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What's That Smell???:
Sleep in.
Right... What day is this? What page am I on?? Once again, before the
first light of the new morning, I was awakened. This time not by a
sound. This time by a smell. A familiar smell. A strong familiar smell.
A strong unpleasant familiar smell. A nearby strong unpleasant familiar
smell. A nearby strong unpleasant familiar smell of SKUNK!!!! This time
I laid in bed not considering whacking the creature with the flashlight
in case it wanted into the tent, but fully considering it could have
anything it wanted after I made a new exit in the back of the tent and
had run some good distance away.
No tent flap scratching ensued, so I eventually
drifted back to sleep, only to wake up a short time later as twilight
began outdoors, to still have the same odor in the air. It wasn't like
the skunk had sprayed and the smell was lingering in the air, but more
like nearby stinky skunk butt prowling around the campground.
Drifted off back to sleep, and eventually got
up about a quarter to six. Breakfast, tea, and back to work on the
Pusher out in the exhibition area. Sometime during the night, someone
had slipped a VW head gasket under the corner of my tent. Hmmm, the head
gasket fairy had visited (thanks, Bruce, even though it was a gasoline
engine part, the thought was appreciated).
Expecting to get finished by afternoon, I put
the cam followers back into the cylinder head, and began to assemble the
cam shaft and retaining caps. Bob, who was camping next to me decided to
come by and check the progress, and asked if I had checked the cam line.
"Well, no, should I?" Of course, if the head was warped, then
the five camshaft bearings are no longer in a straight line, and need to
be line bored to correct the "bow" that the cam will
experience when it is torqued down. This necessitated a trip to the
machine shop, where I learned that they didn't have a line boring
machine, so there was little they could do about this problem.
Bob had me pick up some long strips of 400 grit
wet-or-dry sandpaper and some brake cleaning fluid. We were going to
hand-turn the camshaft bearing journals to provide additional clearance
to allow for the bow in the bearing line. I thought this was going to be
impossible with hand tools, but he assured me that he had done this type
of repair many times, and while line boring was preferable, this would
at least insure that the bearing journals would not wear excessively.
What we ended up doing was resting the rear of
the cam in the head backwards so that it could be turned in free air
with a ratchet, and then Bob used the sandpaper as a strop to polish the
number 1, 3, & 5 cam journals to remove material. Our first session
before noon was pretty productive, but we ran out of sandpaper, so Bob
left to attend a lecture, while I rode the bike back down to NAPA to get
more abrasive.
At some point, Tomas and Ian of Eugene
Biosource showed up on site and loaded a bunch of flyers on the table.
I had expected to attend Josh Tickell's lecture
on Biodiesel at 12:30PM, but I didn't want to miss Bob in case he came
back to finish the job, and so I stuck around and gave "the
tour" to onlookers. Bob returned about 1:30, and we did some
additional clearancing on the journals, using Plastigauge to check our
progress. Finally, the clearances seemed right, and we torqued the cam
shaft into place and checked the rotation for binding. It felt loose and
easy to turn, so I resumed installing the valve gear and got ready to
put the head on the engine.
The rest of
the afternoon held no new disastrous surprises. At one point, Gray was
going to the auto parts store to look at electric fuel pumps for his SVO
conversion on the truck, so I tagged along, purchasing four quarts of
oil and a plastic drain pan so that I could empty the most likely fried
oil in the crankcase sump and put in some new.
Just as we were leaving David arrived with his Biodiesel refinery
trailer, which was for sale. This trailer is very well equipped, and has
everything needed to produce batches of Biodiesel in 12 gallon
quantities. All aspects of safety have been considered including fire suppression,
first aid, personal safety (goggles, gloves, rubber aprons), Material
Safety Data Sheets for all chemicals, and an eye wash station, which you
can see on the left-hand cabinet door which is open. Dave was present at
last year's event, and held a lecture on Biodiesel production
procedures.
The cylinder
head went back into place on the engine block, and I secured it using
the new head bolts that had been delivered from Corvallis yesterday. I
did have some head scratching trying to decipher the torque wrench specs
that were supplied with the head gasket, as they were universal,
covering a wide range of head gasket and engine types. After conferring
with three other people to make sure that I was reading the abbreviated
instructions correctly, I set to work with the torque wrench, which I
had put into the car with the tools before I left home. As I was loading
the wrench into the car, I asked myself why I was taking it along, as it
was very unlikely to be needed with the trailer running so well after
the recent rebuild. Yet another example of cosmic intervention, I almost
left it at home...
It's now late afternoon, and I've gotten the
cylinder head installed, and begun attaching wires, hoses and other
fixtures that will be needed to complete the job. I'd hoped to have the
engine running by this evening, but there is still a bit to do before I
can try to start it.
Justin and Peter of Grease Works have been
planning a meeting for this evening for several months. Anyone with an
interest in Biodiesel was invited, particularly those who wish to start
or belong to a biofuels co-op model. About 40 people or so show up in
the open-air classroom to participate. I misunderstood and instead first
went to the Sale Barn, where Windy Dankoff was just beginning a
presentation of solar water pumping. Just before taking a seat, it became
apparent that I was either in the wrong place, or here at the wrong
time. Grabbed my bike and shifted over to the large canopy on the grass
and settled down next to Jacques with the digital camera ready to take a
few images.
They were
just beginning to assemble a list of subjects to cover during the
meeting. Jacques got a nice plug at the top of the board with his grass-car.com
address. There were many questions about glycerin disposal, tier one
certification, fee fatty acids, and a variety of other subjects which
showed that the participants were mostly experienced with the production
mechanics of Biodiesel. Josh Tickell sat in, interjecting a few facts
when appropriate. Tomas and Ian of Eugene Biosource were also in
attendance, you can just see the tops of their heads at the bottom of
the image.
About 20 minutes into the meeting, after the agenda
had been set and discussion began, the compact flash card in the camera
became full, so I bowed out to go to the tent and get the spare card. On
the way back, I got the feeling that I might be better off using this
time to begin installing the intake and exhaust manifolds on the engine.
Using my time wisely is important, because Jacques and Gray and I are
going out to dinner at The Snaffle Bit, tonight, using the reservations
we made last night.
Dinner was
pretty much a bust, except for the free beer that the waitress gave us
because our order got messed up.
Back at the motel, the HP crew was in full
swing, with Darren supplying two 5 gallon soda containers of home made
dark ale. The party had spilled out onto the balcony, and exhibitors,
lecturers, attendees and magazine folk alike talked, ate and took in the
warm summer night. Fortunately, most of the motel was occupied by
Solwest people, so there weren't any complaints about the bit of noise
the socializing caused.
Another ½ glass of beer for me, and it was time for
bed. It had been a long day, and tomorrow would be another. In the
parking lot of the Motel, I found that my bike had another flat
tire, this time, the rear. Walked it back to the fairgrounds. Passing
through the campground, a fair bit of partying
was taking place at Margaritaville, and there was another group of
people getting some live music going on one side of the camp.
Earplugs in and lights out for me.
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