I-29 goes under water

Looking south.... This is I-29 north of Crescent Iowa. Image from the rustic chicks blog.

Fort Calhoun Nuke plant and I-29 closed

Gavins Point outfall

Fort Calhoun Nuke power plant is North of Omaha and getting plenty of water

I-29 North of Omaha is flooded and closed. Image is looking north. I-29 is north and south. The overpass is I-680 also closed.

I-29 image taken from rustic chicks blog
http://therusticchick.blogspot.com/

Missouri flood at 32 feet by Omaha

32 feet trees in the water

Flooded Missouri river looking South East from the Bluffs on the Iowa side. I-29 (closed) in the middle of the image. Omaha in the background. This image taken from Rustic Chicks blog.
http://therusticchick.blogspot.com/

Missouri river floods

These images taken around the first of June downtown Omaha. River was at 30 feet level which is flood stage. Supposed to go higher later...

Everlast plasma cutter and welder

Trimming 5" channel with plasma cutter. Used 40 amps.

Plasma cutter needs dry air so I used snow for a refrigerant dryer.

Everlast PowerPro 256 combination stick, TIG welder and plasma cutter. A huge bargain for what it does. Wish I had it years ago.
http://www.everlastgenerators.com/welding-equipments.php

Press brake in progress. Bottom dies are next to be made. Welds were done with  1/8" 7018 at 130 amps on the Everlast. Springs are Olds 455 valve springs, two on each side.

South Bend shaper oil pump fix and making a press brake die

Shaper oil pump has been erratic and it finally quit. Serial number shows it was built in 1959

This lever that actuates the pump quit moving.

Took it apart and found that the lever got out of the cam groove and slipped between the cam and case. Added a few washers so that might not happen again.

The lever is supposed to stay in this eccentric cam groove on the back of the bull gear. I was glad to find the gear is steel and not phenolic plastic like some shapers.

Shaper parts

Tapered pin holds stuff in place



Cutting off parts of the scrap metal I'm going to make the die out of.

Fixture to make the bevel with. 40 degrees from horizontal.

Cutting the bevel



Short stroke for this. Oil pump stayed working :-)

All done. 80 degree edge for springback making true 90's. Steel for die is 3/4 X 4"



Another motion video

Texas bbq tour

Big G Smoke house BBQ Duncan OK. Had a brisket sandwich and smoked turkey sandwich. mmm good

Hog Wild BBQ Wichita KS. Had take out ribs. Their sauce is has mustard in it and was very good.

La Fortuna in Duncan OK. Check out this smoker. They were closed as we went by in the morning.

Hard Eight BBQ. These guys have the best presentation and real good ribs... Stephenville Tx. We had been there before a couple of years ago and wanted to try it again.

All smoked up outside. You buy meat the pound and then go inside.

Sides are inside. We had ribs and they are the GREAT. This is where we really were headed. http://www.hardeightbbq.com/

Sue spotted this GMC in Enid OK. No one was around so we left a card on the windshield.

Kansas City BBQ - Oklahoma Joe's

 Oklahoma Joe's BBQ, Kansas City, Kansas. Looks like it was a BP gas station at one time.

I got  a half rack of ribs  and Sue a brisket sandwich. Good stuff.

 The hatch lifts on the Yaris got weak and I got tired of banging my head on the hatch when it didn't go all the way up. Toyota wanted $124 each for the gas springs..no way that's going to happen. Besides theirs didn't even last 4 years. From Ebay I got two 120 lb gas springs for $23. Original top mount was not going to work with the new springs. Made different mounts and it is good again.

Harbor freight 20 ton press just fits.

Slumping bottle and other stuff

Sue had a wine bottle from a wedding shower we thought to slump and make serving tray or at least an art piece for the couple.

Bottle just fits
Partway done. Glass melts around 1475 degrees and the slump once it starts goes pretty quick. We used the color seen through the peep holes to guess a 1000 hold and to see when the slump started. To stop the slump opening the lid periodically to drop the temp to 1000 again and then over night to anneal.
Turned out OK or at least it is not a puddle or shattered.
Aerial refueling




Check this out. Look at how she flips the switches to change the pickup configuration and the sound. It's a Parker guitar with a piezo bridge and two humbucker pickups

Testing Corvette style "windowed" primary governor weights

Modified the primary weights to have a "window" like GM did for Corvettes with 700R4 transmissions. This was a removal of about 20% if the weight.
Windowed weight and a B&M kit.
Installed for testing, I found the effect to be very small. If anything it may make the light throttle shifts later. Hardly noticeable..... real changes need to be made with secondary weights and springs.

Governor weights

Drilled a 1/4 hole in the primary weights and could not tell any difference in how the gov acted.
Swapped in this lighter weight and there was a slight difference. Mostly the 2-3 shift was later.
Parts swapping
A few parts. Spring color seems to be somewhat random, same color different spring. Some springs are wound left hand and some right hand. These are random turbo hyramatic governor springs and weights from the junkyard except the tagged spring. The tagged spring was behind the vacuum modulator spool, took that out in 2007. Removing it gave more range on the vac modulator.

American Gothic

Dubuque Iowa, American Gothic statue. Made of fiberglass

TH 425 governor cans part 6

A few chips
GMC outside
New Driven gears installed. Notice two styles of shafts. The two on the left are different then the three on the right. The spools are different also.
Nylon gear sets the operating axial position (runs against the dowel in the trans case). The gear with the most wear was .050 different than new. shoulda used the camera flash
Brushing out the bore,
Some of these needed a good wire brushing to get them clean
Sludge
Cleaning out an orifice in the valve spool