Random Shop Projects.

Life has settled down somewhat around my house. My Tech School has been rocking and rolling. The weather has started to cool. Life has become predictable as compared to the chaos of our summer. I haven't been getting out to the shop as much as I'd like, but I have been able to squeeze out some time to work on a few things. This post is a collection of stuff I've been up to. Enjoy!

One of the things that I've gotten to do in the school shop is pull a few engines apart. I am taking classes at a local Tech School for a Marine & RV Technician program. The Marine classes are sponsored by Yamaha Motors so we get to play with a bunch of different Yamaha outboards. Here I pulled apart an 8hp Yamaha outboard and was playing with measuring the runout of the crankshaft. The school doesn't have a motorcycle program, but the Marine stuff is very familiar. I find that a lot of my motorcycle experience is paying off helping me to work on the boat engines. Yamaha has some very high horsepower outboard engines that are very technically advanced. If I can get familiar working with these bad boys, motorcycles will be easy!

Another quickie project I did was to whip up this basic parts washer. I had a submersible pump, some brushes and an extra plastic bin. I filled it up with a hose and used some car wash soap. Mostly this was a test to see if it would work, but I ended up washing a bunch of parts from my flat tracker. It wasn't magic, but it did work pretty well to get things clean for further work. I need to do the frame and the swing arm and then figure out what to do about the engine. For the aluminum parts, I will use an aluminum cleaner to get the deeper stains out. I will also clean up the rest of the parts in greater detail and use that time to make a list of parts to replace. While not as good as a vapor blasting setup, it is much more affordable.

A minor project that has been on my list since I was in Japan was to clean up this jack. Since I didn't have a garage, a lot of my bigger bike tools had to be stored outside. With the rain and proximity to the coast, most of these tools didn't fair too well. My motorcycle jack and wheel chock stand got pretty rusty. The jack got the worst of it. Most of the paint is pretty well damaged. It is still functional, especially after I lubed the screw and ran it up and down a dozen times. It just looks bad. I scraped off most of the heavy corrosion and gave it a quick sanding. I sprayed the whole thing with WD-40 to give me some more time until I can do some proper rust removal with a sand blaster. For now it will have to do.

The last of the random projects for today's post if one that I was dreading a bit. I played with my Anet A-8 3D printer a couple of times since getting it back from storage. All of those times ended with discouragement and the feeling that selling it on Facebook would be a good idea. One day I decided to give it a proper try and I'm glad I did. The Anet A-8 is an infamous $150 printer from Amazon. It is more of a kit than a good printer. It can be made better with a bunch of work and a ton of fiddling. Well I finally fiddled the right combination of things and got a couple of successful test prints from my old file library. It took some thinking, but it seems ok for now. I have to relearn the CAD and the slicer software. I also need to print some parts for the printer and mount it to its own base for better stability, but at least I know now that it works.

I know that this post isn't an exciting one for you the reader, but I'm encouraged. I've kept my plate full and getting these minor and somewhat pedantic projects complete is necessary for a smooth running shop. I should have some bigger projects coming up soon that should be a better read. I also have some cool pictures from a recent trip and museum visit that might make it into its own post. I hope this post finds you well. Ride safe friends!

Mat