress, and most importantly I haven't purchases a sewing machine in a very long time. Another possible vice is collecting various types of tools, say, vises (with an "s"). Prior to two years ago, I had but one vise, a fairly inexpensive Alltrade "Professional" (shown below), that I bought around 1990 I'm guessing. Rugged, Chinese import no doubt, and heavy enough to take a beating (although in 2022 I snapped a vise jaw insert in two and had to weld it together).

Ten Sewing Machines Take A Trip South

For a second time, I got rid of a passel of sewing machines. Maybe ten isn't so much a passel as a small group, considering the passel of 42 I got rid of previously, and considering I have a passel of machines remaining.

The ad showed a number of machines waiting patiently to be purchased by some as-yet unknown sewing machine aficionado. I'd priced each machine separately but then put a better price if someone wanted to take them all. Well, the nice person that showed up from Olympia didn't want many of the ones I'd pulled out but I did tell this person that I had more I wanted to get rid of. We rummaged through my stash and came up with ten nice machines.

1966 Barracuda Inland Shifter Rebuild

Those familiar with mid-Sixties Mopars will know that in 1966 Chrysler made a giant step backwards with their 4-speed cars. Prior to 1966 Ma Mopar had been using Hurst shifters on their A-833 4-speed cars. In 1966 though, they changed to a shifter made by Inland. The one nice feature of the Inland shifter was that it had a reverse lockout "T" handle, which is pretty cool.

The shifter in my car was woefully out of adjustment and a bit sloppy, but the main issue was that when pulling the shifter to the left to engage 1st or 2nd gear, the shifter would partially enter the reverse gate and lock out 1st/2nd gear engagement until the shifter handle was moved to the right slightly. This process got old quickly so I removed the shifter from the car and disassembled it to see what the issue was.

1966 Barracuda 8-3/4" Differential Adjustment

My Barracuda had a strange rubbing noise coming from the differential when I drove it home the day I bought the car. I wondered if one of the tires was low and causing the Sure Grip to make noise. Nope, wasn't it. I then checked the axles for end play. That wasn't it either. I checked the axles for excessive run-out on the lathe (the photo below shows measuring in the middle of the axle but I checked bearing and spline ends too). Still not the problem.

1966 Barracuda Small Door Panel Repair

An unwanted guest made its way into my Barracuda prior to me purchasing the car. The guest was brash enough to chew a small hole into one of the door panels.

1966 Barracuda Door Panel and Seat Back Color Change

The interior of my "new" Barracuda is quite green. The original color was a light green/gold color that Plymouth called Citron Gold. Somewhere along the way the previous owner put in new seat covers and floor carpet. The seat panels are a light green color velour but the seat backs, console, door panels, armrests, and carpet were finished in a very dark shiny green. Here's a shot of the green door panel. I'd painted the armrest earlier just to test to see how it looked.

1966 Barracuda Driver's Side Vent Repair

The vents in these older A-body cars leave a little to be desired in terms of aesthetics. They are a simple door with a latch, and you reach under the dash and rotate the latch then pull the door open. My Sport Fury on the other hand has tastefully-done small chrome-handled cable pulls right under the steering wheel that you pull to open, and both can be opened from the drivers seat.

Back to the 'Cuda's vents though. The driver's side vent door was broken off and the opening had been taped up with duct tape. When I finally pulled it out, I noticed someone had also stuffed burlap into the hole to help keep drafts down.

Out With The Old - In With The...... Old? 1966 Plymouth Barracuda

I thought I came up with a pretty clever title. I don't want to look on the ol' Interweb to see how prevalent it is. I want to think I'm just that clever to make up something like that. Um, yeah...

Anyhoo, I've written a bit about my factory stock 1966 Plymouth Sport Fury with its 325-horsepower high-compression 383 V-8, AFB 4-barrel carburetor, and 4-speed manual transmission. This photo was taken last week at a county park on Indian Island, WA.

Refreshing The Sport Fury Distributor

The distributor that came in my Sport Fury's 383 worked well but the vacuum advance diaphragm was toast. I happened to get another 383 distributor in with some parts I bought, and its vacuum advance worked, so I just swapped the two distributors a couple years ago. The distributor worked OK but ran rough at light throttle, and when getting into the secondaries of the carburetor, the engine didn't like it and would hesitate and ping, even with the initial timing set to a very meager 4 degrees BTDC. Hmm, what to do.

Today I decided to clean up the original distributor and just put the good vacuum advance canister on the original distributor. I would buy a new vacuum advance canister if I could find one but no one seems to sell just the canister at a reasonable cost.
(update - Standard Motor Products VC187 (approx $20) may work, and I'm assuming it is what comes on remanufactured distributors, but I believe it is designed for a 1970's Mopar B/RB engine)

The mechanical advance plate in the original distributor (below) has a very small "8" stamped into it by the upper slot, meaning it provides 8 degrees of distributor timing advance. Since the distributor turns 1/2 the speed of the engine, an 8-degree plate provides 16 degrees of mechanical engine timing.

Converting my Lincoln Weldpak 100 Wire-Feed Welder to MIG

I don't remember when I bought my Lincoln wire feed welder but it was many years ago, and I bought it used. For all these years I've had it, it's been a nice upgrade from my 45-year-old Sears Craftsman buzz box stick welder.

As nice as my wire-feed welder is, it has come time to upgrade it to MIG. I've had the idea to do the update for many years but finally decided to bite the bullet. There are many videos online on how to purchase the parts necessary, or you can just buy the Lincoln kit for $188 at Home Depot. I was able to purchase the parts for $60. The HD kit comes with a .025/.030 liner and a 2lb roll of welding wire, so it has a couple more things than what I bought, but I intend to buy a 10lb roll of .030 wire, and I'm not swapping out the .035 liner in my welder, as I heard I can use my liner with .030 wire. I also got 10 .030 tips and two nozzles, whereas the HD kit only comes with two tips and one nozzle. All in all, I think it's a lot better choice to buy the parts individually.

Here are the parts I bought:

Champion Porta Champ Air Compressor - Head Gasket Problem

My detached garage needed an air compressor. I could have purchased a new one but for someone such as myself, older is usually better when it comes to tools. This Champion air compressor showed up on the local Craigslist and I was able to pick it up for $50. I wasn't willing to pay more because it didn't have a hose or regulator (or safety relief valve for that matter), so it was in need of some TLC. Right up my alley.

New Shift Knob for the 1966 Sport Fury

Yesterday I was helping my brother get his 1966 Barracuda Formula S (273, 4-speed - woohoo!) running after he'd done a lot of work to it. I noticed he made a shift knob from a red billiard ball for the factory Inland shifter in his car. He had several more billiard balls so he gave me one so I could make my own shift knob since I have an Inland shifter also.

Wilton Model 656 6" Vise

My wife and I were staying at a "Boondockers Welcome" site in our camper this past week. The host, Jack, is also a metalworker who makes a wide assortment of yard art items. He and I were talking about his new-to-him vise to replace the one he'd been using for many years. Here's a photo of the old vise:

Blast From The Past - Part II

Blast From The Past Part II, this time from 2005.

Fabricating A Display or Exhibition Back For My Vintage Omega Seamaster 30

Lagun Table Leg For The Bigfoot Camper

Many truck campers have a rudimentary dinette table mount, usually a metal tube that inserts into a floor mount, and into a corresponding mount on the underside of the table. Ours was no different. A year or so ago I replaced the original table with this egg-shaped one that took up less space and used only one of the two legs from the original larger table. It was an improvement in space optimization but still was lacking somehow.

Blast From The Past - Part I

I ran across several web pages I'd done back in the 1999 to early 2000's time frame, long before I ever thought about having a blog site (almost at the inception of the internet.... OK, maybe not). Reading through the pages, I thought it would be fun to reproduce some of them on this blog before they got lost to oblivion. So I'm calling these pages Blast From The Past. Back then my main hobby was wrist watches. My grandfather was a watch repairman, so I guess it was only natural that I had more than a passing interest in mechanical watches.

Back then I was hosting my pages on a free website server (freeservers.com) but haven't done anything to the pages for close to 15 years. I am actually surprised they are still out there in the ether. This first Blast post discusses how others (like-minded folks on Watchnet.com and Timezone.com that I frequented back then) could make display backs as I'd done for a few of my watches. I'd purchased a Harbor Freight 7x10 mini lathe in part to do the work. I do still have the lathe but don't know if I could do the same type of delicate work now...

The photos from back then are nothing to write home about but they hopefully get the point across. So without further ado, following is a web post I created in 2003.

How To Make A Display or Exhibition Back For Your Vintage Watch

Photos, scans and text Copyright 2003

New Seat Covers for the Plymouth Sport Fury - Part II

I didn't intend on making a second blog entry for the seats but as I was recovering the rear seat, I thought of a few things I'd like to mention. First off, the tools I found most helpful in removing the old hog rings are shown here (L to R: nippers, needle nose pliers, side cutters, awl):

New Seat Covers for the Plymouth Sport Fury - Part I

My dear wife bought me seat covers for my car quite a while back. Like two years ago. I don't really know why it's taken so long to get them installed, but now that I've started the process... let's just say it is a workout. Now I know what the guy at work meant when he said installing seat covers is difficult (btw, hi Jason Huff if you happen to read this).

Here is the first seat finished and back in the car: