A Million Things Run Through My Mind

This could be a random post, for the small bits of various things I've got going on. Or I could just focus on what all the pictures are about. Probably a touch of both. Halfway through edit of the opening paragraph: Make that the first four pictures, if you get tired of reading about my fabrication, scroll down for random.



I did the sketch at the top on Friday at work. It's for the vacuum bleed valve assembly I'm rigging up for Janice. The next picture shows it's current incarnation. You can see how I've welded the arm onto a shaft collar, and hooked it into the throttle linkage. For testing purposes, I used a little C clamp to hold it in place. Nice thing about the shaft collar set up, all you have to do to adjust the initial static position is loosen the allen bolt.



The next two pictures are of the action. I'm holding it at full throttle (full fuel??? Not really throttle on a diesel) and in the other one, it's at the idle position. Seems to work pretty good, for the most part. I'd like it to open a little bit slower, it tends to drop the vacuum signal rather suddenly, and I'd like it to open a little farther at the end, as it doesn't make it all the way to zero vacuum. Other than that, it works great. The position of the original valve is mounted on the injector pump on the side of the engine, with a teeter totter type linkage running it. Of course, the first thought was to keep the needle valve somewhere in that area, but I realized I'd have to do something to flip it around the opposite way, because the linkage would want to close rather than open it. If you look at my sketch, you may notice that I put the L pivot part backwards, where I'd be doing exactly that, too.



However, the modification that I've incorporated in the sketch is what it was about, the means to get it there is just in the details. I can vary the open-close speed ratio by going nearer or farther from the pivot. The idea I had was to put a simple spring loaded dump valve on a T into the same vacuum tube, and position it to where the linkage would activate it at the near full throttle position, dropping it to zero vacuum. It might just be crazy enough to work!!!

Indeed, I had planned to work on at least fabricating a more permanent mount for the needle valve today. We went down to Long Beach to visit with my parents and niece and nephew, as well as work on that. On the way, I dropped off Baby at a tint shop to have the windows re-done. Same place that did the tint on my dad's Studebaker not too long ago. We visited for a while, then all got in the pool (it may be the last time this year of 90°+ water for the year, even though we're in a bit of a nice Indian Summer right now) and the next thing I knew it was almost 4:30 and the tint shop closes at 5!!! My dad drove me back there and dropped me off. I could tell the guy wasn't done, and the proprietor told me it'd be another 20 minutes. Turned out to be about three times that long. I wasn't amused, but the guy knocked a lousy three dollars off the price as I was peeling off my cash. Ironically, that took it to exactly the same amount as I'd gotten for the scrapping of the Storm!!!

Needless to say, by the time I was back from there, there was no time to do any actual work on Janice. At least I got a few pictures to help me envision the mounts and assembly.

The expansion of the bins is nearing completion. They've got an expansion crew moving stuff into the third level of the red bins, and they've got numbers to the extended rows on the other floors. The old numbers were just white letters applied to the ends of the rows, but these are full circles with black numbers on a white background. I rather like them better!!! Wonder if I could get a couple like this to slap on Baby???

One of the stock keepers saw me doing the sketch, and I had to explain it to him. He looks at me and said, "You're one of those guys who looks like a big dummy, but you're really smart, huh???" One of the other fillers in earshot laughed, and I said that was a rather backhanded compliment. Next time I saw him, I told him, "I'm an electro-mechanical genius, thank you very much!!!" The whole thing was rather amusing.

Now who will take over the salad dressing empire???

A shot from the Las Vegas area at Legoland, the Treasure Island pirate ship battle. Hey, that's right!!! We're supposed to sing about pirate-y things!!!

There's a new guy in the bins who looks quite a bit like Odd Thomas. Can't remember his name, but it's neither Odd nor Thomas. I don't think the lingering dead visit him, either, but if they did I don't suppose that's the kind of thing you'd go telling people. I could picture another Odd Thomas novel set in the bins.

As I was driving into work on Friday, the neighbor at the bottom of the hill was coming out of his garage. The streets are quite narrow, so I had to wait. As I did, I saw a young lady with a backpack on walking down the street, past and beyond us. As we proceeded down the hill, coming around a bend in the road his car was drawing up even with her, and at that instant she was startled. At first I thought it was from the car passing her, but as I rounded the corner I saw what she had seen, a dead raccoon with its mouth open and feet up. Looked almost taxidermied.



I happened on this photo shopped image of Sarah this evening. Even though I know its not real, I rather like it!!!

I loaned Odd Thomas to my mom. She's almost done with it, and likes it so far. Now I'm going to have to dig out the next one!!!

And I never hoist the mainstay and I never swab the poop deck, and I never veer to starboard 'cuz I never sail at all, and I've never walked the gang plank and I've never owned a parrot, and I've never been to Boston in the fall.