Mindsigh

Postie bike rebuild

Posted by jerry on March 5th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, Motorcycling

Progress! The Honda CT110 oversize piston kit arrived and the cylinder has now been rebored to fit the new piston.

And with Sharon starting to be on the mend I took the opportunity during her sleep to start reassembly of Eve’s bike. First the new piston went on smoothly – the new piston pin slid neatly onto the connecting rod and the pisoton was secured with the new piston clips.

After fitting the piston rings it was time to start on the barrel – there was a lot of rust and dirt on the barrel so I cleaned the exterior using kero brushed on and then a drill-mounted bronze wire brush.

Then the tricky bit – fitting the cylinder without breaking the piston rings. After fitting a new bottom gasket I tackled the fitting. Not having a piston ring compression tool I used finger pressure to squeeze the rings closed as I gently lowered the barrel over the piston. This requires patience and eventually got it ride smoothly over the piston.

taking care to thread the cam chain through. Then I fitted the cam sprocket to the cam chain and held it all in place with some thin wire.

Now for the head. I cleaned the carbon out of the combustion chamber and the valves, and removed the remnants of the previous gasket, before cleaning the outside of the head thoroughly and fitting a new head gasket.

I lowered this gently in place and then, after making sure the crankshaft was at top dead centre, I installed the cam through the cam chain sprocket and bolted it in place, using a small 10mmsocket wrench. I set the other socket wrench on the timing end of the crankshaft to stop the cranckshaft rotating when I tightened up the sprocket bolts.

Once in place it was a relatively quick process to install the covers with their respective new gaskets, so it looks nearly complete.

Next step was to refit the carburettor inlet manifold – with its new gasket – and then the exhaust.

Looks like a new engine now! And in many ways it is – it will need running in of course. But before I can test start it I want to get the footpegs and bash-plate back on – so more to come on this rebuild 🙂

Cheers
Jerry

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Social Networking – here to stay

Posted by jerry on March 4th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology

I would have to agree with Henry Jenkins where he notes in his video interview that social networking is here to stay – irrespective of whether it’s YouTube, Myspace or the new leading space FaceBook. Jenkins makes the point that as new young people join online spaces, they want to be in a space that’s not inhabited by their older brothers – making MySpace “so 20 minutes ago”.

Check it out on Angela Thomas’ blog.

Cheers
Jerry

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Second Life Tube station

Posted by jerry on March 1st, 2007 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology

With all the exotic means to get around in Second Life – who’d have thought that some bright spark would come up with … a London Underground tube stop! Does that mean someone has actually built a whole Tube system?

Thanks to the Going Underound’s Blog for this link – there are some great vid clips too of lego folk catching the tube and a wonderful French one advertising the Metro!

Cheers
Jerry

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Samplers in Salem

Posted by jerry on February 28th, 2007 — Posted in History, Journal, Travel

Okay I was actually looking at woodworking sites, but I came across the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA and saw a couple of delightful samplers by the Gould sisters – amazing work for ones so young

There’s a lot more to see – lovely period furniture in abundance on the MESDA site

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Online privacy – teens stay private

Posted by jerry on February 27th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology

Angela Thomas’ blog has an interesting piece on teens and online privacy. I too have thought that young people seem happy to share an extraordinary amount of personal information online – especially with sites like MySpace and Friendster. But some new research suggests that although kids share with friends, a very large percentage – the majority in fact – keep their personal profile private.

Cheers
Jerry

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