Being an idiot makes you brilliant

[Parah_Salin]

Or, more over, being an idiot, and then refusing to give in, and fixing your mistakes makes you brilliant.

I'm first going to say that my happy time motorbike is not finished. I have no idea if it will hold up for more than 15 minutes of riding once I'm done. But I'm having a happy time with it (pun intended)

See, almost a year ago, I bought the happy time kit almost as an impulse buy, and it was gathering dust. It had joined my box of styrofoam heads, my colection of rusted out huffy bicycles, that extra NIN/Janes addiction ticket that I should have scalped for $40 at the door as aposed to selling to some guy on craigslist for $30 (who showed up late and caused my to miss 20 min of the NIN set), and my several broken autococker paintball guns as "stupid things I shouldn't have bought that have raped my bank account more than my smoking habit."

Anways, I did finally put it on a bicycle, and went ahead under the false impression that it would be like assembling a piece of furniture from IKEA, with everything fitting together nicely and neatly and smoothly. It wasn't, but the knowledge that everything AFTER this one little hangup (making custom engine mounts, cutting the intake pipe so the carb would fit in the frame) would be smooth sailing got me through.

Then came the kicker- after not finding the master link on the chain, and not knowing which way the engine rotated, came the brilliant idea of my dad and my cousin to try to manually move the cylinder head to thread the chain though- needless to say it didn't work, and I was left with the piston not even in the engine casing and not wanting to go back in. And I was leaving for a 2 week vacation to South Carolina the next day. Brilliant.

Well, I just got back, and decided to give it another go. 2 weeks of warm air, chigger bites, and violating golf-cart warranties will clear your head pretty good. I managed to find the stupid chain master link, and find little "nubs" in the grooves where the piston rings sat that allowed me to compress them and get the engine back together. Yay, smooth sailing, right?

No, one of my wooden mounts is going to get chewed to bit by the chain- so it's time to get busy with a hand-planer. I also have a sneaking suspicion that while the inner tubing and rubber washers I used reduce vibration on the engine mounts, while they will do wonders for preserving my sperm count, will only make the HT's problem of obliterating every little bit of hardware with vibration even worse. So a top engine mounting bracket will have to be made, and a old metal snow-shovel is cowering in terror because it knows it will be mutilated beyond recognition in my effort to make a top bracket.

And I know that after this there will probably be more stupid little issues. And I know I probably will have made a mistake somewhere and that this thing probably won't run for very long.

But I think there was a point, somewhere- figuring all this **** out is good for, and makes you smarter. I am alot more confident at fixing things now. I understand small engines now, in the sort of way you can't get from reading the Wikipedia article on "2-stroke engines"- it is a good feeling. I belive I know enough to really put the forges and milling machines available in my colleges metal shop to good use too. which is definitely a good thing.

And even if it dosn't run, the adult ed small engine repair class was $200, so I'm getting all of that $75 off.

 

[Hawaii_Ed]

Good post! These things take a lot of tinkering. You'll get there, and welcome to the motorized bike family!

 

[AdamT]

sounds about right for a first build. my second was much better. but yeah their not exactly as bolt on as you might think.

 

[stude13]

keep going. but you dont have to reinvent the wheel. there are a couple thousand guys that have plowed this ground. read read read and use the search function about any question you may have, its all here. this is supposed to be fun. it is hard to find a motor vehicle for a couple hundred. if you want bullet proof get a golden eagle kit with a subaru, 30min no mess and over 200 mpg. good luck!!!

 

[machiasmort]

Parah,
I give to you all of the encouragment in the World. When reading the title, sort of reminded me of myself. I was told my whole life how stupid I was compared to my college educated Sister.

We both sat and took an I.Q. test one day, infront of my Mom.

Much to everybodys dismay, I outscored miss pritz by two points!

It was funny though. Every question I got wrong, she had gotten right and Vice versa.

Moral of the story? Don't let anybody hold you back man, you only get one life and sometimes the people sayin you don't know whats up are really the stupid ones!

 

[icyuod2]

i'm dying to hear more about the wooden mounts?????????????
pic's please!

 

[Parah_Salin]

Thanks everybody.

See, I am/was the sort of guy who could tell you, theroretically, how anything worked. That is, regular engines, turbocharged, vapor injected, 6 stroke, plug in hybrids, non plug-hybrids, wankles, turbo-jets, turbo fans, vertical alternators, aerodynamics, fission reactors- anything. But really simple things, like how to connect a crankshaft to the rest of the drive train, confused me. Very typical of the modern self tought internet-fed gearhead who has suburban parents who belive that a garage is a place for working cars and furniture that they will (eventually) sell on Ebay.

icyuod2, the wooden mounts are not special. Basically my bike frame was a little too small, and the stock mounts didn't fit quite right. I cut out a little square (roughly 2" x 2") from some very hard 1" thick scrapwood we had (either maple or oak) and drilled two holes in it to move the engine forward in the frame. I took a file and a chisle and made a sort-of round indentation where it fit to the frame. Most of the work is being done by a combination of old bicycle innter tubes wrapped around the frame and a combination of rubber washers and these wierd little things I bought at lows that were basically fatter, squishier rubber washers. I'm hoping that this will cushion the engine a bit, and that with a top mount, will reduce vibrations signifigantly.


And yeah, I'm thinking my next built will not be a HT. I'm debating weather it should be another Motorbike, A motor trike/car/gokart thing (take advantage of the MA limited use vehical class, up to 40mph with 3 wheels or less, not going to park a trike on the sidewalk anyways), street-leglifying an old dirtbike, or a pusher to be used with either roller blades or skis.

 

[frenchlayer]

Well at least you have great taste in music

 

[Parah_Salin]

I was originally going to spray paint "Raw Power" on the gas tank after the iggy pop song, but 2 horse dosn't really scream "raw power" to me. then I thought of naming it "Pretty Hate Machine" after the NIN album, but it's not that pretty.