Another item that won't make money; update.

Being that is is very windy and the temp. is in the high teens I was looking for something to do. I've sunk so low as to doing crossword puzzles. Not finding anything of value I was staring at the bleeder screw I modified. I was imagining how the vacuum flow went and noticed that the original bleed hole, if left open, would interfere with the way it operated. The hole is still open to the vacuum and therefore would still pull air through the threads. I cleaned the hole and fluxed it and closed it off with solder. Now there won't be any air getting into the fluid stream except what is in the system.
  The parts for the electric car came in Friday afternoon and Monday we are looking at another snow storm and Tuesday I have a dental appointment in the morning so I won't get to see  them until Tues. afternoon at the earliest.

Another item that won't make money.

I was able to get out of the yard today after removing snow for two days. I headed for NAPA to get some paint and a part to help with the brake bleeding on the El Camino. After drilling through the screw I soldered a brass tube into the hole. Now I can install the new screw with a cheap syringe attached and vacuum bleed the brakes without air leaking by the screw threads. If the temp ever gets up into the 30's I'll give it a try. Total cost is under $5.00.
 The Yankee Flyers have started a facebook page. It's a work in progress so far.
 The parts we need to finish the electric car are in transit and will be delivered as soon as they can because of the storm. Now the fine tuning begins.

The bald guy is here. Made in Syria L.L. Bean coat and all.

The Weather Channel has it's minions in position for "the blizzard of the century". This will be the first blizzard so it seems it will have to be the blizzard of the century until the next one. Assholes.  The power company has issued warnings about outages. I fueled up the generator and positioned it for use. It's reported that someone bought a Wal-Mart out of bread and put it up for sale on Craig's List for $10.00 a loaf. We have light to moderate snow falling as of 1030am. Time to make cinnamon bread.
  I had another copy of the template sheet for the Shark 560 made up at the school today. You never know.
  I ran the El Camino out of the garage yesterday and washed the dust off it. The brakes worked well and are a little spongy but that's to be expected as I haven't bled the system yet. The other/original booster had several ounces of brake fluid in it and must have been leaking vacuum also. I had to lean out the idle circuit a bit.

Pedal at last.

First off I've been trying to link to the latest flight of the Shark 560. I'll try again here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z2V-KrZdGc
 Now back to the pedal. I got the new booster/master cylinder installed and the free play of the brake pedal set. Then it was off to bleed the master cylinder. I made the mistake of reading the directions and had to go get a part off the old unit first. Then I installed the plugs like it said and bench bled the cylinder. Didn't work. I'm used to putting tubes on the outlets and piping them back into the reservoirs then pumping the plunger. Anyway I kept getting the same bubble of air through the intake hole with the plugs installed and through the pipe with the tubes installed. A leak. I removed the plugs and applied some kind of sealer to the threads and everything worked. I installed the master cylinder and hooked up the lines and ran some fluid through the front caliper and then tried the pedal and it's working. I should bleed the brakes next.

Third time is the charm, I hope.

The brakes on the El Camino have concerned me for a while. I changed one master cylinder because it was leaking. I changed that one because it had a vacuum leak through a hole that wasn't supposed to have vacuum. Then that cylinder failed suddenly in early November. The next one wouldn't give enough pedal to suit me. I looked up everything I could find on the master cylinder and found that I had a part with a 1 inch bore and the one I needed has a 1 and 1/8 inch bore. That one is for the front disc brake car. The only problem is that the push rod from the pedal through the booster on the car is long requiring a deep hold in the master cylinder. The right cylinder has a shallow hole and would never fit on the booster in the car. After finding out about the large diameter bore I figured the only way to remedy this is to get a booster/master cylinder unit. I found on on line and went to NAPA and ordered it. Big core charge so I removed the old unit and traded it in. 4 nuts to remove 1/8 turn at a time. The brake lines route behind the booster and are screwed to the booster mounting bracket near the nuts. The studs prevented me from removing that screw until the  nuts were backed off most of the way. The factory must have installed the unit before the fenders were installed. Anyway I got the new unit and will attempt to install it maybe tomorrow. I managed to get the master cylinder bench bled properly, I think. My grandmother would have been proud of me as I invented a few cuss words she didn't. She used all of hers on me so I know them all by heart.

It's still winter.

 I figured out a way to warm up the basement so I can paint. I bought a dryer heat diverter from Ace hardware. I plugs into the vent hose and has a flapper valve to direct the exhaust outside or let it go inside. It works fairly well. Hopefully I won't forget to re set the valve to outside when I'm done using it.
  I priced flex hose for the hot rod exhaust. The glass packs don't make that much noise so I'm going to try straight pipes. That will have to wait until the temp gets above freezing.
 I barely got a design for the Shark 560 and still nothing for the Gypsy. Now the electric car is skinned and will need some paint. The wheels and drive stuff is on order and if it comes in we will have everything needed to run the car, except the batteries.

New mufflers.

  The  Magnaflow glass pack mufflers came in the other day from Jeg's. The temp was high enough so I finished installing them on the hot rod. I expected more noise with the engine running but it's still fairly quiet. After a fashion the noise should increase. It's still better than the original mufflers.
 I started to cover the Shark 560 today. I switched the landing gear from side to side and bent a nose gear wire. The plane should be able to use taildragger or nose wheel just by moving the mains around. The design kinda reminds me of the Primary Force set up but it should be better with the larger stab/elev and wing. I figure total weight in the low 40 ounce range. It weighs 37.7 now bare. I'm still trying to figure the colors on the Gypsy.