John S's Journal
Home Page: John S
Eugene, OR, USA
| Total Posts: 182 | Latest Post: 2026-03-25 |
| Table of Contents | RSS Feed |
Pulled the relief valve assembly out and the larger o-ring looks ok but the hex plug o-ring is missing. Hoping to source one locally but have a call in to Quantum Mechanics to hopefully get a kit of all the necessary items needed. Curious to see what the affect the missing o-ring had on total pressure.
With that settled, I turned my attention to my OD test rig with the clutch disc and a pulley from an old air pump. I headed to a local metal supply place in search of a short piece of pipe and scrounged one out of a scrap bin where they have all kinds of offcuts. I wound up with a 3.75” piece of pipe 2” ID and it cost me not a thing. Cleaned up all of the mating surfaces and phoned a friend with a welder. A few minutes later and I have part of the rig put together. I’ll work on the motor side of the drive system tomorrow hopefully but I’m thinking about a hinged setup that will allow me to slip the belt on the pulleys and tension/lock the motor in place. Gauge is plumbed and the gearbox is mounted temporarily to my Workmate bench for now and I’ll add a couple of ratchet straps to secure it. I hope to spin it up tomorrow.
No comments have been posted yet...
Want to leave a comment or ask the owner a question?
Sign in or register a new account — it's free
Had a couple things show up in the mail while I was away and they were delivered in the held mail bundle. A replacement steering cowl arrived from a forum member so that was something that I could do today. Had to remove the steering wheel anyways as the one that I recently bought from another member was off a spline or two.
Also got the old clutch disc that I requested on the BST forum. I can’t say enough about Dick Moritz. Such a gentleman. Always gracious and so knowledgeable. He wouldn’t accept any $$ to offset the postage from across the country. The task now is to put together a pulley set up to drive the OD gearbox that I found on Craigslist. Hardware store trip tomorrow to see if I can get a piece of black iron pipe that I can weld to the disc and weld a pulley to the other end. I should say, get welded as I’m going to see if I can persuade a friend since I don’t own a welder.
The other piece of the equation also arrived today. I purchased a gauge kit from James Holekamp so that I can test the pressure when I do get the gearbox spinning. I’ve checked the electrics out but still don’t know if I have a working OD yet...
No comments have been posted yet...
Want to leave a comment or ask the owner a question?
Sign in or register a new account — it's free
Epic fail on the first attempt. Just wouldn’t grab on the motor side. Spun around and cooked the rubber eventually.
Round two. Inserted a piece of copper tubing to avoid the hose twisting and this helped but still spun out.
Round three. Off to the hardware store in search of a piece of pipe or conduit to slip over the 5/8 shaft. Bought a short piece of 3/4” EMT and a couple of set screws. Drilled and tapped 4 holes to try and center the larger EMT on the shaft. A bit wonky and led to numerous attempts to spin the OD up. Managed to get it balanced somewhat for a couple runs where I could activate the solenoid and look for a change in revs.
Without a gauge, it’s a little bit of blind aeronautics. It seemed to change but I’m not claiming victory yet. Gauge kit due to arrive next week and after a family trip, I’ll try round 4.
Hoping to find a throwaway clutch disc so I can rig up a pulley system at some point. The plan is to see what kind of pressure is building and then drain, clean, change the service items, refill with the proper oil and get it ready to transplant later this year.
No comments have been posted yet...
Want to leave a comment or ask the owner a question?
Sign in or register a new account — it's free
Meanwhile, I started the search for a motor. I used to have a big drill laying around but could not find it so then it was a quick CL search and a call to my son in the electrical business to see if there was an old one laying around. No luck there but then looked at the motor on my drill press and 5 minutes later, the search was over. 1/2 HP and 1725 rpm and the wiring is easily reversible to get the shaft rotation to CW.
Looked around for some hose to use as a coupling but struck out so tomorrow’s task is to get some and hopefully spin this thing up to see if I can get it engaged. Hoping that the kit arrives before too long so that I can see the actual pressure. I’ll clean things up afterwards but I’d like to know why the guy couldn’t get it to kick in and go from there.
Got an email into John at Quantum Mechanics to see about a service kit of o-rings, seals, gaskets, etc.
Want to leave a comment or ask the owner a question?
Sign in or register a new account — it's free
So, I took another chance and bought it for a decent price. He seemed like a decent sort and told me the transmission worked fine in all gears but just wouldn’t engage. So I have a project for when the weather changes. Time to assemble the bits needed to run the box up and see what kind of pressure it will develop. Got a gauge that goes up to 400 psi so that should get me in the ballpark. Might even have a motor and/or a big drill. I’m hoping it’s something relatively minor. He had an extra solenoid and inhibitor switch so I’ll check those out. Should be fun...
No comments have been posted yet...
Want to leave a comment or ask the owner a question?
Sign in or register a new account — it's free







Want to leave a comment or ask the owner a question?
Sign in or register a new account — it's free