Apologies for the radio silence

This has been A Week. Excuse me this has been A Week. I spent all day Monday on DART or DCTA buses or trains to do that echocardiogram thing. But I did see an interesting car.

I got to watch my heart beating again while they did the echo, which was cool.

Tuesday was go to the lab rat and get the 24 hour BP monitor and the jug to collect my urine for the next 24 hours, and also I got hit by a huge blast of grass pollen, so bad that when my allergy pill took effect I fell out of my chair trying to do a post which I discarded because it made even less sense than that post I did while dehydrated and tipsy. And how can I tell you how much fun it is to tote a jug of your own urine around? Next paragraph. Anyway I didn’t hit anything valuable or breakable on the way down out of the chair, so I counted my lucky stars and decided to sleep it off in bed for the next 2 hours, which didn’t prevent me from falling asleep early that night

Wednesday was get rid of the half-full gallon jug of urine, and the damnable blood pressure monitor that was squeezing my arm to death. The jug got a lot of stares on the bus with the biohazard sticker and the “Danger Acid” sticker. Then it took 2 tries to draw blood. I think the needle went through the vein because no blood would come out with the needle in and when they took the needle out it wouldn’t stop bleeding. Then I got stabbed in the other arm. After lunch I went to a place that does a 45 minute leg and foot massage with a 15 minute back massage for $30. I felt much better after that than I usually do after the full hour on a full body massage. Then I was going to get a haircut, but there was a wreck on the Tollway that made a normal 20 minute bus ride almost twice as long, which made me miss my connecting bus which got me to the stylist after my stylist already left for home. So my head is still shaggy. “How shaggy?” you ask. Well my back hairs go all the way up my neck and the only way to tell head and back hair apart is the back hair is going white already, and slightly more wavy than my head hair. And my character in Shadowrun just integrates the back hair into his regular hair style, flattop all the way back and down like a horse’s mane.

And during down time I did some more research and changed the race tires again, for a set of Formula Atlantic tires. Good grip for a car about the same size and weight as the Mid-Bucket and I can find wheels that fit the tires and the bolt circle of my car. Amazingly it is way easier to find 15 X 14 wheels with a 5 X 4.5 bolt circle than 16 X 12 wheels. So the front wheels will be 15 X 10, the rears 15 X 14 and I may be able to get the car balanced without adding an antiroll bar.

And it is almost dinner time and I need to get cleaned up.

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I have Moose Trax on my shirt

Just opened a container of ice cream and within a few spoonsful I managed to drip it on my shirt. What, you think I would let a moose walk on me? Where would I find one? Anyway, the ice cream was very chocolate I mean good.

I’m still refining the design for the Mid-Bucket. Now that I have decided to use the rack out of the minivan I need a place to mount it where it won’t interfere with the suspension but still line up with the steering wheel, and if the mount could do a couple more things like hold the radiator, hold the shocks and springs, and keep the body panels straight… that would be one busy steering rack bracket. Well mission accomplished. The crossmember that holds the steering rack will be integrated into the spring mount and body mounts, for a more rigid structure and better handling. And less weight.

The crossmember sits in front of the front axle leaving enough room for the axle to move up and down with the steering rack suspended above the axle and the drag link going between the axle and the tie rod. A nice compact arrangement, that gets as much of the moving parts of the suspension away from things like gas tanks and body panels and leaves as much room as possible. The radiator mounts to the front of the crossmember and the cooling fans behind the radiator will be protected by the crossmember from the axle. The bellypan will go all the way forward to a splitter, with air going above the splitter ducted to the radiator and what goes below to the rear diffuser to make rear downforce. The splitter will be as wide as the wheel angle at full lock will clear with the side strakes from the splitter blending into the running boards and rear fenders for more downforce over the whole car. This will also clean up the airflow down the sides of the body and give highway gas mileage a tiny boost.

I think I mentioned how finding a 16 X 12 wheel in a 5 X 4.5″ bolt circle was driving me slightly crazy? I’m giving up on maximum grip in favor of sanity. The one (1) wheel I have found in that size and bolt circle is a heavy steel wheel meant for modern-day lead sleds. That leaves me with the 15 X 4 front and 15 X 10 rear option with a rear anti-roll bar for balance between the skinny front and massively wide rears.

And other things are calling me away from the keyboard, so it’s time for Nighty-Knight the dream warrior to take the stage. And if you get that reference you are really weird, and you should give yourself a pat on the back.

Opus the Unkillable

I didn’t want to do it this way, but I have a working tire pump now.

Well I had two pumps, one that failed somewhere in the piston and the other one that had a rotting hose from the pump to the chuck. I only have to send one back, so I put all the bad parts in the return box and assembled all the good parts into a working pump. I then used that pump to get my tires back up to the minimum 70 pounds per square inch to prevent pinch flats on potholes.

And after I did that I felt like Superman™ so I tried to mount the tires to the wheels I had just mocked up that afternoon. It was a struggle, but as you can see:

I got the front edge even with the bead on the tire, but I need to pump the tire so the back side matches the front.

It’s hard to see from that angle, so this is easier.

So what I do now is talk to my diabetic friends about getting some used needles and syringes to pump up the tires to meet the beads of the rim.

And there’s something good coming on Science Channel, so I have created enough with the words and pictures, Opus the Unkillable

I’m whole again!

Not much to write about today except I finally got my ATM card replaced and have access to my money. Not having access to my money meant I had some lean grocery shopping days, these last two weeks especially. This week coming up will be different because I can just go to the ATM and draw some money out like normal people do.

On the hot rod front I got the tech sheet and order form from Jongbloed wheels to order a set of custom 17″ diameter wheels with (possibly) different offsets/backspacing front and rear. The rears on the minivan hubs really should be more backspacing/positive offset, while the front hubs are made for less backspacing/negative offset. At 1500 pounds will it make a difference in bearing life? Probably not. Will I buy from this provider? At $3k for a set of 4 custom width and offset wheels it is a distinct possibility, especially since they are about the lightest 17″ diameter wheels to fit my hubs available. Will they look funny on the mid-Bucket? _Maybe And then again maybe not.

Well, it’s late and I really need to finish this up.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Unkillable