Flyinfool

I have twice in the last 3 years towed someone else's trailer for them. If they had a non standard configuration it would not have happened easily. That is why I have mentioned it. You may well go 50 years, I seem to have it come up once every other year. Actually since the ball is aligned with the receiver there will be even less side force than in a "normal" configuration and the bearings are so over rated that even if there was side force is would be completely a non issue. The bearings are rated for 2100 lbs of working load EACH. That would be a lot of side force.

I have never heard that theory and have always been taught to down shift to maintain speed. What is being worn out or damaged by using engine compression that is more expensive than $700 - $800 worth of brakes? Pads and heat warped rotors.

Pack a bunch of lunches.

I have already loaned my spare tire to someone and it worked well enough to get them out of the woods and back to a town. :rasberry: If everything were standard then there would only be one model of everything to choose from. Some things function best if they are non standard, like a key........ :moon: :moon: :moon: :rasberry: :rasberry: :bang head:

As was mentioned above. New diaphragms do not have any holes. Once the pinholes start, it is the pinholes that a tear will grow from. Why would anyone go through the effort to tear something apart, and then not repair a found problem, and then go through the effort to reassemble with parts that they know have started to fail and they will have to do it all over again when they finish failing? And yes a few pin holes do make a difference in drive-ability. When I replaced my diaphragms there were just a few pin holes in them. I noticed an immediate improvement in how the bike ran with the new diaphragms. There was another member present that had running issues. His diaphragms each had 4 to 5, 1/4 inch tears in them. his bike ran really bad. We put my old diaphragms in his bike and he never knew the bike could run so good. As soon as he got home he ordered new diaphragms and was again amazed at how much better still it ran. As to all of the science as to why it works the way it does, I am not 100% sure of. All I know is that if you have a leak, you will not have the correct amount of vacuum that the system was designed to work with. That can never be good. And has been proven by testing to not be a good thing. I can understand you want to know the science involved, But because you do not understand the science involved does not mean that it is not there. I do not understand the science of how blood gets oxygen out of the air and into the blood and then again releases the oxygen into the target tissue. But I do know that I will not work well if it does not happen, and while small leaks in my systems will not stop me from functioning, my whole body does work much better when it is totally leak free.

All of that, the hole on the slide is a calibrated leak. any holes in the diaphragm are letting in more outside air than the system was designed for. AND, the pinholes are probably the beginning of a tear. If you have pinholes, the diaphragm is going to be junk soon anyhow. While you have it apart anyhow is always a good time to fix it right.

You know that ole Puck don't like to read, he just likes to turn his little fingers loose on the keyboard while he sleeps........

:sign yeah that::sign yeah that: Very important difference.

It may be neat, but when you go non standard it drastically limits your options in an emergency. Only another Bushtec owner can pull your trailer for you, and you can only ever help out another Bushtec owner by pulling his trailer for him. The same is also partly true for weird trailer electrical connectors.

If the plugs are wet with gas then everything is wet with gas which can wash down the cylinder walls. Check your oil for gas contamination.

Good thing I have a 1st gen, the critters can't seem to catch it..... As mentioned, I have seen many issues with mice. But then we do not have rats around here in this part of the city, that I am aware of. The shop that I take my car to had to replace a complete wire harness under the hood of a car because the mice ate all of the insulation off the wires. 6 Months later the same car was back for another under hood wire harness and expecting it to be warrantied?

The total length of the Swivel Ball Mount would be just 4.3 inches longer than the current home made stinger that I have, and this Swivel Ball Mount is actually .25 inches shorter than the commercial one sitting on the shelf at Auto Zone. I have changed the design to always have the center of the ball on the same centerline as the bike, regardless of how the ball mount is rotated. This will mean that the center of the ball will never be different from the center of the bike. This will prevent the feeling that you get from the type shown above that lets the ball tilt back and forth allowing the pull to be off center, or allowing the coupler to move back and forth possibly upsetting the bike. This will also lower the center of the ball about 1.7 inches from what I have now. I do not think it will be an issue with my trailer. Other trailers the ball height is more critical. It would not be difficult to raise this up to keep the ball height but still have it rotate on center. I just have to add the step up or down before the swivel part. But adding a step to change height will also add about 2 inches to the length. I still do not think that the extra 2 inches of length will be an issue. I am wide open for questions comments and snide remarks, even constructive or destructive criticism will be accepted. I am not designing this to full Class I standards. No one will ever be pulling a 2,000 lb trailer with their bike and this Swivel Ball Mount. I hope. I would not hesitate to plug this into a cars receiver and pull a 1,000 lb trailer. Still a lot more than any bike should ever be pulling. it is not just the trailer weight that must be considered in a design like this, there is also the dynamic loading. How many Gs of braking or acceleration or turning can the tow vehicle generate. Also there are the impact forces of the trailer and/or bike hitting a bump or pot hole to consider.

The only other option that I can think of is that you ran the tool into the aluminum head real hard. It is theoretically possible that with all of the leverage that you have by turning the crank, that you put a dent in the aluminum of the head and squeezed the bucket bore. Look at the area in between the two buckets to see if there are any marks on the aluminum?

Unless your health issues are near a conclusion, I would hold off getting a new battery until you are ready to be riding again. Just starting and idling for a while will not put back the power that was used to start it. It takes a half hour with the engine at some speed to fully recharge from the start. If you are going to let the bike sit a lot, get a battery maintainer for it.

Don you have a tough and thankless job. I for one THANK YOU for what you do for all of us. I agree with you completely, unfortunately too many are reading what they want to see and not what is written. As Don has been trying to say. There is NO problem with posting a link to an ad that you found that may be of interest to others on this site. NO ONE ever said you could not do so. BUT there is a proper place for that, it is NOT the Watering Hole. That special place is Links to Classifieds, Craigslist and Ebay. It is the very next forum down from the Watering Hole on the home page. So it is not hard to find. There is a special forum just for those types of posts. That way if someone is actually looking for something, they have a much better chance of actually finding it, rather than trying to find it buried many pages deep in the watering hole. And the best part is that the correct forum will get cleaned up to remove old expired posts, That way when someone does a search they do not have to weed through ancient for sale adds in the watering hole of things that are no longer available because they were sold years ago. Is it really that difficult to understand?

Looked roughly at some other costs. It would be somewhere between $100 and $125 shipped to lower USA. If there is enough interest I will research it further.

Making that is well within the capabilities of my basement. I did not look into cost of it all. But there are ~$60 worth of bearings in there. Total weight would be just under 7 lbs. Just the ball and its mounting hardware is almost 2 lbs.

I tried to warn you that getting my gears grinding is dangerous........

They don't seem to be where I thought they might be. I'll have to go into a full search mode. It is possible that I already gave them away or even trashed them if they got in my way once to often. But I have a few hiding places to check out yet. If I have them you can have them, I will never go back to stock horns.

As mentioned the universal joint type is for single wheel trailers only. The purpose of the U-joint is so that the trailer will always have the same lean as the bike. This would prevent you from leaning into a corner. I have the one from MC Hitch. It has pulled with no issues for 3 years now. I even got to try out the swivel feature a couple of weeks ago at Orlins MD. It had recently rained A LOT. When I parked the bike upon arrival, before I could get my side stand plate out the stand sunk and over she went. The swivel did its job and allowed the bike to lay down with no stress to the hitch or the tongue. I am not sure if I also tried it out a couple of years ago when I dragged the foot pegs in an emergency maneuver. Seeing how it is made, It would not be very difficult to incorporate a swivel into a 1-1/4 stinger. The stinger will just end up about 6 inches longer. OK, now your in trouble, my gears are grinding..........

Are you after the stock horns? If so I think I still have the ones I took off of my 88. Stock is not near loud enough.

It is a good thing that in 12,000 pics the old Puckster did not get any of me...... I'm still safe cuz he don't know what I look like.

I am not familiar with old fords. But on my GMC it will not start with less than 60 PSI fuel pressure and will not run with less than 55 PSI. Is 40 psi the right number for your ford?

The buckets are very hard, they would break off a piece before they would raise a burr. Does that cylinder have compression? Take out all of the spark plugs except that one and turn the engine over to see if that cylinder has some compression. If it has compression then the valve is just that far out of adjustment. If it does not have compression then there is some kind of debris holding that valve open.

Highest horsepower maybe. Fastest NO. The other car makers always forget to include the Corvette as an American mussel car. A new stock corvette will beat that 10.8 with its 10.5 and does it on "only" 460 HP. Looking at the sizes of the tires and there is no way that Dodge will keep up in the corners either.