Chat 12
Answer to Chat 11:- What is this contraption for? Mick Dughan and Don Eades got the tight answer. Most imaginative wrong answer; Pat and Ann Davy think it is a fog machine.
In the first picture: Used by the Japanese to detect planes by the sounds of their engines in the days before radar, sometime prior to the end of World War II.
Lots of countries used similar
ideas. I particularly like those in the second picture. Not
the topical PPE but maybe PSF,
Personal Sound Finders. ����
John Goodall posted:-
Eddy writing
about the Welsh trips organized by Brian Slack reminded me of
one the first I went on. In those days we all assembled at
Brian’s home and left in convoy I seem to remember. Glyn Hall
was riding his newly restored 1962 Velocette Venom and the late
Carl Woodings was possibly on his 1955 MSS Velocette, I rode my
1953 MAC Velocette. We all left Brian's and followed his
instruction to turn left up the road towards Tutbury with the
exception of one guy named Glyn, who turned right? Soon
corrected, but was fair game later on. Those were the Velocette
days!!
We were using the drop off system of route turn indication.
I came up behind “The ??? Controller”
on his BSA twin just after we negotiated the cross roads at
Draycott in The Clay, heading towards
Marchington. As we approached
Marchington Ordnance Depot, by now a
Business Park, all of a sudden Brian veered off to the right
side of the road and back again and my first thought was what
the heck is he doing?? He
eventually stopped and sat
still in his seat, so I drew up alongside and he was gasping and
had gone rather white. I thought
he had had a seizure at first. Then I noticed the back tyre was
flat so all those
following stopped to lend a hand as this was
near the start of the trip with a long way to go to Wales.
Brian managed to recover and started to
get his tools out and the first amusing thing was he pulled a
massive spanner out of a bag fully fifteen inches long!! I
thought what in heavens name would you use that for on a BSA
Twin, I think it was for the rear wheel nuts?? The
wheel was soon removed and I think it was Dave Carron who said,
"I think there is a guy we can go and
see at the business park who might be able to repair it."
So Brian went to get on the back of
Dave’s BSA Rocket twin and with the wheel passed to him Dave
tried to set off. However
with the weight of Brian with the wheel and
Dave on the bike, the rear suspension was not up to the job and
the mudguard was now catching on the tyre,
only at the top mind you!! They
just managed to get under way, but it smoked a bit. It
was all eventually sorted, but Brian did receive a bit of
ribbing over the weekend over the poor BSA’s treatment.
John Goodall. John Earp posted:- MZ-ing Part 4
Sorry in advance if this small job seems to be going on a bit -
but the bike fought me all the way - anyway here we go -
re-fitting the carb in the bike.
I never planned on devoting a whole section on re-fitting the
carburettor but when Dana said it was a’pain’ he wasn’t wrong.
As part of the job whilst I’d got the carb off I’d decided to
fit a new intake rubber - this fits between the air filter and
the intake of the carburettor - the original one had perished.
So first job fit the new rubber which is basically a push fit
but you need to push it inside the air filter housing past a
ridge not unlike an ‘O’ ring, once past this the rubber drops
into place in the air box. To make things easier (??) I coated
the end of the rubber with ACF50 (similar but in my opinion far
superior to WD40 ) - trouble is you can’t help getting the
lubricant on your hands and this together with my shoulder
problem made it almost impossible to get enough force on the
rubber to push it home. So I’m afraid I resorted to using a
couple of ‘blunt’ screwdrivers to start the rubber into position
- once started I turned it 360 degrees and it was in����.
Now for the carburettor - as I already said the intake end
locates inside the rubber nearly an inch and the outlet to the
cylinder locates in the aluminium intake manifold a similar
distance - so I’d got to somehow push the new rubber back a
couple of inches to refit the carb.
Faced with a new (now slippy) intake rubber and a painful
shoulder this just wasn’t going to happen!
I considered enrolling my wife to help but there really isn’t
much room for two so stood back armed with a cuppa to look at
the options.
I could remove the intake manifold which luckily was held on by
two set pins, this would enable me to get the carb onto the
rubber and tighten the ‘jubilee’ type clip to hold it but the
due to the manifold fitting under the fins I wouldn’t be able to
re-fit it unless the carb was pushed a fair way back into the
rubber intake which actually has a concertina built into it -
but I would need another pair of hands.
Cuppa number two - I had a flash of inspiration!
In the 70’s I had a Mini Cooper and bought a small scissor Jack
from Halfords to work under it - i measured the gap and fetched
the jack and after wrapping everything in cloths to protect from
scratches I was just able to get the jack between the carb slide
body and the cylinder head fins.
After another check everything was covered I started to wind the
jack very gently so pushing the carb back into the rubber which
luckily stayed in place - to be honest it all moved back very
easily.
After one last wind I had just enough room to get the inlet
manifold back in place and get both set pins started - sounds
rather extreme but it worked - what do they call it? ‘Lateral
thinking ����!’
Very gently I let the jack off a bit and at the same time pushed
the carb down so that it was just over the top of the manifold -
which was still loose.
Now I removed the jack completely and unbelievably I was able to
wriggle the carb down by hand till it located into the manifold
- happy days!!
Now with the carb in place I retightened the manifold fitted the
throttle slide (it didn’t want to line up) and choke (it’s
really another jet in this carb) - and refitted the fuel pipe
and drain - I really wasn’t looking forward to the next bit i.e.
turning the fuel on as its:
‘THE MOMENT OF TRUTH’.
Anyway I took the bull by the horns and turned on the fuel and
waited, and waited, and waited with a dish under the overflow
to catch the fuel. Nothing came out����.
I went through the rather laborious MZ starting procedure,
which I’ll mention more of at a later date, and eureka, ‘ring
a ding ding’ it started.
Just then my wife came out to join me to see how I was doing
with another cuppa!!
Tickover was a bit faster than normal but i’d had enough so
turned everything of as I’d nothing much planned the next day to
finish the job.
I would just mention I’ve had three 400/4’s but as bad as they
are to re/fit (Malc ����) I never had to resort to a scissor jack
to get the carbs back !!
To be continued I’m afraid!!
A little bonus from John. Slightly risque, an oldie but goody joke:
A German guy called Helmut
approaches a lady of the night in London .
"I vish to buy sex viz you."
"Okay," says the girl, "I charge £50 an hour."
"Ist goot, but I must varn you, I am a little kinky."
"No problem," she replies cautiously, "I can do a little kinky
for an extra £10."
Helmut agrees
So off they go the girl's flat, where the German produces four
large bedsprings and a duck caller.
"I vant zat you tie zese springs to each of your hans und
knees."
The girl finds this odd, but complies, fastening the springs as
requested.
"Now you vill get down on your hans und knees."
This she duly does, balancing precariously on the springs.
"You vill please to blow zis kwacker as I make love to you."
She thinks this even odder, but figures it's harmless (and the
guy is paying).
But the sex is fantastic: honking away on the duck caller, she
is bounced all over the room by the energetic German. The climax
is the most sensational she has ever experienced, and it's
several minutes before she has enough breath to say, "That was
totally amazing! What do you call that position?"
"Zat," replies the German, "is ze Four-sprung Duck Technique."
(The power of advertising. Eh! Eddy.)
Suggestions for Pat Robotham Brake Light Electrical Problem:-
Mick Dughan posted:-
When Pat measures the voltage at the junction I assume this is a
connector, now this is open circuit voltage ie battery voltage.
If there is some high resistance in the wiring or brake light
switch this would be in series with the bulb and if high enough
would dim it to a point at which it would appear not working
properly. Two things to try if
not done already.
Put the multimeter set on dc amps in
series from the junction to the stop light wire, press the pedal
and see if current is flowing.
Or bridge out sections of the wiring to locate any high
resistance. Good luck. Mick
Eddy Grew posted:-
My initial thought is although you have voltage you may not have
sufficient current flow. (Amperage) I suspect that the brake
light switch may have a very high resistance. A wire direct
from battery to the lamp side of the brake light
might confirm this as it takes the switch out of the equation.
It will be interesting to see what others think. Eddy
Chat 12 picture quiz:- An easy Sunday quiz. What is it? If you want to easily stretch yourself a little farther, where is it? To make it even easier the clue is: "Don't take the ...." Answers to me at edgrew@virginmedia.com
And
finally for those techies amongst, you might find this
interesting. I thought this was a wind up, like braille
speedometers for blind drivers. I checked my calendar in
case it was still on April 1st.���� I then checked on the
Internet and it would seem it is genuine.���� Eddy.
Google has announced a new keyboard, dubbed TalkBack, for Android. But it’s not like any keyboard the company has introduced before—this one is for Braille users.
Usually, to type in braille, you’d have to connect an external device meant for braille usage. That can be time-consuming and inconvenient, especially for quick messages on a phone. Thanks to Google’s new TalkBack keyboard, that’s not necessary for Android phones (running Android 5.0 or later).
To accomplish this seemingly impossible task of creating a touchscreen braille keyboard, Google worked with braille users and developers throughout the process. It uses a braille-standard 6-key layout with each key representing one of 6 braille dots. When tapped in the correct combination, you can make any letter or symbol.
The keyboard works anywhere you can type, and you can delete letters and words, add lines, and submit the text. You use the same process to switch international keyboards to turn the keyboard on and off.
Google is rolling out the keyboard to devices running Android 5.0 or later starting today. To enable the keyboard, open “Settings,” go to “Accessibility, then select “TalkBack.” Google posted full instructions on its Android Accessibility Help website.