jakepalmer.ca

Sammy’s replacement is home safe & sound.

jake — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 03:58:57 +0000

Looked at 2 4runners yesterday, this was the best of the two. Has sat for a year and needs some attention, but made the 400km drive home without hesitation.

Somebody stop me, before I buy a 25 yr old Porsche…

jake — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 03:58:03 +0000

Before I buy an ’86 Porsche 911 with ~390k kms, for $7000 US

Seriously, has the world gone mad? What’s a 5 year old Hyundai Tiburon cost? More than a tatty Porsche 911, apparently. Any guesses on the value of the Porsche will be in 5 years, compared to that Tiburon?

It’s a good thing I got laid off and have a brand-spanking new baby, otherwise I’d fly to Penticton and do something sensible.

Sure, the price of the 911 will be matched by the cost of the engine rebuild when you accidently drop it from 5th to 2nd coming off the highway, but even then you can sell it as a roller for $4k, or stick in a VW diesel engine and run it on canola. The 911 already has two tanks, so it wouldn’t be that hard…

Yeah… you know I would.

Ms Fortune sails again!

jake — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 03:56:57 +0000

The wretched hag has been on dry ground since ’05. The last time I had her moved by boomtruck, I swore I wouldn’t launch her again until I had it on a trailer. So, finally found a trailer last year.

Then this spring I set to work. New keel pin & brackets, which meant dropping the ~800lb keel. Also cut 4′ off the mast, shortened the stays and made a stainless masthead. I also got a CDI furler and a custom genoa that wasn’t really what I ordered, but nice just the same.

Anyway, it sits at the mooring now, after a world-class fiasco getting her launched. I am still waiting on the video of that. It was fantastic.

Sammy the Samurai

jake — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 03:55:35 +0000

I’ve been meaning to post pics of this bad little dude for a while. I posted about him back when I bought him, then when I first put him on the road, and again when I swapped in a vw1.6 turbodiesel using an Acme Adapters

kit.

Anyway, back in February ’07 I converted it to run on veggie oil. Being a trashy old oil sucking engine, I decided to just use a homemade heat exchanger I had laying around, and a Pollak 6 port fuel valves. For a fuel tank, I used a 20 liter aluminum fuel tank that I bought for $5 at a flea market (actually, I bought 3 of them!) and soldered up a copper heated fuel pickup that goes down into the tank. The final heat exchanger is woefully inadequate, I get about 50*C fuel temperature at the injection pump.

I have a really nice 1.9 AAZ turbodiesel that I’ll swap in this summer. At the same time, I’ll clean up the wiring & plumbing, add a FPHE & vegtherm, and probably even paint it.

The veggie tank: On the top, you can see fuel and coolant lines going into the heated fuel pickup. You can also see the insulated Hose on Hose (HoH) running towards the front of the car.

You can see the HoH going up the driver’s side footwell, where it passes through the firewall. You can also see the vacuum gauge in the center of the dash. It reads the vacuum in the fuel line just before the injection pump, so I can see if the diesel or veggie filter are plugging:

The fuel & coolant lines pass through the firewall where they connect to the wacky, inefficient copper heat exchanger. The fuel passes through the center, then out on the left, through the small filter and into the 6 port valve.

Here’s another look at the (messy) engine compartment. A couple things worth noting:

-glow plugs have individual wires run instead of the standard “bus bar”. This makes identifying dead plugs MUCH easier.

-I used cheapie “worm gear” hose clamps instead of the better fuel injection hose clamps… something I generally advise against.

No, Sammy the Samurai isn’t pretty. But he is tough and easy to love.

I’ve had him on the road for 3 years now, and I’ve never washed him once, but hit him with a coat of Tremclad once a year.

Crispy Samurai revived with lamp oil and 3 jumper wires

jake — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:31:00 +0000

Crispy Samurai revived with lamp oil and 3 jumper wires

LET’S BURN THIS MOTHER DOWN!!!!

jake — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:11:00 +0000

LET'S BURN THIS MOTHER DOWN!!!!

Sussex Flea Market

jake — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:19:00 +0000

Sussex Flea Market We showed up late, and it was pretty ugly out. Many of the tables were covered because of the rain. The occasional whif of feces didn't help. This picture pretty much sums it up: However, looking at the pictures now, I see piles of cool stuff in the background that I didn't even notice. Methinks our grumpiness prevented us from digging deep enough. You can't rush the sussex flea market. To find the treasures, you need to take the time to peel back the scabs. I must have been in a bad mood if I passed on this complete forge for $200. Holy smokes, do I ever want it now. Nice old McAvity & Sons salesman's chest Ride-on toy for the kids seafood Corned Beef crate Some quality used tires: Really nice hand crank water pump Popcycle stick art Really beautiful old outboard '51 Merc

New car!

jake — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:28:00 +0000

Well, its 9 years old but it's new to us. It's a 99 Benz e300td Over the upcoming weeks, I'll be documenting the conversion of this car to run filtered used vegetable oil. It'll probably be easiest if I start a stand-alone blog for this conversion, so it doesn't get mixed in with pictures of nieces and complaints about Ninja attacks. I'll be posting pictures and diagrams, and describing the process step-by-step. I'll update every Monday. Should be a good read, so check in weekly. I'll be ordering all my components this week, so I'll start next week by describing what's on the way: http://jakesbenzconversion.blogspot.com/ The Jetta was just getting too old for daily-driver use, and I was losing too much time to maintaining it. There are only two choices for diesel cars: VW and Mercedes. We didn't have great luck with the last Jetta, and I've heard absolute horror stories about the newer stuff too. A 2-3 year old Mercedes is 35-40k, so that was out of the question. However, these 96-99 e300d's caught my eye. I love the "210" series bodystyle, and have read glowing reports about their safety and comfort. They had some teething issues the first year or two, so I looked for a 98 or 99. This one was in Montreal. It has 260k, a bit high, but it had all the recommended updates and all service records going back to 99. It also included a full set of spare rims, and a roof rack. Had the car checked out by a mercedes specialist in Montreal (Joe Bassili, 514 344-5183) and he found the sunroof didn't work, the windshield was a bit pitted and the transmission had a leak. The seller had the leak fixed on the spot, and I wasn't too concerned about the sunroof or windshield. A deal was struck, and for the price of a Kia with 4 bald tires and a night of hard drinking, we had a 99 e300d. Drove up to Montreal after work on Thursday. Picked up the new car on Friday, sold the Jetta on Saturday. Spent a couple days tooling around Montreal, then drove home yesterday... about 600 miles. What a great car... really a joy to drive. I've become so accustomed to diesels being utilitarian and somewhat crude, even in nicer cars like my dad's 83 300sd. A tractor engine in nice pants. Not this thing. It not only pulls like a train, it actually makes nice sounds. It's snowing very hard tonight, and I only have all season (read: no season) tires on. Had to play around a bit to get in the garage... eventually switched off the traction control to let it "dig" a bit. Holy smokes, it really has a growl. Just love it. The om606 engine is pretty amazing. Straight six, dual overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder and a crossflow head. Oh, and turbocharged. This is not a tractor engine. And of course, balance has to be maintained in the universe. Having an awesome newish (for us, that means under 10 years old) car demanded a vehicular penance of some sort. Enter Kate, stage left. While I was away, Kate filled the Samurai with gasoline and it died about 10 minutes later on the highway. That was fun for her, and even more fun for me to deal with tonight out in the driveway, in the middle of that weather. Diesel down my arms and snow down my back.

Roofing party!

jake — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:39:00 +0000

Tons of help from great friends. I can sleep a lot better at night now.

A funny story about roofing:

I measured up my roof and calculated the square footage, then ordered all the suplies. At the same time, I ordered enough shingles to do the sunporch as well, for a later date. I had the whole load delivered by boom truck.

As soon as the boom truck had left, I realized I was in BIG trouble... I had all the shingles (35 bundles) up on the garage roof. I somehow had to get 13 bundles over to the sunporch, and they weigh ~80lbs each. I had no idea how I was going to do it, and I couldn't waste time on it anyway because the sunporch wasn't going to be done till later. Still, enough to keep me awake at night, scheming and figuring.

Well, when we started doing the main part of the roof, we realized we were going through shingles FAST. When we stopped for lunch, I had a look at my numbers again.

I had measured the roof as 17' across, instead of 27'. Um... yeah.

I used 33 out of the 35 bundles... With all the "extra" shingles I had ordered for the sunporch, we had just enough. God looks after drunks and fools.

jakepalmeristheman 2007-09-03 22:07:00

jake — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:07:00 +0000

Cabot Trail by Carrera!