Mt Cootha

Today I headed out early (ish) to take my first run at Mt Cootha in Brisbane. I have been riding a bit since August or so and have really wanted to improve my hill climbing ability.

From what I have read the solution is more hills. So I met Robbie from work (who's last name is strangely enough McEwin - different spelling thank goodness) and we rode from the goodwill bridge out.

I stared off pretty well up past the planetarium but I was really hurting after about 1km or so. I was pedaling out too fast. I need to learn to slow my cadence down when I am struggling. I made a brief stop about 1/3 of the way up and caught my breath, Robbie kept on after short break I started again and made it nearly to the summit before stopping for a few moments once again.

Of course in that time, Robbie had ridden to the top and come back down to get me, followed me to the top shouting words of advice and encouragement.

We made it up there and had a good ride back down in spite of the light rain that made the deck pretty slippery. I was pretty conservative on the ride back down, the rain kept me to just under 60k/hr. After on crash this week I wasn't keen on leaving more flesh on the tarmac.

After we descended I could feel how much I had put into it I was pretty spent, my technique needs a lot of work, I am not particularly suited to climbing but it is a real area I want to improve. We rounded the day out with a ride back to southbank via, UQ, Dutton Park and West End. Good end to a good day.

I guess later this week when I go back for more I need to get up there with 1 stop or no stops then we will start timing it :)

Damn Chains

How does that saying go ? You want something done right do it yourself ??

I took my pride and joy, my peugeot fixie to have the back cog on her changed over.
The shop swapped it over and fitted a new chain for me. ( I supplied the chain which was brand new) Anyway the new gear ratio was sweet and I was having an excellent ride home.

I had pushed hard on a few smaller hills, was making excellent time and really having a lovely ride home. That was of course until swung around into the steepest bit of the ride and stood up and sprinted flat out as hard as I could.

The next thing I knew I was sliding across the asphalt to a stop the feeling of lycra and skin burning on the hot road and the final insult was my bike hitting me in head and helmet as I came to a stop.

To be honest it didn't really hurt all that much it was more the shock of it that was more the problem. I stood up and had a good look around, saw my bike in a tangled mess on the road (oh the paint work) my beautiful bike, the shiny chrome, the horror !!!

I could see a about 2 or 3m behind my bike was the chain broken and lying on the road. I hobbled across there picked up the bike and my chain. Put them on the footpath in the shade and went to look for the broken link. Eventually I found it hobbled over and sat down and laughed.

It has been so long since I had a proper crash I mean full on eating asphalt.

Anway all is well that ends well - bike is fine not really a mark on it bars were twisted but not bend and the chain is definitely to blame - on closer inspection it looks like it was bent during install and has failed.

Biggest sore spot would probably would be my hand, it appears that my right hand was still on the bars when I hit the road cut up my fingers badly - all the bits that weren't covered by the glove.

Here are some photos from my adventure today :)

Nice round number

Our merc hit a nice milestone on my drive out to Gatton today. Time for a service I suppose :)

Back in action

This has been a while coming but ...... the rangie is running on her new (new to me anyway) motor, gearbox and transfer case. It has survived its first decent test when I drove it home from Chucks where she has lived for nearly a year.

It has been a saga that is not over yet but at this point in time, the on screen hero is just winning ... of course you know the plot twist is just around the corner.

It all started when I found a good priced donor motor/gbox/tcase for my car, it was from a 1995 discovery which was originally delivered to Japan, it was imported and wrecked (the best value supply of second hand Rangie and Disco parts pretty much all come into the country like this now, it is cheaper for people to buy them and import for parts as they can't be registered on the road.

I then found a guy with a workshop who was willing to do the work - well he said he was anyway, he pulled all the old gear out and put the new motor together and got it in place, put a rollmaster timing set, new waterpump, re cored and cleaned my radiator and other bits and pieces on the car. Then we hit a big drama, old mate pretty much realised he was over his head and not going to make any money on the job because he was so slow - threw his hands in the air and said come and get it.

Needless to say I wasn't all that impressed, Chuck was very generous and offered part of his garage to my so we could finish the job - when I first saw her I was mortified - it looked like such a massive amount of work and to be honest I thought it was totally beyond me - nothing was done up - the drive train was sitting there without any mounts done up and it was all very gravity assisted.

Chuck encouraged me and said to just start 1 bolt at a time - with help from him and my brother in law Dan, we got a stack done over a few weeks and got it nearly ready to go - I was about 5 or 10 hours short of having it finished before I went overseas. Have spent 3 Saturdays down at Chucks getting the last of it done until finally it roared into life two weekends ago.

Now here is the twist ...
We kinda stuffed up a bit and didn't account for the oil cooler (which was new) and the fact that both of us forgot to connect the idle air bypass hose so when it started it roared up to about 3000rpm for about 10 seconds before we killed it because of a lack of oil pressure. From there we starting pumping oil into every available cooler line and hole and then tried again, another 10 seconds of roaring and still nothing. We put the delkor (battery) on the big charger and then cranked the car over with the fuel turned off) until the pressure came up and slowly realised we were missing the hose to stop the high rpm, fitted that and then she came on nice and smooth .... until about a minute later when we heard the familiar singer sewing machine sound of tack, tack, tack, tack ....... busted lifter.

At this stage it seems to come and go but it is definitely there - I have delvac in there now and have to flush it with RX super which might solve the problem but now it seems that I might have to strip the motor back down and put a set of lifters in there .... not happy.

That aside we warmed her up last night after finishing some wiring and I had enough confidence and instrumentation to drive home .... well sort of ... no turn signals, brake lights or speedo (short in that circuit) - have to chase that down next weekend but now it is in the driveway I washed her today and got a year of workshop grim off her .... here is the list of things to do yet.

1. Stop lights, indicators, speedo (should be a short)
2. New top and bottom rad hose (purchased but need installing)
3. New radius arm bushes (the ones in it are sooo stuffed)
4. Fabricate a centre console completely (the laminated cardboard original is gawn)
5. put the 3 plugs that are not connected onto the gearbox (should fix reverse light problem)
6. Wire up a Diff lock light - never had one of those in this car :)
7. Acquire LT230 H/L knob
8. Fix aircon - new pipes for new compressor, new R/D and vac, regas (trip to Haultech)
9. Fix air intake - missing O rings and need to fabricate bracket
10. Fix dipstick and dipstick tube - must have copped a flogging when they put the motor in.
11. Fix Aux electric fans - seem to be not activating - hoping it is an earth
12. Drop the oil 2 or 3 times and hopefully solve the lifter problem (fingers crossed)
13. Drop the coolant a few times and clean the inline filter - need to do a few kms before that)
14. Drop the gbox and tcase oil twice - goodness knows how old that is
15. Bleed the brakes - fluid is cactus
16. Install new rotors for the front and pads
17. Repack front bearings, change the oil seals, drop the hub oil.

That is all I can think of just off the top of my head, it is a long road but well worth it - am keen to have it back in service - they are an awesome car, just so versatile and it will be good to have two cars running just make life a bit easier from time to time.

So, I am very happy, I know most of the jobs on the list are pretty simple, most I have done before and most are electrical (surprised ? I thought not).

Old school works of art

I have been playing with my camera and having a read on the interweb about manual focus lenses on new EOS digital cameras - like my 40D. Naturally you would think that the older canon lenses (which I have a boat load of) would be weapons of choice and you would be wrong!

According to those in the know canon, whether accidentally or on purpose made the EF "register distance" (lens mounting distance) and the diameter of the lens such that you can buy a simple $8 - $30 lens adapter and mount nearly any old school manual focus lens on them with ease. All EXCEPT the canon FD lenses.

Naturally there are forums (isn't there always) on which lenses are the best, why and how, how much they should/do cost. From there I have been slowly learning which ones to look out for on ePay.

So far I managed to score a Helios-44-2 58mm f2 (russian made carl zeiss copy) for $1 plus $20 shipping from the US and a mamiya 50mm f2. for $30 with $5 shipping in Brisbane.

I only got my adapters today so I have been annoying Susan and our fish with them tonight.
They only really work in AV mode on the camera so you just manually select the aperture you are after and then the camera works out the rest. They produce a very different feeling photo and I am really impressed with the sharpness and the bokeh (meaning background blur).

One of the most desirable Japanese made lens is the Minolta rokkor 58mm f1.2 - just looking at this beast is stunning - pity about the "modification process" required to make it fit - it involves disassembly and grinding the casing of the lens down until it focuses to infinity - I am brave, but not that brave ..... yet.

I am having a lot of fun with my $60 invested so far - I think it will do me for now, although I have got my eye out for a nice 300mm prime lens, the pop up now and again for less than $50 :)

I put the photo of Suse I took at the top and this is jman13's (from the POTN forums ) collection of desirable manual lenses.

I'd better blog

Well I have now been sick for a week with diverticulitis and I am over it - I am home today nearly better and pretty bored, so the best thing to do I figure is to write about a few things that are going through my head.

Holiday - had an awesome time, really loved it still haven't sorted all the photos but that is coming soon no doubt - I want to have some nice ones printed. The 40d went brilliantly thanks to Suse again for the Birthday present I have got so much pleasure out of it and it has been a lot of fun taking photos overseas with you.

Further to that the eeePC that we bought for the trip was a great companion it really added to our abilities while we were gone, it was secure, fast and reliable.

Just about everywhere we had it out in a public place someone would come over and ask questions about its performance/cost/size and if I would buy one again (absolutely)

Most of the places went had Wifi (free or pay as you go) that kept us in touch and able to keep an eye on banking while we were gone. The ultimate luxury was being able to order fresh groceries in the British Airways lounge at Terminal 5 to be delivered at our house the morning we arrived without having to line up with all the other backpackers outside at the internet cafe. (Well actually the BA lounge has complimentary PCs with free net but you get the idea)

The fish,
Damien our housesitter did an amazing job and all our discus and their mates are present and accounted for - the only problem he had was a failed timer and he used the spare I provided to replace it. That really made all the preparation, rewiring, filtration addition and construction as well as the hours of cleaning and labeling and food preparation worth it.

You can't just go from having no fish to looking after a 700L + aquarium full of discus without some mishaps but Damien managed it well done mate !

Back to it for now

Tom

5" sump for discus tank

No blogging for so long - bad Tom :)

Here is my latest project - a 5" filter sump for my discus tank - could nearly be too big - there, I said it.

I guess the question is how big is too big ? :D

I had wanted to make a big sump for my discus tank and I was working out the cheapest way to do it.

I was looking at having mate tig up some ali and make a big container with some baffles - I scrapped that on price was going to be way too expensive.

Looked at making it out of acrylic - again was expensive, honestly it is probably the best option give the weight. Basically I was too cheap and lazy to learn how to work with acrylic.

I found a 5" fish tank on ebay that was local - they were a bit rough but not too bad - was certainly adequate for a sump (well so I thought - more about this later)

I purchased some glass baffles cut to size and sectioned it off into 3 main compartments of media and one pump return compartment. The baffles were cheap $10 each.

I glued up the baffles with the help of clamps and spacers (cd cases etc, masking tape and some timber I had). I also pulled the corners off the tank which were inadequate and glued some new ones on (except 1 - more about this later :x ) I leak tested everything and it was all good, final wash down and she was done.

I attached a piece of 20mm form ply to the stand underneath the tank after I had upgraded some of its supports - glued and screwed some studs to the metal stand for some additional strength.

I slid the new sump full of media underneath and it only just fitted - I had not measured the tank I got but it was slightly larger than I was told which has made it a very tight fit - I only have about 10cm above the sump which is really not enough my arm has trouble getting in and I can't touch the bottom of the sump. Also I haven't got quite enough space for the existing lights - will have to change them out for some slimline units - not to worry.

My two main media baskets are about 50cmx45cmx40cm high and the initial basket it about 20cmx45cmx50cm. I used most of the old media that I kept water circulating over while I did the change over.

The dramas

1. the tank has a leak in the end compartment since moving it - the silicon job on that corner was poor and I hope my sealing of it has fixed it - otherwise I will have to drain and remove it. As a result I have the return pump jammed into the end media area with all the bio balls.

2. I haven't got foam under it to allow it to flex - I need to fix that.

3. Space is very tight - I am going to have to make a trolley and a very thin board to sit it on with a handle system on the end so I can part the trolley up at the end and pull the sump out onto it for cleaning and service - if I had got the height a better organised I would have avoided that.

Things to do yet.

1. Return pumps and circulation pump - on my old sump I had a very small fountain pump (from bunnings) to keep the water recirculating around itself at all times - it would sit next the the return pump and pump the water back to the top of the sump - need to set the same thing up here.

2. Power heads in each section - help the water fullly circulate in each section - need 2 little power heads

3. Hose clamps need to put hose clamps on very connector due the the problem of having to drain it for removal - need to misimise the number of times I am going to move this out for "service"

4. Lights - going to install some slim line fluros under the main tank to light the sump - keep the pests away and makes a nice feature of it.

5. Reinstall 2x heaters and my water low relay cut off in the sump.

6. Make the trolley, sump handle remover thingy and get the foam under the sump tank.