rattle_snake's random shop projects v0.1

rattle_snake · Dec 6, 2017

Disclaimer:
I am an incompetent hack. No responsibility is taken for any content in this thread. View at your own risk. Do not look directly at any of my welds. Grammatical and speeling errors should exist. Do not apply any techniques obtained in this thread to your personal property. No warrantee is expresses or guaranteed.

Figured I would start a project thread of random **** I cobble together to further clog the internet with content no one else cares about, instead of diluting my shop build thread with non-shop build related nonsense. So on with the pictures and incoherent rambling…

rattle_snake · Dec 6, 2017

revamped a old (1967) Coors beer sign for a friend.
The florescent lighting was junk so I retrofitted LED strips instead.
Added a grounded cord (case is metal), replaced switch.
I fabricated the twisted metal strip. It is connected to a slow turning motor on the right side.
Not sure what was there before, but the helical and lense material makes the text shimmer when running.

This sign had at least 50 rivets holding it together and is not light weight. Very different than the junk made these days.

customh · Dec 6, 2017

How about video of it working? Freakin cool! Not sure what it is about old timey neat ways that manufacturers got their stuff/sign/whatever to stick out but it's just so dang cool to me.

kbs2244 · Dec 6, 2017

From the first PIC I thought I was going to see a church sign.

rattle_snake · Dec 7, 2017

customh said:
How about video of it working? Freakin cool! Not sure what it is about old timey neat ways that manufacturers got their stuff/sign/whatever to stick out but it's just so dang cool to me.

The motor turns very slow, I would guess about 4rpm. One wire was corroded through and the case would have been energized had the switch worked. Wish I could hang this one up in my shop.

kbs2244 said:
From the first PIC I thought I was going to see a church sign.

Funny you say that, I thought the same with lid off. I thought about using a PIC microcontroller to control the LEDs instead of fixing the mechanical rotisserie. Addressable RGB strip and PWM to fade in some sort of sequence to emulate the same effect.

rattle_snake · Dec 7, 2017

Rolled the rear fenders on my Cobra. Was getting some rubbing and cuts on the tire after adding a 0.400 spacer some time ago.

I run 315 Mickey ET streets at ~20psi. They only make it about 2.5-4k miles. That's the price for traction (~16 cents a mile).

The lift made this job so much more comfortable. Everyone should have a lift. Fender roller was only $38 and the job took about a hour a side going slow. Heated the paint with a heat gun to prevent cracking.

Non trivial to get a smooth roll but no one but me will ever look

AMD[H]unter · Dec 7, 2017

Hey cool, another Cobra owner! :beer:

Southernbuild · Dec 7, 2017

Cool sign!

Any pictures against a dark background so we can better see how it glows with the LED upgrade?

rattle_snake · Feb 20, 2018

'Winter' (if you can call it that in AZ) is scheduled fleet maintenance time as the weather is nice for such projects.
The money pit referred to as 'boat' received engine/drive oil changes and a trailer axle examination. Last year all was 'OK' but this year will need some time and money.
Found some cracked drum shoes and bearing wear was at my limit so started buying parts. Also noticed the original drums from 1998 were ready for surfacing but a new set is only a few bucks more. It has always bugged me that this trailer which is near max capacity at all times has brakes only on the rear axle. I also had the trailer manufacturer built rear axle fail short after purchase so it seemed like a good time to upgrade this 20 year old setup, which has a hard life in the AZ mountains.

I decided to get a new Dexter drop axle and add brakes to the front axle. All brakes are upgraded to galvanized free backing style with new cylinders. The existing brake line ends on the rear axle were mangled, so new hard lines and hoses everywhere.

My tubing flare tool is a POS similar to many of my other limited use tools. I practiced a few times on old tubing and couldn't get a decent double flare. Upon inspection I could see several reasons for mis-alignment. The hooks of the press were uneven so a shim between the jaw helped somewhat. As the die is pressed it deflects, so I placed various shims on the low side to keep it straight. Work well enough and my flare are as good as or better than the factory tubing ones.

I chose to build up axle on the bench so I ran the brake lines under the springs to install as a unit. Lines had to go around the u-bolts. Line install came out OK for a hack like me, a far cry from the sad job done at the factory.
Next is to pull the rear axle and repeat the process, then add provisions for the front axle brakes on the frame.

The wiring holes (for electric brakes) bother me. I assume the axle fills with water every trip. I drilled 3 more holes for brackets, they are tapped and loc-tite'd with SS fasteners so should be sealed OK.
May have to fill the wire holes...

Sidebar:
Brakes are a safety item most spouses won't push back on too much. Typically with more engine power you need more braking capability. That said if you add braking, you are now free to add more power.
Now, one could argue that this doesn't apply to a boat/trailer, at all, but I still think it is a good time to give the 454 some love. Maybe heads/cam or a Procharger?

rattle_snake · Feb 28, 2018

Completed rear axle assembly. Decided to remove the wiring and weld the holes shut on both axles. 9 years of use showed that the axle fills with water and was rusting out the holes.

Installed the axles, added a 't', hose bracket and hard line to the trailer frame for the new front brakes. While I had the u bolt plates off I had the paint color matched for future paint repair/touch up. First the rest purple vinyl pin stripes need to be removed.

Put all new bearings in to complement new races/drums and blead the system. No leaks but the front brakes didn't function properly and one wouldn't release, so all came back apart for inspection. I had tightened a pivot bolt/nut on the primary shoe that bound up the operation on 2 of the 4. They need to stay loose so I re-crimped the non-locking lock nuts and reinstalled. Found a questionable valve stem as I was checking tire pressure but ready for a test tow.

I modified this grease gun adapter tool for filling the hubs with waterproof grease from the inner bearing outward. I run bearing buddies who's intent is to keep the hub grease pressure above that of the water. To work as designed the whole cavity needs to be filled with grease and no air, which is easier said than done. I run them at minimum spring pre-load/pressure as any more pushes grease out the rear seal and into the brakes.

zmotorsports · Feb 28, 2018

Great thread Justin. Sorry I missed it until today.

Subscribed.

rattle_snake · Mar 7, 2018

zmotorsports said:
Great thread Justin. Sorry I missed it until today.

Subscribed.

Thanks Mike. Your shop project thread and build quality are an inspiration to me. Hope to improve my skills and eventually make it to a v1.0

FallibleFlyer · Mar 7, 2018

Subscribed. Had me at the disclaimer

rattle_snake · Mar 7, 2018

R&R'd the rack on a friends Tunda. Made steering worse. Had to replace it again. Lift makes these jobs so much easier, otherwise I wouldn't be such a nice guy and volunteer for this stuff... twice.

Modified this TPMS system mount. Came with a cigar mount but didn't have power in it, so had to use 2 cigar ports to get it to work.
So I modified the power plug to hold the screen and shortened up the cable. This is for my boat trailer. Even the cheap ones have enough range for trailer application.

FallibleFlyer · Mar 7, 2018

Your wall racks for holding stock etc. What are those?

bullnerd · Mar 7, 2018

What is that last picture?

Either you have 80psi in your tires or 80psi of boost?

I'm not up on technology.

rattle_snake · Mar 7, 2018

FallibleFlyer said:
Subscribed. Had me at the disclaimer

haha for some its a joke, for others, well....

FallibleFlyer said:
Your wall racks for holding stock etc. What are those?

Uni-strut and a bunch of custom made brackets. see shop thread for details.

bullnerd said:
What is that last picture?
Either you have 80psi in your tires or 80psi of boost?
I'm not up on technology.

It is a poorly laid out LCD display. The TPMS can display temps in F or C, and pressure in kpa of psi.
So white is pressure and yellow numbers are temps (in F in this case)

rattle_snake · Mar 13, 2018

1969 mustang proportioning valve and distribution block rebuild.
Pistons were stuck pretty good

rattle_snake · Mar 13, 2018

My dad brought his 1981 suzuki down to AZ to enjoy it when he is here. It needed some love so it got a oil change, air filter service, brake fluid flush, wax, polish and so on.

zmotorsports · Mar 13, 2018

rattle_snake said:
My dad brought his 1981 suzuki down to AZ to enjoy it when he is here. It needed some love so it got a oil change, air filter service, brake fluid flush, wax, polish and so on.

Nice Justin. I love those old early 80’s GS’s.

That one looks like it’s very clean.

rattle_snake · Mar 22, 2018

zmotorsports said:
Nice Justin. I love those old early 80’s GS’s. That one looks like it’s very clean.

My old man got it when I was a kid, maybe 1985 or so. Has about 20k on it (a motorcycle is only so useful when you live in one of the rainiest places possible, WA state)

It wasn't until recently that I realized my mother strictly forbid her children from riding on said motorcycle. As I thought back to all the times I rode with my dad on it, my mom was't home at the time. Hmmmm....
So 30+ years later I was telling stories about it in their company. My dad was making gestures to stop the conversation but it was already too late.

rattle_snake · Mar 22, 2018

Installed window seals in my old Ford. The 46 yr old rubber was baked rock hard and had to come out in little pieces.

Ordered from manufacturer for half price of the usual classic truck resto places. I guess they bank on people being too lazy or incapable of copy-n-paste PNs in a web browser.

Dogs were absolutely sure they were going for a ride, and were not overly helpful during the process. Puppy isn't so much of a puppy anymore.

zmotorsports · Mar 23, 2018

Really??? The door rubber had to be replaced after only 46 years? What's up with that. :beer:

rattle_snake · Mar 26, 2018

zmotorsports said:
Really??? The door rubber had to be replaced after only 46 years? What's up with that.[emoji481]

Slightly out of warranty but should have lasted longer.

Installed a lift on a friends 2wd Tahoe this weekend. No rust and a lift make these jobs a breeze

zmotorsports · Mar 26, 2018

rattle_snake said:
Slightly out of warranty but should have lasted longer.

Installed a lift on a friends 2wd Tahoe this weekend. No rust and a lift make these jobs a breeze

No rust? Now you're just showing off Justin.

I'm building a rear bumper/tire carrier for a 1997 Jeep TJ right now and the whole first night was just getting rusted fasteners out so I could remove the OEM bumper cover.

rattle_snake · Apr 11, 2018

I do like rust at times. I use acid to accelerate the reaction because things take too long to rust in Phx. I had to apply 4-5 'treatments' to my air compressor shed to ge *** to look 'Cool'.

I am dealing with old worn out stuff though, the electrolyte in the capacitors of my amplifiers has evaporated leading to diminished performance. I bought them used, cheap, and one had a channel that intermittently crapped out at high volumes. I tried to repair back when I got them but didn't have time.

So a year and a half later I researched and edu-ma-cated myself on the theory of class H amps. The design is interesting as the rails float and output is though power supply decouple caps. Transformer has no 'ground'.
I replaced the caps that stabilize the op-amps 15V supplies and fixed the broken channel. It's improvement identified that the other channel's caps were weak causing output to collapse, so swapped them out too.

The sub amp is the same family and likely has the same issues so it's getting the same fix. Ideally I would replace all electrolytic caps but the cost is almost what I paid for the amps themselves.

rattle_snake · Apr 11, 2018

The big amp has quite the transformer. it was filthy inside so got a good cleaning first. each channel has it's own PCB with 2 sets of 8 power transistors in parallel.

rattle_snake · Apr 17, 2018

Automatic coffee machine rebuild. Bought this machine used 5 years ago. It's a 2005 model, made in Switzerland, which is evident when you open it up. Brute force engineering. Interesting and creative operation and solution to a fairly complex process.
Rebuilt the 'brew group' which is a opposing piston design. Had a failed o-ring that was leaking the coffee into the drain tray.
Good coffee is critical. Life is also too short for mediocre beer or Scotch. Had to suffer with *gasp* drip coffee for a few weeks.

Sanitized all the parts with home brew chems.

Has more **** under the hood than my 1972 ford.

rattle_snake · May 1, 2018

Building more bolt style gate latches. These are serial number 0016 through 0019.

zmotorsports · May 1, 2018

rattle_snake said:
Building more bolt style gate latches. These are serial number 0016 through 0019.

Those turned out nice Justin.

rattle_snake · May 7, 2018

zmotorsports said:
Those turned out nice Justin.

Thanks Mike. Hope to not have to make too many more of them, but I have two more stalls that need some work. They were hacked up by PO so I had to extend what was a divider into a back wall section. The are heavy and horses abuse them so they need a stout set of latches. I like designs that can be operated in a panic with one hand. Sounds like a fair weather project (aka winter).

Next project is a bumper for my Superduty. With steel terriff looming I ordered a road armor front bumper in bare finish for modifications. It was interesting to see how it was constructed. I test fitted my winch and determined a location for a front receiver. I also filled a few holes that would have been used for a logo, and welded some captive nut on for the fairlead.
I cut a groove and fitted a 2.5" to 2" receiver adapter and then tried to make some pretty welds. Nice to have a decent machine now without all the flux core splatter. Also nice to weld in 80* shop when it was 109* outside. I actually wore pants and long sleeves for a change.

Got the welding done and outside prepped for paint.

rattle_snake · May 9, 2018

Got the inside cleaned, primed and painted.
Not exactly sure why I have to paint the inside that won't be see by anyone other than me, not like it is going to rust here in AZ...

rattle_snake · May 14, 2018

Put some retractable 3pt seat belts in my old Ford to keep my teeth off the steering wheel.
I bought a 'universal' kit which of course needed some customization everywhere.

The latch side length all needed to be modified so I whipped out my old sewing machine.

Luckily this truck has provision for b pillar mounts. Just had to tap threads.

Wind finally died down after 4 days enough to put some primer on my bumper. This allowed me to realize I didn't order enough paint. ****.

gahrajmahal · May 16, 2018

rattle_snake said:
Building more bolt style gate latches. These are serial number 0016 through 0019.

Those gate latches are sweet! I am enjoying all of your rather exotic projects. Rebuilding a coffee maker? Who does that anymore? Last one I saw being worked on was by Emett on The Andy Griffith show.

rattle_snake · May 16, 2018

gahrajmahal said:
Those gate latches are sweet! I am enjoying all of your rather exotic projects. Rebuilding a coffee maker? Who does that anymore? Last one I saw being worked on was by Emett on The Andy Griffith show.

Thanks. There was just one on the property when I moved in, it worked well and was so much better than a chain. So I made one for the most used gate. then another, and another and so on. Then progressed to making batches of 5's.

As for the coffee machine, they are not cheap, but I am. A couple o rings vs $1000+. I fix a lot of things most 'normal' people wouldn't attempt to, as it takes a lot of time to understand the root issue, find parts, etc. The availability of knowledge on forums make it much easier than in the past. I tell my wife how much 'we save' with my repairs but she doesn't see it offsetting the shop build and tool purchases. I've always got a 'queue' of broken **** to fix.

My sawzall died working on the stalls so a new BLDC Dewalt 367 is coming today!

rattle_snake · May 24, 2018

My old Ford leans to the left so I fab'd a shim for the left front coil perch. Got lucky and truck is now level.

Brought LF corner up 3/4". Also ditched the super deep wheel center covers and painted the hubs.

zmotorsports · May 24, 2018

Looks good Justin, although I'm somewhat in favor of keeping the dust cap and axle shafts covered and not visible. Clean truck.

rattle_snake · May 29, 2018

Bumper project finally moved forward. Was waiting on paint. Using factory match rattle cans, to match the accent color on the rocker/flares. Came out nice enough and can touch up easy.

On the truck but needs further shimming, light wiring, etc.

FallibleFlyer · May 29, 2018

Thats one hell of a bumper! Nice work. I may have missed it, but whats the front receiver hitch for?

rattle_snake · May 29, 2018

FallibleFlyer said:
Thats one hell of a bumper! Nice work. I may have missed it, but whats the front receiver hitch for?

Front receiver is for a generator mount for a Honda 3000 handi. Front location works well for my setup. I haul a cab over camper and tow a trailer.
Also used front hitch for winch, but can't have both at same time and winch is really heavy. So solution was to spend a pile of money for something I hope to not have to use.

(just like insurance)

I had built my own front receiver that exited through bumper up much higher than any of the commercially available one. Then built winch and gen cradles.

rattle_snake's random shop projects v0.1

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