Good Enough?

I'm not sure if it's everything it could be or not, but it seems to work!!! Here's the completion of the vacuum valve system I've rigged up for the Mercedes. A couple weekends ago I mounted the dump valve I'd mentioned, and had been planning on taking a couple of pictures to post here, but had left my camera out of the camera bag!!! As you can see, the dump valve switch came out SLICK!!! I realized that the throttle had a cam plate which has the perfect bump at the end of it to activate the switch if it's mounted correctly. It was a bit tricky to do, and took about three times as long as it should have. That same day I'd also made up a clamp to hold the bleed valve, and was planning to weld it to a plate to bolt onto the engine, but never made it that far.



Yesterday I went down there to finalize that portion. I couldn't find a good piece to weld it to, but at some point I realize that all I'd have to do would be to weld it to the throttle cable mount. I did that, and was fairly pleased with the results. That would be the valve connected to the double bent linkage. I am going to get some "exhaust mufflers" (little threaded air fittings with porous ends on them for pneumatic systems) for the open ports on the valves to keep them from sucking in debris, and possibly to smooth out the vacuum signal.



I liked the third shot here, the sun glinting off the valve in the afternoon sunlight made it appear golden. The function of everything seems to work well enough, but I still can't discern if it makes it into 4th gear at highway speeds. Some tweaking may still be in the future.



Here's one other thing I did, I made up a spring loaded bumper to help pop the hood open. I am planning on one for each side, but they keep sending me one with the wrong threads on it. On Friday at work, I went to take a look at the bin box containing them to see if there were several mixed material in there, but the forward location was absent. I looked it up, and it was "in transit", with a document pending. I'm suspecting that means that the ICG or checking is finally dealing with this situation. I guess better me than an actual paying customer. ANyway, even with only one rigged up, it cured all the hood opening difficulties I'd been having.

Now, for the fun stuff: Bought gas for Baby again, this time a little short of an empty tank. I've noticed that the gauge moves to only about 3/4 tank for the first 100 miles, is still a hair over half full at 200 miles, and drops quickly from there. This time I travelled 266.7 miles on 9.27 gallons, for an average of 28.77 MPG for this tank, the second lowest number I've had since I got it. I attribute this to my wife taking the boy to a doctor's appointment on mostly surface streets, and being caught in a couple of nasty traffic jams. Nice, however, is that this is the first tank I've ever bought for her that has been under $3 a gallon!!! Lifetime average of 29.47 MPG. Heck, I'd be perfectly happy if better than 28.5 every time was all I ever got!!! Once I've begun to drive Janice again, I'll have to repair the odometer to determine the mileage that she gets. I've found tutorials for doing this, and it looks rather easy, if not time consuming. I notice that diesel fuel is finally falling in line with reality, only ten cents a gallon more than regular gasoline. Good times!!!