What did you do in your shop today?

[BruceK]

Glad to hear it's working.

Many of those electronic flashers claiming to be suitable for LEDs are tricky.  Even though they are the so-called "no load" type they seem to require some minimal level of resistance to function properly.   

Reviews of electronic LED-capable flasher units for sale on various websites bear this out.  Fortunately, the little "194" incandescent side repeater lights on our later Minis seem to provide just enough resistance to make the flashers work with the bigger LED indicator bulbs.   

I love the fact they are a lot brighter - and therefore safer - plus they cycle on/off quicker and more crisply making their flashing more noticeable.


Here's the ones I use which I suggested to Michael.   

ALOPEE - 2-Pack 12-15V DC Extremely Bright Red 1157 2057 2357 7528 BAY15D 39SMD LED Bulbs Replacement for Halogen lamp Tail Brake Lights Stop Light https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082WNNQ3W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_1w59FbHAJ9DA4

[MPlayle]

For my Mini I got the red 1157 equivalent for brake/running lights, the white 1156 equivalent for the reverse lamps, and 2 sets of the 1156 Amber for the turn signals (front and rear).  My front running/park lights are in the headlights, so only needed the single element versions for the front as well as the rear turn signals.

[jedduh01]

This month ,  dug in literally to tackle a project on my garage.

My garage is in middle path of a hill from neighbors above. When we have HEAVY rains .   upper water runs down gets to  my garage back and the foundation block will leak .. I have even found Piss streams from a spot or two from the wall into the floor,  even with  HEAVY rain it water will seep up  between the Block and the Pad... Basically the foundation sealing has failed.

Last 'hurricane' we got 8 inches in 2 hours = was the wet'est its been ..  I was push brooming water out of the floor ... So  while watching it rain = saw the major path the water runs .  Dug a trench to divert water both directions from the neighbors property leading to mine.  In the end I found out few months / years ago neighbor 'diverted' water up the hill from him to not was his yard away ... so now that diversion is headed 'downhill now to me... bringing this issue more...  We talked.   We're gonna keep some guide ditches cleaner to help the water divert better both sides.  We're cool with dealing with water and gravity together.

Regardless  Wall still Leaks.     Late November + Early December time was spent digging out the foundation of my garage... Manually.      I did find an originally installed ' pipe' in  SOME gravel about 10 Inches from grade level  but it wasn't doing anything , and both ends were buried anyways.

Now I'M reading more about proper foundation 'drainage'
 
I have 5 gallon yuck bucket to parge / re seal the block =  Its dug out . I power washed the block . NOW this month it got cold + and wet... needs to be OVER 65 to do the parging... gotta wait. and going to learn more about proper drainage practice.
   There are some neat modern products that drain walls as required., on top of parge sealing.  Trying to learn if i need to go LOWER than the foundation below the block for a drain pipe or what...

First will be to get nasty and 2 or 3 coats to the walls ... which i bet will be enough to stop the water entry .. but the 'drainage needs to be finalized properly too.

Built in 1991... so 30 Yrs is OK for sealant failure I  assume.   whatever was there is now quite weak.

Good break from work actually = go dig a trench.

[MiniDave]

I think you're def going to have to go deeper.....coat the blocks, then lay in some proper 3/4" gravel - drain tile (the one with the sock to keep out fines) - more gravel with smaller pieces - then grade away from the wall, and a diversion channel around to the sides of the shop and on down the hill.

A lot of work, if you could get a Mini Ex up there it would sure make things go faster for you - and easy to get all the way to the bottom of the wall.

If you could create a swale about 6 ft away from the wall, that would help move the water to the side too

[Carl Owen]

While waiting on parts for steering, brakes, suspension and other things we decided to flip the heater core (as mentioned by MiniDave) for cleaner heater hose routing. While the heater box is blown apart we'll have the heater core pressure checked and repaint the box.

[BruceK]

Love the Union heater control back plate.

[94touring]

Delivered the clubby and drove this blue mini I painted 9 years ago. It has a vtec and drives pretty nice.

[MiniDave]

Does he do his own metal, paint and body work? Looks like your paint job on the blue car is holding up well!

Is the Clubby going Vtec too?

[94touring]

He's going to learn he said.  Going vtec on it too.

Yeah the paint still looks fantastic!

[tsumini]

Somewhat OT
Yesterday and today I replaced two broken agraffes in our grand piano. Agraffes are threaded brass parts
which position the strings on the plate so the hammer strikes the strings consistently. Construction is such
that the strings going through the three holes of the agraffe have to be removed and replaced with new.

Replacing strings requires unwinding the coils at the tuning pin three turns and removing the coil and string.This positions the tuning pin to rewind three coils and tightening the string.
My research realed that this model piano built in 1924 had a bad habit of agraffes just randomly fracturing
at the first thread and leaving the shank to be carefully extracted. Brass does have a bad habit of being prone to cracking at internal stress with age.
Not really easy but it beats total re-stringing.

[tsumini]

And done with rough tune.
Tuner neede next.

[BruceK]

Agraffes, eh?  Learned a new word today.  Yeah, I can easily imagine that something like that has been under stress for 96 years could finally fail.  I'm guessing new ones benefit from better metallurgy.

[MiniDave]

Me too....we have a vintage Steinway also, 1950's era I think. Upright.

[tsumini]

Agraffes, eh?  Learned a new word today.  Yeah, I can easily imagine that something like that has been under stress for 96 years could finally fail.  I'm guessing new ones benefit from better metallurgy.

Yes they are under tension so I expect a few more to go occasionally. :(

[cstudep]

Well this was done over the course of several evenings but it's finally to a point where it was maybe worth taking a pic or 2. I salvaged the metal from a stand someone built to hold a 55gal barrel parts cleaner of sorts.

Now I need to start sourcing some other parts like a radiator shroud, some of the bracketry around such, motor mounts etc... I have a couple old fuel pumps that i need to dig out to see if they work or not. I noticed Mini Spares does not have any of the Auto motor mounts in stock, they have a different part number for the radiator side but it sure looks the same to me as the standard mount, I think it's close enough for what I need anyway. The torque convertor side however looks completely different.

I bolted several of the parts on, like the extensions for the A-series motor mounts, because I also want to use this for a couple of motorcycle engines I will be rebuilding. I can remove the a-series parts and build new extensions to fit the motorcycle engines.

I have a set of cheap volt/oil/temp gauges on order

[MiniDave]

I think the mount is the same size on the one end, it might be a different hardness. The Torque converter end is def completely different. I think you could build one out of metal and it wouldn't hurt anything in a test stand. Might vibrate a bit but I bolted the back end of a Sprite engine solid and it didn't vibrate hardly at all.

Eager to hear you fire this one up and see it all work! If you don't run a muffler, they can get a bit loud so wear your hearing protection!

[cstudep]

Yeah I have a small rubber motor mount that is rectangular, it looks to be about the size of the auto one it just does not line up with any of the holes. Not sure what it came off of but I think it was whatever this auto 1275 I have came out of. I can make the little "sled" looking back plate that the auto mount has and tack this rubber mount to it I think. Like you said for an engine test stand it's not super critical it be perfect or even all that isolated.

Still need to mock up some engine steadies, since these motors are pretty top heavy and rock back and forth on the lower mounts quite easily. I figured it would set a little more steady in the lower mounts but I left the hoist attached just because it was so easy to move about. LOL Of course all the small bits like wiring and such still have to be sorted, but progress is being made.

My goal is to get this 1275 auto I have up in it and see if I can get it going. Then it will probably be up for sale to help fund parts for the 67.

[94touring]

Not shop related necessarily but shop like work.  Few weeks ago the tenant in my condo said the blower motor in my heat unit stopped working.  Went upstairs and sure enough dead.  Went to ebay ordered a new one.  Installed, kind of a pain, worked for 2 weeks and started making a hell of a noise/humming/buzzing sound.  I concluded I bought a junk part since it was a different brand and was able to find the same brand name as original and purchased it last night. Today the tenant says the one I installed is back to working fine.   8.gif  I guess if nothing else I'll have a spare on hand for when this one does die completely.

[94touring]

Shop cleaning day.  Took a truck bed full of trash out and random mini debri/parts to the dump.  Organized tools and got a fair amount of welding done on the 60 shell.

[cstudep]

Sounds better than what I did all evening, which was cutting wood. Temps swinging down into the teens for highs and negatives for lows for the next week or so. Not looking forward to that at all.

I really need to get back out into the shop and finish up the engine test stand but just have not had time. I did manage to get an old SU fuel pump to work the other night and found some motor mounts, alternator bracket, and some other odds and ends. I need to put in an order at Mini Spares for a radiator shroud, water pump pulley, and some other odds and ends I need to actually be able to run a motor.

[MiniDave]

Coil, spark plugs, fan belt, upper and lower hose without the heater tap, battery, fuel pump, gas can, starter switch. block off for the heater tap and fuel pump openings.

[cstudep]

I do have a spare coil and plugs, but I do need a set of wires. I also have an old upper and lower hose but I think I'll buy new ones, and like you said without the heater tap. Didn't think about the heater block off, good call I'll probably just cut one out of some 8ga steel I have. Got gauges, and a few switches the other day and digging through a box of junk i found an old auto torque convertor motor mount! I also have an old 11 blade fan as well as an electric fan I can hook up if need be.

Still need to fab up some motor supports. I think I am going to use a couple of the tie bar rods you gave me to make up some sort of tie rods at the bottom.

[94touring]

Panorama of the shop today.  I could fit a few more in here...

[Willie_B]

Finally put this in today.

[MiniDave]

I'll be interested to hear if it makes any difference in the noise or the quality of sound coming from in front....looks like you need to daub a bit of paint on the bulkhead?