Ever since I bought the NC30, I’ve been unable to get the joints where the front cylinder header pipes attach to the collectors under the bike to not leak. The joints are clamp joints with a cylindrical fiber gasket, but I could never get the gaskets to fit inside the clamps. After asking on the …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #33: Fixing the exhaust leak’ »
As I started working on hooking up the fuel pump, I also realized it was time to make new battery wires. Because the Ballistic lithium battery is much smaller than the original lead acid one, the existing positive wire was too short, and the ground wire is fraying, so I decided to redo that one, …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #32: New battery wiring’ »
Way back in June, I talked about making the parts for the fuel pump housing. Since then, I’ve slowly been gathering courage to weld it together. My first practice runs welding together 1.6mm (1/16″) 6061 sheets were not encouraging. It’s just very easy to blow out one of the sides if you add a bit …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #31: Finishing up the fuel pump housing’ »
After getting the idle air control stepper motor working as desired in the last post, it was time to clean up the installation a bit. First, the stepper motor had to be wired up. This necessarily involved yet another hole in the airbox to get the wires out. I drilled a hole next to the …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #30: Finishing up the airbox work’ »
The last post ended without holes to mount the idle air control valve. This turned out to not be a big deal. There’s a raised edge around the entire airbox casting that I could rest it on while clamping it to the mill table. With the holes drilled and tapped, the valve fit perfectly. The …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #29: Even More Idle Air Controller’ »
In the previous post, I described my solution for controlling the idle speed. That post ended with some unfinished business. Let’s finish that up. The prototype idle air control valve needed to be remade for real. I incorporated some changes to make it easier to machine, and took a bit more care the second time …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #28: More Idle Air Controller’ »
As I described in the post about making the compressor intake, the gibs took a beating with all the vibration. The gibs on the mini mill, especially the X-axis, leave a lot to wish for in the best of situations. The problem is that the adjustment screws, which are “dog point” set screws (which means …
The lack of updates does not mean a complete lack of progress on the NC30 project, I’ve mostly been in “pondering” mode and haven’t really had anything coherent to say. But now I do have something coherent to say about a completely new topic: idle air control. After the first start on EFI (hard to …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #27: Idle Air Controller’ »
As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been working on quieting down the new 60-gallon air compressor. People claim a significant fraction of the noise from an air compressor comes from the air intake. For this reason, I was going to fit a larger intake filter/silencer. The stock air filter is a chunk of …
For my compressed air needs, I’ve so far used this 8-gallon Husky air compressor I bought back in Torrance, and while it’s been adequate, it can’t really keep up with really any use of air tools. Even just running the mister for the CNC mill, which doesn’t use a lot of air at all, it …