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kastein posted:Zipsystem tape it is A solution to many of life's problems
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Aug 11, 2023 01:28
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I would even argue most of life's problems, really. That poo poo is magical. I used an air mattress way too much the last few years and let me tell you, you can patch an air mattress better with zipsystem tape than you can with near anything else on this planet. 1 inch tear in the flocked top surface right along a thermal weld to one of the stays inside the mattress? Put two 1ft lengths of zip tape on it, pressed down firmly without wrinkles, blow that piece of poo poo right back up and go to sleep. It puts the factory included air mattress patch kit to shame. I bet you could patch a fuckin inflatable boat with that stuff while still inside the boat and actively sinking.
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Aug 11, 2023 07:29
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kastein posted:I would even argue most of life's problems, really. That poo poo is magical. I used an air mattress way too much the last few years and let me tell you, you can patch an air mattress better with zipsystem tape than you can with near anything else on this planet. 1 inch tear in the flocked top surface right along a thermal weld to one of the stays inside the mattress? Put two 1ft lengths of zip tape on it, pressed down firmly without wrinkles, blow that piece of poo poo right back up and go to sleep. Now there's a marketing slogan. Move over Flex Tape, the big dick adhesive's in town.
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Aug 11, 2023 13:57
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kastein posted:It's so drat nice out here. That point was really driven home to me by going back east in July to pack. I was soaked with sweat to the point that my entire shirt was saturated and dripping and so were my pants down to the knees, 90 degrees, 98% humidity, moving heavy objects in full sun with no wind. Dew points into the 70 and 80 degrees range. Getting absolutely mobbed by mosquitoes and noseeums and black flies. Maaaaaaaan, I don't want to uproot, find a new job, friends, etc., but it's just getting dismal here in North Texas. Don't know how many more 100+ summers I can take. More importantly, I don't know how many more my wife can take. PNW and like, Colorado are on my list. Will be in Seattle in October for business, so that'll be my first exposure to the area. Boaz MacPhereson posted:Now there's a marketing slogan. Move over Flex Tape, the big dick adhesive's in town. LOL.
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Aug 11, 2023 16:32
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Darchangel posted:Maaaaaaaan, I don't want to uproot, find a new job, friends, etc., but it's just getting dismal here in North Texas. Don't know how many more 100+ summers I can take. More importantly, I don't know how many more my wife can take. PNW and like, Colorado are on my list. Colorado would love to have you. Drop in bro.
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Aug 11, 2023 16:56
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Darchangel posted:Maaaaaaaan, I don't want to uproot, find a new job, friends, etc., but it's just getting dismal here in North Texas. Don't know how many more 100+ summers I can take. More importantly, I don't know how many more my wife can take. PNW and like, Colorado are on my list. I'd support either of those choices, Colorado is rad too. But remember there are three Colorados. Flat cornlandistan red state Colorado, mountain red state Colorado, and mountain blue state Colorado. (To be fair that also applies to the PNW) Which end of October are you coming in? It'll either be beautiful or raining 100% of the time. There are a handful of AI+DIY regulars out here so warn us right before you land if you might have free time.
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Aug 11, 2023 18:46
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kastein posted:I'd support either of those choices, Colorado is rad too. But remember there are three Colorados. Flat cornlandistan red state Colorado, mountain red state Colorado, and mountain blue state Colorado. Week of the 23rd (immediately after getting back from Vegas for my Anniversary, LOL.) Most likely will not have time. Wanted to stay an extra day, but my wife is coming with me, and will have already burned a week for said anniversary, plus we have friends in the area that have already called dibs (sorry!) I wish I had more time, but basically it's a department group thing, so I don't even have evenings free like you normally would on a business trip. Literally the entire IT department for the business unit (all of the Americas plus Canada, and including some team members officed in the Philippines) will be there, and we do team stuff and dinners as well as the presentations during the day. Actually pretty neat, since we're scattered across the continent (3, actually?) and this is the first in-person one since 2019, which was in Fort Worth. Great for the folks from elsewhere, but I live here... 2018 was in Austin. Slightly better, but still. 2017 was in San Diego, and that was better. We pushed for Hawaii, but alas. Or even Canada, since a lot of us Americans haven't been there. Vegas would have been amusing, since I'd already be there. I tried to convince the wife we should either hang out in Vegas another day and fly or drive directly to Seattle, and hand out an extra day or two there, but she wants to come home for a day for some reason. edit: kinda bummed I can't hang out with you guys, honestly.
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Aug 11, 2023 19:17
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That is definitely the much more likely to rain end of the month. If it was early October I'd say you had a good chance of wanting to go outside. I mean at least it's not humid, but it sure puts a crimp on things like trying to fix an RV roof, which is what I was doing in late October '21 here.
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Aug 11, 2023 19:45
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Not zip tape but I imagine it's very similar, I've had good experience with the gorilla waterproof tape on my white trash sam's club pool. I've used it on the "holes" to keep the water in and to cover up the metal frame because I'm using salt water now. Has been holding up really well considering this is the 4th season. https://www.amazon.com/Gorilla-4612502-Waterproof-Patch-Black/dp/B07HSKRYQW I'm on the hunt for the same pool to put up next year and the gorilla tape is a standard part of the install IMO.
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Aug 12, 2023 01:06
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kastein posted:Inside of you there are three Colorados
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Aug 12, 2023 01:18
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Which Colorados smoke pot?
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Aug 12, 2023 06:31
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All of them, some are just judgy about it too No pictures but a few days ago I went and bought a 21ft W8x13 I-beam and brought it to the property and today I managed to get it dragged into position. Tomorrow I hope to get it lifted to the correct height and build an A-frame support on the outdoor end and a support column and horizontal brace on the indoor end. That way I can hang my chainfall dolly on it and move my heavy rear end things into the shed without having to wrestle them up 2 feet and in a door (which is next to impossible for some of my things.)
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Aug 14, 2023 06:57
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kastein posted:All of them, some are just judgy about it too I've been following along with your journey into Washington, welcome to one of the coolest states out there! I live up north of Everett and it's just awesome.
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Aug 14, 2023 08:03
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kastein posted:All of them, some are just judgy about it too The last place I worked had overhead bridge cranes, anything over 50 lbs and you used the crane. Beats the hell out of a forklift or loader, its one of those home shop improvements like getting a 2 post lift or climate control that makes a huge difference.
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Aug 14, 2023 14:09
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I’m actually interested in how you’re going to position your equipment. Are you trying to have it useable, or are you just shoving it into the space for the time being?
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Aug 14, 2023 14:48
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A little of column A, a little of column B. It's a 12x16 shed and I'm hoping to shove everything from a 8x16 pod AND a 10x20 storage unit in it to save money so it's going to be drat tight at the back but I hope to have the more frequently used tools semi usable at the front maybe. Today Elviscat happened to text me and ask what I was up to just as I was debating how I was going to get anything done today, and he knew where his chainfall hoist was unlike me, so that put things in motion for an afternoon of OSHA violations.     (Goons for scale) Thanks a ton dude, I have no idea how I would have accomplished this without help.
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Aug 21, 2023 06:16
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No OSHA violations here, I'm even wearing steel toes instead of safety sandals!
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Aug 21, 2023 09:34
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Yup, that's a beam alright.
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Aug 22, 2023 16:13
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Ok so where was I. Spent a few pretty late nights getting the beam ready to use.  And a few days working on other stuff on the shed. Last of the roof, last of the sheathing in a few places, the door, etc.  Added triangles to the triangle.  More bracing for the beam.  The first Heavy rear end poo poo has arrived. Beam and trolley did great with 3-400lb crates hanging from it.  Took a break from moving stuff to make a  Got to the heavy stuff in the pod that was too heavy for us to load into the truck one end at a time by hand. That's basically completely full of Dana 60 parts with as little packing as possible. Rotors, hubs, shafts, knuckles, calipers, ring and pinions, carriers, whatever I could fit in. I think it's over 400 based on feel.  No problem. Could roll it back and forth with one finger.  Now this is a problem. I was real sore the day after dragging this out. It's my 600lb clausing 2276 drill press that a fellow AI goon tipped me off to when his boss told him to put it in the scrap metal dumpster. I could never justify buying this outright as they're several thousand dollars still but it sure does make life easy so when I moved out of the hangar, I knew this was coming with me. I had to get it this far by hand with a tow strap so...  ... I could pick it up with the crane.  Like a glove.  My neighbor came over to demonstrate safe lifting practices while we stood the drill press back up since floor space is at a premium.  I forgot to take pics of the heaviest thing of course. My Stelron RD4 rotary stage. I picked it up from decommissioned equipment at an old job right before it was going in a dumpster and will be building a CNC machine (hopefully with both additive and subtractive machining support) with it one day. At the moment though it's basically a 900lb boat anchor I drag through life with me. The beam sagged roughly 1/4-5/16" in the middle and the trolley wanted to roll by itself. That's definitely very close to the max I can put on it, at least without putting a brace post just inside the door, rolling stuff in, putting it down, and then moving the brace post to the doorway and picking back up. And the last heavy rear end object (500lb), my obsolete $300 tire changing machine. It isn't the best for sure but it's already paid for itself and does great swapping tires on steelies for my beaters so I'm probably going to be using it for a while. 
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Aug 31, 2023 21:24
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You could have at least held his beer.
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Aug 31, 2023 22:04
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He did suggest I hold his beer and watch this but we needed the counterweight on that side and aside from taking the picture I needed both hands to run the chain hoist.
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Aug 31, 2023 22:07
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Legit that's awesome and it's great that it worked so well. Absolutely terrifying I bet moving the rotary in though!
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Aug 31, 2023 23:13
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It honestly wasn't bad. I could probably support 1500 with this but that would be very pucker inducing and I wouldn't do it unless my life depended on it. 1000 is definitely about the most I'd hang on it willingly.
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Sep 1, 2023 00:54
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Looks like it worked great for you. I like the Jeep crane, looks a bit more substantial than my 3 point hitch crane.
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Sep 1, 2023 01:12
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Man your threads are always so interesting. Couple of questions: How do you move these things once they are lifted into the shed? Are you at all worried about point load or total weight on the floor of the shed?
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Sep 1, 2023 14:52
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I like that the beam trolley looks like a dog.
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Sep 1, 2023 18:05
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Jaded Burnout posted:I like that the beam trolley looks like a dog. Legit did not notice that until you pointed it out. edit: a happy dog!
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Sep 1, 2023 18:50
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It really does, doesn't it? Pareidolia is a hell of a drug.SouthShoreSamurai posted:Man your threads are always so interesting. Once they're in the shed my only real choice with the beam trolley is how far along the beam I drop it. From there I either just wrestle and drag it across the floor if it's light and easily slid, or I put it on 1 or more "1000lb" (not) harbor freight moving dollies. My experience is that those aren't actually good for more than 350lb to roll nicely or about 500lb if you just want it to move at all. I was quite worried about the point load and total weight. I built it with 3/4 cdx decking and 2x8s on a 6ft span 16oc as a result, supported by 4x6 beams. At this point I'm more worried about the 4x6 beams and a few defective spots in the plywood I only noticed after nailing it down than anything else, it seems to be handling the weight well so far and I don't have many more heavy objects to move in.
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Sep 1, 2023 19:07
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If you continue to move every insanely heavy metal contraption in the Pacific Northwest into that shed, it’s going to implode into a black hole. Or maybe plummet through the Earth and pop out in China? I don’t know, I’m not a physicist.
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Sep 4, 2023 19:02
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New seismic mitigation building technique, simply hold the earth down to stop it shaking.
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Sep 5, 2023 07:41
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Elviscat posted:New seismic mitigation building technique, simply hold the earth down to stop it shaking. LOL
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Sep 6, 2023 23:43
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Alright. Well. Somehow I forgot to mention that I spent most of a day a while ago flushing the holy gently caress out of the RV cooling system. First I brought it up to temp and drained it before any sediment had a chance to settle, filled it with water, drained it, filled it, brought it up to temp, repeat until the water started coming out even remotely clean. Each of these drain and fill cycles was done by yanking the lower hose off unceremoniously as soon as the engine stopped. Then put not one but two bottles of prestone coolant flush in and filled it with water and ran it for 3 hours. Then resumed draining, filling, running, draining. Repeat until it was nearly clear. Purged the overflow as well. At that point I gave up and drained it as fully as I could, installed the new radiator fill neck and cap, and filled it up with a few bottles of coolant I had around. Temp cycled it a few times while filling it up to purge the air and that was that. It's still got a slow upper radiator hose leak at the thermostat housing that I suspect is from gunk I didn't manage to scrape off of the thermostat housing barb, I'll deal with that later probably, right now I am just hoping it won't overheat and repeatedly make chocolate nougat out of the coolant. Easily one of the most filthy cooling systems I've ever worked on. Old radiator neck. Good job whoever fabricated this masterpiece.  someone paid nearly 100k for this. Then it was on to the next most critical repair, the engine belt drive. I'd been reluctant to gently caress with it before because it did work and had been working but it really needed to be tensioned and the AC belt was all kinds of wack. So time to dig into that. I started by learning to tension the alt and water pump belts which was pretty easy other than access because it's not a cabover anymore and serviceability wise it was designed to be one. The fucks goin on here...?  someone paid nearly 100k for this. I see a missing bolt.  someone paid nearly 100k for this. And another.  someone paid nearly 100k for this. This bolt is a hardware store grade ANSI head size non flanged bolt. The head is so large I can't get a socket past the pulley, the nut on the other side is buried in Narnia and is a lock nut so I have to fight it off one tick of the rachet at a time.  someone paid nearly 100k for this. I pulled it all apart and had to redrill one bolt hole to be a long slot and stack washers in SEVEN PLACES to get anything to actually line up because the pulleys weren't parallel or remotely on the same plane. This is how you barely get a wrench on the upper most bolt without removing the entire cooling fan and shroud assembly.  (You know what I'm gonna say by now.) Finally this mother fucker is back together.  The idiots at the RV conversion shop decided to remove the entire Isuzu factory AC system. The one that works fine. Despite the fact that they used the entire factory Isuzu dash and firewall, and a compressor with the same exact fitting pattern on the back, they found it necessary to remove and bin all of that, and badly bodge on some lovely aftermarket hotrod HVAC kit with multiple design issues. They swapped out the dash controls with the ones from this kit, so they don't fit the dash plastics right, so they used drywall screws into the sheet metal to hold it in place and then very sloppily cut out a piece of 1/16" kydex to mostly cover the hole, with like 1/8" gaps and incorrect radius corners everywhere, then secured this flappy mess with one 2" long sheet metal screw right in the middle of the panel. Mint. They also created the bracket abortion pictured above to attach the compressor to the factory compressor mount despite the lines they custom made using the same exact fitting that would have gone right onto the factory compressor and brackets, saving me hours of rear end pain. They used the world's shittiest push-pull cable from the temp slider to the coolant flow valve (no one does this, you use a blend door, you knuckleheads) with a crappy radius in the spot where it goes through the firewall so it bent instead of moving the valve years ago and I can't get replacements for any of this. In closing. Someone paid nearly 100k for this redneck abortion that anyone in DIY or AI could build better. RV coachbuilders are a bunch of  For future reference to me, the AC on this jalopy uses a 17403/9403 belt from masterpro and a 6203 bearing in the idler. gently caress I'm so tired of house-wrenching. I'm sure there will be more.
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Sep 16, 2023 09:41
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kastein posted:someone paid nearly 100k for this. You know why: it was built in a metal shed on the side of I90 in Indiana by meth heads, as are all RVs.
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Sep 16, 2023 16:01
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Oregon, but, well, same reason.
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Sep 16, 2023 18:55
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kastein posted:Oregon, but, well, same reason. Coastal elite meth heads.
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Sep 16, 2023 19:10
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Despite only really understanding about one in 3 words of that post, I greatly enjoyed it. I feel really proud that I noticed the missing bolt on the unaligned bolt hole before you even mentioned it!
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Sep 16, 2023 21:38
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SouthShoreSamurai posted:Despite only really understanding about one in 3 words of that post, I greatly enjoyed it. It's this but with RV engineers portraits instead of the (now missing, sadly, which makes it a lot less funny) crossed out forum admins title images https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1438600
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Sep 17, 2023 00:23
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kastein posted:The idiots at the RV conversion shop decided to remove the entire Isuzu factory AC system. The one that works fine. Despite the fact that they used the entire factory Isuzu dash and firewall, and a compressor with the same exact fitting pattern on the back, they found it necessary to remove and bin all of that, and badly bodge on some lovely aftermarket hotrod HVAC kit with multiple design issues. They swapped out the dash controls with the ones from this kit, so they don't fit the dash plastics right, so they used drywall screws into the sheet metal to hold it in place and then very sloppily cut out a piece of 1/16" kydex to mostly cover the hole, with like 1/8" gaps and incorrect radius corners everywhere, then secured this flappy mess with one 2" long sheet metal screw right in the middle of the panel. Mint. If you have to gently caress with this again, would it be worth putting the factory compressor and controls back in?
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Sep 17, 2023 02:22
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If I could find one for less than $texas I would absolutely love to but I can't figure out how to find a medium duty truck junkyard to save my life. I could buy the parts new from Isuzu and used from heavytruckparts.net but I want to see it on the truck and get all the bolts pulling it myself and such a thing seems to be impossible in the medium duty and heavy duty world. It's not even easy to find online parts catalog PDFs like I'm used to. Alternatively if anyone near Puget sound has a 91-95ish Isuzu NPR with the 4bd2tc and AC I would love to just spend 20 minutes looking over the HVAC system and taking pictures even if you won't sell any parts. I'll buy you lunch for the privilege. Not kidding.
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Sep 17, 2023 04:00
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Still looking for a early 90s NPR donor to pull random poo poo off of in the area but my budget for that is very minimal so unlikely I'll be able to find anything for now anyways. I did, however, get the dash AC working on the RV! Not like it matters a month after the peak of summer, but it will be nice for next year and it was very cheap to fix other than stuff I already had on hand. Only remaining part to replace was the bearing in the idler pulley:  I could have replaced the idler whole, but the factory Isuzu pulley is like 70 dollars, and I have no loving idea if Trek did something stupid (that's a trend, can't rule it out) and used some random rear end parts bin poo poo instead of what came with the NPR rolling chassis, so rather than pissing about trying to figure out what it came off of, I scrubbed the dirt off the bearing dust shield and found that it's the usual 6203 bearing so I ordered a box of ten from Amazon for $15 and pressed one in with my hydraulic knockout punch kit, because my shop press was 20 miles away anyways. It's a junk brand, but there are ten of them, so this will next be my problem financially in like 10 or 20 years. Then it was time to vac, leak test, and charge the system. I vacuumed it out and it held vacuum great, and I have no reason to believe it was leaking since it still had like 5psi in it and is from 1994, so I didn't bother pressure testing. I also realized that the low side port was located roughly ten inches above the sphincter of the entire RVs drivetrain, on the back of the compressor directly over the motor mount and just barely in front of the starter, so rather than fiddle around trying to get the low side line on, I just charged through the high side with the engine off, slowly, and then let it sit a while before starting it up and testing it.  28oz of new old stock R12 later, we have ice cold dash AC. I can't decide what I'm going to fix next, I'm running out of low-dollar stuff to fix that I won't want to fix differently in the future. Might redo the front cabinets to allow the $20 marketplace TV to be installed without blocking the bed, as it doubles as the backup camera display and it has HDMI and VGA inputs so it would be nice to be able to watch movies on it and use it as a second display for laptop engineering purposes. We also have a house battery charging/inverter issue that may or may not require disassembling the inverter unit and doing board level component repair because it's so obsolete you can't buy anything from the manufacterer anymore, but I can't start that till I have the dead parts donor unit from a fellow Trek owner, and they're not back from Maine till next month.
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Sep 20, 2023 07:51
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