Snack Break

Mmmm, cinnamon cheerios with fresh blueberries:



That is all

Hail

A big black cloud decided to dump hail on us at work for about 15 minutes. Temps dropped from 50 degrees to 38 degrees in 5 minutes.

Yamaha Brakes, and some Homebrew Sippin'

I spent a short time in the garage tonight, managing to mount up a front brake on the YJ1. Front brake handle, front cable, and a brake lever thingy:





Before that, our neighbor Doug brought over a sample of his Cream Ale, brewed for the upcoming Chico Homebrewers Contest. It was very yummy!


C'

Bridgestone Troubleshooting

I've had some issue with the Bridgestone lately, after it acted up on Sunday. It was extra strange, since it ran so good on Saturday. The problem was a bit strange, as it would get very rich with throttle, and eventually stop running. I could clean the plug, and it would fire right up again and idle fine. But as soon as I would give it some throttle, it would load up and stop again.

I quickly went through the carb and found nothing wrong, but gave it a good cleaning anyways. No fix to the problem. As it happens, I discovered I was running a NGK B8H spark plug. This is the plug listed in the Bridgestone service manual for racing, indicating it might be hard to start and foul easier. Of course it hasn't been fouling the last dozen times I've ridden it, so I'm not sure the wrong heat range of the plug was leading to the problem.

As luck would have it, NAPA actually had the correct NGK B7HS plug in stock. So after gapping it and installing it, the bike fired right up. And of course runs great now. Takes throttle, doesn't foul up, and shows no other signs of having this problem.

I'm going to grab another plug and put it in the small spares kit I'm going to keep on the bike.

For shits and grins, here is a pick of the old plug:


Doesn't look dead to me, but it sure wouldn't run!

C'

Homebrew: English Nut Brown

I brewed today, after bottling my Dark Wheat last night. Today's brew was a very basic brown, without a lot of frills. Recipe is listed at the bottom, after the shot of the krausen beginning to form in the fermenter after a few hours:



Recipe Characteristics
Recipe Bitterness 24 IBU
Alcohol by Volume 4.8%
Recipe Color 26° SRM
Alcohol by Weight 3.7%

Ingredients
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (US) Grain Mashed
1.00 lb Crystal 90L Grain Mashed
0.75 lb MrB. Booster Sugar Other
1.21 lb MrB. Englishman's Nut-Brown Ale Extract

0.50 oz Cascade Whole 15 minutes
0.25 oz Centennial Whole 35 minutes

1.00 unit Irish Moss Fining 1/2 tsp
2.00 unit Mr. Beer Dry Ale Yeast Yeast Temperature Range: 68°-76° F 2.0 GRAMS

Homebrew: Hopster

Sean will be proud of me, a homebrew without fruit, honey, or wood. Just a good old Pale Ale tilted toward flavor and aroma hops, with a toned down bitterness. Based off a Mr. Beer Canadian Draft extract, with a partial grain mash of two-row and 20L Crystal.

And surprisingly, it worked! Lots of fresh hop aroma comes off the stiff peaky foam. Flavor is also very hoppy, with a real smoothness throughout. It has just enough bite on the backend, but isn't overly bitter.

Recipe Characteristics

Recipe Bitterness 57 IBU

Alcohol by Volume 4.7%

Recipe Color 11° SRM

Alcohol by Weight 3.7%

Ingredients

1.21 lb MrB. High Country Canadian Draft Extract Extract

1.00 lb Crystal 20L Grain Mashed

1.00 lb Two-row (US) Grain Mashed

0.56 oz Centennial Whole 30 minutes

1.00 oz Cascade Whole 15 minutes

1.00 oz Crystal Whole 8 minutes

1.00 unit Irish Moss Fining 1/2 tsp

1.00 unit Mr. Beer Dry Ale Yeast Yeast Temperature Range: 68°-76° F 2.0 GRAMS

Yummy!

Feather Falls Brewery - Lunch and Beer!

Local casino opened up a new brewery a few months ago, and finally got the license to serve its own brews:http://www.featherfallscasino.com/brewing-co

We hit it up for lunch today, as detailed on Susan's blog here: http://susan-hartman.blogspot.com/2011/02/eatin-good-in-ville.html

Excellent sampler platter, featuring seven of their brews, in 4oz. glasses.

Here are some quick comments:

Dancing Trees - Hefeweizen

This was quite possibly the best Heff I've had. Lovely fruity notes, with lots of banana and orange and honey.

Feather Falls Thunder - Apricot Wheat Ale

Another great wheat, with wonderful apricot aroma and taste.

Maidu Pale Ale - American Pale Ale

Very good, light hop aroma, with practically no bitterness on the aftertaste.

Naughty Native - American IPA

Probably my least favorite, and not because it wasn't good. It just didn't have any strong IPA kick like it should. Very mellow hop flavor, with light bitterness. Overall very tasty, but it needs more pop.

Coyote Spirit - Amber Ale

Also pretty mellow for an amber, but tasty. A bit more bite in the body, with a nice dry finish.

Broken Arrow - Dark Ale

This was my favorite, because it was a perfect combination of a porter/amber/brown. If that makes sense. Great nutty body with hints of chocolate and coffee.

Blackjack Brew - Sweet Stout

This was Susan's favorite, as it was actually a milk stout. Not overly sweet, but just enough to blend with chocolate and coffee flavors to produce a good tasty mouthful.

So yes, it was a grand success. Great beer and excellent food. A wonderful afternoon with my honey.

C'

Homebrew: Vienna Dark Cedar

I posted a few weeks ago about a brew I did that used cedar in it. I actually did two cedar brews back to back, trying a different base recipe for fun. This time I based it off a Mr. Beer Octoberfest Vienna Lager extract. I added some chocolate malt to give it a much darker color, as seen below:

The cedar flavor is much more pronounced in this brew. It isn't overwhelming, but it is easier to tell it is there. The rest of the beer stands up well too, with a nice balance of maltyness and hop bitterness. Overall, I've been enjoying this one.

Recipe Characteristics

Recipe Bitterness 23 IBU

Alcohol by Volume 4.4%

Recipe Color 30° SRM

Alcohol by Weight 3.4%

Ingredients

0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (US) Grain Mashed

0.50 lb Crystal 60L Grain Mashed

1.00 lb Honey Sugar Other

1.21 lb MrB. Octoberfest Vienna Lager Extract Extract

0.50 oz Centennial Whole 5 minutes

0.40 oz Magnum Whole 15 minutes

1.00 unit Irish Moss Fining 1/2 tsp

1.00 unit Mr. Beer Dry Ale Yeast Yeast Temperature Range: 68°-76° F 2.0 GRAMS

2.00 unit Orange Peel, Sweet Spice two mandarins, full peel in small pieces, full fruit cut in half segments

YJ1 Footpegs

One of the projects I needed to tackle on the YJ1 was a set of new footpegs. I had originally just made a straight set of pegs that bolted to the chassis. This straight bar ran under the xhaust and rear brake lever, and would touch the ground during moderate cornering.

As luck would have it, a set of stock pegs from a Honda Cub had the perfect "U" shape to tuck under the engine, but over the exhaust. All I had to do was weld on a couple tabs to bolt to the frame.

Not a ver exciting picture, but you can see how nicely the stock Honda piece fit. Now I just need to dig up a set of rubber pegs.

C'

Welcome Back Little Yamaha

My first restoration project was a 1964 Yamaha YJ1 Riverside 55. I picked it up at a local car dealership, shortly after moving to Chico. It came as a basic bike with a cardboard box full of parts. It was fairly complete, but very rough:

After an hour of teardown, I had this:

I have to admit, I outdid myself on the frame. I spent weeks getting it down to bare metal and getting the frame as smooth as possible:

After a bit of assembly:

At this point, I needed a motor, as the original was a rusty hulk. Thanks to craiglist, I came across a running Yamaha GT80. I originally pulled the motor out for the YJ1 and had it running for a few months on that engine. After swapping the GT80 engine for the YSR50 engine, I ended up doing a hot rod weekend project out of the GT80, as shown below:

At this point, the YJ1 was running with the GT80 engine:

Another shot of the running YJ1 with GT80 engine:

A few months later, I came across an ugly but running YSR50 race bike. The engine had a high compression piston and carbon reed valves, so it ran very strong:

I ran the YJ1 with the YSR50 motor for a while, but frankly never really finished it. I never fit a front brake, or made proper foot pegs (the existing ones are way too low) or even wired in a on/off switch. Thanks to other projects it got relegated to storage duty. Until today. The little YJ1 is now front and center in the garage:

I actually plumbed in a new fuel line and filter, put in some fresh fuel, and it fired right up. So of course I can ran it around the block.

I'll be making up a list of things to complete over the next few weeks.

C'

Trials Bike Lives

Roughly 10 after days after breaking in half, the Trials bike rides again. This time with a beefed-up frame, and CL90 telescopic front end. It rides better than ever, with a much smoother front end feel. And thankfully, it gained a whopping 2 pounds in the transformation.

Upgraded front end features CL90 telescopic forks and 18" whee/tire:

C'

Beefed-Up Backbone

I started working on the Trials bike yesterday morning, and made pretty good progress. I decided to see if I could beef-up the original frame. As it happens, the ID of the main downtube is roughly 1.68". The OD of a piece of Schedule 40 steel pipe is 1.6", and has a much thicker wall thickness. So I cleaned up the ends of the downtube, cut a section of the schedule 40 pipe, and persuaded it inside the downtube with the help of a 5# sledge and some cussing. I plug welded the steel pipe in 20 different places before seem welding the downtube pipe back in place. I also added a thin brace on the underside of the downtube, using a piece of 1/4" thick, 3/4" wide strap material. I can't imagine the frame is going to break again.

Another project I wanted to work through was to see if a telescopic front end from a Honda CL90/S90 would mount up. As luck would have it, all of these small old Hondas use the same size steering stem and steering bearings, so the CL90 front end bolted right in place.

The stock setup was the old leading link system, which had a 14" distance when measured from the lower bearing race to the center of the front axle. I had made up a set of lengthened leading links that made that distance 18". This setup has been working fine, but it was another small non-stock part that could cause problems. The CL90 telescopic front end also had an 18" distance, so I had the ride height I wanted.

The only "issue" I had with the front end swap, was that the CL90 front axle was bigger in diameter, and wouldn't fit through the hub/bearings on the C100 wheel setup. As luck would have it, one of the CL90 parts bikes had what looked like brand spankin new 2.75"x18" trials tires mounted front and rear. So I grabbed the front setup, gave it a good cleaning, and mounted it up. That netted me another 1/2" of ride height up front since the original wheel was 17" diameter.

Today I got the freshly painted chassis, front end, rear end, engine, wiring, fuel tank, and exhaust all mounted up. I need to order a new chain, as the old nasty chain that was on the bike broke apart during my pile drive move.

Random pics below.






C'

Face...Meet Ground

What happens when the main downtube on your trusty little trials bike breaks clean in half? You pile drive the ground with your face. Yes I had on a helmet, and gloves, and boots etc. I even had on a nice thick jacket. I was going 2mph, coming off a small rise. The front just buckled under and I headed south.

The aftermath:

I need drugs and ice.

Canadian Dark Cedar

Yes, I got the idea to use cedar in a brew from the show Brewmasters. But beyond that, this was kind of like an end of the week stew, a little of everything thrown in for good measure. And it turned out quite good!

Nice dark color with a thick head. When poured cold, it was a bit strong in alcohol notes in the body, with a light bitterness on the end. After warming up, it got much smoother with some nice chocolate and coffee notes, and almost a nutty/woody bite to it. Very surprising considering it used a very light Canadian Draft extract as the base.

Recipe Characteristics

Recipe Bitterness 62 IBU

Alcohol by Volume 5.2%

Recipe Color 39° SRM

Alcohol by Weight 4.1%

Ingredients

0.50 lb Brown Sugar

0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (US) Grain Mashed

1.00 lb Crystal 120L Grain Mashed

0.50 lb Molasses Sugar Other

1.21 lb MrB. High Country Canadian Draft Extract

0.50 oz Centennial Whole 15 minutes

0.50 oz Magnum Whole 40 minutes

1.00 unit Mr. Beer Dry Ale Yeast

1.00 lb Cedar Wood Chunks - in for full mash and boil

More Bridgestone Updates: Footpegs and Rear Brake Lever

After a successful morning fabbing up a new rear brake lever, brake light switch bracket, and mounting new footpegs, I took the Bridgestone for a short ride. Holy smokes does the fat expansion chamber pipe make a difference. When you only start with 9hp, picking up 1 or 2 more feels pretty damn amazing.



Stock passenger footpegs mount right up to the swingarm, and are roughly 2-inches lower than previous fabricated pegs:


Rear brake lever is made from 1/2" aluminum scrap I had in the bin, and uses a Honda Cub footpeg as the toe kicker. Honda Cub also provides the rear brake switch, and mounts with a small aluminum angle bracket:


A very nice improvement. Much better positioning on the bike, and enough room to get at everything should I need to make any adjustments.

C'

Canadian Honey Brew

I bottled this "Canadian Honey" two weeks ago, so it was time to try my first bottle. Overall, I'm very pleased. It has a nice light body, but with a well balanced hop flavor from aroma to a light bitterness on the back end. Not a lot of honey flavor, which surprises me, since it was quite honey strong when I bottled it. But still quite good.



Recipe Characteristics
Recipe Bitterness 42 IBU
Alcohol by Volume 4.9%
Recipe Color 13° SRM
Alcohol by Weight 3.9%

Ingredients
0.50 lb Brown Sugar
0.50 lb Crystal 60L
1.00 lb Honey
1.21 lb MrB. High Country Canadian Draft Extract
0.50 oz Centennial Whole 5 minutes
0.50 oz Magnum Whole 30 minutes
Irish Moss Fining 1/2 tspn
Mr. Beer Dry Ale Yeast Yeast
1.00 unit Orange Peel, one large
1.00 unit Vanilla Other 1 tsp


C'

Bridgestone Updates: New Exhaust

I have a few updates and upgrades to make on the Bridgestone. Including revising several items I've fabbed up recently. Such is life.

What I've realized is that my footpegs are too high, so I'm not comfortable on the bike. Way too much weight up on my wrists, and my legs are too cramped. Also, I had no real good way to attach a rear brake light switch to the brake lever I built. Normally I build a brake lever that mounts behind the swingarm, with the toe peg poking out below the swingarm and above the exhaust. Unfortunately, there was no room with the stock exhaust. So step #1 was to build a new exhaust.

The result is shown below. I used the spare header pipe and an expansion chamber I had in the parts bin from a YSR50. Since the YSR50 is a very peaky 50cc engine, this expansion chamber actually closely matches the dimensions Bridgestone shows for building a hot rod exhaust for the 90cc engine with a lower rpm peak.

Exhaust mounted up, just shot with some high temp black paint for now:


Tons of room for relocating the footpegs and brake lever downward a few inches:


I'll likely wrap the exhaust once I finish fabbing up the rest of my mods.

C'

F250 for a day

Big Hank (the F250 I normally drive) is in getting fresh fluid and a new fuel bowl drain valve, which has been leaking a tiny bit, giving off some sweet fuel smells in the cabin. Instead of the usual Ranger or Focus loaner, I got this:

El Duece. A stripped out F250 standard cab, standard bed, 2wd. I have no idea what V8 gas engine is under the hood, but it makes lovely V8 growls. And thanks to a very short-spaced 5-speed auto trans, this thing books. It makes my big lumbering diesel seem slow.

Unfortunately, it also makes Big Hank feel like a limo. This is bumpiest vehicle I've ever driven. Worse than the Ranger I had last time. Something about a 3/4 ton chassis with stiff springs and crappy shocks to give you white knuckles while driving down 55mph back roads.

And while the vinyl bench seat, roll-up windows, and am/fm radio aren't super fancy, the fact it heats up in record time and clears the windscreen of ice in a minute was a bonus this morning.

Update: I looked up the specs. El Duece is sporting a 6.2L V8 making 385hp and 405lb-ft of magic. And I was wrong on the auto trans, it is actually a 6-spd auto. No wonder it hauls ass.

C'

Goodbye Beard

First I was like this:


Then I was all like this (hi ladies):


How you doing?


The butt chin exposed:


I will miss you beard!

Mr. T. Intro (Fiat Topolino Hot Rod)

Mr A. (stepdad Jack) has had several vehicle projects over the years, including this hot rod Fiat Topolino. Without getting into too many details here (I'll be posting info about it on Jack's Sketchbook blog) this is a 1937 Topolino body sitting on an altered Fiat 508 frame. A Fiat 2000 Spider provides the powertrain, including a complete front double a-arm suspension and rear axle assembly, 2L twin cam, 5-speed trans, and 4-wheel disc brake setup.

Mr. T has been hiding in the corner of Jack's shop for many years, and has recently been uncovered. While up in Oregon for Christmas, we talked quite a bit about what it will take to get it finished. Amazingly, 90% of most of the major sub-assemblies are finished. It just needs some final fabrication to get it running, and even running around the block. So with that in mind, I'll be heading back up later in January to tackle some exhaust, fuel system, and brake projects with Jack.

In the meantime, here are some quick photos of the car as it sits now, with a few detail notes.

Center body retains original Topo sheet metal body, including front cowl, doors, rear deck. Body was widened roughly 6 inches down center. Front hood, fenders, and complete nose section is fiberglass, hand laid over carved foam. Rear fenders are also fiberglass construction:


Wheelbase was lengthend to 91 inches, all of it between the main cab at the front axle:


Entire front hood/fender/nose assembly flips forward for easy access to mechanicals:


Saab 900 aluminum radiator sits well forward, driving turn signal lights seen up front. Entire Fiat 124/2000 Spider front suspension was transplanted, including cross member, double a-arms, hubs, brakes etc., retaining stock geometry:


Fiat 2000 spider 2L twincam should produce about 120hp with headers and bigger Weber carb:


Lots of room to work in here:


Engine sits well aft of front wheel center-line. I'm curious to see what the weight distribution looks like when it is done:


Inside view of front bodywork. Fiberglass and epoxy construction, with numerous stiffening ribs:


Custom dash features millions of gauges, switches, and easy-to-access replaceable fuses for each circuit. Brand new Honda CRX Si seats provide a great fit even for my 6' tall frame:


In case you can't tell from the pictures, this is a small car. Think a 1st gen Miata about 8 inches narrower, and even shorter. We're thinking it will come in about 1,500 pounds, so 120hp should be just dandy.

C'