Tons of Projects!

A couple of years ago, I bought a Karcher pressure washer to hose off my dirt bikes. With very infrequent use (my bikes are often put away dirty), the damn thing broke. I took it apart to find that the cheap-ass plastic pump had cracked. Replacement parts are unavailable and if you could get them, they would cost almost as much as a new unit. DON'T buy Karcher stuff! Here's the barely used junk about to get tossed into the recycle bin:


So I bought an "AR" brand. That stands for Annovi Reverberi, THE manufacturer of most of the actual pumps that are in most brands of pressure washers. For the same specs (1.3 gallons per minute, 1,450 psi), the AR just KICKS ASS! I immediately took it apart and found a high quality die cast pump housing...REAL stuff in an inexpensive product.




And here, I'm painting the fan with a marker to cover up all but 2 shiny stripes for my optical tachometer. I needed to know how fast it runs. (it runs 8500 rpm at the motor, before gear reduction, BTW).


About to fire it up to get the speed measurement. Note handheld optical tachometer:


Here, I'm milling the bottom of the pump so I'll have a flat surface when I flip it over to mount it to the milling table for measurement purposes.


Here, I'm using the milling machine with its digital readouts to reverse engineer this thing. I've gotta hurry up and reverse engineer it and come up with a design. It's Saturday and time to GO RIDE, so I need to put my brand new deal back together to hose off the bike!


So WHY am I measuring my brand new pressure washer pump?? Well, WHAT'S this?? It looks like a Honda GX-25 engine that has been mated to a badass mini-alternator. WTH??


And now the pump is next to that whole assembly. You thinking what I'm thinking?


And here's the solid model design with enough detail that I can reassemble the pressure washer and be able to continue with the design phase:

OK, back to the blog? Got lots of project stuff to post...

Hey Y'all, long time since I've stepped in here! I used to enjoy the blogging deal until the Facebook thing took over the social media. We lost a lot of great, entertaining blogs when FB showed up.

OK, so my running buddy, Stephanie, mentioned this morning that her daughter's car had a boom box. Well, not to be outdone, it was only right that I inform her that I have a LONG history of building killer stereo systems in cars, LONG before the age of boom boxes.

When I was 13 or 14, I mowed lawns feverishly to earn money to buy high-end audio stuff. I bought huge Cerwin Vega speakers and went on to be the DJ at most of the junior high and high school dances. I was a tiny, scrawny little kid toting around these huge speakers.

When I was 16, my first car was a beautiful and VERY COOL 1967 VW Karmann Ghia... In addition to doing this beautiful paint job and customization, I also built a "box" for some Cerwin Vega 10's:



So, getting back to this morning's discussion. In 1983, my DAD bought me a brand new GMC pickup truck. First I built a small box (trapezoidal cross section to fit really well) that went behind the seat and put some Cerwin Vega 10" woofers in it. It was OK, but NOT the deep bass I was looking for.



So even though the truck was still pretty new and DAD would kill me if he knew what was about to happen, I did it anyway! It was a FINE installation! Keep in mind this was LONG BEFORE the age of boom boxes, there were no store-bought boxes available. This had fantastic DEEP BASS and not obnoxiously "boomy" like all the crap that's out there nowadays! The woofers were the infamous 123-W 12" Cerwin Vega woofers! This thing ROCKED off the planet! Here:


















The installation was beautiful!



The sheet metal cabinet was angled so that I could still stuff a dirt bike wheel up into the front corner of the bed and still close the tailgate. Here, the installation is all wrapped up and we're taking a ROAD TRIP to Austin! Bwahaha!



The modifications were difficult to spot if you weren't looking for them. It was probably close to a year later when DAD looked in the bed of the truck, "EVAN! What in the HELL have you done to this truck!!" He was cool with it after he saw what a neat job I had done! :):)