I sweated today, and I’ll probably sweat more tomorrow

I had to get some things for the house today, nothing I couldn’t carry myself, so I thought I would get my toes done as part of the trip and also grab a late lunch/early dinner. As I pointed out in an earlier post, all of this is just a mile away one way plus the walking between the various stops came to a logged 2.1 miles on my fitness app and about 7100 steps on my step counter app for the day.

As for what I needed to walk all that way in 91°F (94° index) temperatures? Well we needed a new toilet brush as the old one shuffled off this mortal coil a while back and I couldn’t stand the state of the toilet even with the self-cleaning chemicals in the tank, and skin contact with those chemicals is not recommended. And also I needed something I could put on the cereal as the last of the milk didn’t exactly smell “right”. So I decided to wrap this trip with a lot of things I needed to get done, like my toes and something to eat.

And I get to do a similar trip in another direction as my new glasses are ready to pick up at the store over a week early, so I’m also grabbing a gift card to a fast food joint near the glasses shop.

And even though I no longer have the same number of page views as I used to, I like this mission of the blog much more than the first one where I chronicled dead and wounded cyclists, a calling I shared with Ted Rogers over at BikinginLA, in fact I pretty much outsourced all my SoCal bike wrecks to his blog under the tag “Daily Ted”. Well Ted needs some help as their beloved Corgi is in the end stages of fighting Cancer while Ted is fighting insurance companies over medication for his diabetic neuropathy. Send whatever good energy/vibes/prayers you can for Ted and the pupper, they need them.

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I really don’t have much to write about

I walked 2.29 miles (3.68 km) going to get my toes done, buy breakfast sausage for cheap$1.67/lb, drop by the ATM for Mrs. the Poet, and get a Whataburger and fries. Then I took a nap. Whoo! living the life.😑

Still thinking about the TGS2 because what else would I think about if I wanted to stay sane? Since the part I didn’t have totally nailed down before I was still thinking about getting that upper coilover mount figuratively nailed down in every plane and triangulated against flex. Basically the plan is to run tubes from the upper and lower frame rails to the upper mount from two verticals between the rails, one vertical right in front of the firewall, and one just in front of the axle. The bottom of the upper rail will be 1.5″ (3.81 cm) plus the thickness of the bump stop, that I haven’t sourced yet, above the tube of the axle. The bottom rail will be 7.5″ below the center of the axle at intended ride height, or 6″ (15.24 cm) measured to the top of the rail, with a bracket coming from the rail to support a droop stop 1.5″ from the bottom of the axle at normal ride height. Yep, that comes to 3″ (7.62 cm) axle travel at the frame, which is normal for a T-bucket front suspension. What’s not normal is to control the axle with both bump and droop stops, normal is to use the shock absorbers for this function. But it really tears up a shock to use it as a droop stop and even worse to use a shock as a bump stop without an external stop fitted over the shaft. Basically without an external stop the shock piston slams into the foot valve and after a couple to a few times of that happening you no longer have any dampening control over the axle travel. So belt and suspenders there will be a bump stop on the coilover, and another on the frame.

Now where the frame leaves the front of the body the top of the top tube is 17″ (43.2 cm) from the bottom of the bottom tube, leaving 7″ from the top of the axle to the bottom of the top tube, lots of space to mount a bracket and bump stop and still leave 1.5″ for travel up. In fact good design principles require less than 1.5″ clearance between the bottom of the bump stop and the top of the axle so that there is enough travel to cushion the axle before reaching the limit of the shock and slamming into that foot valve. It might touch the valve but if I do my job as an engineer there shouldn’t be enough force to damage anything.

Now one of the problems I’m having is getting springs light enough for the front end because there is so little weight on the front end with the mid-engine configuration, without installing ridiculously long shocks. The shortest shocks I can find that will hold the springs are nearly 20″ long extended and 13″ compressed. The issue is the free length of the springs, and there has to be enough extended length to get the spring in place without compressing it so the adjustable seat can be spun on by hand so it doesn’t get cross-threaded. The problem is the shock has to mount as close to the kingpin as possible to control the single-wheel motion, and I need to limit wheel travel to keep the TGS2 from turning into and off-road buggy and to control camber, body roll, and prevent the frame from crashing into the ground. And the weight situation is we are talking about a car with a race weight around 1300-1400 pounds with more than 60% of the weight on the back and about 240 pounds per wheel on the ground and less than 25 pounds on the spring. It doesn’t take much spring to control that little weight, but a lot of shock dampening to control the unsprung mass. The sprung/unsprung ratio is almost off the chart for this car. It’s not bad in back, but there is just too much previously bought parts weight up front that isn’t resting on the springs. And seriously, all that weight just in the front axle and suspension does a serious negative to polar moment.

Looking at the numbers makes me seriously question my tire choices for the street setup because each tire weighs 31 pounds, without the 24 pound wheel. Fifty-five pounds is a ridiculous amount of unsprung weight per corner for a 1300 pound car with more than 60% rear weight distribution. Seriously the wheels and tires together weigh more than the rest of the front end minus suspension.🤯 Also I need to move more stuff forward of the center of the wheelbase, to keep the weight more forward and also keep the polar moment low. Also, seriously, this will probably raise the car weight more than a little. The race tires are a little better at 23 pounds each and the aluminum wheels are about 20 pounds going by shipping weight. So that’s a huge chunk off the unsprung weight.

And I have been thinking about the TGS2 in street rod parameters rather than mid-engine sports car parameters because Goodguys is a street rod and muscle car sanctioning body. Thinking in the proper terms gets the tire weight down to 20 pounds and the wheels are a smidge lighter at about 18 pounds. Still more than the sprung weight for each corner… I seriously need to redo my weight estimate because of how heavy the front axle, brackets, and spindles are. I’ll ponder my calculator and weight charts more now that I have weighed the parts I have on hand and use known weights whenever possible and get back to you later.

The Bristol race is finally over

It took two days, but the NASCAR race from Bristol Speedway in TN is finally complete, and Kyle Busch and the #18 Skittles Camry won. It took extra time because there were still showers in the area. The racing was typical Bristol pushing and shoving, but not as extreme as usually.

I’m getting ready for another walk this afternoon to collect more Sweatcoins, and think about how to build the Sprint-T. I do my best thinking while walking, so I spend a lot of time thinking while I walk. Mostly I think about other things, because I’m not always thinking about cars or the Sprint-T in specific. Mostly just thinking at random.

And I’m back. It was a little over 2 miles, and I’m a little under my max Sweatcoin collection for the day. I did the loop instead of the out-and-back so it’s a bit shorter and doesn’t get as many Sweatcoins but on the other hand I’m never more than a half mile from the house when I take the loop in case I have to bail back for any reason. And there were a couple of times when I felt like bailing when my legs started getting shaky. I feel better for a couple or hours after I get done with a walk, even when I feel crappy during the walk. I wish Mrs. the Poet could take walks, but she refuses to learn how to walk with a cane.

Another update for Sweatcoin app, and weather

OK I’m taking a walk tonight to see if this latest update fixes things, but the app is tracking steps again around the house. I think maybe I’ll take the opportunity to buy a lottery ticket, as I keep telling Mrs. the Poet, the odds of winning are almost zero if you buy a ticket, but absolutely zero if you don’t buy a ticket. And we are among the teeming throngs who could live a comfortable life if that chunk of income was shifted down a bit.

We had a dry line move through this morning but it didn’t wake me up, and another forecast for this evening, but not much rain near Casa de El Poeta. It was mostly wind and lightning according to Mrs. the Poet. The cats were not even bothered by this morning’s rain, and I can’t find any evidence of the rain outside.

And just for a few minutes yesterday I was considering centerline seating on the Sprint-T to see around the engine, since raising the driver’s seat enough to see over the engine would also raise my butt high enough to clear the transmission tailhousing. But that was quickly discarded because of the previously discussed raised Center of Gravity issue. Also the issue of running the steering from the center to the steering box on the left side of the chassis with the engine in the way.

But other than that I don’t have anything worthwhile to post today.

Here’s that side view with that measuring tape

I mentioned a while back I had a picture of a Pentastar with a tape measure in the picture for reference to scale the picture. Well here’s the picture for you to use.

Hmm, it doesn’t look as tall scaling from the side. If I measured right I might be able to get the engine inside the upper edge of the firewall without having to raise the body. The initial calculation was 22.5″ from the bottom of the bellhousing flange. I could make the hood top even with the windshield bottom and have like a cowl induction scoop.

I think there might be some image problems here, the side view scales to exactly 18″ from bellhousing flange to crank pulley, and published data has that at almost 20″. I think the camera is fitted with a wide-angle lens that distorts the image, which means the previous scaling on the rear view is also suspect since it was shot by the same camera. I’m going to have to see if I can contact the photographer and ask if he ever measured how tall the engine was before he installed it in the car.

That should do for tonight with this one note: There was a published one day only special at the local grocery, $0.99/gallon milk Sunday only, so we skipped buying milk at $1.99/gallon yesterday. I walked to the store a mile away to get the good price today, and after I walked a mile there and another mile back, I checked the register tape. I didn’t check before I left because I also bought half off discount Cadbury Creme Eggs and there was a change in the total on the display that matched the $1 off the milk. So I didn’t check until I walked the mile home. Now I need to take the tape and the ad back and get the $1.

It turned chilly today

I had to go outside today, and it was a mite chilly, 49°F chilly for a high temperature to be precise, with a “feels like” of 43 when I was out in it. How chilly is that? I wore long pants to cover my knees for the first time since winter, but I forgot to grab a belt out of the closet and spent most of the return trip trying to keep my pants from falling off. That was about a mile walking with one hand holding up my pants.

The reason for the trip was I needed to get bus fare for a meeting tomorrow, and a lottery ticket. Unfortunately instead of the annuitized $18.25 million payout the ticket was for the cash value option payout of $12.5 million. So if this blog goes silent after Monday you’ll know I am taking time to manage my finances prior to accepting the jackpot. The meeting is the artist of a web comic I read, Not A Villain. I try very hard to support the creators of the entertainment I consume, even if it’s only clicking the ads on their sites.

On other subjects this blog has become known for, I went old-school to scale up that picture of the engine and transaxle and this time I found the assembly to be 36.1″ end-to-end as it sits sideways in the car, and about 2″ of the transaxle will stick out the driver’s side of the body if the CG is really on the line between the silver and grey on the forward engine mount. The accessory drive will be just inside the confines of the bucket body, and just clear the bottom frame rail.

And I still have stuff I need to do before I go to bed, so this post has to end now.

I do stupid things sometimes

And yesterday was one two of those times. First stupid thing was extending my walk after ordering the hone I needed to install the kingpins and spindles on the axle. The second stupid thing was refusing the ride home after I started hobbling instead of walking. I can barely walk now because of the pain in the balls of my feet. I walked for 4.4 miles last night which is about 2 miles more than normal. Since the end of May I have walked more than 33 miles which averages out to 2 miles a day, and there were days I couldn’t walk because of pop-up showers in the evenings. But there were 2 extra-point check-ins on my mobile game that gave me an extra 70 points for checking in. That’s the equivalent of an extra 14 check-ins over and above the 25 I get per day, so you can see why I would want to get those check-ins. If I grab a bunch of those I will be back in the black for the weekly $1 gift card. Now the smart thing to do would be to catch the bus to the Wendy’s and order fries and drink soda all day while I walk back and forth between the two extra point check-ins and collect 245 points in 8 hours. That’s almost 10 cents! 😀 and right at 2 miles, and I could take the bus home or within 0.4 miles of home.

I have made zero progress on the TGS2 outside of buying the hone, that will be here tomorrow afternoon. Seriously, I can’t even think right now because of the pain. That kinda worries me, because I’m the guy who wrecked his knees and barely felt it, pulled a couple of my own teeth without painkillers, only took a painkiller because they made me on my last operation, and only needed one on the previous operation. Having something hurt this bad must mean I destroyed something. In fact I think I will take a little lie down because my feet hurt so bad.

Pushed my limits a bit today

I was out in the heat again today paying bills and I really cut it close this time. I had to pay the phone bill after getting to the office just after they closed yesterday, so I was out during the day in the sun and the heat. Well I didn’t get any water or hydrate before I left and I started getting nauseous walking around. I didn’t check what the temperature was, but it was over 90 and it felt muggy when I opened the door.

I think I might have saved enough money from various gigs to get that brake hone and install those spindles this week. I have 2 trips to the lab rat keeper and another trip to take movies of my heart beating. This time I’m getting driven to the echocardiogram so I don’t have to spend more than 7 hours on the roads to get a 20 minute procedure done. I have to wear that infernal Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor and carry a jug of my urine around again, but maybe by the end of the week I’ll have a mockup installation of the spindles on the axle.

And I was just taking a “think break” to let my mind put more words together and putting the kingpins in the axle bosses where they are supposed to go, and as the instructions warned they don’t fit. First installation in a new tubular axle and both bosses are out of round by a few thousandths, just enough to keep the pins from dropping in unhindered. Enough that I had to get a hammer and drift to get them back out. And the instructions also say that the only way to fix this is with the brake hone… Before anyone says anything, yes I had the grub screws all the way out before trying to install the pins.

I’m trying a different strategy on sleeping, going to bed early before I’m tired and just letting the brain do its thing until I fall asleep. I was up by 0800 today waking up all on my own. It really looks like the longer I wait to hit the bed the longer it takes to turn off my brain. I was asleep in under an hour last night and the night before and woke up before my alarm yesterday and this morning. It’s weird being up that early. My usual M.O. is to wait until I feel sleepy, then get in bed, and have the brain go crazy trying to solve all the problems I didn’t get to during the day. Then several hours later I finally fall asleep only to get awakened from REM sleep by my alarm. If I turn the alarm off and get back to sleep I drop immediately back into REM and either continue the dream I woke up from or move into another one. One recurring theme I have been having lately in my dreams is mountain freeways replaced by multilane fiberglass slides that go for miles. Everyone gets out of their cars and slides down the mountain to meet their car at the bottom of the slide. This says something, but I’m not sure what it is yet. It is loads of fun sliding down the mountain, especially at night. But anyway that doesn’t happen when I go to bed before I get sleepy.

And I was writing a paragraph about sleeping and guess what happened? Yep, faceplanted right into the keyboard. Can’t sleep when I want to but when I’m doing something and need to stay awake? ZONK!

And now I really need to leave and fill out my bag limit of check-ins on my mobile game so I can get what I can out of it before it goes belly up.

I want to take a walk but my foot hurts

Physical health first. Sometime during my last walk I rubbed a hole in my left foot. Don’t ask me how, I didn’t notice until I was getting ready for bed. Kinda like I didn’t notice all those torn ligaments in my knee. But now I notice, you betcha I notice. It hurts like a sonuvagun. As a certain “reality star” would say, bigly. Now if I could just remember what I did besides walk… Nothing comes to mind.

Mental health, Mrs. the Poet will be leaving to visit her mother and the rest of her NY relatives on the 29th. She won’t be back until the end of August. She’s worried about the house, and what the cats would do to it. And what I won’t do to it, like mop the floor twice a day. I’m worried about not having a human to exchange physical affection with. Seriously that kinda stuff makes me a bit off, or rather not having that kinda stuff. I’m sure somebody will come visit me or invite me to dinner or some such.

Moving on to car-building stuff, I decided to confront my fears and install the kingpins in my spindles by myself using a brake cylinder hone . Of the three choices for fitting the bushings the brake hone was the least tool-intensive and only barely the most labor-intensive over the reamer. The one that was the most out-of-pocket was taking the spindles to a machine shop to have them Sunnen honed. The setup charges alone for that one would buy 3 new brake hones. And after I install the spindles to the axle I can measure to find the tie rod I need instead of guessing at it.

And I promise to take lots of pictures while I hone out the bushings and fit the kingpins to the spindles, because it will probably be funny as heck (not Hades because he’s really a dour dude). There may even be some blood involved, applied to the parts in some manner. The Big Thing will be Parts Assembled (like Avengers Assemble only without superheroes and the parts only move when I move them, so almost completely unlike Avengers Assemble).

Now I desperately want to walk to the parts store and get that brake hone and some grease fittings for the spindles, but my foot still has a hole in it so I can’t.

Opus the Unkillable

My butt hurts, and other things

This Sunday I took a fall when I pushed up from my chair and before I could get my feet under me the chair went rolling backwards, dropping me on my tailbone. Then yesterday I did 3 miles even to max out my check-ins in as little time possible, only it took longer because of poor route planning. My butt didn’t hurt while walking, but it made up for it when I had to wait for the check-ins to become active again. I will know better for tonight.

I did a bit more Googling and I now know how much that engine and transmission weigh as a group. The Pentastar V6 engine weighs 326, the 62te transmission 220, right on my previous estimate based on the 41te the 6 speed is derived from, so the total is 546, one pound heavier than the SBC 350 without a transmission. Or rear axle, driveshaft or a whole raft of other things that are part and parcel of the 62te in the picture, but not the halfshafts or suspension that are also in that picture. The traditional 350/350 engine/trans combination for a bucket comes in at a combined 670 pounds, throw in the cast iron 9″ Ford center section and differential and you have about 740 for the (almost) equivalent of the picture. Thing is that picture is of the drivetrain of a full sized commercial van with a GVW of 8550 pounds, not some wimpy minivan. The drivetrain in that picture would have no problem with a 1500 pound Mid-Bucket. It is a pity then that I’ll never get to install it in one. The Mid-Bucket weighs about half the cargo rating of the van the powertrain in the picture comes from! I could literally drive the Mid-Bucket inside the box and drive the van away without overloading it. I mean how cool is that? And using that transmission on a vehicle with a GVW of 8550 pounds means they finally fixed the reliability problems of the 41te.

Enough car talk, I need to get ready for my walk.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the fat but Unkillable