I was born at an early age.
Then I found motorcycles...
Now I ride about 15K miles per year.
I used to be a VERY serious cinematographer, but with the help of therapists and group meetings, I have gotten better.
I work at a pretty nifty amusement park here in Ohio.
I have raced most things with internal combustion engines. (cars, bikes, snowmobiles, airplanes)
Let's not talk about that nasty high-side at Mid-Ohio back in the day...
But I am super enthusiastic about my FJ and the community.
Drop me a line if you have questions/answers/opinions.
No, I am not interested in filming your wedding/bar-batmitzvah/band/project film (regardless of budget)/cooking show/hamsters.
I am interested in astronomy (I have a giant barely portable telescope), music, old cars (AMCs and Jeeps in particular), food, piloting, hiking, sleeping.
Welcome, sounds like you will enjoy our digital campfire.
Welcome Jerry! You seem like a colorful character, I'm looking forward to getting to know you. I suggest that on your signature line you include the year FJ you have, so in the future, when you ask a question, your bike's info will appear.
Cheers lad
Pat
Jerry,
Welcome to the FJ sandbox! Pull up a seat, and be among friends.
If you do your own maintenance, you can find a lot of tech write-ups for those jobs here.
Tell us about your bike. Pix are welcome, too.
Let us know if you need anything there.
I feel another terminal case of modifiers anonymous about to happen!
Welcome! :drinks:
Quote from: mopic_camera_guy on August 08, 2022, 12:13:44 PM
I am interested in astronomy (I have a giant barely portable telescope), music, old cars (AMCs and Jeeps in particular), food, piloting, hiking, sleeping.
so...you're not interested in bikes then !!!! :sarcastic: :sarcastic: :sarcastic:
Anyway, never mind that, welcome to the FJ Family here. Old cars, food, sleeping, hiking and piloting are some of my favourite OTHER interests too. It seems flying and FJ's go together (although I'm a rotary guy rather than a fixed wing one).
As you're into pics, how about a few of your beloved FJ....we love photographs here :good2:
OK, I'll get a few pics in here. Thank you for the pleasant welcome!
Welcome to the forum :hi:
Fred
Here is a picture of the bike. Let's see if I have managed to attach the photo properly... :good2:
Well... it posted upside down... but it opens right side up.
It shows right side up for me. Clean looking bike, welcome to the forum.
Quote from: mopic_camera_guy on August 08, 2022, 12:13:44 PMI am interested in [...] old cars (AMCs and Jeeps in particular)
My dad's first car was a 72 Javelin, he said the windows would rattle and shake out of their tracks at 90.
Welcome! :greeting:
You sound like good company. You've probably been drooling over the first test images from the JWST like me. I also have a barely transportable dob telescope. :smile:
Quote from: mopic_camera_guy on August 17, 2022, 09:54:23 AM
Here is a picture of the bike. Let's see if I have managed to attach the photo properly... :good2:
Ooh, the best colour too :good2:
Wonder what shock absorber you're running ? :sarcastic: :sarcastic:
Lets see... factory original shock.
The telescope is an old-school Meade LX200 (non-GPS) 12" f/10 SCT. I do a few public nights each year. I have one this Saturday... Long have I pondered adapting my JMI case (I will send a pic after this Saturday) to being a sort of minitrailer and towing it with the bike.
I have had many Javelins and AMXs over the years. Couldn't keep the windows aligned at all in any of the AMXs. The Javelin was a "superior design" that would at least close nearly every time. And (depending on the age of the door seal) would pop out at about 90-100 MPH... Requiring a roll down then up to re-seat them.
Currently have a 1982 Cherokee Chief. 379K Miles and still going. It is fascinatingly free from rust. This fall I am going to rebuild both axles as they are showing their age.
I also have a 2011 Ford Flex with 111K Miles and causing headaches. Been parked for 18 months. Needs turbos and a steering rack, oh... and a motor. Which will not lift out through the hood opening. Has to be lowered out the bottom on a jig that you rent (about $1k) from Ford to lower the front and rear suspension (AWD) at the same time. Change the motor on the floor (and the turbos and the steering rack). Then lift it all back up snug as a bug. Several days of re-wiring later it is healed. I am hoping to sell the mint interior to someone who needs it and crush/recycle the rest. Just ugh. My Eco Boost rant belongs in another section of this board... sorry to nearly de-rail this pleasant post...
Coolest bike ever ridden: I got to ride almost 1000 miles on a Norton F1 twin-rotor Wankel. There is an airplane related story here for another section of the board.
Coolest dirt bike owned: 1981 MAICO 490.
Coolest road bike owned: (aside from the FJs) 1983 Yamaha XJ900RK.
Coolest Harley Davidson owned: 1983 XR1000 with the HP heads and 5 speed upgrade. True HD fans strongly dislike this bike, pipes are on the "wrong" side, two carbs, two disc brakes in front ("WTF do you need front brakes for", I was actually asked once by a HD dude sitting on his springer Sportster), and it actually handles pretty well with decent tires.
Best road bike owned: 1989 FJ1200
Best dirt bike owned: 1981 MAICO 490.
Best Harley Davidson owned: 1983 XR1000 with the HP heads and 5 speed upgrade. Don't get me wrong... it was still poo. It is, however, the only HD that I have ever been on that could both stop and steer. It also made me feel a little like Evel Knievel on his XR750s. Minus the crashing...
Worst road bike owned: 1961 Greeves Hawkstone (Gravestone/Toombstone). The bike that invented the term "tank slappers" and then perfected them.
Worst dirt bike owned: 1975 Rupp RST100.
Worst Harley Davidson owned: Every one that wasn't a XR1000 with the HP heads and 5 speed upgrade. (That'd be several for me...)
Uncoolest road bike owned: Motobecane moped.
Uncoolest dirt bike owned: Honda CR250R. Although... totally clapped out, I traded this lump for a swell rifle back in the day...
Uncoolest Harley Davidson owned: 1959 Harley Hummer. The originator of the "Raising Spock Eyebrow" at HD meets.
First gas powered vehicle that was "mine": mid-1970s Rupp Tri-Sport. Eventually un-govenored, it went astonishingly fast and would roll over like a Reliant Robin or a Extra 300 stunt plane... usually injuring the operator pretty badly each time.
First automobile: 1968 Sunbeam Alpine Rusty enough to probably be an EPA Superfund site. I imagined that the Ford 289 from the Tiger was in there... instead of a tractor motor.
First motorcycle: 1977 Yamaha YZ80.
Soft spot bike: Yamaha RZ350 or RD400
Dream bike: Norton F1
Your mileage may vary.
Quote from: mopic_camera_guy on August 18, 2022, 07:41:27 PM
Coolest bike ever ridden: I got to ride almost 1000 miles on a Norton F1 twin-rotor Wankel. There is an airplane related story here for another section of the board.
In another life I was the flight controls engineer and the pilot for Sikorsky's Cypher UAV. It had a single rotor UAV engines powerplant which was a spinoff of the Norton motor. It's the flying saucer looking thing in my avatar. You can almost see the engine under the cover.
Yup the UAV company bought the rights to the Norton airrotor engine line.
Norton had partnered with Continental to market the 100hp and 60HP engines. Continental called them the GR-36 and GR-18.
Continental was not satisfied with the reduction gearboxes and dropped them.
I got one at surplus prices and used it to complete a BD-5B... which is another story on itself.
The F1 though was the 100HP twin rotor bike. It is awesome to ride. A lot of Yamaha shelf stuff on there, but overall a unique machine.
Norton had real problems making it idle and they had a clever solution... The ECM would monitor the throttle position and if it detected "shut" it would alternately shut off cylinders until the engine slowed to the "idle" RPM.
It made for interesting trail-braking sometimes. Honestly though, that exhaust note gives me chills sitting here, now.
Oh crap. WAAAY off topic, sorry.
Hi, I'm Jerry and thanks for being nice to me.
It would be an awesome engine for a BD5 or many other aircraft, except for the rebuilding required. Our installation would start getting tired around the 20 hour mark. Was it better in the BD5? We could never figure out induction filtering without killing performance. We did a lot of muffler development which brought the noise from brain damaging to merely deafening.
Jerry, no worries, consider this forum kinda like sitting around the camp fire, no telling where the conversation leads....
The only thing we ask is if you have some FJ problems, solutions, or neat mods, put those posts in the right section so others can find them... put the gun discussions down below, other than that, carry on...
I find discussions on aviation fascinating. Lycoming/Continental/Wankel engines more so....
Cheers
Thanks for the info Pat. I don't want to get in trouble here.
Well... The GR-36/Airrotor 110/UAV 100 that we had used was pretty robust if the exhaust scavenging was decent (still a tremendous wail...)and the cooling was adequate. We used the Norton total loss oiling system on the rotors and setting that metering was crucial for the apex seals to keep sealing.
We also had a coalescing filter to re-capture some of that lube in each exhaust. Fortunately there was adequate space below and behind the engine for all of that plumbing. The oil tank fill was behind the headrest. That gallon would last about two full fuel loads before lighting the "low oil" light. We'd capture around 25% with the coalescing filters.
The "book" listed a 1000hr. TBO. Skeptical because of the general weirdness of the thing we did parade rest teardowns at 100hr and 500hr. 100hr showed "typical" wankel seating markings on the rotor housings but nothing else exceptional.
At 500hr there was essentially no change. I got rid of the plane at just over 800hr (engine time). And the follow-on owner did the 1000hr overhaul and it looked very good. Apex and side seals and one thrust bearing were all that it took.
This was the second gasoline powered BD that I had done and the difference was really noted on the drive-line components. The first plane had the turbo Honda which was the de-facto "good" setup for the plane at the time.
The shaft sprag clutch lasted about 4-500hr with the Honda and the shaft itself had a recommended lifespan of 2500hr. I inspected the sprag on the wankel at 500hr and there was essentially no wear.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, this aircraft had a very long driveshaft between the engine belt reduction and the propeller.
The physics here is a big drink, but I will do my best to Saganize it.
WARNING: LONG AND POSSIBLY BORING PARAGRAPHS BELOW!
Skip to the stars ********* if you could care less.
On a shaft drive road vehicle, the interface between tire and road (most of the time) is very firm. So, when individual power peaks from pistons make their way down the drivetrain, they are (essentially) absorbed by the friction of the tire/road interface and the inertia of the vehicle. Only rarely (like with farm implements) will those rhythmic pulses set up a resonance in the drive line... Or if your chain is slack and the bike is lurching at certain speeds.
With airplanes, however, the interface between propeller and air is not so firm. So, when individual power peaks from pistons make their way down the drive train they tend to "wind-up" the shaft. Then the shaft, being not very constrained by friction, snaps forward to release the pent-up energy. Then winds up the other way and snaps back... over and over... So, at certain RPMs the system will resonate at a frequency relative to the length of the shaft and its diameter and the mass of the propeller. What is fascinating is that the pent up energy in the resonate state climbs to (mathematical) nearly infinity. So, stuff breaks. Sometimes spectacularly.
In most aircraft with reciprocating engines the longest direct-drive propeller shaft is about 3".
The original BD5 shaft was 2.5" in diameter and about 4' long. It resonated at a pretty high frequency... usually in the power-range of the engine. Not awesome.
Several ways to fix this... increase or decrease the diameter of the shaft to get the resonate frequency above or below the operating range of the engine. Build in a one-way (sprag) clutch so that the thing can wind up with energy but when it goes to rebound it free-wheels instead.
Rutan and those folks at BEDE in the 70s tried the smaller shaft idea first, going to a 1" in diameter shaft. This moved the frequency down to starting RPMs which was zany to watch because it was possible to see the system winding up.
But once it was running it was smooth.
So, to solve the low frequency resonance they added the sprag clutch.
Now the system didn't resonate anywhere in the operational band of the engine.
It is interesting to note that the relative strength difference in torsion between a 2.5" shaft and a 1" shaft is not as signifigent as it might seem.
That 1" shaft handled up to 155HP in some applications just fine.
**********
So all of that describes "torsional resonance".
Physics lesson over...
Point being, the wankel was very, very smooth. It's power pulses ran more like waves than the spikes from a reciprocating engine.
This is also why wankels, in general, have very high HP for a given displacement but less torque.
So this shaft mounted sprag clutch wears out eventually. It has feeler gauge openings to determine it's fitness for duty.
The wankel one didn't seem to be wearing at all/much and the reciprocating Honda was almost done at 400hrs.
That's probably enough for today.
PS: Torque is what pulls you away from the stoplight and makes your partner have to hold onto you tighter.
Horsepower is what pushes the air out of the way as you go faster.
It is why engine nerds are always dazzled by a high HP figure, but are VERY dazzled by a high torque figure.
Or: torque is felt in your bottom, horsepower is seen on the speedometer.