Hobbies – Page 25 – Not Your Average Engineer

November 12, 2016July 9, 2020

A new front receiver and winch plate for the Albino Rhino

After having the Albino Rhino for about a year, I decided it was time to install a front hitch receiver and a winch plate. My last truck, Goldilocks, had a bumper that was already setup for such things but this truck’s front bumper was never built to have a winch nor did it have a good recovery point.

My buddy Travis who pilots The Honey Badger helped me fab up what we needed for the Albino Rhino. He’s a really good fabricator.

Here’s the business side of the setup to have a front receiver and a winch plate.

Here’s the fully finished setup minus my hi-lift jack and a few wires needing to be tidied up. The setup works very well. I’ve winched a few vehicles out of difficult places with zero problems. Thanks for all the help, Travis! And thanks other Travis for letting us use your garage!

September 28, 2016November 17, 2017

Front Axle Rebuild on the 4runner

After having some really bad handling with the truck coming back from North Twin Cone Peak, I crawled underneath to check out the front suspension and steering. Lo and behold, I found the power steering box leaking and the steering arms loosening off of the steering knuckles.

It’s a bit difficult to see but the steering arm is separating from the knuckle! If it were to come all the way off, the truck would lose steering. That would be bad at highway speeds.

The passenger steering arm had lost a stud. It didn’t even break off. It was just missing.

You can really see the separation on the passenger steering arm from the knuckle.

Luckily I had all of the parts on hand to rebuild the front end from when I was planning to build my old 4runner. All of these tie rod ends came in very handy.

New bearings. I decided to throw them in while Iwas at it to have a completely fresh front end.

Working on taking apart the knuckles.

Definitely time for a new inner axle seal. I went with an Eco Seal from Marlin Crawler.

This part is a real pain in the butt to extract from the truck. I’m not looking forward to having to take this apart again in the future.

Getting those tie rod ends on and off is a huge pain. I finally got it done though. The truck is back together and driving although my steering box keeps going out of adjustment even after being professionally rebuilt twice. I’m thinking that I may need to replace it eventually.

January 30, 2016January 30, 2016

A surprising gas leak on the PC800

Tonight when I came home from seeing The Hateful Eight at our local Alamo Drafthouse, I smelled some gas. I went down and checked on my fuel injected PC800 to find a small puddle of a mix of gasoline and oil under the bike. I immediately started draining the tank while I removed some plastics to try and determine what was going on.

No leaks around the fuel sensor. No leaks around the fuel pump/filter/gas tank outlet. No leaks around the piping going up to the throttle bodies. No leaks on the injectors. But wait a minute…

When I took the airbox off, some gas sloshed out of the airbox! It turns out there was quite a bit of gas in the airbox. Some of you might remember that I connected the vent line from the high pressure fuel pump to the airbox. It appears that the airbox and air intake were sucking gas up from the pump the last time I ran the bike (a couple weekends ago). This gas stewed in the airbox eating away at some RTV sealant until it leaked. Or maybe the gas got into the engine oil via the crankcase breather hose and leaked out somewhere lower on the engine (I’ve got a slow oil leak that’s been with the bike for the last 30,000 miles).

I’ll do a little more sleuthing tomorrow once the residual fuel evaporates around the bike to find the place where the leak came out to make sure it was some RTV that I had used to seal a hole on the bottom of the airbox and not something else.

Luckily I have a California-style gas cap (the one with the hose barb) laying around that I can plumb the vent line from the fuel pump to. That should solve that problem, assuming that was the problem.

Always something exciting in my garage!