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Lord Gruntfuttock

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Everything posted by Lord Gruntfuttock

  1. Yeah apparently a bunch of Japanese rims were shithouse in the 80's. A few people have found similar horror stories when they went to change tyres...
  2. Since I had the wheel apart I thought I'd paint a bunch of stuff... Stripped old bits... And sprayed with Durepox primer, a mix of grey/black depending on the final colour, when they chip the undercoat of epoxy should be similar in colour... And just top coated with VHT wheel paint. Will be interested to see how this goes... Brake plate was quite pitted but seems sound, smoothed out quite well with few coats of primer and paint... And spokes look as good as possible I guess, seeing it's only silver paint... And lower triple clamp looks pretty sharp. Had some drips on this from spraying too heavy but wiped them smooth and the wheel paint seemed to recover itself... Sort of waiting on Ali new rear rim to arrive now to give me some enthusiasm to start rebuilding shit, paint will harden in the meantime...
  3. Nothing to lose so had a crack at it, remembered to measure offset beforehand., just with a ruler from a flat surface.. And a combination of heat, penetrant impact gun and force got them moving... Until I broke my favourite old spoke tool, was a bloody good one too... So out with the vice grips for the last few stuck nipples... And success. All spokes out without breakages. Should be able to clean them up and re-use with new nipples on a new 32 hole rim... Pretty pleased with that as I've already bought bearings etc for this hub...
  4. Tidied the garage in the weekend and thought it'd be good to start putting this back together. The rear wheel looked ok, so I thought it'd be a simple cleanup and new tyre job, but oh no, nothing's simple. First mission was getting the ancient tyre off, was a real mission as was hard as fuck, so cut the sidewalls with a hook blade Stanley knife, removed the tread and tube, and levered off the remaining bands... And the obvious signs of corrosion worried me under what looked like orange insulation tape... And yep, disturbingly shitty... Wire brush on the drill appeared to clean it up ok, and at this stage was still hopeful it was recoverable... But serious cracks mean otherwise... So thought I'd just lace up a new rim, fairly standard size so should be no probs... Except it has some weird spokes that go right through the hub on one side. Never seen them before... Turns out they're Z-spokes, an innovation Yamaha brought out in '84... And discontinued cos they were a bit shit... So that's where I'm at. You can get new spokes, but they're stupidly expensive. Annoying as I thought this wheel was ok and just needed some paint. So can either clean it up and use with cracks, or look at other wheels/hubs that'll work... Will see what looks similar/is available...
  5. Seat build info down near bottom of this if you want pics. Seat still going well several years later...
  6. I just used sleeping mat foam from the warehouse. Closed cell so waterproof, can glue together and is sandable for shaping. Cos it's fairly hard I added a gel pad on seat section, and covered the lot in smoothing foam to even out before it went to upholsterer...
  7. SCIENCE!!! I so want to graph that...
  8. Shit that's cool. heaps of room for big batt pack, efficient frame mounted motor, big wheels, discs etc. and a stubby holder.... And yeah definitely a learning curve. I'm thinking of doing a classic electric scooter down the track, an old Tigress or BSA Sunbeam. Reckon putting batteries where the engine was and a grunty hub motor would be a hoot...
  9. And just ordered this one, which should do the job...
  10. Yeah I cheaped out and my $7 BMS doesn't have balance function, which would explain it...
  11. So had charger on for days and it is VERY slowly raising the voltages, but I'm still not convinced the BMS is actually doing any balancing? Trend shows very gradual increase overall, but no obvious evening out across the 10 parallel banks... So I soldered a few 21W 12V lamps to connectors so I could drain some cells. Started with 2 lamps in parallel on each of the two cell blocks that were over 4V (parallel banks 5 and 7). This drew just over an amp and I ran it till the cells were around 3.8V... Then connected 3 lamps in series across the whole battery to drop all cells down, and mowed the lawns... Started with 37.8V and 90-odd minutes later had dropped to 35.4V. Chucked it back on charge overnight, and things looked much more even, and overall voltage had increased from 38.6V to 40.2V... Different scale shows the improvement overall... Think I'll repeat the exercise, but still confused as to operation of BMS. Is it just because the imbalance was so large? Or does each cycle even things up. Just want to know if it's worth ordering/connecting another BMS before wrapping the battery up. I did buy a cheap one, and it doesn't actually mention balancing in the description... [Edit] just ordered a flasher looking one anyway. Reviews, specs seem ok...
  12. Was just going by the LED on the charger, went from red to green, indicating fully charged. It's just an Ali 36V 2A Li ion charger, suitable for 10S 10-15Ah Ebike batteries (output of 42V not connected). I did think it'd take a long time for cells to balance with those teeny wires, will leave it on overnight tonight to see how things go. Cheers...
  13. More bits had arrived over xmas and I had a little time over the weekend so hooked up the BMS. Cut a bit of leftover foam from my tool trays as a mounting point, routed out a recess, and stuck it on with hot glue... And hooked up the power wires... Then ran the balance wiring, beauty of this kit is I can just remove the links to solder on the balance wires, so no heat issues... And tied it up. Paused at ths point as I wanted to check all was ok before taping up and heat sleeving the whole thing. And put it on charge... Aaaand I don't think it works...? Charger ran for 40 mins or so and switched off, overall voltage 38V, but checking shows a big variation between the parallel groups of cells (from 3.61 to 4.12V) I thought the BMS was supposed to balance these things out by levelling cell voltages via electronic switching/shunt resistors? Google tells me that "with a BMS, balancing is handled by the BMS, not the charger. So when the first cell group reaches full, the BMS cuts off the charger and drains the highest cell group(s) slowly using its onboard resistors. Once its lower, it allows the charger to turn back on. It repeats until all cell groups are full." Maybe I didn't leave it on charge long enough? I'll leave it on for some time when I'm home again, but if that doesn't work I'm unsure where to go from here. BMS definitely wired correctly, it was only a $7 job though so might invest in another one and try again. Any experience/suggestions?
  14. Great buy. Look forward to your strongly worded letters to the editor/boomer rants...
  15. Transport museum in Luggate yesterday, not a Seagull to be seen. A few old British Anzanis tho...
  16. Ha, sorry, genuinely no offence intended. LIke I said I was all keen to do my R20, but when I saw it the proportions didn't look like I imagined, plus I had the sweet old BSA just hanging in the shed looking for some wheels... Oh and I got an Ali BMS, whether better or worse quaility we'll have to see.
  17. Spokes arrived, sizes are spot on, so any fuckup will be my doing. Second lot of spokes I've bought from same seller, and they all seem good quality. These are 13g... And laced it up, wondering now if I should have gone for longer spokes and a 2-cross pattern. I went for single cross as it seemed to give the best spoke angle against the rim due to the large hub. Will see how this goes though, if I start snapping spokes I'll order some longer ones and re-lace... And looks pretty cool with new whitewall tyres that have also arrived... I actually re-laced the spokes after these pics as the valve was in a cross-piece, and could be awkward to get to (can see valve at roughly 2 o'clock position above). Shifting the spokes along put the valve in a more accessible area. Still only loosely put together as I'm waiting on some washers before lacing the rear hub, then I'll true them up at the same time...
  18. My Vruzend kit arrived so had a play with it. I bought used batteries so had to clean up the old spot welds on the terminal ends with a dremel grinder. Then just systematically assembled the kit. I just used body weight and bits of wood to seat them in the holders... And when all clicked together and locking screws installed you add the parallel strips... Then a figure 8 pattern to series them up... And the other side similarly, but offset. Had to take care not to short anything out cos there's a bit of potential there when series'd up... And still got the BMS to hook up... Looks straight forward enough but still have some connectors to arrive before I start soldering things up. Also pretty keen to cover exposed bus, but not bad effort for the day after crate day...
  19. Yeah that's Doug, as in the kids 'dug' him up in our back yard (one cried one laughed). He looks after my safety gear. Must hide him in work site excavations to see what happens...
  20. Haven't done any more I just like this pic. Holding epoxied transom board up to the light, just need to drill these out for mounting bolts...
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